Carrie Baker – The Growth Collective

You may think I’m saying something here that has already been said a thousand times over, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
Sometimes we need to hear them again….

Over the last 5 years over and over, I have seen in my own life, the power of words.
Whether they be in their written form, or spoken.

Let me share with you a story;

Before any of us realised how very ill my father-in-love was, I began writing him letters.
They flew from Australia to England.

I always loved getting letters as a young person, and now I sometimes feel that email just isn’t personal or special enough.
I love writing letters and for me it was a type of procrastination, avoiding the novel that sits accusingly on my desk. (Letter writing is still writing – isn’t it??)
So I wrote these long letters, full A4 page after page, regaling Dad of the funny, weird things my children were doing. I wrote about my great moments, failures and all our family news.

He didn’t write back at first, which I expected. I was just happy to be doing something for him. After a while he told me that he loved my letters and would take them out and re-read them, laughing and crying over them all over again.

After we found out about his terrible prognosis, we rushed to the UK for a huge family holiday. He told me how much my letters meant to him, helping him get through some of his lowest days.
For me it just cost some time and an international stamp, but what come from that was more than can be measured.
I didn’t set out to do anything more than connect with Dad in an old fashioned way (to avoid what I should have been writing), but he and I have gotten more out of it than I ever expected.
Let me share with you some of my story;

Some yards ago I had a daughter at school and two small boys at home, one of them was a baby.
I was going through my second round of postnatal depression in three years.
The weather was too hot to be outside for any longer than absolutely necessary, and I couldn’t stand to be around people.
My life line was found in the books I read.
My escape was getting lost in other worlds created by people who were brave enough to share their stories.
In those pages I found hope, I went on adventures, I fell in love alongside the protagonist and was able (for a time) to float far from the war that was being waged in my mind.
Those pockets of time when I was able to open a book and actually take a breath, helped to save me, heal me.

When was the last time you finished reading a book feeling like you saw the world through renewed eyes, and feelings of gratitude for the author whose story stole your heart?

When was the last time you received an actual, handwritten letter in the mail? How did it make you feel? Special? Honoured? When someone took the time to put an actual pen to paper and wrote a letter, stamped an envelope and walked it to postbox to send it, tells you that someone thought a lot of you.

Yes I know there is email, text messages, messenger and all those modern forms of communicating, but nothing is more special than a letter or a card that arrives in your postbox or through your door.

To all those friends and dear ones who’ve ever written a letter or card, thank you so much!
Thank you also to the authors, who have lead my heart and my mind to far away places, then bringing me back feeling as though I’ve experienced something beautiful.

Words can make a heartsick person feel loved.
Words can bring joy to a sorrowful heart.
Words can make someone see the world anew.
Words can make someone laugh like they haven’t laughed in years.
Words can bring hope to a hopeless situation.
Words can do more than we can imagine.

What will your words achieve?

Just Write It!