Letter Writing as a Mindfulness Practice
“Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.” — Lord Byron
“If you want to receive letters, you have to write letters,” was the advice my grandmother gave me when I was a little girl. So at nine years old, I started writing to everyone I could think of: friends, the moms of friends, Aunt Mary in Kansas, cousins in Florida, my roommate from sumemr camp, and anyone I thought might write back. Some wrote back. Some didn’t. But as soon as I started, I was hooked.
Now, this was 1987. The cell phone wasn’t a thing and the everone knew that the land line was for grown-ups and emergencies. Email was not yet invented and text messaging wouldn’t be an option for another ten years or so. Letter writing was a very practical way for me to keep in touch my people.
A healthy letter writing habit definitely informed the kind of writer I am today. I’m sure much of what I wrote in those early years was standard middle-school diary stuff. Like how unfair my life was and how Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell were the best songwriters ever (that second part is true) - but over time, it became more about storytelling. It also provided me with a mindfulness practice, although I’m sure I wouldn’t have called it that at the time.
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” — Anaïs Nin
Now that social distancing and quarantine are a part of daily life for the forseeable future, I propose we reinvigorate the beautiful lost art of letter writing. Here are my top five reasons to take up letter writing as both a pure pleasure and a mindfulness practice:
ONE — Mental Clarity
Letter writing forces me to slow down. It is a tangible way to breathe air into my reactivity and process the events of my life at a pace that invites awareness. Focusing my attention to each word and phrase I write allows me to assess what I really think about things - similar to what happens when I journal. (Surprise, surprise I also have a stong journal habit.)
TWO — Deeper Human Connection
Handwritten letters foster a deeper kind of connection with friends and loved ones. When created with intention, they can be really intimate - not just in the words written on the page, but also in the style of handwriting, the feel of the paper, and the structure of the envelope. They all point to the care and thought given by the sender. They also allow you to share your thoughts in silence without having to say them aloud on a phone or over a video chat. (This was a huge bonus for 11-year old Sarah, who wanted to talk about hard stuff sometimes.) I remember writing to a childhood friend during the course of my parents divorce. She had been through a divorce as well and at 13 years old, we were able to share some really profound thoughts and emotions via our weekly letters.
THREE — A New Way of Percieving
There is a huge difference in what I write to a friend and what I might text or say over the phone. The things I choose to share and the manner in which I share them are altered by the letter writing process. The act of letter writing invites me to explore and share my world in a more expressive and succinct way. This in turn helps me to percieve my life with a little more objectivity and depth.
FOUR — Delight
Receiving a letter is awesome, right? We all know the exhaulted feeling of leafing through the bills and junk mail to discover an envelope with the handwriting of a lover or friend. This past week I opened the tiny door of my post office box and right on top of the stack was a handmade envelope fashioned from a magazine and sealed with washi tape. My heart skipped a beat! What better way to delight those you love with a heartful missive?
FIVE — Cultivate Patience
There is a wonderful waiting period built into the mechanics of letter writing. It takes a little time to write a letter. (And if you’re like me, time to edit your letter.) Then you must wait for a letter to arrive. And you have to wait for a reply. This scope of duration also lends itself to writers who enjoy sharing a sense of where they are, in both time and space: I often include details in my letters about where I am (my garden, my studio, in the upstairs bedroom) and about the atmosphere that surrounds me. In this way, my letters are more “composed” than say a text or an email. And these kinds of details invite patience and an appreciation of pace.
So buy some stamps and put pen to paper! Try writing one letter a day for a week and see how you feel. I promise that those on the other end of your letter will feel seen, held, and loved. And we could all use a little more of that!
Here are some of my favorite collections of letters: