The magic power of writing
The magic power of writing to let go of old anger
I received my first diary for my 6th birthday and, since then, I have been writing down my feelings, my thoughts, my experiences. Writing to download some of the weight at times, or writing to share with someone…well, myself most of the time! as, for long time, sharing has been very difficult for me. Writing keeps me company, helps me process, helps me memorise, helps me see the whole picture, helps me forgive and move on.
Especially on this last one, I would like to share my experience on how writing can be a powerful tool when it comes to forgiving and moving on.
I never remember where I learnt things from. My knowledge on stuff is a collage of things I read and heard over the years, but I am quite sure this one comes in big part from an amazing human called Max Storm. I met Max at an “Amsterdam inner peace conference” of what feels like a few lives ago. I don’t recall exactly the whole workshop and I could be mixing up more than one source here, but some of the key points that stood out are:
1) Unresolved anger kills you, not the ones you are angry with.
2) To resolve your anger you don’t have to necessarily face the person you are angry with, it might not even be possible as this person might be unreachable for whatever reason, e.g. dead.
So, how can you actually process and eventually resolve anger? You can write a letter to this person…or actually two.
One letter to vent out (I think this first is my own addition)
One letter to forgive…and read carefully, I did not write “forget” (I am from Sardinia, I don’t forget, ever! Already forgiving is a big thing!–I am joking, I do forget very quickly most of the times)
So, in the first letter I like to vent out to the person I am angry with, as if they were in front of me. It really helps me to get that fire out of my stomach. Go wild! You don’t have to share it with them, ever. Remember this process is for you, not–at least not as a main objective–for the relationship with that person, although it will eventually have an impact.
Take your time, write it, leave it, pick it up again, add, change…
Then the second letter. The one where you forgive. This takes a lot of guts. It takes you being ready to process and let go of the anger you have been holding on, maybe for long. This is the part where you tell the person in question that you leave space for their opinion even if completely different from yours. You accept their view as the motif behind their actions, even if you probably do not understand it nor agree with it at all. What happened, their words, their actions, have hurt you. That cannot be changed. Actions have a consequence, always. But you decide to forgive them, to let go of the anger. Because you decided to move on.
Again, this second one can be painful, even more so than the first. If it feels like it is impossible for you right now to write such a letter, my advice is to go back to step 1: venting out! In some cases I had to write many angry letters and many forgiveness letters, because the pain built up on many levels and getting over past pain, like grief, comes in waves, in my experience.
This process has helped me to let go of many knots from my past and to allow space for some relationships to move to the next step or to make space for new ones. Anger takes a toll on you and on the people around you. It takes a lot of space while preventing good opportunities from coming in.
December 2023
