By Elayne Savage, PhD
There may be times when you would like to express feelings to a family member or some
person in your past or present but it is not always possible or even prudent. Especially the times you have felt hurt or angry about rejection and disappontment.
What if the person is not available? Or they are dead? What if your feelings are so intense that
you don’t trust yourself to talk directly to him or her?
How can you deal with these yucky feeling so they have somewhere to go and not just fester inside of you?
Why not consider Sheldon Kopp’s suggestion in If You Meet the Buddha on
the Road, Kill Him! Kopp proposes writing not just one, but a series of three letters.
Know that all three are written for you — not-to-be-mailed. The first letter is a declaration of your feelings and needs. This is the letter you have written in your head many times. Now, knowing you will never mail it, you can consider putting those thoughts and feelings on paper.
The second letter is a hypothetical reply from the person you wrote the first letter to. In
this letter you get to capture the essence of his or her personality and write down all the
denials, rationalizations, put-downs, sarcasm, or defensiveness that you used to get and
still expect to get from that person.
Now for the third letter. This letter will contain all the things in your hear of hears have always
wanted tohear from the person but never did. And because you asked for what you need in the
first letter, this one could contain acknowledgment of mistakes, statements of love and
caring, possibly even a little icing — an apology.
This letter is about what you need from that person, and because you are writing it you can
choose to respond to yourself with whatever you want to hear.
If possible, read each of these three letters aloud — to a therapist or to a friend. At the very least,
read them out loud to yourself. The words you’ve chosen to include in these three letters
can be very liberating.
This exercise can be another step toward respecting your own courage and
resilience.
© Elayne Savage. PhD
From Don't Take It Personally! The Art of Dealing with Rejection
Website: www.QueenofRejection.com
Blog: www.TipsFromTheQueenOfRejection.com
Twitter@ElayneSavage
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