Gray John. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

Realistic Expectations
To expect communication always to be easy is unrealistic. Some feelings are very difficult to communicate without hurting the listener. Couples who have wonderful and loving relationships will sometimes agonize over how to communicate in a way that works for both people. It is difficult truly to understand another person's point of view, especially when he or she is not saying what you want to hear. It is also hard to be respectful of another when your
own feelings have been hurt. Many couples mistakenly think that their inability to communicate successfully and lovingly means they don't love each other enough. Certainly love has a lot to do with it, but communication skill is a much more important ingredient. Fortunately, it's a learnable skill.

Now We Learn to Communicate
Successful communication would be second nature if we grew up in families that were already capable of honest and loving communication. But in previous generations, so-called loving communication generally meant avoiding negative feelings. It was often as if negative feelings were a shameful sickness and something to be locked away in the closet. In less "civilized" families what was considered loving communication might include acting out or rationalizing negative feelings through physical punishment, yelling, spanking, whipping, and all kinds of verbal abuse, all in the name of trying to help the children learn right from wrong. Had our parents learned to communicate lovingly, without suppressing negative feelings, we as children would have been safe to discover and explore our own negative reactions and feelings through trial and error. Through positive role models we would have learned successfully how to communicate, especially our difficult feelings. As a result of eighteen years of trial and error in expressing our feelings, we would have gradually learned to express our feelings respectfully and appropriately. If this had been the case, we would not need the Love Letter Technique.

lf Our Past Were Different
Had our past been different, we would have watched our father successfully and lovingly listen to our mother expand and express her frustrations and disappointments. Daily we would have experienced our father giving our mother the loving caring and understanding that she needed from her loving husband. We would have watched our mother trusting our father and sharing her feelings openly, without disapproving or blaming him. We would have experienced how a person could be upset without pushing someone away with mistrust, emotional manipulation, avoidance, disapproval, condescension, or coldness. Throughout our eighteen years of growing up we would gradually be able to master our own emotions just as we have mastered walking or math. It would be a learned skill, like walking, jumping, singing, reading, and balancing a checkbook. But it didn't happen that way for most of us. Instead we spent eighteen years learning unsuccessful communication skills. Because we lack education in how to communicate feelings, it is a difficult and seemingly insurmountable task to communicate lovingly when we are having negative feelings. To come to understand how difficult this is, consider your answers to these following questions:
1. When you are feeling angry or resentful, how do you express love if, while you were growing up, your parents either argued or conspired to avoid arguing?
2. How do you get your kids to listen to you without yelling or punishing them if your parents yelled and punished you to maintain control?
3. How do you ask for more support if, even as a child, you felt repeatedly neglected and disappointed?
4. How do you open up and share your feelings if you are afraid of being rejected?
5. How do you talk to your partner if your feelings say "I hate you"?
6. How do you say "I am sorry" if, as a child, you were punished for making mistakes?
7. How can you admit your mistakes if you are afraid of punishment and rejection?
8. How can you show your feelings if, as a child, you were repeatedly rejected or judged for been upset and crying?
9. How are you supposed to ask for what you want if, as a child, you were repeatedly made to feel wrong for wanting more?
10. How are you even supposed to know what you are feeling if your parents didn't have the time, patience, or awareness to ask you how you were feeling or what was bothering you?
11. How can you accept your partner's imperfections if, as a child, you felt you had to be perfect to be worthy of love?
12. How can you listen to your partner's painful feelings if no one listened to yours?
13. How can you forgive if you were not forgiven?
14. How are you supposed to cry and heal your pain and grief if, as a child, you were repeatedly told "Don't cry" or "When are you going to grow up?" or "Only babies cry"?
15. How can you bear your partner's disappointment if, as a child, you were made to feel responsible for our mother's pain long before you could understand that you were not responsible?
16. How can you hear your partner's anger if, as a child, your mother or father took their frustrations out on you through yelling and being demanding?
17. How do you open up and trust your partner if the first people you trusted with your innocence betrayed you in some way?
18. How are you supposed to communicate your feelings lovingly and respectfully if you haven't had eighteen years of practice without the threat of being rejected and abandoned?

The answer to all these eighteen questions is the same. It is possible to learn loving communication, but we need to work at it. We have to make up for the eighteen years of neglect. No matter how perfect our parents were, nobody is really perfect. If you have problems communicating, it is neither a curse nor all your partner's fault. It is simply a lack of having the correct training and the safety to practice. In reading the above questions, you may have had some feelings come up. Don't waste this special opportunity to heal yourself. Take twenty minutes right now and write one of your parents a Love Letter. Simply get a pen and some paper and begin expressing your feelings, using the Love Letter format. Try it now, and you will be amazed at the outcome.

TELLING THE COMPLETE TRUTH
Love Letters work because they assist you in telling the complete truth. Merely to explore a part of your feelings does not bring about the desired healing. For example..
1. Feeling your anger may not help you at all. It may just make you more angry. The more you dwell on just your anger, the more upset you will become.
2. Crying for hours may leave you feeling empty and spent, if you never move past the sadness.
3. To feel only your fears may make you even more fearful.
4. To feel sorry, without moving through it, may just make you feel guilty and ashamed and may even be harmful to your self-esteem.
5. Trying to feel loving all the time will force you to suppress all your negative emotions, and after a few years, you will become numb and unfeeling.
Love Letters work because they guide you in writing out the complete truth about all your feelings. To heal our inner pain, we must feel each of the four primary aspects of emotional pain. They are anger, sadness, fear and regret.

Why Love Letters Work
BY expressing each of the four levels of emotional pain, our pain is released. Writing only one or two negative feelings does not work as well. This Is because many of our negative emotional reactions are not real feelings but defense mechanisms we unconsciously use to avoid our true feelings. For example:
1. People w