tree of life
weekly story work exercise
If you’re new here, Story Work is the name of my current book-in-progress. It describes a process of reflecting, reclaiming, and reimagining the stories of our lives. It involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape.
The weekly Story Work topics cover universal life themes with references from literature, philosophy, science, and spirituality; offering perspectives that spark ideas for personal growth and creative expression.
Paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et.
Hi everyone,
Last week we finished Masks We Wear, and it’s time for a new story work theme for the next few weeks. I want to share an exercise with you called The Tree of Life. You may have come across a version of it before. I discovered it in Retelling the Stories of Our Lives: Everyday Narrative Therapy to Draw Inspiration and Transform Experience by David Denborough. You can find more of his work on The Tree of Life methodology here.
If you’ve taken my memory journaling workshop before this is a bonus exercise that I always share at the end. (By the way, the memory journaling workshop is our next quarterly subscriber workshop and it’s coming up in July.)
The Tree of Life concept is designed to help individuals of all ages process life experiences in a generative, hopeful way. It’s a twist on the familiar concept of a family tree, where the tree is a visual metaphor representing life and the various elements that connect a person’s past, present, and future.
The insights we discover from the memories, narratives, and stories that come up through this exercise are full of context for our healing, discovery, and growth.
So we’ll take this exercise step-by-step over the next few weeks, journaling about the stories that come up as we go.
The first step is to draw a tree on a piece of paper.
Keep it simple so you have plenty of space for the words. Each part of the tree represents a different part of your life. By labeling each area, you begin to recognize how aspects of your past have shaped your present and you can use these insights to make conscious decisions about how you want to shape your future.
Here are a few examples:
(Note: there are roots to the trees but they’re not showing up for some reason. You can see the full picture for reference by clicking on the source links)
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Keep in mind, it doesn’t need to be a masterpiece! Keep an open mind and let the project be messy and imperfect just like life. If you really want to get into it, you can start with a rough version with pencil and paper that you work on and tweak for a while, and then later recreate on canvas or poster board with colored pencils, markers, paint, etc.
This week, let’s focus on the Roots and the Grass. After you draw your tree, start labeling the Roots and the Grass as follows:
The Roots
Write down where you come from on the roots. This can be your family, community, hometown, state, country, etc. You could also write down the culture you grew up in, a club or organization that shaped your youth, or parents, guardians, and caregivers that have significant influence on your past.
The Grass
The grass is the present. Write down where you live now and the activities that you choose to do on a regular basis. Think about what gives you energy, the things you do to keep growing, to feel alive. Don’t write things that you are forced to do and that you haven’t chosen.
Over the next few weeks as you complete each step, you will likely unlock more memories and ideas for other parts of your tree. You can keep adding to your tree over time as new memories and connections come to mind.
Exercise:
Journaling can help you explore and identify the connections between your Roots, Grass, and so on as we continue to make our way up the other parts of the Tree of Life over the next few weeks. For now, use the following questions to reflect on just your Roots and your Grass:
In what ways do you see reflections of your Roots in the Grass that you are currently growing in your life?
What specific memories come to mind from your Roots that connect to your everyday life?
Write a memory or story that allows you to explore the connections.