When Churches Abuse

I've been reading survivor stories from people who were abused by Mars Hill Church (pastored by Mark Driscoll--possibly my favorite person ever).

It's brutal stuff.

One of the more OT (Old Testament) methods Mars Hill used was "shunning," which is exactly what it sounds like. A person or an entire family would be formally ostracized from the church with all their remaining friends (or, if you like, brothers and sisters in Christ) instructed to go no contact--all in the name of biblical discipline and restoration.

I read one account by Jonna Petry, whose husband was abruptly fired from leadership in 2007. She describes how the church turned on her and her family, and the devastating spiritual, emotional and relational consequences.

It might not be physical, but it's still violence, and all in the name of God. Petry writes:

Spiritual abuse occurs when someone uses their power within a framework of spiritual belief or practice to satisfy their own needs at the expense of others. It is a breach of sacred trust. Christians are commanded by Jesus to love one another. When that is projected, articulated, enjoyed and then treacherously betrayed, the wounded person is left with “a sense of having been raped, emotionally and spiritually” – not by a stranger, but by someone who was deeply trusted. (See Recovering from Church Abuse by Len Hjalmarson)

One of the biggest selling points of today's evangelical Christian church is "family"--belonging and love and connection and acceptance, as in "You belong here."

I've talked to friends about the almost mythical nature of "community" in Christian churches. There's this idea that real community can only happen in the context of church-that a church is the only place that you as a Christian will ever belong.

Your sewing group? Heathens. Your coworkers? They want your promotion. Your college friends? They've moved on. Your biological family? They may or may not be there for you when you need them.

When these expectations for community aren't met--or when you never really feel like you belong in the first place--the emotional pain can be devastating. After all, churches often hold this out as an enticement: One church I attended had as part of its mission statement, "To give every orphan a family."

Furthermore, when Christian community is the only genuine community, it can take over your entire life. Often, members are encouraged to become more and more invested in their church, particularly by serving or by taking on a leadership role. The underlying assumption is that this is both a means to and a sign of spiritual growth.

Church Bubble

The people you worship with Sunday are the people you community group with Tuesday are the same people you party with Friday. If you are single, often you expect to date and marry within your church. Don't get me started on how depressing that can be.

Christians are encouraged to make non-Christian friends, but only from the standpoint of evangelism--convincing them to join the family (wow, that sounds creepy).

When you spend all your time with the same people, you tend to get attached.

Petry reflects on her own culpability in the abuse, in a narrative that I've heard many times from other Christians, and from myself:

I have come to understand that I was wrong in the way I entrusted my heart to people, looking to them for approval and affirmation, finding my identity in my relationships and in my ministry instead of completely and solely entrusting my heart to the Living God and finding my identity and security in Jesus Christ alone, who loves me and died for me and calls me His own. For we are all capable of great sin. And, no doubt, the wrong way I entrusted my heart to others coincided with the depth of my pain at their betrayal and rejection.

In sum, "I didn't love or trust God enough. If I had, I would have avoided some of this pain." I disagree. To me, it seems perfectly human to entrust your heart to other people--especially people that you have laughed with, cried with, served with, suffered with all in the name of Christian community. Emotional and relational attachment is less a conscious choice than a gradual, organic process that happens when people spend a lot of time together.

Hyper-vigilance about loving God more than I love my friend, my  boyfriend, my spouse, my children, does not solve the problem of human attachment or somehow make betrayal hurt less.

We were meant to love and trust other people. It's one of those things that makes us so incredibly vulnerable.

How many times have I emerged from a relationship feeling broken and empty, only to conclude that my mistake (or sin, as Petry characterizes it) was growing attached to a person instead of to God.

I can't tell myself this story anymore. It doesn't hold up.

I will say that based on Petry's story, I would advocate for diversifying your social portfolio--don't invest all of yourself in any one social group, whether it's a church or a motorcycle gang. Diversify. Make friends with people who don't share your religious or political or sports affiliation.

If you are embedded in a single group, when and if abuse does happen, it can be even more overwhelmingly devastating. Not all churches are abusive, but any church can let you down.

What's striking about Petry's account is how doggedly her family sought healing and reconciliation with the church that destroyed them. Some of it was just shock and disbelief--that those who had "loved" so much could now be so cruel. It reminds me of a woman who returns again and again to an abusive relationship before finally leaving for good.

You never know who will be there for you when everything falls apart--it could be someone you only have a tangential connection with, a friend of friend, an atheist, a Republican, a Lakers fan, a devout Christian, someone who watches Bachelor in Paradise for fun. We just can't predict these things.

Inspiration:
Jonna Petry's account
My friend labullets for calling my ideas "blog-worthy"

More about church:
Why is church cliquey?
Why is church cliquey? Part 2
Why is church cliquey? Part 3
Why is church cliquey? Part 4

Stories That No Longer Serve

When I graduated high school, I had one or two stories hanging off me, like particularly clingy mollusks. One of those stories was this:

Photo by Jason Rogers

I have no self-discipline.

In high school, I tried to homeschool myself (don't try this at home, kids) and with insane ambition but complete lack of structure, didn't quite manage it. I slacked off for about three years.

Failure #1

When I got to college (or more accurately, Bible college), I took two correspondence courses, one in American literature and one in American history.

There were no deadlines, only a free form "You have 9 months to finish this course." With inane ambition and a complete lack of structure, I did the first assignments for both courses and then nothing after that.

Failure #2

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I decide to write a thorough literary analysis of the book of Lamentations for my Old Testament class. Line by line. Line by line.

I ended up sitting in my professor's office completely stressed out and overwhelmed, describing how this paper on Lamentations had consumed me, taken over my life, turned into a monster. Oh, and by the way, I hadn't finished it yet.

And then my professor said something about monsters or about this paper being a monster that I strain to remember. It feels important. I don't remember. It was probably some combination of smartass and profound.

In that space of lost memory, I have only the image--that in my life I have two modes of being:

One--Painstakingly, perfectly, picking my way through the rubble of Jerusalem.

Two--Running, screaming from a nameless, faceless terror.

One--Struggling, straining for complete control.

Two--Drinking, smoking, drugging (or in my case, getting loopy as a can of worms on lack of sleep), all to turn off the perfectionist and tune into divine possession.

Whether I was being pursued by the monster or slave-driven by the perfectionist, my story had no space for ordinary, everyday divinity:

The holy normal of 2:34PM. The spirit-filled comma. Visions of eternity punctuated by trips to the bathroom. The transcendence of non-linear video editing. The glory of God. The glory of a perfectly timed cut.

It feels odd to look back now on what might have been the most productive period of my life and realize that this story of "no self-discipline" defined me. It turns up again and again, despite the overwhelming evidence of things made.

Fifty-eight pages, later, I even finished what was meant to be a 10-15 page paper.

I slayed the monster, before it could slay me.

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys Are All Dented Cans - Anger

I've written about anger in this series before--in the entry on Entitlement and in the entry on Cowardice. In fact, if I've written about anger in every entry in this series, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

Photo by Ferran Jordà

This is not about a normal, everyday kind of anger. Anger--the kind of anger I'm talking about--is tightly wound up with entitlement and an underlying sense of victimization:

Victimization: I have been injured.
Entitlement: I have a right to be angry.
Unspoken Assumption: I have the right to enact revenge and/or even the score.

This kind of anger feels dangerous, because it is so deeply rooted in a sense of righteous justification.

Instead of calling it "anger," it might be more accurate to refer to it as bitterness, resentment, or rage--an anger cherished, nurtured, held close.

I'm writing about anger not just because I drew it out of the jar as a writing topic (which I did), but because--

Anger is my Achilles' heel.

If you want something from me, try getting angry. I might just crack.

For whatever reason (maybe getting yelled at as a kid, I dunno), anger has an unpleasant effect on me: My throat tightens. I get quiet. I go numb.

I've learned that anger can be a form of manipulation and control. And it works. I can't think of a single abusive dynamic that I've been a part of that hasn't involved this kind of anger.

One guy I worked with would yell at me, then get even angrier when I responded neutrally instead of emotionally.

He would consistently tell me about how angry yet another guy was with me (triangulation).

This happened again in another situation, where one dude capitalized on the anger of another dude to overcome a break in our relationship (bonus points if it's someone in a position of power, authority, or influence):

"___ is very angry with you. You need to do something. I can help you fix it."

Essentially, Dude A used fear of authority, specifically fear sparked by someone in authority (Dude B) being angry with me, to get what he wanted.

I mean, it worked--maybe a little too well: I soon after entered into an abusive dynamic with Dude B, a dynamic centered around anger, fear and control. It felt a little too much like being handed from one abuser to another.

That was last year. This year, I found myself once again sitting across from one man telling me that another man was "very angry with me." I find this funny (rule of 3; first time tragedy, second time farce). If you find yourself in a conversation where one person is earnestly telling you that another person is angry with you, and what are you going to do about it, I can say with certainty that something is wrong.

But I digress. Achilles' heel.

This is about anger and Christian guys and being undateable.

I had an epiphany once, while working on this series: "Christian men don't actually respect women." And then that thought kept me up all night the way that 3am thoughts sometimes do.

I think there's some truth to it: some men and some Christian men do not see women as equals. They do not see women as fully human. And it's hard to respect someone unless you view them as fully human.

I've heard from a reliable source that "anger is a gateway emotion." If we think about shame as the root of this kind of anger (abusive anger), a disproportionate response to perceived slights* makes a lot of sense:

How would you feel if something not quite a person (that you don't regard as an equal) made you feel completely worthless? Especially when everything you believe about yourself and everything society encourages you to believe tells you that you are superior, the genuine article, the real thing?

It would be incredibly enraging. The balance must be restored. Someone or something must pay. Shame is an unbearable emotion, and it must be displaced onto the body of another.

In this case, violence is just settling the score, evening the debt, restoring the equilibrium.

Where does the shame go?

I've written before about how the burden of shame accrues to women. Even the way we talk about and think about anger contributes to this burden. Anger more than almost any other emotion is seen as "out of control" or "out of my control," serving as a justification for violence.

The less that men are "in control" of their own emotions or passions, the more women are responsible for the outcome of those emotions.

This is not to blame shame for the abusive anger of men--rather, the underlying belief that men are more valuable than women, more human than women, more entitled to respect, dignity, rights, justice, power, autonomy, etc.

Yes, I blame misogyny. I blame Christian teachings that emphasize complementarian gender roles. I believe that a system that enforces rigid, narrowly defined gender roles enables and encourages the abuse of women.

As men displace their shame onto women, they feel better, while women feel worse. Messages from our culture that implicate women in their own victimization serve to reinforce this sense of reverse responsibility: You are the one at fault. You caused your own abuse. You caused your own assault. You were not hyper-vigilant enough.

I suspect that just as men cannot heal the shame of women, women cannot heal the shame of men. And women are definitely not responsible for the underlying misogyny of men's anger.

Another important point: Submission to this type of anger is a bad idea. For so long I bought into a conception of Christian reconciliation that entailed submitting passively to unhealthy and abusive anger. I thought that by demonstrating humility I could heal the relationship and reestablish equilibrium. I even apologized to my very first abuser for treating him poorly (not listening to him, not respecting him). Not even joking.

For one, it doesn't work. It can even intensify the abuse. For another, there is nothing Christian or holy about submitting to dehumanizing behavior. Any theology, church, person who tells you otherwise is selling you an abusive crock of ****.








*I owe this idea to a discussion of Roy Baumeister's writing about abuse at WenatcheeTheHatchet. While I don't agree with Wenatchee's interpretation, I did find Baumeister's ideas about men's rationalizations for domestic violence helpful.

"Give Me Sex Jesus"

I watched Give Me Sex Jesus, a documentary about the Christian evangelical purity movement, for the first time last night.

That title though.

The film is streaming for free on Vimeo. 

Background: I've had my eye on this documentary ever since the Kickstarter campaign in 2012 when the title was "Jesus, Don't Let Me Die Before I've Had Sex." I attended the same church as Matt Barber (the director) for a few years, and I know some of the people interviewed. 

No, I never signed an abstinence pledge (though memories of doing so are notoriously tenuous) or wore a purity ring--though I might as well have. 

Purity culture raised me, and I fully embraced its principles. 

So, watching this documentary, I had quite a few thoughts and emotions--

I laughed. I cringed. Many of the interviews were some combination of funny, poignant, and heartbreaking. In the end, I wanted more.

I wanted to know how it all turned out--how the gay son of a prominent Christian family worked out his faith and his sexuality, if his dad ever spoke to him again or invited him to family dinners.

I wanted to know what happens when getting married doesn't give you the amazing sex life you were promised, how purity culture affects Christian dating culture, and how the filmmakers came to make the film that they made. 

Truthfully, it is the story behind the story that intrigues me the most. And it's a quite a story: 

Matt Barber left his faith and his marriage during the making of this film, as he details in this Life After God podcast. He is currently in a relationship with producer and co-filmmaker Brittany Machado.

Machado tells a similar story about leaving Christianity. She writes about having sex for the first time in college after a youth spent embracing purity culture:

"If my faith were a Jenga tower, then this brick of sexual truth was pulled from the bottom of the stack. From there everything started wobbling a bit."

This. This is the story that I'm interested in. Matt and Brittany's stories make plain what I have long suspected: That if you give up on the sex part, then you might as well give up on the Christian part too--

Richard Beck at his blog "Experimental Theology" writes about how purity is a metaphor, and not a good one, for sexual morality. Unfortunately, the purity metaphor seems to hold true in another way: 

Essentially, just as there is ONE way to have sex (in heterosexual marriage), there is also only ONE way to think and feel and talk about sex. Anything I might think or say or feel about sexuality that contradicts this doctrinal purity throws my entire faith into question. 

It feels like heresy--which is probably why I find stories about leaving Christianity so fascinating.

Watching this documentary, I realized that for me, sexual morality and what I do with my body are so intertwined with my identity as a Christian, that I can't even begin to untangle them. 

It's hard to imagine other aspects of my identity in the same way:

For example, if being a feminist or a writer or a college graduate or heterosexual or writing about racism seemed to be incompatible with Christian faith, would I have left long ago?

Maybe this happens to us all. We hit a wall--something that seems irreconcilable--whether it's our sexuality, our beliefs about the nature of men and women, racism, evolution and the study of science, "Christian" political beliefs, etc. 

In the end, I don't think it's about sex (YES IT IS! EVERYTHING IS ABOUT SEX!), but about purity--about a certain kind of certainty that I can no longer embrace.

It's about asking the kinds of questions that I want to ask, having the kinds of conversations that feel taboo, writing about what I want to write about.

Wanting these things and pursuing them doesn't feel like leaving Christianity, but it does feel like leaving behind being a certain kind of Christian, if that makes any sense.

Even if I didn't have to give up faith itself, I would have to take a leaving of a different sort--leaving behind evangelical Christianity and the community that has felt the most like home here in Los Angeles.

More conversation:

Watch the film HERE
Life After God podcast
Hot Buttered Shame on the Dana Gould podcast
How Christians Have Sex - Personal response to watching "Give Me Sex Jesus" from a lapsed Christian (?) slash LA comedian

If you've watched the film and want to talk about it, or you haven't the watched the film and want to talk about it, I'm here. Let's talk.

What About Grace?

These three words have stuck with me.

I had just set clear-cut boundaries in a relationship. Someone I had been close to hurt me--intentionally or not, I have no idea. I set boundaries in order to protect myself, not punish him. And he responded with anger:

"What about grace?"

I remember how much he seemed to hate me, even as he uttered these words.

What I was doing was the opposite of grace: Not-Grace--condemnation, judgment, bitterness, unforgiveness (a sin for Christians).

By setting boundaries in a relationship, I was refusing to extend "grace." How often is grace invoked when a public Christian figure has an affair, sexually abuses children, uses shame and ostracism to control church members. How often is grace invoked by Christians in an--as far as I can tell--ungracious tone of voice.

Here, let me lecture you about what grace is, right before I bash you over the head with it, you sinner.

Grace as artillery. Forgiveness as a weapon.

What is grace, anyway?

I picture something beautiful. Something quiet, yet unrelenting.

In that moment, I didn't feel grace. I felt anger, hatred, and blame--if he hated me, if he abused me, it was my fault for not being graceful, or full of grace.

In this lopsided arrangement, grace is always for the perpetrator, never for the victim. It shames you for not being more forgiving. It reminds you that you too are an imperfect person in need of grace. It urges you to forgive, well before you are ready. It puts the burden on you to restore the perpetrator to wholeness.

So, what about grace?

Reflecting from a distance, Grace was setting boundaries. Grace was asking for help when those boundaries were violated. Grace was having the courage and the freedom to leave. Grace was feeling safe again. Grace was and is refusing to blame myself for the actions of another person.

Grace is not intimidation or threats. Grace is not a tool of manipulation or coercion. Grace is not an angry, 6'4'' man cursing at you, getting in your face, and demanding that you forgive him.

I crave the grace of small, tiny moments when I am allowed to grieve. When it is okay to be not okay. Where my reactions are not judged or rejected.

Grace. What about it.

Why I Kept Quiet About Being Sexually Harassed

Recently, women in the Los Angeles improv community did the unthinkable: They named names--on facebook, no less.

One man in particular was credited with so many stories of sexual harassment that I'm tempted to think his daily schedule goes something like:

8:00AM: Wake up
8:30AM-8:30PM: Sexually harass women
8:30PM: Tinder date
12:00AM Go to sleep

[Personal connection: I was matched with this gentleman on an online dating platform. We never actually communicated.]

I kid you not. This crap has been going on for years. And women are finally speaking up. It's incredible to watch--equal parts inspiring and horrifying--inspiring, to see the support that these women are receiving from the community--horrifying, that this guy got away with sexually harassing so many women for so long.

It made me think about my own stories--about why I didn't speak up about being harassed. I've written before about the burden of secrecy: How women are so often burdened with keeping things quiet--don't cause trouble, don't make a scene, don't smear someone's reputation, don't accuse someone (particularly a powerful, talented, or likable someone) of misconduct.

There are so many valid reasons for keeping silent. And until the culture changes to one that prioritizes victims over perpetrators, it will always be extremely difficult to come forward.

[Ironically, even as I write this, I'm running through in my mind all the possible ways that the men I write about could be identified by readers.]

Story #1:

When I was in college, I wrote a blog for the school's marketing department about my experiences in the honors program.

I was connected to a staff member at the college who would post the blogs that I wrote every week. He was a man in his 40s (we'll call him RC)

At first, it was great. I loved blogging. Loved it. Because writing is fun.

Then, things started getting weird. From the beginning, RC and I had bantered back and forth via email. He was eccentric, borderline unprofessional and didn't act his age, but I didn't think too much about it. I knew he was in a relationship, and that made me feel safe, as if he couldn't be flirting with me (plus, I was a student).

Things took an odd turn when he created a facebook profile in the name of my college and started leaving weird comments on other people's pages and messaging me nonsensical things, to the point that I blocked him on facebook.

Then, he started harassing me about not sending him new blogs to post every week, repeatedly sending me pushy, sarcastic and vaguely threatening emails.

Something about the emails made me deeply uncomfortable and fearful. I asked him to stop. I used the word "Please." He didn't stop. I asked him again. I felt like no matter what I said, he wouldn't stop sending me harassing emails.

Conclusion: I stopped writing. I concluded that my blog made him feel as if he "knew me" or had some kind of personal connection to me. The only way to stay safe was to stop writing.

Blogging was something that brought joy and meaning to my life, but I stopped doing it--all because of this one guy.

Now that I think about it, this guy was on the clock when he sent me those emails--so he was basically being PAID to harass me. That just feels wrong on so many levels.

So, why didn't I say something to someone? Here are the reasons I came up with:

1. I was afraid that my bantering emails with him would be considered "encouragement"--that I had brought this on myself by not being completely professional. In other words: it was my fault that I led him on.

2. I had enjoyed the (seemingly harmless) attention from him. (My fault, again.)

3. I perceived those at the college I could have gone to for help as either distant or ineffectual. I couldn't imagine them helping me in any real way.

4. What about his reputation? Would I be putting his job in jeopardy?

5. Although our online interactions felt inappropriate and unsafe, he never said or did anything overtly sexual. So although I felt like he was both hitting on me AND engaging in some kind of weird power play, I really had no "proof."

Reading the accounts from women in the improv community, I'm struck by how many stopped doing what they loved because they felt unsafe. That makes me f***ing furious.

Story #2:

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked on a low-budget feature film for no pay.

At our very first crew meeting, I started talking to the editor, asking him about what system he used, etc. (I was interested in editing at the time). Later, he visited the set. We talked more, and he offered to let me help cut the film once it entered post-production. He had worked on several films by a director that I greatly admired, so I thought this was pretty cool.

Later that same night, I had to drive an actor home. When he offered to accompany me and I didn't immediately jump on the opportunity, but instead asked other people, he started acting like a petulant five year-old. I swear, this man in his early 40s started pouting and crossed his arms over his chest like a small child. He was angry with me and would barely talk to me. I had no idea what was going on, but something didn't feel right.

Then, early the next morning, I got the email, and my heart started pounding faster.

He explained that he had fallen in love with me from the very first night we met, felt a deep connection to me that was not just sexual (e.g., I'm not just interested in sex!), explained he had been angry because he thought I didn't want to be alone with him, something something something, hoped we could still work together.

I responded that I was not interested, but hoped we could still work together as colleagues. I didn't tell anyone about this email, even though it stressed me out. I thought I could handle it on my own and save him any embarrassment.

That same day, the producer called me over and said that I had to go pick up the editor from the train station the next day (the producer had no idea about the email). I was then forced to go pick this guy up and spend at least an hour alone with him. I can remember how he casually put his arm up around and on my headrest in the car as if we were at a movie and he was about to make a move. Under the circumstances, it made me uncomfortable. I tried to pretend like nothing had happened.

Later, other members of the crew told me how he was in love with me and ranting angrily about how much time I was spending with another guy onset, "I'm gonna f***ing kill him," he was saying about this guy, repeatedly.

One guy half-jokingly suggested that I get a restraining order.

I noticed that he had a camcorder and seemed to be filming me, but I wasn't sure. Later, after we wrapped, he sent me an email with pictures (screenshots from video?) that he had taken of me unawares. I never responded.

A week or so after shooting finished, I went into the production office to reconcile expenses, and the producer mentioned that the editor had said he wanted me to help out with editing.

I said, "I don't think I can do that." The producer was like, "Okay, cool." But then I tried to explain why.

"Oh, he has a crush on you?"

It was a little more than that. I told him I would forward him the email. That the email was funny.

"I don't think it's funny."

So, why didn't I (initially) say anything?

1. I felt like it was my problem to handle and that I could handle it.

2. I thought that after I responded to his confession of love with a professionally worded "let's just be colleagues" that he would leave me alone and respect my boundaries.

3. I thought he would be embarrassed and shamed if I told someone, and I didn't want him to be embarrassed or shamed (I put myself in his shoes).

4. I used humor to minimize how unsafe it made me feel.

Sadly, practically every single woman has a story like this--not these exact details, no, but the same dynamic.

Writing it all out like this feels clinical and distant--but it's helped me see that men who sexually harass women are not playing by the rules--

We ascribe shame to them (normal, healthy shame that you should feel for violating someone else's boundaries) when nothing of the sort actually exists.

We mentally and emotionally put ourselves into the shoes of the harasser--"Wow, I would feel awful if dozens of women accused me of sexually harassing them"--without realizing that they exist in a world where their actions are perfectly acceptable, understandable, normal, justifiable.

[Exhibit A, the same guy above who has dozens of sexual harassment incidents to his name is still by all reports setting up dates with women in the improv community via apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. I'm sure he feels just "Terrible, terrible!" about all the pain he has caused. 'Cause those are the actions of a man overwhelmed with shame. Right. I just feel so bad for him and all the humiliation he must be going through. My heart goes out to him.]

This plays out in the way that women respond to harassment. I assume, "If I say no, stop, I'm not interested, he will stop"--sometimes realizing too late that when I said "No," all he heard was static.

In this case, if there is no support from other people, and particularly from those in authority, then my best option is to disappear, because then at least he doesn't have access to me.

Think about it. Women are disappearing because that is their best option. It can be a kind of personal, professional, spiritual or creative death.

After cutting ties with an abuser, I have not only had to heal from the relationship itself, but also from the ways in which people responded (or didn't) to my story.

One person that I reached out to immediately after a traumatic incident was adamant about remaining neutral and hearing "his side of the story."

I get it. I feel like I get it. But to remain neutral is to side with the abuser. Every time. And I know that this is just one more layer to this wound that I'm going to have to deal with.

Intellectually, I totally get it. But emotionally, it's devastating.

Day by Day: The Quantified Self: Future Me

The premise is simple: Write a letter to your Future Self.

At futureme.org, you can write a letter and send it far, far into the future. What would it be like to get a letter right now from the You of one year ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

What would you want to read about your Past Self?

I've found that Future Me can be a powerful tool for both imagining the future and reimagining the past. There's nothing quite like getting an email in your inbox from your Past Self. It's trippy, in the best possible way.

The layout is quite simple:

Dear Future Me, How are you?

You can choose to make your letter public or private. You can also choose to add a picture--perhaps you wish to attach a picture of yourself on the date you write the letter, so that your Future Self has a visual reference.

Tips & tricks for writing to your future self:

1. Be specific

There's nothing quite like getting a vague, angsty email from your Past Self. What is this, Past Self, middle school? Save the vagueness for your facebook status updates and be specific:

What are you doing?
How are you feeling?
Why do you think you feel that way?
What do you want to happen?
What do you think will happen?
What challenges are you currently facing?
How are you coping or not coping with those challenges?

The awesome thing about writing to your Future Self is that you get to connect the dots later. "Oh, right, I had a huge crush on Matt from the beginning" or "I was unhappy with my job but didn't want to admit that to myself."

The dirt is in the details, so try to be specific. You might know exactly what you are talking about, but chances are, Future You will need some supporting data.

Reading letters from your Past Self will help you see how far you've come (or alternatively, how much things stay the same!).

2. Use writing to your Future Self to visualize who you want to be today.

Talk to Future You about your goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future. If you have no goals, dreams, hopes, and aspirations for the future, brainstorm about these with Future You. Write about who you are, and who you hope to be.

Perhaps you will feel a twinge of what could be. Hope. Write about that. Perhaps it will prove prophetic.

3. Try writing to yourself at 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 years old.

It's hard to think about growing old--but eventually, if we don't die first, it happens to us all. Instead of only sending letters to next year, write to yourself at various ages, especially milestone years. Think about how much your 80 year-old self would appreciate getting letters from you!

I've been working on writing to my 40 year-old self. It's weird to think about being 40. But it helps me to realize that my time is finite. There are things that I want to accomplish, and if I don't start on them now, I may never accomplish them. It's a sobering feeling.

4. Put writing to your Future Self on your calendar to remind you.

Writing to your Future Self once a month seems like a good goal.

5. Write to your Past Self...

But send it to your Future Self.

It sounds convoluted, but I recently wrote a letter from my 80 year-old Self to my Present Self (an exercise from the "Artist's Way") and sent it to my 40 year-old Self.

Write a letter to your 10 year-old Self, but send it to your 50 year-old Self.
Write a letter to your 20 year-old Self, but send it to your 33 year-old Self.
Etc.

Writing to your Past Self tends to open up a well of understanding and self-compassion, because you are able to see yourself from a distance. And sometimes the things that we wish our Past Self knew are things we could benefit from, even now.

So, write a letter. Future You will thank you.