|
October-December 2009 Newsletter: If you're reading this
This
Confidence newsletter is sent each month to subscribers of
www.yourmostconfidentself.com from Kate Burton and Brinley Platts,
the authors of "Building
Confidence for Dummies" and creators of the Your Most Confident Self
website. If you're reading this
Just a few weeks ago BBC Radio 4 put out a programme called “If you’re reading this.” The theme was 200 years of letters written by servicemen and women to their loved ones immediately before battle in case they were killed in the impending conflict.
It is very current of course, with British and NATO forces suffering regular casualties in Afghanistan, but it’s a tradition that goes back centuries. Very moving letters were read out from recent wars, from the Second World War and back all the way to 1842, when the British Army in Afghanistan was trapped and massacred during the first conflict there.
For the most part the letters were exceedingly brave, loving and very deeply moving. In most cases, they were delivered, because the soldiers who wrote them were killed. They are among their families’ most treasured mementos of their loved one.
I was surprised to hear that service members are encouraged to write such letters because it helps them to prepare their minds for the conflict ahead. They are advised to keep it simple: to say how you feel on the eve of battle, to tell your people that you love them, that you are sorry you are no longer with them, and that you continue to love them from beyond the grave. Different letters or different paragraphs can be directed at specific individuals.
Hence there were letters and sentiments written for wives and girlfriends (and a few husbands), for children, and for mums and dads. It was easy to imagine the many tears that were shed in the reading, and in the writing. I’m sure like me, most listeners were deeply moved by the words of these perfect strangers.
I’m absolutely certain that a good proportion of these soldiers, facing the possibility of death, felt able to express feelings and sentiments that they would never have been able to express in less extreme circumstances. And their recipients would have been stunned if they had. Now they had, and the words had amazing power to heal and to bond and to bring people together.
And this got me thinking…
Suppose ordinary people, like you and me, in ordinary times, sat down and thought hard about what our families and friends really mean to us, and we write it down in a letter, and we apologise for not being there for them as much as we’d like, but we care for them all the same and no matter what happens there will always be that deep bond between us. They can even have died themselves, we know it has a powerful effect even beyond the grave.
What would happen to us first of all, with that clarity and sense of resolve on the eve of our daily battles. And what would be the effect on them, on the people we write to, especially if we had the courage to mail them.
I am going to give it a try over the next few weeks, and I invite you to do the same. We’ll publish any you send to us, with or without your name (your choice), and we’d like to know how you felt in the writing and afterwards.
It’s a bit daunting, so wishing you an interesting personal journey.
Best
wishes
Kate and Brinley
Kate’s new "Neuro-Linguistic Programming Workbook for Dummies" by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton ISBN 9780 470 51973 8 is now out on Amazon and in good bookstores. It’s the sequel to "Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies" by Romilla Ready and Kate Burton ISBN 0764570285
The best selling "Building Self-Confidence for Dummies" by Kate Burton and Brinley Platts ISBN 0470016698 is also on Amazon or contact us for signed copies.
Privacy policy: We will never rent, trade or sell our email list to anyone. You
will never get an unsolicited email from a third party as a result of joining
our list.
|
|
|
|
|
|
