Picture of my actual letter written in November 2000

I decided I would share a very powerful method that I have personally used and continue to use every time life presents some challenges or painful events. I started using this method around the year 2000. It will help you transform any “negative” feelings you have to positive ones in only 15- 20 minutes.

As a side note, the reason I have quotations on the word negative is because the truth is that all of our pure emotions are necessary and positive in a sense that they allow us to fully live and experience life. Without the contrast of different emotions you would not feel alive. Today, as ironic as it sounds, I often rejoice about both the ups and the downs in my life.

Before I share this technique with you, let me explain to you what I mean.

Negative feelings are necessary and important part of your life. They always help you guide you to the right direction. The more fully you are able to feel sadness on a visceral level, the more joy and happiness you have the capacity to experience in your life also. The more you are able to actually feel your anger about something that did not happen that you wanted to happen, the more passion you also have the capacity to feel to accomplish your goals, etc.

Often because we never saw our parents successfully deal with their negative emotions or we were never taught on how to deal with them, most of us have either only learned two ways to deal with them: to act them out or to suppress or repress them.

While suppressing, and/or repressing your emotions may make you feel great short-term, over time it will only leave you out of touch with life. And while acting out may sometimes help you to continue you to keep you in touch with your feelings, it will never help you to learn the precious wisdom contained within them as you allow them simply be felt and heard.

Often by refusing to look at our painful emotions or by wanting to forget them, you feel temporary relief from them, but overtime you lose touch with the childlike part of you that experiences life fully. You lose your ability to be empathetic to others and even worse you may start to advice or demand others to suppress their feelings also.

So with that said, let’s get started.

I first discovered the basis for this method by reading one Dr. John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus series books: “How To Get What You Want, And Want What You Have.”

I had just broken up with my first serious girlfriend in Finland and had moved to United States to start my college basketball career. I had left her and now we were not talking. I was in pain.

The following feeling letter is what I used to heal myself, to grow from the experience, and to assist myself to move on.

The purpose of this technique is simply to make you feel better about any challenging or painful life event. It is not to send the letter out to your partner or try to use them or manipulate to change someone.

With that said, here is the letter I wrote to my ex-girlfriend with my commentary to explain the process along side it.

The first part is what I call the: The Venting Letter

The purpose of this part is to as honestly and as freely as possible to write out any of your “negative” emotions without editing. If you choose to try it, when you write the letter try not to make any intellectual judgments about your emotions. And as you read mine below, notice what judgments and thoughts you have about my feelings as I share them. Chances are that you judge and think about your own feelings the same way.)

Dear Maria, (Name changed to protect her privacy)

I feel left out and abandoned every time I think about you. I feel bad. I feel like this depression is entirely your fault. This hurts me so much.

I am concerned because I feel like I will now be depressed about life. I feel afraid that I will now be left alone. I am afraid that I will now be worthless. I am afraid I don’t know how to make a difference on anyone’s life. I am concerned that we will now never be friends again. I am afraid I will never find true love. I am afraid no one will ever love me again.

I am embarrassed that I failed to make you happy. I am sorry that I did not take you out on more dates. I am sorry that I was not romantic. I am sorry that I was not a better boyfriend to you. I am embarrassed that I lied to you. I am sorry that I was not the right one to you. I am sorry that we were not the right ones for each other. I am sorry that I messed up our relationship. I am sorry that I hurt you.

I want you to forgive me. I want to find love again. I want to be happy. I want that we can support each other through this process. I want to be an important person in your life. I want to continue to love you. I want that you love me too. I want to move on with my life. I am grateful for our relationship and what we experience together. I learned so much.

Love, Mikko

In the basic version of this technique, you write one paragraph about each of the following feelings: frustration/anger, sadness/disappointment, fear/concern, and sorrow/embarrassment.

It does not matter in what order you write about them, but it is important that you actually viscerally feel and write about each of the emotions. Again try not to intellectualize about them. Simply write them as if you were a little child who just needs to be heard.

This was the first part of the technique. On the last paragraph, you simply write and state what you want in life, and explore any good feelings of gratitude and love. If you are able to successfully go through, explore, and allow yourself to feel the four levels of “negative feelings” you should literally feel much lighter.

Writing about good feelings should come easy at the end. If you don’t feel better, go back and try to find out which one of the four emotions you were not fully honest about or allow yourself to explore.

The truth is that as adults when we are faced with challenges or disappointments in life, we should simply be able to hear our own feelings in 15 – 20 minutes, feel better, and then be able to move on.

The Second Part is: The Response Letter.

In the second part to this technique you will imagine that the person you wrote will write a letter back to you. Imagine that he/she has transformed to a fully enlightened person capable of endless forgiveness, love, and understanding and that he/she is able to write you exactly what you would want to hear. This is how I imagined my girlfriend to respond to my letter:

Dear Mikko,

With Love, Maria

Writing and reading the response letter should make you feel much better.

On the last part of this technique, you write a reflection letter where you take a moment to fully notice how good it feels to receive this type of love from your partner.

This is what I wrote back to my ex-girlfriend.

Dear Maria,

Love, Mikko

That’s it. The entire process should take about 15 – 20 minutes

The beauty to this technique is that your brain won’t know the difference from what you imagine and what is really the reality of the situation. So while you cannot ever control your partner or change what has happened to you in your life, you can always change the way you perceive it.

So from now on, no matter what happens in your life or how your partner responds or reacts to you, by using this method you can always make yourself feel better about anything that happens to you in your life.

With this tool you will take control of your life and refrain from simply being the victim of your circumstances.

As a disclaimer, of course I do not mean that if someone is hurting you that you should continue to stay in that type of relationship. It goes without saying that you should always leave any abusive or hurtful relationship. But if someone hurts you and you get bruised, you now have the ability to heal yourself and are not dependent on anyone else to do it for you.

So to shortly recap the technique.

First explore what your general feeling about the situation is. Then decide from whom would you like to receive support. This could be anyone you want to. For example, it could be your girlfriend, husband, Mother, Mentor, Guardian Angel, or God.

On the first part of this technique, write the Venting Letter. Write a paragraph about each of the following four combination of emotions: anger/frustration, sadness/disappointment, fear/concern, and sorrow/embarrassment. End the letter with feelings of gratitude and love and with a couple of statements on what you want.

On the second part, write your Response Letter. Imagine the person you wrote to giving you the type of love and support that would make you feel great.

On the third part, write your Reflection Letter. Explore all of your feelings of love, happiness, gratitude, forgiveness, and confidence.

As some final tips, it is best to find a comfortable place where you will be uninterrupted when you do this exercise. Maybe light a candle and/or put some soft music on the background. Relax and try to become sensitive to your feelings.

As you start writing, do not worry about it being grammatically correct. Simply write whatever you feel like. While you do not have to abide by the following structure it is important that you do each of the steps and write about each of the four aforementioned combination of emotions.

After the first time you try this technique, you might feel sleepy and emotionally drained. You might event feel really hungry. Those are all normal reactions and probably mean that you did the exercise correctly.

It takes a lot of energy to repress and suppress feelings and it can be draining to first learn to release them.

In my later posts, I will show you some further uses of this technique. In the meanwhile, I would love to hear your thoughts and comments about it. Have you ever tried anything like this? How do you usually deal with challenging or painful life events?

Do you suppress, repress, or act them out, or do you have another way to deal with them? Share your thoughts.

For more information about the basis of this technique, you can also visit Dr. John Gray and his Mars Venus web site or read any of his Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus books.

Hey, now that you have taken the time to read my article, please take a little more a make sure to leave me a comment below :) or take a look at some of my other articles here!

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