“When we discover our Inner Mentors, what happens is often very sacred and mysterious.

The Inner Mentor figure that shows up is this composite of your more authentic self – your more expressed self – but then also this elder self, who you have grown into, or who you are longing to grow into.

Psychologist James Hillman writes about the acorn and the oak tree, that the acorn has all the information it needs within it to become an oak tree. It doesn't need to go to oak tree school. It doesn't need an oak tree guide or special healer to tell it what to do.

It’s not that the acorn is entirely independent, sealed off from the world; it needs the right nutrients and conditions and environment to grow and flourish, like all of us. But it doesn’t need anything external to instruct it about what it should grow into. Nor does it need a model to emulate. No, it holds within its blueprint for what it can become.

And of course, the acorn can only grow into an oak tree; it can’t will itself or change itself sufficiently to become a pine or birch instead!

We're all, in some way, in acorn-ness at any given moment of our human development. The inner mentor gives us a felt sense and an image for our own oak tree self.

Once we’ve found her, we can draw upon her wisdom for guidance and clarity. Everyone has this inner wisdom in them – that I know for sure. It’s a matter of removing blocks to it, and learning to access it regularly.”

Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big