to move through your suffering by first acknowledging its existence and then processing it. We’ll use writing to release your painful emotions and dark thoughts rather than ruminating on them continuously21. But to heal, you’ll need to do more than simply recall your story; you’ll need to reconstruct your story22. To reconstruct your experience through writing, you’ll use the writing prompts in the following chapters to search for and find meaning in your suffering—what are the lessons to be learned, the benefits to be experienced, the resolution necessary to move forward? We’ll also use writing to explore other perspectives, identities, and pathways to wholeness that will facilitate greater ease as you move through the dark.
You’ll find that as you write your story, it will become more objective and you will gain emotional distance from it. Eventually, you will integrate the trauma and suffering into your overall life narrative, so that it no longer runs the show. Like editing, you will “rework and reword,” and finally you will write a new ending to your story. I will guide you through each of these steps using the prompts in the pages to come.
How to Use This Book
Here are a few things you should know and do before we get started:
∗ Twelve Principles of Blooming in the Dark. This book is organized around twelve principles of blooming in the dark. These are principles I learned through my own seasons in the dark and those of my clients. Each principle and accompanying writing prompt is grounded in empirical research from various domains of psychology. One chapter is devoted to each principle. Following the description of each blooming principle, there are six to eight thought-provoking journaling prompts for you to complete at a pace that feels right to you. These prompts are designed to help you experience each of the twelve principles of blooming in the dark.
∗ Choose a beautiful blooming journal. If you haven’t already done so, find a lined journal in which to respond to the writing prompts in this book. It should be a journal that inspires you to write. Maybe the cover is your favorite color or has a background you find inspiring. I’d recommend you begin with a new journal rather than one you’ve already written in, so that it can be devoted exclusively to your blooming process. If you’d find it easier to have the writing prompts already typed into your journal, I’ve created a downloadable PDF that lists each of the writing prompts for the twelve blooming principles with lots of blank space after each prompt. You can find My Night Blooming Journal at www.drmichellepearce.com/nightbloomersjournal
∗ You do not need to be a writer to benefit from this book and the journal exercises. The writing exercises in Night Bloomers are designed for personal transformation, not to sharpen grammar, spelling, or composition skills. In fact, paying attention to those aspects of writing can impede the effectiveness of using writing as a tool for healing.
∗ It doesn’t matter what type of pain and suffering you’re going through, this book is for you. The twelve blooming principles and the writing prompts I’ve designed are applicable to many different “dark times” in life, such as loss, grief, death, illness, divorce, breakups, job loss, aging parents, estrangement, miscarriage, rape, assault, bankruptcy, affairs, disability, life transitions and upheavals, and so on.
∗ You can work through the twelve blooming principles and accompanying prompts at your own pace. Some of you may complete the journal exercises in a few weeks, others in a few months, while others may take even longer than that. The important thing is to go at a pace that keeps you growing.
∗ Be sure to keep watering your seed through your writing even when you don’t see signs of growth. If it feels like too much to work through all the chapters and prompts in order, you can dip in and out of the chapters. There are also enough writing prompts in each chapter that you can choose the ones that most resonate. You can also go back and complete prompts you didn’t complete earlier or respond to prompts again, once you are further along in the process and your responses might have evolved.
∗ Writing might make you feel a little worse before it makes you feel better. In the research, some participants reported feeling more distress for an hour or two after writing about a traumatic event. However, over time the people who wrote about a trauma—and not the people who wrote about a neutral event—experienced better emotional and physical health23.
∗ This is different from your childhood diary. The prompts are designed to help you reflect, find meaning, discover new perspectives, glean insight, reconstruct your experience, and facilitate positive 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?