Your tree of life

Objectives

• To (better) understand connections between one’s past/roots, present, values, talents, future wishes and people that played or play an important role for who one is now and how one wants to be in the future
• To gain self-knowledge and/or insights
• To create a narrative of one’s own life

Material

Paper and pens for all participants

Preparation

Make yourself familiar with the tree of life

Instructions

Before you decide to do this activity, which can be rather confrontational, you have to be sure the participants feel safe in the group and are capable of listening to each other in a respectful way!

• Make clear to them that this activity is not about artistic skills, that the tree is used to give structure to the activity.
• Ask participants to draw a fruit tree on a piece of paper: its roots, the soil it stands in, the trunk, branches, leaves and the fruits. Ask them also to leave enough space in the different parts to write words.
• Once they have drawn the tree, ask them to add the following information:
  • In the roots: what you are rooted in. This can be your family, your birthplace, people and events from your childhood that have shaped you, etc… Write down all the elements that are important to you in terms of what shaped you.
  • In the soil in which the tree is rooted: that which you occupy yourself with in daily life. This can be your work, a hobby, any activity you like to spend time on.
  • In the trunk: your values and talents, according to yourself and according to others.
  • In the branches: your wishes and dreams for the future. What you want to achieve in the long term as well as in the short term.
  • In the leaves: the names of people who have helped you to get where you are and/ or might help you to realise your dreams and wishes.
  • In the fruits: what you wish to leave behind; your gift to society.
• There are no rules for how people should add the information, as long as it is clear for everyone which information belongs to which part of the tree.
• This activity works best if one dares to be honest and spontaneous towards oneself and dares to dream, especially when adding information to the branches.
• Give participants at least half an hour to draw their tree of life plus information. When people are ready, ask them to leave the drawing alone for a while and take a break.
• After the break (which might last an hour or a day, whatever fits in the programme, as long as there is break between this part of the activity and the next), ask participants to have another close look at their drawing and to question the information added to it, in a way such as: Why did i mention that experience in the roots? Why did I mention that person as a helper in the leaves, etc. Ask them also to look for possible links between the different parts. This could be a task for them to do at home between two training sessions.
• In the next training session, divide the group in pairs. Within each pair, the two show each other their tree of life and question each other about the added information. The person that is questioned must be given the space to not answer a question if it is too painful. In that case he or she could circle the word or information that is associated with that pain.
• You, the trainer, have to stay very alert while the pairs are questioning each other. If you suspect someone feels uncomfortable answering questions, stay close and interfere, if you think that is needed to protect that person from becoming painfully overwhelmed by emotions.
• After the discussion in pairs you ask the whole group to sit together again.
• You can ask if someone likes to share his/her tree of life with the whole group (optional!)

Variant

You could use the part with the wishes and dreams for an additional task: Participants could create a moodboard to visualise their goals for the future.

Instead of adding the information in words, participants could (also) use images to provide the information. Be aware that finding the right images might take some extra time!