Letter-writing prompts

A Letter of Forgiveness

A letter of forgiveness is a letter you write to someone who hurt you, or to yourself, about something you are ready to set down. It does not say that what happened was fine. It does not promise a friendship, a phone call or a fresh start. It is simply a place to put into words what you carry and what you would like to stop carrying.

People write these letters for many reasons. Some want to name a hurt clearly before they let it go. Some are working toward forgiveness slowly and want to see how far they have come. Some need to forgive themselves for a choice they still think about at night. You can forgive part of something and not the rest, and you can write the letter long before you feel finished.

This letter never has to be sent. You can keep it in your journal, tear it up, or read it again in a year. It belongs to you, and so does the pace.

How to write it

  1. Decide who the letter is for, whether that is another person or yourself, and write their name or "Dear me" at the top.
  2. Describe what happened in plain words, as much or as little as you want to put on the page.
  3. Write honestly about how it affected you, including the parts that still feel heavy or unresolved.
  4. Name what you are choosing to release, and what you are not ready to release yet.
  5. Close the letter in a way that feels true to you today, even if that means saying this is as far as you can go for now.
  6. Put the letter somewhere you choose, and take a short walk or a quiet moment before you move on with your day.

Prompts and sentence starters

  1. The thing I have been carrying is...

  2. What do you most want this person, or your younger self, to understand about how it felt?

  3. I am not saying what happened was okay. I am saying...

  4. What has holding on to this cost you in your everyday life?

  5. If I forgive you, it does not mean...

  6. What part of this are you ready to set down, and what part do you still need to keep for now?

  7. When I think about who I was back then, I want to tell myself...

  8. What boundaries do you want to keep, even as you write about forgiving?

  9. Something I wish I had known at the time is...

  10. How would you like to feel the next time this memory comes to mind?

  11. I am giving myself permission to...

  12. What would you want to remember if you read this letter again a year from now?