exercise · all tools
Tree of Life
Participants label a drawn tree as their own life: ROOTS for history and formative experience, TRUNK for life as it is now, FRUITS for what they have accomplished, BUDS for hopes not yet realised. They draw or write into each part in turn, pausing between sections, then share in threes — free to show only what they choose, with listeners asked not to comment. The framing is that roots cannot be changed but one's relationship to them can.
Prerequisites
- Participants choose what to share; the design explicitly permits withholding parts of the tree
- Roots work surfaces family and community history, which can include loss — the sharing rounds are deliberately non-commenting and should stay that way
Practical
- Time
- 90 min + 45 landing
- Group
- 4–25 · individual, triads, small-group
- Settings
- in-person
- Materials
- Tree handout for each participant; crayons or coloured pencils; a live plant as a display if possible
- Mechanisms
- narrative-identity, creative-expression, values-clarification
- Change scope
- state → skill · one-off
Instructions
- Where
- cleancooking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/342-1.pdf
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
Source link checked 29 Aug 2026 — reachable
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Genevieve Smith & Anita Shankar — Empowered Entrepreneur Training; built upon and adapted from Hope, A. & Timmel, S. (1999), Training for Transformation, Volume 2
In this directory via SEE Change Initiative (Empowered Entrepreneur/Employee Training)
Related: Understanding & Overcoming Limiting Beliefs (prepares-for)
The handbook names its own lineage — Hope & Timmel's Training for Transformation (1999) — which is the kind of attribution this directory exists to carry forward.
status: checked · added 2026-08-29