The Letter You Will Never Send

by Penny Lucas, Counsellor at Tranquillo Place

For many of us there will come a time when we are struggling with conflict in a particular relationship in our life. Perhaps something hurtful has been said or done that you just can’t seem to let go of.

There may have been a string of wounding and disappointment throughout the relationship. Maybe you find yourself ruminating over the hurt feelings. Are you rehearsing what you wish you could say to them? Earnest to make them understand how they’ve impacted you, but you fear bringing it up it will inflame things further and you might feel even worse.

Are you facing the possibility that they will never respond the way you’d like them to? Or that person you had the difficult relationship with is no longer alive and the opportunity to speak about it is forever gone.

In these instances, a helpful practice can be to write a letter you’ll never send.

A letter where you write all your thoughts and feelings about the relationship and what has happened between the two of you.

This gives you the opportunity to really let words flow freely!

Say all the things you wish you could say. Detail all the ways their actions hurt you. Explain why you responded to them the way you have. Whatever needs to come out and be said – write it all in this letter.

Then when you feel it’s all been encompassed and put down on paper, you can ceremoniously burn it (safely of course) or tear it into tiny pieces and throw it away.

This practice can be a way to get the feelings and thoughts out of the body and the mind and help process without having to receive a response from the person. You may be sceptical at how useful it might be to have a one-way conversation, but it is a surprisingly effective practice to at least be able to say, in some way, the things you need to say.

Interestingly even in cases where there is a lot of anger and hurt the letter can at times return to forgiveness and compassion as it ends. Not always of course, this is an individual and personal process. You may need to write more than one letter until the feelings settle and dissipate or one letter may be enough to notice a shift.

Do you think you might need to write a letter you’ll never send? This can be done alone but it can also be helpful to step through this process with a counsellor. Get in touch if you’d like to make an appointment.