From My Heart to Yours: My Letter from Love
The air was crisp with the promise of growth and self-discovery in Alentejo, Portugal.
Two weeks ago, our Wise Humanity Community of students and clients came together under the embracing theme of “Live in Love – Putting Love in Action.” Our 5-day retreat was a deep dive into cultivating self-compassion, healthy relationships and empathetic leadership. Our Co-Founder, Elisabeth, opened the workshops with this exercise, and wow was it an explosive start.
I’d like to share with you what happened to me.
Elisabeth introduced the concept of self-love, clarifying that it's not about egotism or narcissism, nor about having a high opinion of oneself. Instead, self-love means being kind, compassionate, and loving towards oneself. Many people have developed a habit of being overly critical towards themselves, and Elisabeth described self-love as a relieving experience, where one lets go of harsh self-judgment and adopts an inner posture of openness and wholeness.
To help us experience the healing embrace of self-love, she proposed a writing exercise known as “Letters from Love”, a method inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love. This practice – also called two-way journaling, where you write to yourself and then you write back – fosters an internal dialogue of love and acceptance, thus transforming how we internally support and treat ourselves.
Elisabeth and Davide at the Portugal 2024 Retreat
Find a quiet place, open your journal and write down: Dear love, what would you have me know today?
And then write back. Don’t think, just write.
Let yourself know and say exactly what unconditional love, complete total love, wants you to know today. Imagine that love is right here and can talk to you in words. Love completely sees you and knows everything about you and loves and accepts and cherishes everything about you, every little thing.
What does love want you to know? Let yourself discover it through the writing. Don’t expect to think it first and then write it. Just start writing and let love speak to you through your pen.
“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” – Isaac Asimov
What Love Itself Wrote to Me
So, that’s how Elisabeth introduced the exercise. The bit about thinking through my fingers was profound and liberating. I realised that I didn’t need to think with my head. I just had to write and whatever came out was going to be right.
So, I’d like to share what Love itself wrote back to me through my fingers. It was powerful and healing. Everyone has this voice of love available to them inside and I wish all of you could hear Love tell you these words, and more.
Dear Love, what would you have me know today?
You are loved. You are stronger than anything happening to you or anything you fear might happen to you. You will feel pain and fear but nothing will really hurt you. Pain is unavoidable but suffering is a choice – and you don't need to make it.
Don't protect yourself, don't feel threatened, everybody's attacks are an expression of their fears.
Give, give, give. Love, love, love.
Let it flow. You’re a channel for the whole Universe. You are the whole Universe. Your heart is beating with the heart of the Universe. And everyone else is the Universe, too, and their hearts beat the same way.
There is no 'you', no small 'u'. There's only a vast 'U' for Us and for the Universe. And love is the power of it. Fear is just not embracing it. And yes, embracing it means you have no control, and things will happen that might hurt you... but remember, they're not truly 'hurting' you, because nothing can harm the beating heart of the Universe. Nothing can harm you.
All the problems are in the mind; the heart is only made to love.
So go, give, trust, be open, don’t protect yourself. There's nothing and no one to protect from anyway: we're all just the big U. Embrace the power of it.
Embrace your power. Enjoy it. It's the most incredible ride.
The group attending the Wise Humanity Retreat in Portugal
Now Write Your Own Letter from Love
I invitate you to engage in this transformative exercise yourself. Imagine what it would be like to sit quietly, pen in hand, and ask Love, "What would you have me know today?" The act of writing a letter from Love to yourself opens a direct channel to your deepest wisdom and equanimity.
This exercise is more than just a reflective practice; it's a powerful tool for healing, inspiration, and self-compassion. Through these letters, Love can offer us guidance, comfort, and the reassurance that we are never truly alone in our experiences. It allows us to see our fears and pains through a lens of compassion and infinite understanding, reminding us of our inherent strength and the boundless love that surrounds us.
The insights you gain could be gently comforting or even profoundly life-changing.
Go do it.
