Letter Writing as a Spiritual Practice

Everyone knows the Golden Rule, we all know gossip, judgment and stereotypes only harm and alienate us from each other and the One-ness, but unfortunately those things are part of our society. It’s a struggle for a lot of us to break away from those bad habits and see everyone as the beautiful Spiritual beings they are, instead of the human exterior we might not feel so similar to. 

I’ve mentioned before how I joined a pen-pal community while I was undergoing chemo (read here) and how much they helped me get back into a fun, creative life. The community is incredibly inclusive, safe and kind. And it’s not uncommon to stumble upon a conversation in our forums or twitter/slack about how we all wish our “real life” friends or people we encounter were more like the people we’ve “met” in this group. I constantly found myself agreeing with this, and I’m still trying to meet more of these great girls in person, but I hadn’t stopped to ask why we feel this way. How come everyone at the IGGPC can be such amazing human beings? And how are we able to show more of who we really are openly amongst members of the group but then we have to operate under other rules with our “Real life friends?” 

Studying in what can be considered a mystical school, doing my homework on bettering myself and dealing with classes all about matters of Spirit rather than ego, it hit me! 

The friendships formed over letters are pure soul connections with no ego or prejudice. You don’t know how that person you’re writing to looks like, how their living space is, what socio-economical class they “belong” to, what religion they practice, nothing! You just put your trust in the goodness of the world, knowing that they’re looking for a friend too, and you slowly start knowing each other by all the things you have in common, by the generosity of their packages and dedication to their beautiful letters. You get to know the real person on the inside because lets face it, it’s always easier to be open about your quirks and/or issues over a letter where you can compose your thoughts than in person where you don’t know how they’re going to react. 

You learn to care about these people who are open and loving before you ever know how they look like, what their families are like, etc. And by the time you do see them (even if it's just pictures or Skype,) your soul cares about their soul, the rest doesn’t matter. 

Thanks to the type of inclusive communities you get to see friendships without labels and across the entire planet. If it was a high school it would look something like a goth with a prep, a freshman with a senior, a Dragon cosplayer nerd with a Disneybounder, and it doesn’t matter! We all become one! It’s all about spreading love and cheer to one another and get that wave of happiness growing throughout the world.

I’ve made one of my (now) best friends this way, and we probably wouldn’t have become friends if we had met in person first, I'm more of a snob and tattoos can turn me off from people (I'm working on removing these behaviors.) But now my life is so much better because I know her. So it made me realize, pen-paling isn’t just a hobby, or and old school activity, it really is a gateway to true soul connections. 

It gives us something to think about, especially if you’re in any sort of pen pal community, if we can trust in the goodness of others and not judge them and connect with their essence, why don’t we do that more often with the people we actually see around us everyday? 

I propose we all try to see beyond the masks we put forth to cope with the world and beyond our limiting prejudices and try to think of everyone as if we were to be pen-pals with them ;)

Of course that doesn’t mean if someone is harmful to us we still keep them around, we just “don’t write back” but there’s no need to badmouth, gossip or judge. ;)

So thank you to all my IGGPPC friends out there and other communities like OTSP Secret Sister Project, SnailMail-Ideas and Mail a Smile for encouraging community, generosity and creativity and for, without even knowing it, creating a daily Spiritual practice by reconnecting us to our hearts <3