to say, “I didn’t ask for this hell, but you better believe that if I have to go through it, I’m going to come out better on the other side.” What’s your intention statement?
Your Blooming Word
For the last few years, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I have chosen a word for the year. The word represents my theme for the year, who I want to be, what I want to attract into my life, what I want my life to be about for the next 365 days. It’s been remarkably effective and a lot of fun. It’s a simple way to set an intention for the year. My goals then revolve around achieving this word. One year, my word was Joy, and I focused my daily efforts on creating and cultivating joy in my life. It was one of the most joyful years I’ve ever had.
Instead of choosing a word for the year, I invite you to choose a word for your blooming process. If you were to choose one word to represent what you want your blooming process to be all about, what word would you choose? Try brainstorming a long list of words and then choose the one that resonates best.
To help you choose your word, consider these questions:
•Who do you want to be when this is all over?
•What do you want to attract in your life?
•What do you want to embody during this time?
•What would be the greatest treasure or ideal harvest as a result of this time in the dark?
•What word inspires you?
Once you’ve chosen your blooming word, answer the following questions.
•If you were to live this word daily, how would your life be different one year from now?
•What are three habits that will help you to live out this word?
My Blooming Home Run Story
In this final prompt, write the story you want to be able to tell about yourself and your life once this dark season is over. In other words, write your home run blooming year.
Date your page one year from now. Now, describe in detail what happened, how you feel, what you accomplished, what you manifested, what types of thoughts you had, what type of person you have become, and so on. Write your best-case scenario year for blooming—write BIG! Be sure to write in the Present Tense (e.g., I have, I am, I feel, and so on).
BLOOMING CHECK-IN
1.What came up for you as you completed your writing prompts in this chapter? You might have noticed certain thoughts, emotions, themes, insights, or even resistance and doubt. Did anything surprise you?
2.In what ways did you grow this week, even just a little bit? Did you make any changes? What are you proud of?
3.How will you continue to apply this blooming principle in your life?
BLOOMING TIP
Congratulations on working your way through the first principle of blooming in the dark! Like our beliefs, our written words (which are just our beliefs and intentions translated onto the page) have creative power. To keep yourself moving in the direction of your intentions, it’s important to continually remind yourself of your intentions. Take a moment now to think about the best way to do this for yourself. For example, you might read over your journal entries from this chapter once a week. Or you might write a blooming intention note to yourself and post it on your bathroom mirror or put it in your wallet where you’ll see it every day.
If you’re finding it hard to believe this new way of thinking about your pain and suffering, that’s okay. For some of us, the perspective shift comes quickly; for others, we need more time to marinate in it and to make it our own. If you’re finding yourself struggling with the idea of you blooming, try setting a timer for ten minutes. During those ten minutes, allow yourself to suspend your current reality and let your mind play with these ideas. Think about it like dipping one toe at a time into this new perspective. You don’t need to be fully immersed yet. The important part is that you start dipping in and allowing your mind the opportunity to think about your situation from another perspective. We can’t experience something until we’ve brought it into our realm of possibilities, and we do this by allowing ourselves to first believe that something is possible. After the ten minutes is up, you can go back to your former perspective. Every day, you might set the timer for a little longer, write a little more and a little deeper, and allow yourself to play with your blooming possibilities.
Creating a blooming vision and intention for yourself not only begins to build your hope, but it also provides an important container for the grief work that comes next.
Night Bloomer: Darcy
When she was twenty years old, in her first year of college, Darcy fell head over heels for John, a senior who lived on the dorm floor above hers. Enjoying her new independence, Darcy found herself spending more and more time drinking with John and his friends. They introduced her to marijuana and soon she was drinking and smoking weed several nights a week. Many times she would black out from drinking too much. She had twinges of feeling like she was getting off track in life, but the excitement of living with fewer rules and dating an older man overshadowed what felt like minor concerns.
Then she started noticing unexplained bruises and scratches. She chalked it up to being clumsy when she was drunk. That is until one night—her twenty-first birthday—after having a celebratory drink with John at a bar, she woke up in his bed with him on top of her. She remembers feeling like she was drugged, and couldn’t understand why she felt like this after having consumed only one drink. She lost consciousness and several hours later woke once again to John forcing himself inside her. This happened three times that night. Finally, she regained consciousness and, finding John asleep beside her, she texted her best friend to pick her up and quietly left.
She never reported the rape to the police, nor did she see John again. But the memory of him drugging and then raping her replayed in her mind like a nightmare on endless repeat. She was tormented by the fact that this may not have been the only time he had done that to her. She came to see me at the end of the semester. She was depressed, anxious, traumatized, and having frequent panic attacks. She was also cutting herself and drinking and using marijuana to cope with her emotional pain. She feared she’d never feel good again. The world was no longer a safe place, and although she longed for love and a romantic relationship, she was paralyzed with fear whenever she thought about dating again.
Darcy worked hard in therapy. We began by establishing a sense of safety in her environment and in her body, and then we processed the trauma and its aftereffects. After discussing the idea of blooming in the dark, she began a deep reflection on who she wanted to be and how she wanted to live her life going forward. Then she began the hard work of turning her blooming intentions into reality. She joined AA and stopped drinking, using marijuana, and cutting. She removed herself from her friend group, so as not to be tempted to engage in these destructive behaviors. She realized that she had chosen a major that didn’t suit her, and so she courageously dropped out of the computer science program and enrolled in a creative writing program. She joined a poetry group and developed a new set of friends, including good guy friends. She got reconnected to her spirituality and her calling to be a healer in the world.
And she started writing. And writing. Besides blogging and journaling, over several
