Letter Writing Journaling

By Catherine Franz

When you read a letter from someone, we are immediately
transferred into their world, experience, and physical
reality. You can capture the same feeling by writing
letters to yourself or about other people in your journal.
Letter writing is the easiest form to use in journaling. On
occasion, you might have already dabbled in writing letters
in your journal.

There are three major benefits to journaling with letters.
First, the experience helps organize the event more clearly
in our mind. Second, letter writing makes it easier to see
cause and affect sequences of our actions. And third,
because of its intimacy, it loosens up our writing style.

Whether you have or haven't experienced letter writing
previously, here are a few ways you can expand the
experience.

Step 1: Compile a list of people who you want to write a
letter to. You can do this as a journal entry and mark the
page with a post-it note.

Step 2: Select a letter style, purpose, before you begin
writing. Since there are various types of letter writing
styles, let me present four types that I have found most
helpful and have received the most positive feedback in my
workshops.

Style 1: Milestone letters. Writing about milestones is
about picking an event that changed your life. Whether the
milestone was minor one or one that turned you around 360
degrees does not matter. Even the smallest ones have truth
to be released. The milestone will have either altered your
way of thinking, change your relationship with yourself or
others, or even shaken your physical or spiritual beingness.

By writing about a milestone, you weed through and determine
what is important in your life. Additionally, the exercise
helps you understand what formed the person you are today
and explains what shifted that path.

Style 2: Release letters. Release letters allow you to vent
and express your deepest emotions. This style frees buried
energy, in turn, allowing you to think and feel through
things, rather than keeping it corked. Please note that
your experience may not always lead to a resolution,
however, it does lead to change. You can't help but clean
house of those leftovers.

Here are a few examples on how you can use release letters.

Example: Have you ever finished a conversation with someone
that ruffled your feathers or left you still hearing their
words like sounds of chalk going backwards across a
blackboard? The conversation tumbles repeatedly in your
mind for hours, even days. This is a perfect time to write
a release letter. Set a timer for 10 minutes and let it rip
across the page.

What you do with the release letter afterwards isn't
important. If you feel comfortable leaving it in your
journal, do so. If you prefer to use separate paper and
burn it, do so. If you prefer to tear it out of your
journal later, do so.

Example: You can use this same exercise to curb over
spending. This process came to me years ago when I was an
accountant giving advice on how to curb over spending.

Have you ever been in the position of feeling you just
"gotta buy" something. Let