How To Change Your Life With Love Letters To Yourself

With help from Elizabeth Gilbert and me

Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash

Do you find it difficult to love yourself? If so, you’re not alone. Self-love is challenging for many people, including me. The idea of writing a love letter to yourself may seem strange, but Elizabeth Gilbert and I (and lots of other people) have embraced it. We have found writing loving words to ourselves incredibly helpful, and believe that you will too.

I wrote an in-depth article about my never-ending self-love journey in a previous issue. (January 13, 2023). Paid subscribers can read the full archived post here; this is an excerpt from it:

Accept My unconditional love. Believe it. Revel in it. Let Me help you change your negative beliefs about yourself …

Let Me transform your mind and your life. You were never meant to do it on your own, and you are not alone! I am with you always. …

Know that you are loved regardless of what you do or fail to do. … My wish for you is that you fully recognize the truth of that. I want you to see yourself and every part of you as sacred and valuable and worthy of love.

And

Elizabeth Gilbert

just started her “Letters From Love” Substack newsletter, which I immediately subscribed to and highly encourage you to check out! Here’s a quote she shared from one of her own love letters:

I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long. I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it — I will love you through that as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you.

I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness, and nothing will ever exhaust me.

You can find that quote, watch a video she recorded, and read more about why she started her newsletter in the first issue of it here. It includes a second love letter, written by

Suleika Jaouad

, who also has a wonderful Substack newsletter.

Here’s a more detailed look at the way I write love letters to myself, and additional excerpts from some of those letters.

I write in my journal every morning. Sometimes I feel led to ask this question: “Love, what do you want me to know or do today?” Then I write the response I get from an inner voice of love and wisdom that I rarely hear. It often gets drowned out by other far less loving voices, but it is always there. When I listen hard enough, I can hear it.

Love says things like this to me:

No one is perfect, so why do you still think you need to be, or at least must constantly strive to be as good as possible? You are good enough now. You always were, you just didn’t know it because others whose approval you desperately sought reinforced the message that you needed to do better. Let those destructive messages go. They’re not true. …

You are loved. Those critical voices can’t destroy your life unless you listen to them above your higher, wiser self who knows your true worth and appreciates you for who you are now, not who you think you have to be.

Love also reminds me that it’s not selfish or arrogant to love myself; it’s actually essential and helps me love others. Love tells me true love doesn’t have to be earned, and is kind and forgiving. Love wants me to show that kind of love to myself:

Fully accept and embrace who you are - all of you, not just the parts you consider good or worthy of love and admiration. You are beautiful and lovable in your entirety. Never forget that or let anyone convince you otherwise. …

Love yourself unconditionally and do whatever you choose to do from that place of love instead of fear. You don’t overcome feelings of inadequacy by doing more when you think you can never do enough. You overcome your feelings of shame and unworthiness by remembering that you are more than enough now and choosing to love yourself no matter what you do or fail to do.

You don’t need anyone else’s love to validate the idea that you are lovable. Just accept that truth you know deep inside.

Now it’s your turn. I hope you’ll try writing your own letter and let me know how it goes. If you’re brave enough to share your love letter in the comments, I’d love to read it. Your letter may include words of love that others need to hear, too.

It’s also totally understandable if you can’t bring yourself to write, much less share, a love letter to yourself. Before I wrote my first one, I had to explore why self-love was so hard for me. I wrote “I love myself” at the top of the page and then wrote all of the reasons that was not true. I wrote about my emotional reaction to the idea of loving myself.

The title of the archived article I mentioned earlier was, “Self-love is a Never-Ending Journey.” My experience has been that some days I am better at loving myself than others. It’s a skill that requires ongoing practice. But it’s well worth the effort and I think you’ll discover, as I have, that it gets easier over time.