Journaling: Writing a letter to your fear

In the grip of a heavy emotion, whether it’s a moment’s chaotic anger or an unsettling, unshifting, long-term feeling of fear, it can be hard to understand what its message is.

A strong emotion can overpower the senses, overtake our bodies, removing any ability to gain clarity. It feels like we are anger, we are doubt, we are fear. An emotion can take upon itself an identity that feels so inextricably merged with who and what we are that there is no perspective. 

Sometimes, we need to purposefully create distance to be able to process what it is we’re feeling. To be able to move forward instead of being frozen to the spot, as if we have been possessed by something we’re not entirely in control of.

What can help to process emotion

That’s where journaling comes in. It allows us to create that distance, to look at an emotion or a situation with new eyes. We can untangle ourselves from its sturdy grip and keep our present moment selves intact.

A technique I find helpful is to write a letter to the emotion you’re struggling to move past, be it fear or otherwise. It’s a practice that allows you to distance yourself from the emotion so that it doesn’t feel so all-consuming and overwhelming. You can stand on a more neutral outside, disconnect from it and gain clarity, a different perspective that allows you to be, well, less emotional. Instead of, ‘I am fear’, you can begin to objectively change it to, ‘I feel the emotion of fear.’

Writing your letter

Literally begin your letter,

Dear (insert emotion), 

and write freely, whatever comes up.

What do you want it to know?

What does it want you to know?

What do you want to tell it?

What do you want to ask it?

How does it make you feel?

Are you angry at it for being there or sad?

How is it holding you back?

Where do you feel that fear in your body?

What does that place in you need from you?

When you feel that fear, what are you believing?

Write with pen and paper or type on your laptop if, like me, sometimes it feels like your brain works faster than you can physically write. It doesn’t need to make sense, it’s not a hand-crafted letter on beautiful stationary to put in the post. It can be raw, messy, written with incorrect grammar. It’s whatever spills out.

It can be a process of emptying the emotion, freeing up all your thoughts around it to understand what’s really on your mind. Or it can be a process of letting go, of finally putting an emotion to rest to move forward.

Journaling as a form of cognitive and emotional processing is a well-researched topic and the benefits are many, from enabling you to manage stress and identify emotions to strengthening your immune system.

I’d love for you to give this particular journaling technique a try and see how your attachment to the emotion evolves as a result. I hope it helps you to understand your emotions and, if it’s what you’re craving for, move forward.

With love,

Suzi x

I share tips and techniques like this over on my Instagram, @trustandbloom_, I’d love for you to come and say hello and connect with me there. Or you can contact me about being one of my Coaching case studies.