Letter a writing practice

Letter worksheets for tracing and writing

Letter Writing Practice - Etsy.de

Etsy is no longer supporting older versions of your web browser in order to ensure that user data remains secure. Please update to the latest version.

Take full advantage of our site features by enabling JavaScript.

Find something memorable, join a community doing good.

( 1,000+ relevant results, with Ads Sellers looking to grow their business and reach more interested buyers can use Etsy’s advertising platform to promote their items. You’ll see ad results based on factors like relevancy, and the amount sellers pay per click. Learn more. )

How to Write Therapy Letters - Women's Sangha

The practice of writing therapy letters helps when:

• you have a lot of unspoken words, emotions and pain for someone;
• you cannot solve a problem in a relationship with some person because he does not open up to you or ignores you;
• You need to solve a problem in a relationship, but you don't want to involve the other person.

This simple and effective technique is suitable for everyone. Therapy letters release the burden of pent-up words and emotions and improve relationships.

Principles of therapeutic letters

Write a letter as sincere as possible, do not filter yourself, do not limit yourself to literary language. Handwriting should be legible. It is convenient to use a separate A4 notebook. Do not reread the letter while writing, do not edit.

A completed therapy letter consists of six parts, in each of which you show a certain range of emotions.

It's good if all sections of your letter are about the same size. Do not stop while writing a letter, do not take breaks - write a letter right away and to the end. If you stop writing a letter before you get to the last paragraph about love, then the whole point will be lost. The point is to get to love through all emotions.

Remember: a person cannot get too angry, much less offended, if these emotions are not based on love. Be patient, write the letter to the end.

You can return to the previous item if emotions associated with it pop up. Emotional stress can be removed only when a person consistently goes through all the groups of emotions that lie on top of love. If you "skip" one of the emotional layers, the conflict remains incompletely resolved and emotional tension accumulates inside.

After completing your letter, you must write a response to yourself from another person. Keep correspondence until all conflicts in the relationship are resolved.

When the correspondence has exhausted itself, the letters can be burned. You do not need to send or show these letters to anyone.

So, write everything as it is without embellishment, do not correct, as completely as possible in all emotions, from yourself to the person - and from him to yourself.

Six Pillars

Part 1: Claims

In the first part, write down the anger and accusations that you have towards a particular person - whatever comes to mind. You can not be shy in expressions: in a letter it is very important to express all the boiling emotions.

You can use expressions:

• "I really don't like it when..."
• "It makes me terribly angry when..."
• "I was sick to death when..."
• "How could you..."
• "I am very tired because..."
• "I can't stand it when you..."

Start a sentence with these words - and continue to say everything on paper until the flow runs out.

Part 2: Annoyance

In the second part, express the resentment and bitterness that you have inside. These emotions you were afraid to release, they destroyed you, hurt you. When you remember something associated with a feeling of annoyance, it becomes sad and heavy on the heart inside. Be as honest with yourself as possible.

For example, through the following phrases:

• "I'm offended when..."
• "I am bitter when..."
• "I feel terrible because. .."
• "I am mortally offended by the fact that..."
• "I am very disappointed that..."

Part 3: Worries

In the third part, you write about the fears and anxieties that have accumulated inside you. What you always wanted to express, express, but were afraid for various circumstances and reasons.

You can start like this:

• "I'm afraid that..."
• "I'm scared because..."
• "I didn't want to..."

Part 4: regrets

In the fourth part, express remorse and responsibility for what happened in your relationship. Perhaps, in the course of writing, you will realize your guilt in something, you will have new realizations. Write what you were responsible for in this relationship and what you yourself might have done wrong.

Here are some phrases to help you start this part:

• "I'm sorry that..."
• "I am very sorry that..."
• “Please forgive me for…”
• "I didn't want to. .."

Part 5: desires

In the fifth part, state your intentions for further communication with this person. What kind of relationship would you like?

Phrases you can use:

• “I want…”
• "I would like to..."
• "I hope..."
• "It would be great if we could..."

Part 6: gratitude

In the final part, it is important to express love, forgiveness, understanding and appreciation. Perhaps at the end of the letter you will understand the valuable lessons that this person brought into your life, and you will be sincerely grateful to him for this - then you need to write down these words too.

Options for expressing these feelings:

• “I love you because…”
• “Thank you for…”
• "I'm proud of you because..."
• "I perfectly understand that..."
• "I forgive you because..."

Such a letter must be written from oneself to the person and then back, that is, from him to oneself. A return letter is a necessary component, do not skip it. Write for another person, for this he is not needed - it is enough to tune in so that the hand writes by itself. This is the final stage of therapy letters.

You can use this practice to resolve conflicts between loved ones - for example, write correspondence from mother to grandmother and back.

After writing letters correctly, there can be three states:

1. Empty. When you remember a conflict situation from the past, you will be calm inside, emotions will completely disappear from your memories.
2. Lightweight. Remembering the situation, you will feel acceptance of what happened and comfort.
3. Illumination. It's like a flash in the mind: "So that's why it was like that!" - you will understand why everything happened this way and not otherwise, there will be gratitude and love inside.

This is a very effective practice and has already helped so many people. Let her help you too!

How to write about your experiences and memories to make it easier?

As early as 30 years ago, it was discovered that if you write about your experiences in a certain way, then health improves, not only mentally, psychologically, but also bodily. How to do it right?

Psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences, narrative practitioner

Daria Kutuzova

Thirty years ago, University of Texas professor James Pennebaker discovered that if you write about your experiences in a certain way, your health improves, not only mentally, psychologically, but also physically. Since he began his research, more than 300 papers on this topic have been written and published. This huge amount is quite enough to test the effectiveness of any psychological practice.

The most famous, key experiment of Pennebaker, which became the basis of his subsequent work, was as follows. He recruited a group of young people, mostly students. Each participant in the experiment entered an empty room, where there was a table and a sheet of paper, a pen and a task. A person wrote for 15 minutes, then, on a call, he stopped writing, folded the sheet, and either left it in a special box in the corner of the audience, or could take it with him. Subjects wrote for 15 minutes for 4 days in a row.

The participants of the experiment were divided into 2 groups - control and experimental, the tasks for written work were different. The control group wrote about something completely mundane, such as what these people did yesterday or what they ate for breakfast. While the second experimental group wrote according to the instructions, which included the task to write about something extremely exciting, significant, and about something that these people never told anyone about.
At the end of the experiment, the researchers, with the permission of the subjects, received data from the university polyclinic on their visits to doctors and prescribed medications before and after the study. This turned out to be a very interesting result deserving further investigation.

UP TITLE

It turned out that about half of the subjects from the experimental group began to visit a doctor half as often and use drugs half as much as before. In the control group, these indicators remained practically unchanged.

Writing for 15 minutes in patients with asthma reduces the frequency and intensity of attacks, reduces the intensity of pain in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, reduces the number of awakenings during a night's sleep in patients with cancer.

How does writing practice improve health for many people? Moreover, not only in generally healthy 2nd year students on whom this psychological experiment was conducted - in other studies there were samples of people with serious chronic diseases. For example, it was found that writing for 15 minutes about something significant in asthma patients reduces the frequency and intensity of attacks, reduces the intensity of pain in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and reduces the number of awakenings during a night's sleep in cancer patients. In a recent study, it was found that in older people, surgical wounds heal faster if writing is used as an additional therapeutic intervention.

These are simply amazing results, and after their publication, many began to study and effectively use this technique in practice. Moreover, it costs practically nothing, does not give side effects, unlike drugs, and, in principle, it is not so difficult to learn how to conduct therapeutic writing sessions for those who cannot access traditional psychotherapy. Currently, written practices are used very intensively and effectively in labor exchanges and hospitals, in places of detention and in schools.

What is the first thing to keep in mind in order for a letter to be useful? After all, a letter is a fairly powerful tool, and if you do not know about safety precautions, you can seriously harm yourself. What must be taken into account when a person writes about his life, so that it is really good for his health?

First of all, it should be noted that Pennebaker's writing is always like two approaches to a projectile: first it is expressive writing, and then reflexive. Expressive writing means that a person plunges into the flow of feelings and expresses them, simply pouring onto paper without self-censorship, trying to grab his experience in all its complexity and let it go as it is. There is absolutely no need to make a beautiful text, it is not even necessary to write correctly, punctuation marks are not needed. This is the experience of the moment, actual, most exciting now or in memories.

After that, a short break is made, as if a step back, a retreat. And, after reading his written text, a person takes a different position. He is not in the flow of experiences, he came out of it, stepped aside - and looks, comprehends, reflects. He is already writing about what, as he now understands, was important to him in the process of writing, what feelings came to him and what awareness, how he feels now, rereading it; what turned out to be new for him, perhaps surprised, or, on the contrary, confirmed what he knew about himself, and where it leads him further. Maybe this leads him to some kind of reflection or action - talking, communicating, deeds, or to inaction - refraining from deeds.

The first rule to follow in order for a letter to be useful is no self-censorship .

It is necessary to write it in such a way as not to be afraid that someone will read what is written, and that it will then be used in one way or another against the author. Therefore, in order to avoid self-censorship, you need to be very careful about your right to privacy and respect it. If it is possible that someone else might be able to read these notes, it is important to choose a safe place to store them in order to avoid this danger.

In addition to external readers, external interlocutors, letter recipients, people also have internal interlocutors. And when a person writes about his experiences, it is important to understand to whom he is addressing, how this person or creature listens to us. Many have a very strong inner critical voice, and when such people write about their lives, he breaks out to the surface, one might say, pulls out a pen, and begins to write for them - how bad they are, and how unworthy they are, and why once again step on the same rake.

But a person also has another position inside, which is more or less familiar and mastered by many. This is the position of a benevolent researcher, a sympathetic witness who understands everything, and, perhaps, knows a person better than he knows himself. For some it is God, for others it is someone else. This interlocutor may not have a name, but when a person writes about his life and what is significant to him, it is best to tune in to address this interlocutor, this listener, who will accept the person as he is, in shame, in self-dislike, in disgust, in fear, in doubt, this inner interlocutor will still say: “So it is! Let's see what's next?"

Another very important point - if a person is going to write about something very significant for himself, it does not have to be scary or sad things at all - it can be something joyful or just very exciting. It must be borne in mind that one should not dive too deeply into experiences so that at any moment there is an opportunity to emerge back, to return to everyday existence. To do this, it is good to keep a scale of subjective distress on hand to measure the intensity of the experience. You can draw it on paper or just keep it in your head. Any disturbing situation is evaluated on this scale using a 10-point system, where 0 is the absence of excitement, when everything is fine and calm, and 10 is the highest degree of excitement - when a person is internally worried, and everything is so terrible at this moment of writing that he wants to crumple this sheet, throw it away, cry and run away.

You can't bring yourself to such a state, and you should stop writing, when the intensity of emotions goes off scale, approaches 8 . Do not force yourself to be in a state where it is scary and uncomfortable. Usually paper or a screen is a wonderful fuse, it is difficult to write something that at the moment a person is not ready to realize and accept. But many people are accustomed to forcing themselves to endure, believing that suffering cleanses, and that it must necessarily get worse before it gets better. These people force themselves to plunge into unpleasant experiences too deeply, and may stop feeling not only pain, but also joy. In this case, the letter is not useful, but harmful.

Structuring the letter can also help make the letter more useful and safe. Many are familiar with freewriting, or Julia Cameron's Morning Pages method. In the original, the exercise is that in the morning, first thing after waking up, everything that comes to mind is written down on 3 A4 sheets, pouring out a stream of thoughts and feelings onto paper. This is described as a sewer for the brain, a kind of cleaning of consciousness. This is very useful for many, but for some people it can be downright dangerous. For example, people who are depressed or people with post-traumatic stress disorder feel really bad first thing in the morning. And, if at this moment you start writing about yourself, about what is on the surface and what is swarming in your head, then you can strengthen the negative idea of ​​yourself as a weak, sick, worthless, worthless person. Almost always, this approach does not lead to an improvement in the situation.

The more vulnerable a person feels, the more structure they need in a letter.

Kathleen Adams, Director of the Writing Therapy Institute, has done research on the importance of structured writing as opposed to letting go, writing freely. In the course of this work, it was found that the more tension, stress, grief, fear and other negative components a person has in life, the more structured his writing should be. Kathleen developed a special scale, the so-called structured ladder. This scale lists the main types of diary exercises, depending on the degree of their structure.

At the very top of the scale is freewriting, freewriting. This means that in order to get the maximum benefit from freewriting, you need to immerse yourself in it when everything in a person’s life is quite good and calm. When not everything is good, it is better to set a timer, that is, write not 3 pages for an arbitrary time, but, say, 5-6 minutes. During this time, it is very difficult to hurt yourself really seriously, but it is quite enough to take out some material from the boundaries of your consciousness and the unconscious, with which you can continue to work.

The most structured exercises are focusing on a single word, for example choosing the word of the day, and writing down unfinished sentences. You can write lists, draw mind maps or clusters (mental or associative maps). This, too, may not take more than 5 minutes a day, but it brings great benefits. A cluster is especially useful if it seems to a person that his head is running in different directions from thoughts, and he does not know what to grab onto. In this case, you can set a timer for 5 minutes, and throw in all the ideas swarming in your head, literally one or two words each, just to get some coherent picture.

Approximately in the middle of the Kathleen Adams scale are the so-called lists of 100, for example, “100 things that I dream of doing” or “100 feelings that I experience every day”, meaning traps are sketches about what a person in this day pleased, or what question interests him most of all now. About the same level are portraits. These can be portraits of significant people, or a portrait of who a person would like to become, or who he cannot become in the current relationship, in the current situation.

Almost anything you can imagine can become a conversation partner in a written dialogue.

More difficult, requiring complete immersion in the process of writing, are such exercises as writing dialogues. It can be not only a dialogue with some person, but also, for example, a dialogue between different inner voices, a dialogue with pain, a dialogue with money. Virtually anything you can imagine can become an interlocutor in a written dialogue. Dream work and poetry therapy are roughly on the same level. Perhaps the most structured exercise in poetry therapy is called the Acrostic.

What is an acrostic? An acrostic is a poem, it can be in rhyme or not, of any size, rhythm, but each line of it begins with the letter that makes up this word. To begin the writing exercise, it is good to take a few deep breaths, close your eyes, and try to find in yourself that line between what is known for sure and what is not known at all. This line is always colored by a feeling of excitement, it can be something quivering, something igniting, something that makes you take a deep breath.

Exercise "Acrostic"

Take any word that is emotionally charged for a person at a given moment in time, which excites and worries. This will be the basis of the poem. The word is written in a column, and then a word or expression corresponding to the emotional state of the author is added to each letter. It is better to start with a not very long word, for example, the word "again":

C now I understand or