Fire Breathing and the Anger Letter: Therapeutic Letter Writing Part 2

In last weeks blog I shared the experience one of my clients had in writing an Anger letter to release the pain from past experiences and find healing. Through the letter writing process the client was able to free herself from pain and past trauma and move forward towards health and healing. The client brought the Anger letter to group and the following is how we, as a group prepared and processed the letter. In an effort to prepare the entire group to hear the rage and hold the emotion coming from the reader, we started with a Fire Breathing activity. This type of breathing gets rage, anger and panic moving. I asked everyone in the group to imagine in detail a fire breathing animal of any kind. Detail is important. I asked them to really presence the animal by imagining themselves touching it, looking into its eyes to connecting with it, and then invited them to go to the place in their body where they might feel rage, anger, panic etc., and stick out their tongue and do breaths like fogging up glasses. We then imagined our breath rising from several layers deep below the earths surface, rising up through our legs and into our heart center, we then stuck out our tongue and did three breaths like we were fogging up glasses. We imagined breathing out fire, flames, heat, and smoke. We repeated this breath four or five times.

Once we raised the energy in our bodies and the room, the client read the Anger letter. As the client said, the letter was filled with rage, anger, language, and all the negative thoughts and feelings were put on paper and read allowed. Nothing was held back. Once the client finished reading the letter, the group talked about the pain each felt while the client was sharing. We held the clients anger and pain. When everyone was finished the client felt heard and accepted and talked about how it felt to have the pain accepted by the group. To return the group back to an emotional balance, we then did some Heart Breathing. This type of breathing allowed us to come back to our center and reintroducing love into the room. To do this, we imagined our Higher Power. Then, took in a deep breathe and imagined bringing the energy from our Higher Power into our bodies through the crown of our head and in to our heart center. We held this breath for the count of four and released the breathe from our heart center and toward the client who read the Anger Letter. Next, we imagined our breath rising up from the ground through our feet and simultaneously from our higher power above through the crown of our head and meeting at the crossroads of our heart. We imagined feeling our breathe fill our heart and holding it there for 4 seconds, then, exhaling out through our heart and sending breath to the client who just read the Anger letter. We repeated this four times. Giving voice through letter writing to deep seeded emotions allows us to release the emotions and thoughts that are connected to the emotions. We become free from the pain that held us and find resolution and peace. I would love to hear your comments/experience with therapeutic letter writing.