Narrative therapy Tree of life exercise
This exercise was designed by Ncazelo Ncube (PHOLA) and David Denborough (Dulwich Centre Foundation). The purpose of this exercise is to reclaim your identity and the story of your life through identifying all the different aspects of your identity, including your past, future goals, strengths, and support system.
The tree is a visual representation of your life and the various elements that make it up – past, present, and future. By labeling these parts, you not only begin to discover (or perhaps rediscover) aspects of yourself shaped by the past, but you can then begin to actively cultivate your tree to reflect the kind of person you want to be moving forward.
This exercise can be found in David Denborough’s book called, Retelling the Stories of Our Lives: Everyday Narrative Therapy to Draw Inspiration and Transform Experience.
The first step in this exercise is drawing a tree. Don’t worry about it looking perfect, or realistic; just draw your version of a tree – roots, trunk, branches, leaves, fruits, and the ground around the tree.
For each part of the tree, reflect on and write your answers to the prompts around it, as follows:
The ROOTS: Write down where you come from on the roots. This can be your home town, province/state, country. This can include the culture you were raised in, specific people that raised you, and any other influential people or communities in your life.
The GROUND: Write down the things you choose to do on a weekly basis. These should not be things you are forced to do, but rather things you have chosen to do yourself.
The TRUNK: Write your skills and values on the trunk.
The BRANCHES: Write down your hopes, dreams, and wishes on the branches. These can be personal, communal, or general to all humans. Think both long and short term. Spread them around the various branches.
The LEAVES: Write down the names of the people who are significant to you in a positive way. This can include family, friends, pets, mentors, teachers etc.
The FRUITS: Write down the legacies that have been passed on to you. You can begin by looking at the names you just wrote on the leaves and think about the impact they have had on you and what they’ve given to you, or taught you, over your life. This can be material, such as an inheritance, but most often this will be attributes such as courage, generosity, kindness etc.
The FLOWERS & SEEDS: Write down the legacies you wish to leave behind.
THE COMPOST HEAP (optional): Write down anything that would normally go in other sections but which are now things that you no longer want to be defined by.
These are often sources of trauma, abuse, cultural standards of normality/beauty etc., or anything else that shapes negative thoughts about yourself. These can be written down as places, people, problems, thoughts, experiences.
These experiences don’t have to be all “bad”, rather lessons, experiences, messages that no longer serve you. The elements placed in your metaphorical compost heap can be broken down and re-sowed back into parts of your life, just like a real compost heap. This is reflected in our processing, integrating and repurposing the lessons we have taken from our experiences.
OPTIONAL NEXT STEPS:
JOURNALING
Journaling can help you explore and identify the connections between your roots, values, skills, people in your life etc. It also creates a space for you to reflect on and articulate new insights and connections made through this exercise.
WRITING LETTERS
If you have made a connection between a person, or group of people, and particular values and lessons that you appreciate in yourself, then perhaps you may want to consider writing a letter to that person, or group of people, letting them know what that means to you and how you feel about them. The letter does not have to be sent if you don’t feel comfortable. The writing of a letter can benefit you, too.