The Greatest Love Letter You’ll Ever Write…is to yourself

A Love Letter Like No Other

Dearest Friend,

I am often surprised at how long we’ve known each other; sometimes it feels like moments. And yet other times it feels like multiple lifetimes. When I think of our friendship I realize that I have rarely let other people know me in the way that you know me – all of the potential for beauty and brilliance and absolute darkness. This gives me such a sense of relief and I feel myself soften into being just who I am without any walls, defenses or excuses…and for that I am grateful.

I am grateful for your tenderness, your unconditional willingness to love those parts of me that I most want to hide from the rest of the world – my tendency to be mean and judgmental, intolerant, and impatient. You always smile at me and for me; to let me know – I think – that it’s okay, that those things are not the whole of who I am and that it is possible for all of who I am to be enough.

I have perhaps never told you how beautiful I think you are, how sweet and vulnerable, and yet so strong and steady. You have the ability to take action with a clarity and decisiveness that I both admire and wish I had myself. And yet just being around you I am reminded that I can be these things too. I watch, listen, and feel how it is possible to be malleable, open, deliberate and dedicated. You have that much brightness — it would be hard not to be affected by your presence.

There is also a generosity in you that runs deeper than I can fathom. We laugh at how you like to be the center of attention, have people wait on you, and your uncanny ability to inspire others to support your efforts and still I can see further to the truth: that what you really want is for others to be loved, cared for, seen, nurtured, affected and changed so that they might live fuller lives. No matter how often you try to convince me to do things this way or that, I never cease to feel that you love me and want me to trust myself above all else.

And so I am writing you this letter today as a way of peeling back another layer of protection from my heart and quite possibly knowing myself more honestly than ever before.

Thank you for your voice, your insecurity, your intelligence, your guidance, your trust, and your love. May every day bring you joy and may that joy be reflected in the hearts of all you meet you. I cannot imagine it could be otherwise.

With more sincerity than I sometimes say it,

I love you.

Postscript 

The preceding love letter I wrote as a reminder that nothing can exist in my view unless I possess it myself; that when I see any quality in others IT PROVES the existence of that same quality in me for I CAN ONLY EVER REFLECT what I already have – whether I am willing or ready to see it or not (that’s perhaps the major kicker.)

Thanks to my dearest friend, cohort, co-teacher and co-creator Cori Martinez I wrote this love letter to rediscover myself through my own eyes and hers.

Can I believe that each characteristic, ability, personality trait, and quality that is contained within the letter above is in me? Is in fact a reflection of me? Can I know it as truth?

*An exercise you might consider trying out ;)*

A Note On Seeking Approval, Building Confidence From The Outside In