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Writer's pictureDani Sullivan, LCSW

Love Letter Chains: The Sacred Art of Writing & Sharing Love

Updated: Jul 26, 2023

Love Letter Chains

Pay the Love You Receive Forward


Welcome to Love Letter Chains! I am so glad you're here 💌

Few words can describe the joy a written letter can bring to someone who is longing for connection, and their voice to be heard.


Who do you know that might need some love?

A long distance friend? A neighbor you see walking their dog? Someone who needs a reminder of your care?

Write them a love letter and send it their way through the mail. You may even find yourself a new pen pal.



Love letter chains are a simple way to share the love.

  1. Write your letter and express yourself to your recipient. Share your hopes and dreams with them.

  2. Ask the recipient of your letter to share this love by paying it forward.

  3. Tuck a “love letter chains” slip into your note before sending, to keep the chain going.

Print your own 'love letter chains' message using the PDF below.



Tag your photos of letters sent and received #loveletterchains

Send your photos to @intentionstherapy so we can share the love.

 

I started to write love letters because I needed love in return.


Hi there, my name is Dani. I am the founder of Intentions Therapy.

I started love letter chains because I know the reality of loneliness.


Sometimes we can forget that hope is real.

We can forget that we matter, and are a part of something larger.

This is why we need love letters.



I started to write these letters when I realized that some of the people I loved didn't understand how much they mattered to me.


Writing down what we love helps us to remember what matters - what our heart cares for the most.


Writing love letters helps us remember our values and intentions. These letters are a reminder that love is real, and magical, and here.


I wrote love letters as key to my survival and my liberation. I wrote letters to friends, lovers, teachers, authors, pets, celebrities, historic figures, chosen family, the earth, god, the universe, myself, my past self, my future self, my inner child, my spirit.

Even if I didn’t get a response, I knew that I was putting good love out there. I was sending my spirit through the mail and these chains of love connected me to the ones that mattered most. I was sending the closest thing to myself - handwritten words of love - through the mail. I would write about how I was feeling, share my experiences, ask questions, and describe how much my relationship with the recipient meant to me.


I wrote letters of love, when I had love. I wrote love when I had it, and I kept it around for times when love was harder to find.


Love is an abundant and renewable resource. Love is like the sun. It never goes away, even when we are shaded from its light, love remains.


Love remains. Especially if we write it down.

I believe if love grows in the right conditions to be reciprocated, it is divine.

Divine, reciprocal love is the real connection we seek. Once we connect with divine love, it never goes away.

Just like a forever stamp, love letters pass the test of time.
 

A History of Love Letters

Love letters flowed through my home as I grew. If I ever forgot that I was loved, a part of something larger than myself, I could turn to the letters. If I was looking for a hand to hold or a place to turn, I could keep these papers. I trusted there would be love letters. I trusted the world I was born into to love me for me, and for the most part, my family and community delivered.

You see, growing up if there was something to be celebrated, we were gathering, sharing food, and celebrating it together. My sisters and I would dance in every holiday recital and Christmas Nutcracker, we grew up performing home crafted choreography and singing our favorite songs in concert with our cousins. We knew togetherness, closeness, community. So, the distance across the country between my mom and her family of origin was felt for generations to come. If family was apart and could not be in the same homes, we would have to be together in spirit.

Connection thrives under plenty of unique conditions. Letters were one sacred way we connected in spirit, across time and space. Love letters were a practice of trusting in the love that would be there, on the other end of the postal system.


Love letters are an act of radical trust. A practice of loving across all the divides. Writing love letters is a slow art that I have learned throughout my life.

I found the more I received, the more I wrote. The more love letters I wrote to the world, the more love I received back from it. The writers of these letters have changed, but I am still the one giving and receiving the love, on my end.

I inherited my great grandfather stamp collection, when I was in my late teens. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, spending hours, categorizing the stamps that he had collected and building a system to organize the shoebox filled with loose stamps and cancelled stamps snipped from letters already sent.


My great grandfathers name was Tulio Peluso and I called him papa, I believe the shoe box was passed to his wife, Rose, my nanny, and then her daughter, Maria, my grandmama. I inherited his collection after my grandmothers death because no one else seemed to want it as bad. Sitting at my parent kitchen table, I sorted through the stamps collected over lifetimes.


Every once in a while, when I go to the post office and have an extra $20 to spend, I will choose my favorite of the stamp choices available and add it to Papa’s collection. When I sent out invites to my wife and I’s wedding celebration, I made sure to add the remaining stamps to the collection and wrote “10/22/2022 used to send wedding invitations” on the back of our stamps before placing them back in their box.


I inherited my grandmother’s love of writing letters. I was in kindergarten, when we decided we would be forever pen pals. My sisters and I would wait for the mail man to drive up our street, if we were expecting a letter. And the mail would always come.

My grandmother lived in the Chicago suburbs, and visited Florida as much as she could. Grandmama and Auntie would write my sisters and I a special card, almost every holiday. I swear, they kept their local Hallmark in business.

The letters we received in the mail usually included small gifts like small pictures, prayer cards, hand written notes, and special holiday stickers. My siblings and I came to expect these notes of celebration. We all still have bundles of letters, in our own respective lives, too sacred to let go.


For the collectors of love - may you continue to find reciprocity.

 

If you have love to give, consider paying it forward. We really do need one another.

Thanks for being here, thanks for spreading the love.



Don't forget to tag your photos of letters sent and received #loveletterchains and send them to @intentionstherapy on Instagram so we can share the love.


Intentions Therapy is a queer-affirming and client centered virtual private practice run by Dani Sullivan, LCSW. Specializing in serving LGBTQIA+ individuals and couples, neurodivergent individuals, folks healing from complex or developmental trauma, and anyone struggling to cultivate self-love. Learn more about our services.


If you are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and seeking healing with an emotionally nurturing small group of peers, apply for our virtual Neuroqueer Group to explore your identity and heal in connection.


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