Write an Automatic Love Letter to Your Inner Child
Today is the last day of the year and I am sure that we all have our own plans for celebrating it. Over the years, I have celebrated New Year’s Eve in many ways myself: partying with friends, staying up all night, reflecting on the year, planning for the new year, doing embarrassing and silly things and many others.
Today, I want to talk about something that has had a profound impact on my life in terms of my healing and my love for myself. In fact, I could safely say that it allowed me to go from “I feel ashamed and I hate myself” to “I am perfect in my imperfection”. I feel that this is a perfect gift from me to you. I hope that you cherish it, and use it to find the new “you” as you enter into the year 2017.
The technique is called “Automatic Writing”. As the name suggests, it’s slightly different than the normal writing. When you write “automatically”, you will feel that instead of you writing the words, words are automatically writing themselves.
The key is to write from the non-dominant hand. This keeps our conscious brain occupied with trying to figure out how to write and leaves the path clear for us to access our subconscious mind. By the way, when you write with your non-dominant hand, the writing will look as if an insect has dipped its legs in ink and then danced on the paper. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal and is meant to be.
When we write automatically, we get access to uncensored feelings and thoughts that reside in the deepest parts of our brain. We get to feel what we have been holding on to; we get to release what is stuck within our psyche. And you know the best part, once you feel it and write it, it is released. It no longer holds you. You are free from that thought pattern or feeling.
Automatic writing forms a powerful way for you to feel into your inner world and allow yourself to be free of what has been holding you back.
If you choose to do this, it is possible that difficult feelings come up for you; stay with your feelings and know that these will pass. You can also refer to my blog about preparing yourself and creating a resources list before you attempt this.
Here are instructions for writing automatically:
Automatic Writing Instructions – theunshamingproject
The Automatic Letters I wrote
I am now going to share the automatic letters that I wrote to myself. You can try any or all of these. Believe me, it’s totally worth it 🙂
A Letter to my younger self (when I was being sexually abused)
As a child, I felt unsafe in a way that was hard to describe. The act of abuse violated my sexuality, my sacredness and my trust in people and especially men was destroyed. I felt alone, miserable and hurt.
By going back to that time, I was finally able to give my younger self the love and safety she needed. I was able to say sorry; I was able to share my sadness over what has happened. I was able to hold her in my arms and give her all my love. I told her that she was perfect the way she was.
In my letter to my younger self, I told her that she didn’t need to worry and everything will be fine. It felt sooooo good to finally feel her, share her sadness and give her love that she needed and by giving her love, I felt that I was able to fill my own empty cup and this time, the feeling of being loved stayed with me and hasn’t left since.
Letter to my genitals
This one was quite an unexpected letter. I hadn’t realised how tight and shut down my muscles were. To finally feel the place where the trauma had occurred was difficult but very valuable. I felt that the deep shame and hatred that I carried for myself was finally starting to dissolve. I no longer felt the need to shut down my sexuality. I felt that I had given myself permission to feel my sensuality and feel my femininity and that felt amazing and powerful.
Letter to my organs
This one was also very unexpected. Being the Abused, I knew that my physiological system was in overdrive mode with high levels of cortisol and adrenalin. Any subtle signals of stress or danger would cause my body to go into hyper-arousal and even when I didn’t quite need it and the situation wasn’t really dangerous. This put great strain on my organs and hampered my normal body function (digestive issues, fatigue, and lower immune system etc.).
By writing this letter, I felt that I was calming down my organs. I was letting my body know that the abuse was over and it no longer needed to rely on keeping my survival mode engaged all the time. After I wrote this letter, for the first time ever, I felt this inner sense of relief that I wasn’t quite able to explain. I felt that my body had tasted what “feeling relaxed from the inside” felt like for the first time. It was massive and paved the way for me to bring my body and my organs functions to balance (I will write a detailed blog about this soon).
Letter to my current version of self at the time
This one felt really nice. I was able to acknowledge myself for having had such difficult experiences and not gone crazy. I was so proud of myself that I still carried a hope that I hadn’t lost my positive energy and my light. I was able to embrace my power and find self-love and acceptance in all that I had achieved.
So that’s it. I hope that my experiences of writing have inspired you and you are able to use it to free yourself.
Happy New Year and many many blessings and love to you.
Disclaimer:
A word of caution: I am not a therapist. I am sharing my experiences and things that have worked for me in my healing journey so that you can gain insights into these techniques. Please try this sensibly and responsibly and stop if you feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed with feelings. Contact your local medical centre in case of any emergencies.
Resources:
- A Wikipedia article on Automatic Writing
- A podcast on Self Love and Feeling Whole in our incompleteness
- If writing interests you, you might find this website “Writing through Life” helpful
** Image courtesy: http://writingthroughlife.com/
