We've been talking a lot about friendships:
→ When is it time to END the Friendship?
→ Are you in a Toxic Relationship?
and many, many more…
So, now, it's time to talk about what to do after the friendship breakup in order to take care of your own mental health care needs.
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GENTLE REMINDERS
For this exercise, I want you to write two different letters. But before you do, I want to put this disclaimer out there:
🚨This is not a letter to send to anybody.🚨
This is for your own mental health usage.
These letters are meant to help you gain insight, clarity, and healing. It is not meant to actually be sent to anybody. So, make sure that if you are doing this on a digital platform or even in a pen and paper notebook, that it's somewhere where you can either destroy the evidence or make sure it is not linked to the cloud.
I've had issues with teenagers before that, where they have written something that's meant to be private and suddenly, their sister has seen it and it's caused a huge amount of issues which could have been prevented and avoided had they just taken these precautions.
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RELEASE LETTER
Okay, so the very first letter that I want you to write is called a release letter.
In this letter, I want you to literally write a letter to the person releasing all your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and opinions about the situation and about what you wish was different- include anything that you wish that you could say to them.
Remember, this is NOT being sent to the person so you can let loose.
In my release letters, I tend to have a lot of anger and choice words. Your release letter might look a little bit different. These are things that I probably would never say to the person because it's mean, it's hurtful, it's vindictive, but it does feel really darn good to just release it and get it out.
In this letter, you're gonna go ahead and write a letter to the person releasing all your thoughts, your feelings, opinions, your experience, anything that you wish that you could say to them without any negative repercussions.
You're gonna imagine that when they receive this letter, they're going to completely understand and get your viewpoint.
Take a few moments and write your release letter now.
WELCOME BACK!
You are almost ready for part two. Before we get onto the second letter, I want you to reread your response letter. If you can actually read this out loud, that's really great because it cues another sensory experience while you are reviewing this exercise.
If you really wanna amplify it, read it to yourself looking in the mirror, it's pretty cool.
Notice how you feel as you are reading this letter, think about what in this letter is important to you, and if you would want to or need to communicate to somebody.
What's really great about a release letter is it can give you a little bit of clarity and guidance about what the important pieces of the information are that you wanna communicate to somebody if you so desire or choose to communicate.
You might not and I'll get to that in part two. But for now, this will give you a little guidance about the important parts, so you can take the intensity of the emotion out. You don't wanna take the emotion totally out of the letter or out of the communication because your emotions and your feelings are important, but you don't want it to be so intense or so loud that that's all that they're experiencing. You still wanna get that information out there.
RESPONSE LETTER
Now, you are ready for the second letter, and that is called a response letter.
A response letter is where you are writing a second letter responding to your first letter from that person's viewpoint.
You're not gonna actually consider how they would really respond. You're going to write it as though they were giving you the exact response that you needed to feel better or different about the situation.
Imagine that this person has received your original letter and they have totally gotten it, they are on the same page, and now they are giving you the response that you so desire.
Go ahead and write that letter now.
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WELCOME BACK!
I am so happy that you have written both of those letters.
You might be noticing a little bit of ease. You might be noticing some discomfort. These letters tend to bring out a few different emotional experiences.
Take some time with yourself and these letters as you need.
Now, you're ready for the next step, which is you're going to go ahead and reread through that response letter now.
Again, if you want to amplify it you can read your letters out loud or looking into a mirror. Some people who have actually recorded a voice memo and played it back to them, which is pretty interesting and cool.
So, get a little creative and fun with this, whatever you need to do.
HEAL + LET GO
As you are rereading that response letter, I want you to think about how that makes you feel and consider if this person is capable of such a response?
Maybe they are and they just haven't been informed that that's the kind of response you're looking for.
Or maybe you have tried to communicate this a few different times and you're like, "You know what? I got to cut my losses where they're at." And they're just not there yet.
It is NOT your job or responsibility to get them there!!
This is a huge misconception that I see over and over again with the teens that I work with. It is not your job to fix or up-level anybody, except for yourself and that's only if you want to. You are not even required to up-level yourself. Mind-blowing, right?
Okay, now that you have your release letter and your response letter, go ahead and read through them together and consider:
1. Does this make me feel any differently about myself?
2. Does this make me feel any differently about the situation?
3. Does this make me feel any differently about the person that I have written these letters to and from?
You want to also think about, is this important to communicate? What is the outcome that I'm trying to achieve here? Is it to repair or mend the friendship? Is it to make them hurt as badly as I hurt? Is this healthy or is this a toxic pattern that I'm engaging in?
You may decide after writing these release and response letters that you feel differently about the friendship and maybe you wanna give it one more go or perhaps it gives you a little more clarity and certainty that no, it was definitely time to end that friendship. Either way, this is a really emotional stuff.
I want you to, when you are totally done with these letters, go ahead and express gratitude and thanks for the information, and guidance, and clarity that they have given you and DESTROY them!
Go ahead and tear them up, rip them up. If we were in my office, I would have you shred them.
Destroy the Evidence.
Trust me, you will feel so much better, and get that head trash out, and you can make a room for some more goodness and healthy relationships in your life.
Now, this stuff is really hard and taxing on your emotional energy and focus and so, I wanna make sure that you are taking good care of yourself.
Whenever there is a friendship breakup, it is so important to take care of your self-care needs. So, if you need a little guidance with that, you can check out this video right over here: Wanna UPGRADE Your Mental Health? TRY These 10 Daily SELF-CARE Tips #WithMe
IF YOU ARE CONCERNED THAT YOU, OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW, MAY BE CONSIDERING KILLING THEMSELVES, PLEASE CONNECT THEM WITH HELP.
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