Letters to the Self. Taylor.
Taylor shares below a powerful journey of creative and personal exploration, self compassion and gratitude. Questioning and supportive self-reflections through letter writing enabled Taylor to challenge many negative thought patterns and examine her feelings. This genuine sharing of her daily practice and intentions of self-compassion through writing and art will resonate with many, and be a gentle gift (and reminder) for much needed self-care moments..
Thank you for sharing your heartfelt and meaningful art project Taylor. The ripples of universality in your personal experiences are shared here for others to consider. They will touch those of us trying to establish much needed self-care moments, revisit challenging thoughts, and support resiliency as these worrisome, disruptive and emotionally weighted Pandemic times continue to impact us.
A Daily Practice.
Body dysmorphia creeps up on you. One day, you look in the mirror, and what you see staring back somehow doesn’t fit or make sense. You become more judgmental, more hateful and spiteful towards the image reflecting back. My encounter with body dysmorphia is something I identify very closely with my shadow, and therefore, as something I need to confront and work to integrate into my self. Its intensity ebbs and flows dependent on my levels of anxiety and depression. I had, until now, pushed these feelings aside, trapped them deeper and deeper into my unconscious mind, quieted them with platitudes and distractions. That is, until I was introduced to self-compassion and gratitude.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I started a brief gratitude project using images. I have continued this gratitude practice daily, through writing and mindfulness in nature. I decided that it would be helpful to introduce a self-compassion and self-love practice into my daily life because I had noticed a significant change in my outlook while practicing gratitude.
I decided writing a letter to the self, every day, identifying 3 things I love or appreciate about myself, would be the best method for this practice. The day before my birthday, I started this practice. Immediately in the morning, I would write myself a letter from my own point of view. I treated the process like a ritual: mindfully meditating on the things I appreciate about myself before writing; exploring these thoughts through writing; creating an inviting and beautiful appearance on the envelope or front of the letter and finally; reading it back to myself. Hand to heart, I would take three deep breaths after reading the letter back to myself, and allow myself to really hear and feel the words and their meaning.
Each letter would then be added to a pile, separated by month. As the days wore on, and the months passed, the piles of letters grew. I would wake each morning with excitement, a fresh opportunity to point out things about myself that I otherwise would overlook, or dismiss. I was giving myself the space to really call attention to things about myself that I love. The letters I wrote started out containing words of affirmation that I didn’t yet believe. They were almost pleading “believe me, believe me”! The points of insecurity were obvious: they showed up over and over again. Until one day, there was a shift. From “dear you” to “dear I, dear Taylor” it became more intimate, more realistic. I started to speak to myself not as if I were speaking to an other, but I was really speaking to myself, about myself. The letter that marked this change started with “Good morning beautiful, have you noticed and heard the kind things you have been saying about yourself? Do you believe them? I am so deserving of each and every word.” The letter went on to list and name what I appreciated about myself, but that change was significant. The process started to feel more intimate, more significant.
The letters that preceded this letter are just as significant and important: these steps needed to be taken before I could get to the point where I was able to speak to myself as myself. If I jumped in right away, and did not have the distance offered by the “you” language, I may not have continued the process. Maybe the process would have felt contrived or forced in some way. From that day forward, my letters developed into more conversational pieces. Reading them back started to feel less like validation or affirmation and more like “well of course that’s true, thanks for reminding me.”
I took this daily practice with me for 365 days, until my birthday the following year. I gifted them back to myself and mindfully read through each and every letter as a final celebration of myself. I paid special attention to the words and how they felt hearing them now, a full year later. Like the gratitude practice I started, this letter writing process grew into something much more intimate than I ever thought it would.
Once I had finished reading all the letters, letting the words wash over me once more, I created a layered collage and framed it. In art therapy the “frame” becomes a container, a holding space – and it elevates the art piece. The frame I chose is gold, because I wanted the collage to catch my eye as I walked past: to be a beacon of light reaching out into the rest of the room asking for my attention, and when the sun hits it just right it glows like a pulsing reminder that herein lie words of love and acceptance for you by you.
The layering process of letters was a mindful acknowledgement of the nuanced landscape of my inner world, and the scaffolding which took place throughout the process: beginning with you statements, ending with I, and working towards an integration of all pieces and words shared. The words repeat, the themes and the style of embellishment repeat throughout the letters almost like a heartbeat. Mindfully attending to these words creates a rippling echo: you send them out into the ether and when they resound back they envelope you in a warm, compassionate embrace. These are the intimate words that are for me and me alone. I know what was said, and I know how impactful these words have been. The intention to hide the words of the letters from view is simply to ensure their intimacy remains intact. The words become embodied in the totality of the collage, and when I see it hanging proudly on the wall, these words come flowing back.
The top layer of the collage faces viewers like an invitation. Each piece was chosen specifically as a way to reflect the internal messages in a visual. The moon and the sun are the anchors: the anima and animus in perfect balance and harmony. The wax seals and dried flowers placed throughout the collage reflect a potential personal growth from the contents of the letters, and a locking or sealing in of the contents: let these words seep into the soil and bear new fruit. In the centre of the collage is a line from a favourite poem by W.B. Yeats “Aedh wishes for cloths of heaven”: I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” A message to my self and all viewers who come across the collage. The dream of self-love and acceptance is rushing forth to waking life and seeking to be a reality. Chapter six: included here because of the quote about the queen bee, and also to indicate a new beginning, a new chapter about to start. Jung suggests that the number six is a combination of both male and female, even and odd, and represents creation and evolution (Jung, 1959). This is significant for me because of the presence of anima and animus already represented through the moon and the sun; the apparent wholeness and integration of these parts represented through the number six and; the idea behind creation and evolution solidifies the need and possibility to create love and acceptance for my self, and to evolve through this process and propel forward with love and acceptance at the forefront of my mind.
This letter writing process was an intimate, at times difficult one. One that I would encourage anyone willing and ready to face their shadow to embark on. I chose a whole year, in part because I wanted to gift myself a treasure trove of compassion, and in part because wholeness feels necessary in all things I do. A whole year is not necessary for this practice; I believe following your own natural flow and embarking on a journey that mirrors your own needs will be the most beneficial/
Connect • Follow Taylor.
Taylor Bourassa • DTATI RP (Qualifying) and Professional Art Therapist
Instagram. @wellnessgrovetherapy
Website. wellnessgrovetherapy.com
Upcoming Dream Group Facilitated by Taylor.
At the end of February Taylor started a dream group where she will be inviting participants to explore their dreams and their potential meanings with art, narrative, free association and active imagination. Here is the registration link for more information.