Me, as a Deep Rooted Tree

It's a running theme in my therapy sessions. Words like roots, rooted, and unrooted come into play regularly. During some fantasy exercises, I become a plant...but still have a problem feeling my own roots. Deeper yet, I want desperately to connect to the roots of surrounding plants, but can not seem to do so.While looking through some old photos, I came across this one of me being part of a tree. It is very fitting.

Plants have roots. Roots have two major functions. They hold on to the soil to keep the plant securely in place, protecting it from the elements, and they drink up water to nourish the plant.
Nourishment. Protection.

Protection. Nourishment.

Nourishment. Protection.

Protection. Nourishment.

Uncertainty in so many areas of my life, leaves me feeling unrooted.

Past. Present. Future.

My therapist once asked me to draw a family tree. What a loaded assignment that was. My tree resembled a strange creature.

Very un-tree-like! How could one possibly create a tree-like structure with: adoption, and divorces, step-this and step-that, comings and goings, people in and people out...

Do you know that through my many different configurations of family, that I have had a total of 1o siblings? Steps and halves, and whatevers...10 siblings! Of those 10, I have contact with 2. To be fair, there are 4 on that list that I have never met, and didn't know existed until recently. There are also 4 on the list that I knew to be my siblings for years that are no longer my siblings for one reason or another, and I have no contact with for one reason or another. How do you denote that on the tree? Do they get lopped off like a pruning of sorts?

In all, I have had 8 different parent figures, though only one has been a consistent presence for the total of my 32 years. Mom.

So how do you draw in birthmother, birthfather, father, stepfather, stepmother,and stepfather part duex on the tree? It is complicated.

And maybe it doesn't matter what that damn tree looks like, and how to possibly get all these people on the tree. Maybe what matters most is who I want on the tree. My tree.

Or maybe the secret is that I AM the tree.

I want to grow deep roots that protect and nourish me.