Love Letter to Myself

Plum Village recently hosted a “Nourishing our Roots – Young Asians in the West” retreat in which one of the workshops was the challenge of writing Love Letters to Oneself. Here two retreatants share their hearfelt letters.

During this recent retreat in early June 2025, 41 retreatants with ancestral roots in Vietnam, China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Malaysia, and India (amongst others) gathered together to share a profound journey of practice and connection, sharing their joys, challenges, intergenerational traumas, suffering, pride, successes, insights, and transformations.

It was a week of deep listening and sharing courageously and vulnerably from the heart: learning the art of compassionate communication with each other and with oneself.

One afternoon, we were invited to write a “Love letter to yourself”. Often we write love letters to others, yet have we ever taken the time to write a love letter to ourselves? For some, this practice exercise was very difficult; for others, quite easy. We were asked to address our letter to ourselves using an adjective starting with the first letter of our name. We were encouraged to keep our letters focused on the present, not dwelling on the past or regrets; and also to highlight our positive qualities. If we found that we were beginning to slide towards being critical or judgmental to ourselves, we could “change the peg”, with a ‘but’ and continue on in a more positive way. In this way, we could water our own flowers, expressing appreciation, love and gratitude for ourselves. It was a precious Beginning Anew practice with ourselves that we could tuck away in our pocket and take with us, coming back to it whenever we need to remind ourselves to practice self-care and self-love. 

Here two retreatants generously share their love letters to themselves. 

What a gift it is to be you. You are here, with your blisters and wounds and your mess, and also your shiny bits, here and we’re trying to make sense of all of it. What a journey we’ve been on together. Wherever you go, there I am. And wherever I go, there you are. I have been with you every step of the way and I have seen you go through so much. And let me just say this. I’m proud of you. And I believe in you. I see what you’re trying to do. I’m watching all the ways you’re seeking to grow, and by god, you’ve grown so much.

We may have tread many geographical miles on this earth in the physical plane, but we’ve also come such a long way in the spiritual and emotional dimension.

I’ve seen you fall in love and fall back out. I’ve seen you cry, wail like an animal, fall apart in a foreign land.

I’ve seen you make mistakes. That’s normal. Crucially, I’ve seen you try to learn from them. I’ve seen you try to do better.

I’ve seen you be loving. I’ve seen you learn how to love better, be softer, more expressive, and more grateful.

I’ve seen you make the people around you feel seen and cared for. I’ve seen you bring people together. I’ve see the healing power of your love. I’ve seen how your love makes people want to be around you. Makes people feel safe and held. 

I’ve seen how free you can be! I think this is one of my favorite qualities about you. You embody such freedom, such freedom in yourself — free to be yourself, love yourself, move through the world. I love the way you laugh and dance with abandon, the way you sing, joke, and play with a child-like eagerness and nature. I think so many people have forgotten to be like that. I’m glad I haven’t lost my little spark of madness (okay, a big spark). I can see that the way you move, laugh, and play inspires others to be free in their bodies and selves more too.

I also love how you care about the suffering that exists in the world, whether it’s humans, animals, ecosystems. You care deeply about protecting what feels sacred in life. You care a lot about marginalized groups and fighting for what’s right.

And you have the ability to see patterns and make connections. To understand situations in their socio-economic-political contexts. Your natural curiosity and desire to understand has brought you much closer to understanding. More able to recognize the systems of inequality that exist in the world and closer to articulating it and doing something about it. You have the ability, too, to succinctly synthesize and analyze information as well.

I think you’re bold. I think you’re brave. I admire how you do things even if they’re hard, or you’re the only one. Your ease with approaching new people. Your courage in giving feedback. The way you stand up for yourself and others. The way you embrace an unconventional life that gives you meaning. The way you go after what you want.

But also your thoughtfulness. Your empathy. Your deep listening. Your ability to reflect. Your ability to facilitate transformation.

And. And the little things. Your big laugh. Your love for cups of tea. The way you obsess over certain colors and make them your wardrobe. Your appreciation of fine and beautiful things. Your love of nature. Your ability with words. Your creativity. Your creativity in the kitchen. Your “to-read” list, getting dozens of books longer than your “read” list every year. The way you can’t keep still when you hear a beat you like. Your ability to straddle worlds, cultures, languages. Your adventurous spirit. Your big dreams. The effort you take to make your close ones feel loved. Your energy. Your dynamism. Your positivity. Your cheer. Your J-O-Y! The way you live life out loud.

Your silliness. Your seriousness. The way you can eat. The way you can eat ice cream every day. Your growing love for your body as it is. 

And what a body! I am so grateful for this body — legs that have carried me over hard mountain passes. Eyes that have allowed me take in the beauty of the cerulean blue sea. Skin that lets me feel the touch of moss, of sand, of snow. Ears that allow me to enjoy music, the song of birds, the orchestra of frogs, leaves rustling in the wind, crunch of gravel. Tongue that gives me the the gift if taste. Berries and buns and broccoli with garlic. All of it. I’m grateful.

I love you, just as you are. You are already enough.

Love (all of it), me

Dear tender Trinh, 

The only constant in my life has always been you. We know each other well and what you know about me is how much I enjoy to love others. I am sorry for not meeting you with that same love, because I know how much you deserve it. You are the reason why I wake up every morning. It is you who I live for, so that you get to experience love, joy and connection. 

I love the way you allow me to feel everything so deeply, always holding space for what arises inside of me — inside of us.

I love the way you gaze at the world, always in awe of its beauty.

I love the way you try, as much as you can, to meet every person that stands in front of you with an open heart. I know how many times your heart has been broken by all the suffering that you had to go through and continue to go through. 

But I am deeply grateful for your strength to allow the light into the cracks of your heart, instead of closing your heart. I see your pain and struggles that you go through daily and I see how, despite that, you still choose to love. To care. To soften. To trust. And how your intentions are pure and innocent and that your wish is to live, to help others, and to enjoy the gift of life.

I wish you could see how precious you are and how loved you are.

I wish one day you will understand that this world loves you back as much as you love this world. The people in your life. The trees and flowers. The sun and the sky and the earth. And your cat. They all want you to be here, together with them. And nothing can take away your place on this planet. For you are a gift to this world. And while nothing and no one in this world, and everything else that comes with being alive, belongs to me, you are the only one who does. My love for you grows to hopefully be infinite one day. 

Yours, Trinh