Reading Time: 2 minutesWrite a Thank You Note
Simple Instructions:
- Each day this week, write and deliver a handwritten thank you note to someone in your life — friend, family member, colleague or coworker, teacher, client, or anyone you interact with in your daily life.
- Suggestions: your parents for putting their life into raising you, a friend for who they are for you, your housekeeper for cleaning up after your (yes, even though you pay for the service), or you can consider anyone who came up in your Naikan reflection journaling during week four.
Watch this video for an explanation of this Well-Being Practice from Whole Life Challenge co-founders Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck.
Why Is This Practice Important?
In today’s world of messages, posts, email, texts, tweets, and other forms of electronic communication, a lot of communicating happens in short blasts of abbreviated text often devoid of context and real meaning.
But even a well-crafted email can’t match the impact of a handwritten letter. Ink on paper has a special kind of heartfelt energy, even if it’s on something as simple as a Post-it note.
I’ve heard it said that sending a letter to someone is the next best thing to showing up at someone’s door. The time, effort, and thought that goes into putting pen to paper somehow gets transferred into the note itself. Even for the writer, handwriting a message requires deeper thought about what to communicate and what the recipient means to them.
Yet, we rarely take time to communicate in this way anymore.
While convenience often trumps connection in today’s world, this week’s Well-Being Practice represents an opportunity to connect with both yourself and the people in your life. It’s a chance to thank these people for the things we can easily take for granted — from the life our parents gave us to the mail that shows up daily at our doorstep.
For More on This Practice
Dr. H. Ron Hulnick is a pioneer and worldwide leader in the field of spiritual psychology. What is spiritual psychology and what does it have to do with thank you notes?
Click through and listen to the podcast for the full answer, but the short answer is that your own self-worth and self-value are deeply linked to your experience of life — and love really is the key to everything.
He graduated from UCLA with a BA in philosophy as well as a degree from the Southern California School of Culinary Arts, and feels food is one of the most important parts of a life - it can nourish, heal, and bring people together.
Michael believes health and well-being are as much a state of mind as they are a state of the body, and when it comes to fitness, food, and life in general, he thinks slow is much better than fast (most of the time). Stopping regularly to examine things is the surest way to put down roots and grow.
He knows he will never be done with his own work, and believes the best thing you can do for your well-being starts with loving and working from what you’ve got right now.
