Searching for a tool for healing? Writing is one of my favorites! I was recently interviewed for an article about sending platonic valentines this year. You can read that article here as well as read my additional thoughts on the value of writing as a healing and integrating tool here.
As a 19-year-old, I remember happily going to the local bookstore and bakery to buy heart-shaped cookies and hand-crafted cards for my best friends. Thoughtful and heartfelt (or heart-shaped) gestures are appreciated whether it’s Palentine’s day or any regular day.
Coupled as well as single people, have romantic impulses with nowhere to put them and a sexual partner isn’t the only person to express them to. Palentine’s day is a reminder and an excuse to do what we are free to do any day of the month.
What are some sentiments women might express to their friends in a platonic Valentine?
Depending on your circle of friends, regular expressions of appreciation and praise may be the norm or may be unusual. Sharing a memory, a moment where their presence and support made a difference or who they are in the world, inspired you.
Really, you can praise your friends’ beauty, vibrance, brilliance, even how she smells, but the line is likely drawn between most friends when things turn sexual… though depending on how much you are part of heteronormative culture, there are friends who also have crossed that platonic line, friends who choose to engage romantically or sexually but still consider themselves friends versus lovers.
To what extent can the physical act of writing by hand become healing or nurturing ritual?
As a therapist, I often suggest people track their nervous system responses and their emotional reactions to situations or their dreams in their journals.
I also suggest creative free-form exercises, choose a prompt, don’t lift your pen for 20 minutes, and just write. This form of writing is a way to access the subconscious. It is a way to go a layer deeper than the conscious, editing mind and you can be surprised by what was written
I’m a big believer in writing as a healing tool, whether that is keeping a journal, morning pages, writing a one-person show, or writing completion letters. Check out Moving On by Russell Friedman and John W James in moving through grief, for solid guidance in goodbye letters: what you appreciated, what you apologize for, what you forgive them for.
When a relationship ends because of a breakup or a death. When it is for someone who is still in your life, writing can help you sort out your feelings, reflect on the impact they have had on you.
It helps you get perspective, and consider your words instead of acting or speaking impulsively. Often, we can feel things, when we write and then read our words out loud, that may have been too overwhelming to feel when an incident originally occurred.
List-making can help an anxious mind feel more in control or organized.
Writing as a Tool for Healing
Writing out clear intentions around what you are wanting to manifest or where you want to direct your attention is a way to connect with inner guidance. If you do this regularly, it’s also remarkable to look back 10 or 20 years from, at past journal entries or intentions and see what has transformed in your life, as well as where you may need to take a hard look at the fact that nothing has changed, and you are still in a situation that has not satisfied you for 20 years.
It’s a way to document your internal state, take your own pulse and be honest with yourself. How are you actually doing?
Regarding rituals, intention setting with friends is a way to be accountable and have kind witnesses help you hold what you are hoping to accomplish. This can look like calling something in or letting something go. There is power in writing down what you want to let go of on a slip of paper and transmuting it by burning it or writing on a leaf and burying it or throwing it in the ocean.
You can call something in by not only writing it down, but you can create a circle and each person gets to take their turn in the middle, maybe they want certain words said back to them (qualities their friends most appreciate), or they want physical support (hands on their back), of course, I’m a therapist and live in California, so that may be out of many people’s comfort level, but women’s circles are ancient and predate 70’s hippy circles
How can a handwritten card or letter help strengthen intimate bonds between friends?
People keep boxes of handwritten notes and cards for a reason. Their essence and love for you are captured for you to revisit and remember who you are when your own self-perception waivers. One of my best friends died exactly a year ago and I immediately regrated having thrown away any card she’d written me when I moved recently. We look to written documents as proof of the quality of a connection. Being vulnerable enough to share your heart through the written word is a gift.
How (if at all) have friendships changed or become more necessary during these past couple of years?
There is a phenomenon that many people experienced, that I like to call the COVID-reconnect, where ex’s and old friends you haven’t spoken to in years began calling as soon as quarantine began.
Friendships have been more important than ever. Especially with working from home, depending on the kind of work or if you are retired, people have been extremely isolated. Of course, depending on where someone falls on the extrovert or introvert spectrum, isolation is a relief or more of a challenge. Ultimately, we are pack animals and need contact with others. Some of us are highly self-reliant due to trauma and may not even realize how touch or contact deprived we are.
Many people created pods with their closest singles or couples and kids. Across the globe, we have been more interdependent on one another for support during illness, for educational purposes, or the latest COVID information.
If someone has simply drifted apart from a friend – no conflict or drama, just different life paths – how might she go about writing a Valentine to her friend, even if they haven’t been in touch for a while? Some people get so nervous about the distance that they just let it build up further. How might one begin such a card?
The unfortunate, unromantic reality is that as we age many friendships become more about convenience: how close does this friend live? Do they have play dates with your kids? Are you on a similar spiritual or academic path? Modern life is very full of endless distractions and demands on our time, and unless you intentionally carve out time to speak to friends in other countries or states, in different time zones, sometimes a loving card is the tenuous thread that connects you.
When reaching out to a friend you’ve lost touch with, first, acknowledge what is, name the distance and what has transpired in your life that created limited time to reach out. Also recall the connection the two of you shared, why it was meaningful, what you appreciate about them and what inspired the current reach out. Can history be enough to reconnect you or is there something that woke up in you or that has changed that has brought you closer to this friend’s path?
What are some things to consider when giving someone a handwritten card/loving gesture?
My view as a therapist, as well as in my personal life, is that beyond empathy, the expression of love, holding people in the truth of their wholeness, as well as praising the underappreciated qualities they may not see about themselves is healing. Of course, for some clients, being able to take in a single word of kindness is part of the work we do.
People giving loving cards to others need to remember not everyone has the nervous system capacity to receive gentleness or acknowledgments without getting very uncomfortable or shutting down. Writing is not a tool for healing for all. If this happens when you give someone a card remember it is not about you.
Many clients who come to me have had a mentally ill, Narcissistic, or borderline parent. This warps their self-perception. Often we dismiss or minimize compliments when they do not match up with our own self-judgment. People will trust a therapist’s opinion when other people’s words can’t get through.
As a therapist, I love getting cards from past clients letting me know how they are, how their life as evolved. I recently received a card from a client at the year’s end that shared what a difference our work together has made for her. The fact that she can express that lets me know where she is at around her attachment to me, her level of safety in the room, and how her healing is proceeding.
