action in your life. If you’re looking for more than “Dear Diary” writing, you’re going to like this book.
∗ You need to write about both the facts and your feelings about the facts. In studies on therapeutic writing, those who wrote about superficial topics or just the facts of the crisis, without addressing their feelings, did not experience health benefits.
∗ Timing might matter. A few studies have found that people who were required to write about a traumatic event immediately after it occurred actually felt worse after expressive writing, possibly because they are not yet ready to face it24. My advice is to try it. See if it helps. If you find you’re not ready, put this book down and wait a week or two. Then try it again.
∗ Monitor yourself and do what makes sense for you. Dr. Pennebaker has something called the flip out rule (which, when I did my training with him, I swear I heard him call the “freak out rule,” so that’s what I’ve been using with my clients ever since!). Basically, the advice was that only we know if we’re about to flip out from our writing, and if we’re getting close to that point, we should stop and do something else to calm ourselves down.
∗ Therapy is helpful (and yes, I’m biased, but it’s true!). This book will provide you with therapeutic principles, wisdom, and tools that are similar to those you would receive in psychotherapy. That being said, the writing you do will bring up material that may be quite helpful to discuss in therapy. I highly encourage you to work with a mental health professional if you want to dive deeper into the material that comes up.
WRITING PROMPTS
Try your hand at responding to the writing prompts below. You can respond to some or all of the prompts, and you can do so on a single day or spread out your writing over several days this week.
My Journal
Take five or ten minutes and write about how you want to use this book and its writing exercises. When will be the best time for you to do your writing? In the morning, in the afternoon, before bed? How can you reduce other distractions in your environment so that you can have fifteen to twenty minutes at a time for uninterrupted writing? Which do you prefer, writing longhand or typing? How will you know if writing is helping? At what point would you seek the help of a mental health professional?
A Perspective Change
Write about a time in your life when your perspective about something changed. Choose a time when your eyes were opened to a new way of looking at and understanding something about yourself, your relationships, your health, your future, and/or your life in general.
What was this change in perspective? What impact has this change in perspective had on you and your life?
Are You a Night Bloomer?
•Are you in the dark? What happened to put you in this situation?
•How did you feel about life before your current situation?
•Do you feel you need a perspective change? Are you asking “why?” or “why me?” Or are you asking “what now?” What might happen if you started asking “what now?”
•In what ways do you relate to the stories about Night Bloomers in this chapter?
•Would you like to be a Night Bloomer? Why or why not?
Searching for Pearls
The burden of suffering seems to be a tombstone hung
around our necks. Yet in reality, it is simply the weight necessary
to hold the diver down while he is searching for pearls.
—JULIUS RICHTER
•What do you think about this perspective on pain and suffering?
•What does this perspective bring up for you?
•Is this your current perspective on suffering? If not, would you like it to become your perspective? What would it take to make this your perspective on your suffering?
WRITING TIPS FOR NIGHT BLOOMERS
Here are some writing tips to keep in mind as you create your Night Blooming Journal:
•Date your entries. It’s nice to look back and see how far you’ve come.
•Grammar and spelling do not matter. These exercises are not designed to improve your technical writing skills; they’re designed for healing and transformation.
•There is no right or wrong way to write. So, try not to judge, censor, or correct your journaling.
•Be as honest as possible. You only cheat yourself if you hold back the full truth.
•Write quickly and keep your hand moving. Write through the negative thoughts and emotions that come up.
•Write deeply. What you get out of writing will depend on how much you put into it.
•Keep your journal private and write for your eyes only. This will help you be as honest as possible.
•When you feel stuck, remember to tell your story just one word at a time.
•We’re going to do more than just write about your pain. A lot more. Allow yourself to play and have fun.
CHAPTER 1
SETTING AN INTENTION TO BLOOM
Change is inevitable. Growth is intentional.
—GLENDA CLOUD
The first principle of blooming in the dark is Setting an Intention to Bloom. Before we get to why this is important and how one goes about setting an intention to bloom, let’s get even more clear about what blooming in the dark is all about.
Resilience. It’s a popular word these days. Maybe when you think of blooming in the dark, you think of resilience. It’s a similar concept, but not quite the same. There are many different ways of defining resilience. The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress. It means ‘bouncing back’ from difficult experiences”25. Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security26 defines resilience as “the ability to resist, absorb, recover from, or successfully adapt to adversity or a change in conditions.” A meme on the internet said resilience is “the courage to come back”27.
