What I thought would be a simple Instagram post has grown to be bigger than me. I love how a thought can take on a life of its own!

This post is like a novella – probably will have just shy of enough words to be considered one, so for some of you, it will take a few sittings or will deter you from reading…it’s okay. I take no offense to anyone who moves on. I know that only those who need this message in some way will be able to digest it all, and will do so when the time is right.

In today’s post, I’m sharing about my “A Letter to an Older Me” project that has helped me heal tremendously in unexpected ways over the past weeks. I hope you will enjoy the lessons I’ve learned from this exercise and consider doing it yourself. Whether you are living it up and enjoying life or are yearning for change, you may surprise yourself with what you come up with as you write.

As I celebrate Christmas with my family starting this afternoon, it’s fitting that I finished this post in time to post it today. I’ll be celebrating this Christ’s birth this year from a place of honor for Him and thankful for the healing this exercise brought me. It’s my faith and belief in Him that keeps me going when life is tough and things don’t make sense. I’m thankful to live in a country where I can choose which faith to believe in, and that I get to walk with Him each day without facing persecution for doing so.

In this post, I am going back to my EyesStraightAhead.wordpress.com blogging roots: The kind where I talk with you like you are sitting here with me having guacamole and chips. It’s how blogging became a thing, and something I haven’t done as much of since sunsetting Eyes Straight Ahead.

Grab a drink and some food, and then settle in if you like that style. Otherwise, you can skip down to the letters for the main show.

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TRIGGER WARNING:

For those who have suicidal ideations or thoughts, this post may be triggering. In it, I talk about and allude to suicide and suicidal ideations. If you are struggling, my hope is that this post will speak to that darkness within you that no longer wants to live and give you hope that things CAN turn around. I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But I know if you keep going, get the help (dial 988 to have someone to talk with) and support you require, and trust others to walk this life with you, there will be a day you can do this same exercise and thank yourself for sticking through it.

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The Background

This project started with an Instagram post I wrote while preparing for AlchemistPoetry‘s Project 11:11, in which poets from around the world came together and each shared 11 minutes of poetry, encouragement, and reflection to promote suicide awareness and possibly save a life.

Every 11 minutes someone in the US commits suicide? Reflect on that for a moment. During the time you invest in reading this blog post, several people will have ended their lives. It’s why this exercise is so important to me. There is so much to live for; to identify it, we have to tap into the right parts of our brain and memory to find them.

As I prepared for what to say during my 11 minutes, I thought of how thankful I am to my 12-year-old self that she didn’t give up on life when she wanted to. While I wrote two years ago about what I would say to my younger self at a few ages, I realized I wasn’t done with that exercise after all and wrote her a poem within the Instagram post.

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Poem: Dear 12-Year-Old Me

I know no one’s told you lately that they love you,
that they want to see you flourish,
to reach new heights.

I know no one’s told you lately that you don’t have to be all the things,
that you only need to be a young girl,
that you only need to be you.

I know no one’s told you lately that you matter,
that you are here for a reason,
and that one day you will do things you never thought possible.

I also know today you’ve been things no child should have to hear,
that you’ve been beaten and battered,
and now you feel beyond repair.

But I want you to know that your life has value beyond this moment and time.
That you can be a child and enjoy this innocence.
That the pain will one day become a platform you stand tall upon
as you help others not feel what you feel in this moment.

Your life means more than you know.
And you are the one many want to know.
Stick around so you can meet them.

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From there, I thought communication with younger me was complete. But that would be too easy for me! As much as I love to talk, I really love to listen to what others have to say and what’s going on in their lives. It’s only natural that the idea to listen to what my younger self wanted to say to me would be the next progression in this exercise.

The Idea

A few weeks after sharing the poem, I was playing around with Adobe Firefly again. As I was creating artsy images of the universe, I started to think about what my younger self would say to me today.

What would I say if I were writing a letter from my younger self at the ages of 12, 16, and 20 to me today?

If I gave myself time to tap into who I was then, what would I want to say to me? What would I write and what would the tone be?

I was about to find out.

The Process

If you’ve been following me on my creative lifestyle blog, or if you know me in from my days of blogging on Eyes Straight Ahead – The Journey Home, you know that I don’t do linear well. I seldom walk a straight line and relate well to little Billy from Family Circus in taking the looooonnnggg path from here to there.

Instead of writing what I was thinking about write away, I instead thought about the idea for a few days and pondered it in my head.

I scribbled some thoughts and recorded a few voice memos, but I wasn’t ready to sit down yet with a pen and paper because I was honestly a little afraid of realizing I’d failed myself. More on that in the discussion I share after the letters when I talk about how they helped me to heal and change my mindset.

About a week or so later, through a spontaneous conversation on the Go-Giver Success Alliance I am part of, I was invited to The Writer’s Library, a collective for writers. In their time together over video, they spend an hour writing and then a half hour or so talking about what they wrote and sharing tips, ideas, and feedback with one another.

An hour on screen where others will be able to see me stare into space, make mental notes, and call it “writing”?

I said “yes” and joined the group.

I logged in the morning of the group excited to join other writers and finally make progress on some of my unfinished projects (and there are SO MANY of them). But as I looked through the camera at the others, I thought, “Does one type on the keyboard while staring straight into the screen while on camera?” Would that be weird as I change my facial expressions while I work on my novel and sometimes laugh, sometimes cry, sometimes wonder what the heck I was thinking last time I opened it? I realized I needed something a little less intimidating for my first time with them so I could see what they did and how they engaged with one another during this time first.

I decided to go with what I am more comfortable with and bless the group with a lack of facial expressions and a steady view of my scalp during the hour by writing in my notebook instead. And I knew just what I would work on.

The letters from my younger self.

The Result: Letters to 50-Year-Old Me

My drafts surprised me because my pen and mind took a different route to this project.

As I started to write from my 12-year-old point of view to me, I realized that I was not in a space to write to myself exactly as I am today. I am too close to it and haven’t been feeling my best about life and the decisions I’ve made or my status in it, so I was interjecting thoughts based upon what I thought I needed to hear in this moment versus what I would have said to me back then. Honestly, when have you ever heard a 12-year-old give advice about life to a 46-year-old?

So I backed up, and thought, “What if I chose a milestone age that is close but still far enough away that I can’t predict what life will be like or what I will be feeling?”

I decided to write to myself at 50 instead of today.

For each letter, I tapped into journal entries, what was going on in my life at that time, and what I would have thought about being 50 when I was that age.

And I let the pen flow.

I didn’t give myself any boundaries for this exercise, but as I began to write again from my 12-year-point of view I decided I was going to let the pen flow with HOPES for what I would be at 50 instead of advice or encouragement. I also chose to write from the angle of sitting down on my birthday to write this letter, as if there would be a book of the written and read each year.

And the results surprised me!

More on that after we read the letters.

Now another warning for those of you have been reading this. The letters get a bit heavy and allude to suicide, so again please understand if you are dealing with suicidal thoughts or ideations you may want to come back to this in the future or read it with your therapist present.

I desire for you to be safe more than I desire for you to read my words. If you do keep reading, it’s okay to jump to how this helped me heal or even jump to the end to see how I’m going to move forward applying what I’ve learned. Whatever will help you to see the good that exists in this life while you work through the stuff you are facing that is causing you to struggle.

(If you’re reading this on a phone, or have eyes like mine, and need some bigger print, jump here (bottom of the post) to read the four letters. You can then use the anchor at the bottom to jump back up here to catch the last sections that discuss what I learned from the project.)

Letter 1: From 12-Year-Old Me

Letter 2: From 17-Year-Old Me

Letter 3: From 30-Year-Old Me

Letter 4: From 46-Year-Old Me

A Moment to Take a Breath

How are you doing? What did that bring up for you in your own life and how you think about where you are today? What would your younger you say to you? I’d truly love to read your thoughts. I have already talked with some of you about this exercise and loved the different ways we’ve seen how it could go and what you’d say. Tag me on IG or link to this post in your blog post if you write something. I will read all the ones I know about because I am really interested in how others heal or grow through this experience.

For me, it took a turn I didn’t expect as I began writing. It was like seeing myself write these letters and hearing the despair of my 12-year-old and 17-year-old self, and then seeing my 30-year-old provide some hope even though I know what we were going through in that moment, led me to feeling like things will be okay in this moment.

When I began this exercise, I wasn’t in the best space in my mindset – I’d been focusing on lack instead of being thankful for what was in front of me. I’d been focusing on the pain and stress, everything that has been going wrong, and not the things that are going right. But this exercise brought a deep healing within me that has led to the past two weeks being the best of the year.

How this Exercise Helped Me Heal

In hopes of helping someone going through, I can tell you that the last two years have knocked me down to the point I’d given up on myself prior to last month. I’ve been in fight or flight for most of my life. Survival versus thriving is the space where I’ve spent so much of my life. Even when things were good on the outside looking in, inside I have been fighting for my life (literally my body fights against itself every day). It takes a toll on a person to always have something wrong.

I went into this exercise feeling like a failure. As if I was never going to see any of my dreams come true because there have been so many broken promises, unmet expectations, and unfulfilled hopes within the past four years. But as I read back communication with my inner circle, poetry and notes I have laying around the apartment, and reflected on what my younger selves went through to get me here today…

Dang!

In the last month, I have been spending more time connecting with people who I know are able to pour into me the way I’ve poured into others. Writing this–and understanding for the first time in a long time how truly resilient I am–helped me to change how I was seeing things and allowed me to see all of the good that has happened this year. It’s been literally the best and worst year in a long time. A cave season in which I know that what’s next will be amazing AND during which I’ve wondered if I am going delusional in thinking so!

In the last two weeks since writing this, I’ve attended workshops and met with new coaches to ensure I can step into my next in a powerful and mighty way. I am excited to step into it and be able to share with you all the lessons I’ve learned in the past four years. There have been some serious career learnings, faith developments, and a deeper understanding of the Bible and how we apply it to our lives versus how we are told through motivational sermons to look at life.

I love a good motivational sermon, but I’ve realized that listening to so many that have motivation wrapped in scripture instead of scripture wrapped in motivation has led to me becoming complacent in some areas that I should have been standing stronger.

As I stepped back and considered the letters from my younger self, and how I would have seen 50 at those ages, I realize that very few of the thoughts were around career when it came to success. The things I have looked down on myself for, others have esteemed me for because from the outside it looks very different than it feels inside.

This was an eye-opening realization for me.

As I went through the letters, talked with a couple of friends who have walked with me through what’s felt like a big mess and who know the full situation but also see it from the outside perspective, I realized that while I am over here kicking myself beyond any of the abuse I endured prior to 31, others have been praying to be in my shoes. In fact, in my earlier years and even up until last year, I prayed for some of the things I am sitting in right now!

It’s an interesting paradox that when we are in a season that feels hard, we want to get to the next one. Then we long for what was and what will be while missing out on what’s in front of us.

At 12 and 17, I didn’t honestly think I’d make it to see 18 or 21. I knew if I did live that long, I’d be in jail or in a real bad way. Instead, I had a baby at 17, months before my high school graduation, and I changed the path for my life. I decided to make changes that took a lot of courage. While that didn’t solve the struggles or remove the abuse from my life, I learned to find healthy ways to relieve my pain and stress and started toward a healthier future.

From 21-31, I didn’t think I’d live because I was pretty sure one day I would die by the same hands that were supposed to love me. I was sure that one night I would fall asleep and never wake up, or that one argument would go too far. Thankfully, someone else made the decision to stop that from happening and I’ve lived my last 15 years without abuse, the first years I’ve been free from it since I was 11.

To those versions of me, success wasn’t a dollar value or a housing location. It wasn’t about how I looked, what weight I was, or anything else. It was as simple as:

Success means being alive.

That was a huge reminder for me that I can’t look at my position in this world or what I have or where I live as a means for knowing if I am where I should be. It was a reminder that despite all the prosperity messages (which have their place) and motivational talks (which also have a space), I need to get to the roots of who I am and what is before me for the day, not judge myself based upon what society has taught me I should look like or have attained by now. It wasn’t enough to just stop remembering tomorrow. I need to also finally release yesterday; to stop trying to make up for my past and prove I am not what everyone early in my life said I would be.

Embracing Younger Me. Join me.

To wrap this up, as I was creating the AI illustrations with Adobe Firefly, I caught something that made my heart melt.

Look at the pictures above, for which I was trying to get it to show the past versions and current version of the same person standing together. Notice their body language with one another?

I’ve felt like such a failure for so long that I had lost touch with my younger me. I wasn’t embracing her. I think I’ve spent most of my adult life disliking how I lived my younger years so I’ve been trying to distance myself from younger me and keep her in a dark corner of my being. But a prior therapist shared with me that a healthy person makes the transition from childhood through adulthood with more of a baton handling – like passing it with intention.

That’s what the postures above made me think of. A healthy transition from childhood to adulthood.

If you’ve been hurting and have been feeling let down, you may also feel like you have failed. This exercise and the images above show me something I’ve never seen before:

We can only let ourselves down when we place false expectations on ourselves
to become something we have no knowledge we will ever be.

You see, if we live our life knowing that we are doing our best every day with the tools in our hands and the resources at our feet, then we can’t fail. We can never be better than we are in this moment if we are letting our head hit the pillow knowing we’ve given our all.

On my worst day, I have given my best to everything I do. So I cannot be a failure even if I want to tell myself that.

And you can’t either.

If you do this exercise, embrace your younger you in each stage of life just like this image above shows. I love that she has her arm around her and is holding her younger self close. I believe for the first time in my life, my younger me AND this current me feel safe together and are in alignment with my purpose for the future. I truly feel like fight or flight may be a thing of the past because I was finally able to let go of false expectations and realize it’s time to release yesterday and be in this moment, right now.

Thanks for joining me as I shared with you about this journey. I know this style of writing and blogging isn’t for everyone, so I appreciate those of you who stuck around because you wanted or needed to read it.

You aren’t alone. And whatever you are going through, someone out there has walked it before. Let’s all lean into learning this next year and growing in our ability to handle let down, rise above defeat, and survive loss without crumbling.

Until next time,

~Shell

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Suicide Awareness & Prevention Resources

• National Hotline: 988
• CDC Preventing Suicide PDF

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_{Image note: All images in this post were created with Adobe Firefly. Some were then edited with Canva to fit the blog spacing.}

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12-Year-Old Me Letter Text

Dear Senior Me,

Hahaha. Can you read this? Are you even still alive?

I am really asking that…like do we make it to 50? If so, happy birthday! Half a century, huh? Have we lived a good life? I can’t even imagine…

Oh my goodness…did we become an Aeronautical Engineer?!

I am really stuck on whether we’re alive… whether we made it through all of this and chose to stick it out or if we finally succeeded in leaving this world. I can’t imagine another 38 years like this. But I feel like I know us enough to know that it will always be something we fail at because deep down we want to see if we get to be the hero in our story.

I have so many questions I want to ask you but since I won’t really get to know the answers right now, let me stick to the point: what do I hope for you, for us?

I hope that you’re alive.
I hope that you’re smiling.
I hope that you’re doing what you love.
I hope you have friends who you love and who love you back.
Real friends. The kind you can laugh and cry with. Writers… people who get you.

Most of all, I hope you’re changing the world for the better. And that you’re doing it from a log cabin by a lake, or a deck overlooking the ocean.

Oh… my… goodness… Did we figure out how to live on Mars yet? What’s the equivalent of those locations on Mars? Are you reading this from there? Or from a space house overlooking the rings of Saturn…now that would be cool!

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope that you have found a way for our pain to heal and that you’re passing those secrets on to others so children no longer have to feel pain.

Happy birthday old lady!

17-Year-Old Me Letter Text

I feel like writing this is futile but I’m here and we both know I’ll write anything to anyone who will listen.

You have to be alive to listen though. Are you alive? Are you still hanging in there? I am sure you are since nothing seems to work…and honestly as I write this I guess I will be a little sad to learn something does… I still have this silly hope that we do better than everyone says we will. That we come to a point where we make people smile, not cry.

Does that happen? Does it get better?

I hope so because this baby that I just learned is within me is going to need us to make it… I hope I can find a way to change so you have a good future. That I find some way to believe there is more and better.

I sit here wondering if that happens…are you reading this from a cell or from a place I can’t imagine at this time in my life? Somewhere sunny and beautiful. Somewhere that you’re wanted and loved for who you are not what you do for people?

Do you make people smile? Do you make them laugh? Do you tell stories that move them?

If you are alive and you are reading this, I hope you never stop writing. I can’t believe that I ever will. But I don’t know what we are going to do or if we will survive what’s happening. I hope that you become all that Mrs. Leivers, Mrs. Galbraith, and Nana seem to have seen in us.

Do we ever see what they see?

I hope that you are alive, smiling, and surrounded by people who really love you – and I don’t mean prison guards who think your pretty or like the way you make them laugh.

I hope you’ve found a way to express pain without hurting our body or future. A way that doesn’t bring harm to others or leave us with regrets in the morning.

We endure right? I hope so and that you have healed so you can love others.

30-Year-Old Me Letter Text

Hey Lady,
It’s funny how old 50 seems until you are closer to it.

How are you doing? How does it feel to make it to 50? Remember when we didn’t think we would even make it to 18? Here we are at 50…

Do we make it through this mentally well or is this where we fall apart? We’re pregnant with twins and we aren’t doing well health wise. If you are reading this, it means we figured out what’s wrong and why we are sick all the time and struggling really badly to gain weight.

Do the babies make it this time? So many questions I have about what happens to our life, our marriage, our kids. How many more foster kids have we taken in? Are we surrounded by them in a home filled with laughter and love; or does it go the other way and things go back to how they were?

I can’t help myself from wondering if you read this as a married woman or as a single woman. It’s still so new to be happy and feel okay with life. To think there could be a reality in which we are healed and don’t experience any type of abuse? It’s been a good few months but we both know things change so I am thankful for each day we smile.

My hopes for you… it’s so weird to write to you later in life instead of earlier… let’s see:

*I hope you’re reading this in a safe place free of all types of abuse.
*I hope you’re celebrating that you made it this far…you’ve come through this life with hopefully only the same scars we have in this moment.
*I hope that you’ve learned to draw from the strength of the dark nights and see the joy in each new morning.
*I hope that you have found a way to enjoy the moment for what it is, instead of always trying to get ahead of it and plan for what’s next. That you’ve learned to be present in a fully Christlike way where people around you know you are invested in them and that you are allowing them to invest in you.
*I hope that you are loved in a way that doesn’t require “I’m sorry” or “I will change” and that you love in a way that comes from deep within instead of from your defenses.

Happy birthday beautiful lady.

46-Year-Old Me Letter Text

Hey lady!

50… dang! We made it to a half a century. Are you smiling? I hope so.

It’s been a shaky half but we made it through and if health doesn’t take us out, then we should be celebrating that we made it this far.

It’s so easy to dismiss how far we’ve made it because of how far we want to go. But today, I looked back at the letters before today and I realize: We are going to be okay. We are going to conquer the current battles so the last half of this life can be a true celebration of resilience, perseverance, and faith.

Between Nana passing on this month and the year we’ve had, it would be easy to think that things are more of the same for you now and that we are silly for thinking it gets better. But I ask myself: So what if we believe for better and do the work to get there and it doesn’t get better? Isn’t the effort and the way we love along the way the point?

I don’t know what happens in the next four years. So I am unsure what frame of mind you have as you read this or what commitments you have, but I know that we have so many things we can celebrate and hang our hat on. (Did you buy an old fashioned coat stand yet so we can actually hang hats on one?)

I hope you are in a space you enjoy, surrounded by people you love and who love you, doing what you love and feel fulfilled by, and enjoying each day in such a way that if it were your last you it would be okay because you have lived the heck out of life!

Happy birthday lady… You’ve got this because He has you!

Jump back to the upper area of the blog post for A Moment to Take A Breath, where I wrap up and share what the project taught me.

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