The Forest Floor Principle

This might just be the soil part of your story

There are parts of my life I do not like to talk about.

Things I wish I never did.
Seasons I wish I could edit out.
Times I look back and just feel... embarrassed.

Some days, I still feel the shame.
Not loudly, not always. But it’s there.
It’s there in the way I pause when certain things come up.
It shows up in the way I sometimes avoid certain conversations because, God knows, I do not want to open that file again.

I know I am not the only one.
You probably have your own stuff too.
Stuff you would rather not remember.
Things you wish you could erase, like decisions, seasons, even versions of yourself.

You look back and it feels like a pile of waste.
Spoilt time. Spoilt potential. Spoilt sense.
And the worst part is, you do not even know what to do with it anymore.

It is hard to look at those parts of your life without cringing, right?
Sometimes, you do not even need anyone to judge you. You have already sentenced yourself.

But there is something I’ve been learning, which has helped me see myself differently:

It is something called the ‘Forest Floor Principle’.

In simple terms, it means that in places like the rainforest, the richest soil is not found where everything is fresh and untouched. It is found where things have fallen. Where trees have died. Where leaves have decayed.
That is the soil that feeds everything else.
That floor becomes food.
That mess becomes nourishment.

When I read that, I paused.

It is strange, but nature does not waste. Nothing just dies and disappears.
What falls… feeds.

What if the same thing applies to our lives?

What if the parts of us we are most ashamed of… the ones we hide and hope nobody ever brings up…

What if those parts are not useless after all?
What if they are slowly breaking down and becoming something richer, deep within us?

Maybe the regret you are carrying is becoming empathy.
Your broken dream is turning into clarity.
Even the old version of you that ‘died’ is actually feeding the wiser version of you that is growing now.

The most comforting part for me is that I think God works like that too. He doesn’t just heal; He has a way of recycling things.

He does not throw people away. He does not say, ‘this one is too messed up’ or ‘let’s skip this part’.

He gathers all the beauty, the regret, the nonsense, the moments that nearly broke you.
And somehow, He works with it.

I do not know how He does it.
But somehow, He takes what looks like waste and makes it useful.

In His hands, nothing is wasted.

Even the things you think disqualify you.
Even the ones you are too scared to write about in your journal.
Even the part of your story you try to skip over when you are telling it.

They can become fertiliser.

I have seen it in my life.
The things I thought disqualified me have become the very places I speak from.
The regrets I carried are now the reasons I am gentler with people.
The dead parts grew something I did not even plan for.

But it doesn’t happen at once. Composting takes time.

Slowly, with truth, time, and God, the things that once embarrassed you might become the exact things that anchor you, that teach others, and that bring healing.

So, I’ll leave you with these two questions to reflect on:

1. What parts of your past have you tried to bury out of shame or regret? If those parts were compost, what might they be feeding in your life today?

2. If God truly wastes nothing, what might He be quietly recycling in your life right now, even if you cannot see the outcome yet?

You are not rotting. This is definitely not the end of the story. It is just the soil part.

And it is my earnest desire that you begin to see those ‘other’ parts as what they really are—compost.

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I want to seize this opportunity to give a birthday shoutout to one of my most-dedicated readers, Uchechukwu Jedidiah. I hope you have a monumental year ahead. Cheers!