Email - April 5, 2012

I wrote this to the facilitator of the Tree of Life on April 5, 2012:

I think it was as a result of the Tree of Life and subsequent discussions as well as watching some amazing talks by Michael White.

Trauma and Narrative Therapy - Michael White Part 1
Trauma and Narrative Therapy - Michael White Part 2
Trauma and Narrative Therapy - Michael White Part 3

It claims to be a five part series but I'm yet to find 4 or 5.

I have since had more discussions about Narrative Therapy and I am considering doing an Introduction to Narrative Practices course in August at Narrative Practices Adelaide.

The Tree of Life - Session 3

Cairns, QLD

The Tree of Life - Session 3

We had seen how our Trees of Life live side by side in a Forest of Life so in our final session we discussed the Storms of Life and our Responses to the Storms of Life.

click image to enlarge

I have a couple of comments written next to my tree which I think I added after the third session:

"My tree is not alone.  It lives in the Forest of Life."

"If your roots are strong you can weather any storm."

The roots represent where you belong - your home, workplace, youth groups etc.  I feel I need to strengthen these because living alone and not having a job means I lack the strength that others have.  I am really grateful that I have Diamond House.  The motto for Diamond House is "A safe place to belong, work and return."  That sense of belonging helps a huge hurricane feel like a gentle breeze.
 

The Tree of Life - Session 2

Wonga Beach, QLD

The Tree of Life - Session 2 

We put our individual Trees of Life together to make a Forest of Life.  
I like analogies and visualising stuff so I found it pretty exciting.  

I imagined my birds (my gifts to others) flying around the forest teaching people, showing empathy and spreading laughter.  I could look at someone else's tree and find fruit (others' gifts to them) of laughter and think "wow, that could have come from one of my birds".  I made all these great connections and was quite exhilarated by it all.  The trees made it so easy to understand. 

The funny thing is that when I was studying Anatomy and Physiology at Flinders Uni I wrote some really dreadful assignments.  Isn't that hilarious?  No, the funny thing is that my lecturer wrote "Can't see the forest for the trees." because I would write paragraph after paragraph of detailed analysis about how some process works in particular cells but I would have no idea how it affected the person in the case study.

Similarly, when I was in primary school we were told to draw a picture of trees and I started by drawing individual leaves of a tree.  When everyone else had finished several trees I was still drawing the little leaves of one tree.  I love that I literally couldn't draw a forest because I was stuck drawing the leaves of one tree.

I think there's another major example of me being blind to the big picture because I was too bogged down in detail but I can't think of it right now.  With the Forest of Life I was able to focus on individual people and also see all people as a community and appreciate the wonderful interactions we have with each other.

 Also in this session we chose someone important to us and drew a picture or wrote them a letter.  I illustrated my Grandma's generosity by drawing stick figures of all the things she does to care for me.  We discussed our letters and drawings in pairs or small groups.

The Tree of Life - Session 1

A Significant Tree

The photo above is of a tree which is not technically considered "significant".  In order to be significant it must have a trunk circumference of 3 metres or more (measured at a point 1 metre above natural ground level).  If it was significant it would be protected from removal or destruction.  Being insignificant though, it is perfectly fine for it to be cut down to make way for buildings.  Well, I think it's significant.  Look at it.  It's beautiful.  All trees are significant.

I didn't actually mean to write about trees.  I want to discuss The Tree of Life, a Narrative Therapy Approach.  In February I attended three Tree of Life sessions and they were amazing.

The Tree of Life - Session 1

A group of about eight of us discussed how wonderful trees are then each drew a Tree of Life.  Different parts of the tree represent different aspects of importance.

Birds

my gifts to others

Fruits

others' gifts to me

Leaves

people important to me

Branches

my goals in life

Trunk

my strengths and values

Roots

where I belong

Ground

where I came from

It was difficult!  I had tears streaming down my face as I was drawing a big crumpled up leaf that had fallen from the tree.  It was a leaf to represent my Mum.  She died in November 2010, a little over a year previously.  The facilitator asked me what was wrong and I explained that my Mum is one of the most important people to me but she's not alive so I drew her as a dead leaf.  He said that if she is important to me she belongs on my Tree of Life.

When I had drawn a new Mum leaf on my tree, the facilitator asked what she would think of that.  At first I didn't really feel that I had a right to imagine what Mum might think of my actions.  Then I decided that she would be much happier to be included in my tree rather than being crumpled on the ground.

I would never have thought that drawing a tree would help me see so clearly that I was trying to push my Mum out of my mind.  I thought I wasn't allowed to value her as much anymore.

At some point later I wrote next to the old crumpled leaf: 

"eventually leaves decompose and give nutrients to the soil which helps new trees to grow...the circle of life." 

Drawing the tree and coming up with various strengths and deciding on what I value most in life was all done in the first session over a couple of hours.  It was challenging but probably quite useful to get it all done in such a short space of time because I think it meant I recorded what I feel most passionate about instead of what I think I should feel passionate about.  We were also instructed that there are people who we might be expected to value, like relatives, but if they are not important in our lives, we don't have to include them.  It made the trees more real for me.

I drew a tree with four branches and initially only came up with three goals:

to be able to support myself

to have a reason to get up each day

to have friends

It was only after hearing about the goals of other people that I realised I have another goal:

to have a partner

The other three are far more important to me.

Writing about drawing the tree makes it sound very simplistic but the discussion that occurs while trying to decide on the most imortant things in life is what helps change people's view of themself and what matters most.

I explained to the facilitator that I found the method of conducting the Tree of Life to be very beneficial and he asked me to write it down.  Something about a book he was writing.  You saw it here first.

"When the facilitator of a group asks a question, they are usually looking for someone to provide them with one or more correct answers.  In the Tree of Life sessions, the facilitator asked questions which did not require the retrieval of correct answers or even known answers.  The questions persuaded me to think about why I believe things to be true and what makes me think that way.  Answering the questions drew on concepts which were being constructed as I spoke rather than accessing ideas I knew I had.  The questions made me draw on experiences and feelings I didn't know I had or that I had forgotten existed.  The questions were thought provoking and helped to reshape and redesign how I felt by challenging taken for granted assumptions and building new thoughts."