Rose, Bud, Thorn Exercise

In the years of providing individual therapy, there are a variety of ways to help get one’s thought process organized and contextualized for their session or their day ahead in between sessions. Although commonly geared to children to think about their day or week, the question can easily be applied to adults as an act of mindfulness and slowing down.

Adapting the prompt from the University of Colorado Boulder you can imagine the three parts of a rose: the bloom, a bud (the part that will bloom into a rose), and the thorns that follow the stem of said flower. When you make time to think about what is the rose, bud, and thorn of your day or week, look at this reflective exercise this way:

• Rose: ​What is something that is working well? What are you proud of?

• Bud: What are you looking forward to? What are you excited about in the days or week ahead?

• Thorn: What caused stress? What was difficult earlier today or this week?

As you think about these questions, write them down or talk to someone about them. This conversation or reflective exercise is an opportunity to take a self-inventory of how you are doing and distill what has been happening in your life. You can do this self-inventory also as a creative arts exercise. Ways to explore this from an expressive therapy lens could include:

1. Drawing a picture of the week

2. Making a playlist of the rose, bud, and thorn

3. Choosing a literary or media character from a show/movie/book that encapsulates your circumstances

4. Writing a poem/prose from the perspective of an object you carry with you everyday that has observed how your day went

As you distill such, you have created the space to discern what you want to prioritize in a conversation with your support or your treater. 

Maybe you want to celebrate a win because a personal goal is to foster self-esteem. Perhaps your area of growth is to be honest about what has been challenging in your life and talking to a trusted ally can help calibrate your circumstances. Or…maybe your area of growth is fostering optimism and hope in your life by having something to look forward to and you can make a social media post about it. 

In my time as a therapist, I have used this question to help clients focus their sessions and what they want to get out of their time in therapy. I hope you can use these questions and visual illustrations in the days ahead!

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Lou Lim, LMHC, REAT is a licensed mental health counselor and registered expressive arts therapist (REAT) with a master's degree in Expressive Therapy and Mental Health Counseling from Lesley University. He is a member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and on the committee for REAT credentialing. He has 13 years of experience in counseling and expressive therapy working with children, adolescents, teenagers, adults, and retirees.

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