Why You Should Write Yourself a Love Letter

Reading Time : 4 minutes

It’s You, It’s All You

That time when you scraped your knees falling down a flight of stairs,
surrounded by an ocean of strangers but nobody bat an eyelash in your direction,
Who picked you up from down there?
When past paper questions had looked like
a manual on how to faint,
Who held you upright?
That time you broke down alone in your room
and the rivers down your cheeks dissolved into a heartache so glaringly silent
that it stole your speech away,
Who wiped your tears for you?
When it’s 4 am and you’re lying awake in bed,
trying to trace back the origin of where it all went wrong,
Who is there for you?

It’s you, it’s all you.
Of course, despite everything, it’s still you.
And I think that makes you so worthy of appreciation.

Dearest you,

When I was younger, I was utterly fascinated with astrology. I used to stare at the night sky for hours, trying to make out constellations I had read about in encyclopedias much thicker than the width of my own small wrist, but I was only ever able to see Orion’s Belt – the three stars that align themselves in a single straight line. Not too close, not too far.

I think what we’ve led too far into oblivion, as a society, is the custom of writing letters. Of not just wearing your heart on your sleeve but also encasing it within an envelope. To engrave its beats down on paper, while seeking a language that can express the same volumes as your heart speaks. Somehow, love flows easier on paper when it’s for other people. But when it comes to writing about ourselves with love, why do our hearts shrink back in fear of vanity and uncertainty?

“Loving yourself”, for André Gide, “isn’t vanity. It’s sanity.”

For me, writing myself a love letter was one of the most wonderful decisions I had ever made in my life. In fact, it felt so right to look at my reflection and attempt to see myself with the kind eyes of a stranger, a best friend, a parent, a lover – instead of the way society had conditioned me to.

Did you know that research indicates that nearly 80% of our self-talk is negative?
“I will never forgive myself for doing this.”
“I will always be a failure.”
Sound familiar?
But that isn’t how you would treat your most beloved person, would you? And what if I tell you that your most beloved person, who deserves the utmost kindness, in this scenario too, is just… you?

A self-written love letter can cultivate within you a deep sense of gratitude and self-awareness. It could be a long list of things you are grateful for – from the way your eyes have the power to hold the entire universe within them, to how your resilient personality has made you come this far in life. According to a 2012 study, “Grateful people experience fewer aches and pains and report feeling healthier, happier, and more optimistic than other people.”

Sometimes, it’s not possible for all of us to just flip on a “be happy” switch.

Sometimes, you can’t imagine ever being loved. You gaze into a mirror and you can’t fathom why anybody would ever use the word “beautiful” for your thick thighs and asymmetric curves. But before self-love, there comes self-acceptance. 

Push back the “I’m ugly” thoughts and replace them with:
“I’m alive. I am human. I’m my own person.” 

Instead of “my legs look awful”, write:
“I can feel the earth beneath me because of my feet.
My legs help me stand and walk and run.” 

Instead of “my hands are too fat”, write:
“these hands can hold, caress, type, write, bake, draw,
and give and give and give.”

Recognize that before you can see something as beautiful, you should realize how needed and valued it is.

Nobody knows what you need to hear as well as you do, so write it all.

Romanticize yourself. Compare your stretch marks to lightning strikes, perceive the scars on your hands as jaguar skin, and the moles on your face, all three in a straight line, that you think are mistakes, imperfections?

They are Orion’s Belt, the constellation that shines when no other star in the sky does. Even all the scars from your mistakes, make up your constellation, the radiance of which is unmatched.

There isn’t any defined formula to loving ourselves more – in fact, it’s rather difficult to place exactly how to go about it. Loving others seems natural and unquestionable, but it’s about time we re-invest back into ourselves, everything that we give out into the world. Above all, prove that, in the end, loving ourselves should be uncomplicated, unquestionable, unconditional, and unapologetic, too.

So perhaps, it all begins with writing yourself a love letter.

Start with something small – like your favourite notebook, a cup of well-made tea, an ordinary pen you have a particular liking to, and maybe your most-adored soft song playing in the background – and I assure you, your hands will guide you to write your heart out and away.

Write a love letter about yourself from the eyes of someone who loves you beyond measure. Someone who’d always be kind, and attentive, and observant. A person who knows things about you that you’ve never told anyone before, and you don’t need to – they just know, because they have loved you for a long, long, long time. Someone who’d be there for you through thick and thin. Except now, that someone is simply, truly, entirely, you.

And when you’re done, you’ll have more than just a letter.

You’ll have a set standard for how you’ll require the world to appreciate you too, because you’ll be aware of what you deserve. But most of all, you’ll have love, for your most beloved person.

Who, despite everything, is still you.

Who will always be you.


With love,
Ayesha.