Love Lettering:
Practicing Random Acts Of Kindness, Affirming Prosperity
No-one has ever become poor by giving. ~ Anne Frank
Hello Amazing Person!
You know everything happens for a reason, including finding and reading this letter. This reminder is to let you know that you are so loved and appreciated!
Thank you for being yourself, and not letting others change your mind. Your strength and honesty is recognized by me> many others, too!
The world is a better place because you are in it. Let your inner light shine through in every situation. Know you are loved and protected.
Have faith that where you are now is where you are supposed to be. Dream big, my friend, gigantic, miraculous dreams.
The world needs you!
Keep being awesome!
We love you truly!
The Universe and “Me”
Love, Light and Laughter
You’ve fought the crowds at Wal–Mart and go to the bus stop with your bags, stressed, wondering if you’ll make it through until the next paycheck. As you approach the bench, you see an envelope with hearts drawn everywhere and a handwritten note reading:
“Whoever finds this . . . it’s for you!
Yep, you found it, you are supposed to open it.
Gift4U Enclosed!”
As you pick up your envelope, you turn it over and see:
“Open … Read … Keep! Practice random acts of kindness.”
From early childhood I loved writing letters. Considering my father was a proud postal worker (completely opposite of the disgruntled postal worker title) – and from day one taught me how to correctly address an envelope; and the capital of each state. I wrote my first letters very early. A childhood friend told me, as early as three or four years old [I was reading and writing before age 3]; “you used to send me letters and you wrote stories“.
Apparently, they were original stories. It was no surprise when I started school, I would win several writing awards in my life and am a published writer, produced playwright and have professionally written two screenplays.
The other thing I became noted for was my lovely handwriting. I remember the day that happened. Up to the beginning of 5th Grade, my printing and beginning cursive was like any other child of my age. I preferred writing on lined paper to make all my letters the right size. Then, I saw my teachers’ handwriting – it was gorgeous, a thing of beauty. Her name was Anne Rhodes: She was harsh, as a teacher, grumpy. [Ms. Rhodes was the older sister of the Congressman John J. Rhodes]. I asked her how she made her handwriting so beautiful. Ms. Rhodes told me, “You just do it!” I decided I would, from that day forward; my handwriting was neat and has brought me many compliments through my nearly half century on this planet.
Early on, around the age of 10, I was already an avid Anglophile [A person who is fond of or greatly admires England or Britain]. So, I wrote a letter and addressed it to “Any girl between the ages of 8-12 in London, England”; my father mailed it overseas for me. Some weeks later, I received a letter from a girl a year younger, give or take, than me in Skegness, Lincolnshire, England; Joanna Foreman and I wrote, drew pictures and kept in touch until we were in our 20s. We have never met in person. Joanna is now in the South of France, married, a mother and a newscaster. I have tried to get in touch with her to no avail (so far).
When I started doing school and community theatre in my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona; my opening night gifts were usually handwritten notes to my other cast members – telling them how much I enjoyed working with them. I was pen pals with several friends, too. By my mid-20s, though, as we were just getting computers and the basic beginnings of email . . . I got out of the habit of handwriting things . . . true for many of us.
All my life, for the most part, I have been into spiritual studies, everything from the Golden Rule to my first “self-help” book at the age of 15-years-old – Your Erroneous Zone by Dr.Wayne Dyer. Soon after, I moved onto Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain; which, for many of us, was our first peek at Law of Attraction.
They changed my life.
The Money Train: Pay It Forward — September 2007
VIDEO LINK
Inspired by Oprah Winfrey and hearing her story, a devotee of Law of Attraction (LOA) and thinking about all the miracles I, myself, and others had created in our lives with creative visualization and the new Law of Attraction movement – I started my own LOA Meet-Up Group in Queens, New York. For my birthday in 2007 – three of us, from my LOA Meet-Up Group passed out $5.00 bills [we each donated $100, split into twenty $5.00 bills]. Taking a cue from the homeless who step onto a car and do a spiel about hard times and needing some money to feed their children, or get a meal, etc. We followed that script with a twist.
“Hello, I’m sorry to interrupt you. My name is Angela, life has been good to me. And I here to give everyone on this train [subway] $5.00 to say ‘My life is going great’!”
We had some people who looked at us funny or refused the money, others asked if it was real, and some gladly received the gift! One homeless man kissed the $5.00 bill over and over! Another young college student told me, “I don’t have money for f!!#k!” I handed her the $5.00 bill and said, “Now, you buy some f!#k!” We both had a good laugh. It felt rather incredible!
Which brings me to something I read about recently: It was a post on one of my many LOA Facebook groups – An LOA group. I started my own group – in order to practice the art of tithing (giving):
The Giving Group: Click Here To Join Us
One of great members told us about . . . the Global Love Letter Movement.
Click Here: Global Love Letters
I took to it immediately and began writing anonymous, handwritten, love letters to strangers! Brilliant! As someone who has felt left-out, depressed and been teased growing up; it certainly was great when someone would encourage me to keep going.
I read the stories, and the main story about the woman who made the news with h
er love letters to strangers. Yes, in my years, and with all those self-help, spiritual and law of attraction books I have read cover to cover, all these years; I had heard stories of people receiving anonymous letters that changed their outlook; i.e. When Carol Burnett was a young girl, she needed $50.00 to attend an acting class. She worked very hard to earn the money to no avail. Then, she came home one day and found an anonymous envelope in her mailbox; it contained a note and $50.00 for her class.
This was how her career started! The note merely said it was for her class – the exact amount – and stated the belief that Carol would be successful. Carol Burnett never found out who gave her that gift. It could not have been her mother or family, as they did not have the money.
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CAROL BURNETT’S STORY OF LOA
BURNETT: No, I never made up my mind — I never said that to myself, I just wasn’t that interested in, you know — and I always felt there was something that was going to happen. I always — I visualized myself in certain places. And, you know, we were poor.
But I always knew something good was going to happen. And one time I visualized myself going to UCLA, which I wanted to do very badly. And we didn’t have the tuition for it, you know. And I had the grades. And the tuition, get this, was $43.
MORGAN: Is that what it was?
BURNETT: Yes. And we were on welfare and so couldn’t do that. And my grandmother wanted me to go to some Woodberry College for secretaries so I could nab the boss.
(LAUGHTER)
BURNETT: You know? To her it was get a rich man.
MORGAN: Yes.
BURNETT: And I said, no, I know I’m going to get — I’m going to get to go to UCLA. And we lived in this one-room apartment off of Hollywood Boulevard, and our door opened into the lobby and I could see the pigeon-hole letter boxes. And this one — and it was my little chore to run out and get the letters if there was one in our slot.
And I — this one morning I came out and saw this letter and then I got it and it was addressed to me. With a $0.03 stamp on it, but it hadn’t been mailed, hadn’t been canceled. An address, typewritten, I opened it up and out came a $50 bill.
To this day, I don’t know where that came from.
MORGAN: Really?
BURNETT: We didn’t have the money.
MORGAN: What an extraordinary story.
BURNETT: Yes. It just happened. And that was — that’s how I got to UCLA.
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And even when my group gave out the $5.00 bills . . . our intention was to pay it forward, to give to the world to affirm our belief in prosperity.
Thus, when I was reminded of how wonderful it is to give to others with unconditional love, just, if nothing else, to make someone’s day! I wrote some anonymous love letters. I wrote what I felt I would want to hear, what would encourage me. Sure, I borrowed some words from those who had already started this movement, and wrote many of my own. As I heard what many of the love letters were doing – where they would leave these notes, etc. – I went out and left my envelopes on subway seats, bus seats, in trees and shrubs, in bicycle baskets. I did this all around my home – at the time – in Union City, NJ.
Often it impressed me how I found interesting places to put the letters – i.e. in the card slot at a little store on Bergenline Street; the window of one the Jitney vans; on the table inside the post office and among the toiletries in a Duane Reade in Port Authority, New York.
I vowed, in February 2013, to write, at least, one love letter a day for the entire year. Having fallen behind, I now write about seven to fourteen in batches. Now, they are placed in my new neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York and heading into Manhattan and often in Manhattan. Wherever I’m traveling.
My goal is place them without being seen . . . hard in the crowded streets of New York. Still, I manage to do it.
There were a couple of very special moments for me.
In one of my first batches, I was on the A Train returning from a friend’s place in Washington Heights [left several letters in that area, too]. A woman came onto the crowded train and took the only vacant seat beside me. She looked upset, sad and in pain (emotional). My urge was to give her a letter – she, obviously needed some cheering up or an encouraging word. Too embarrassed to just hand it to her [she might think I’m weird], when she was getting off the train – and I still had a few stops to go; as she stood up, I handed her one of my envelopes and said, “I was told to give this to you!”
The woman took the letter, smiled a bit and said “Thank you.”
Also, since February, in several of the letters, to affirm prosperity, I’ve slipped in $1.00 bills. Just a little gift for them; as we all know the little thrill it is finding a dollar on the ground. I have started, also, printing half of the letters – and placing them near middle schools with $1.00 in them – just in case a child finds them and cannot read cursive yet! Also, with young children, $1.00 is considered an incredible treasure to find!
Finally, I really wanted to see how it affected the finder and reader of these letters. One time, with my friend, Fredy — again, on the A Train going toward Manhattan, from Washington Heights. I place one of the envelopes across from us on the vacant subway car.
As the subway filled up with rushing people, we witnessed this:
A middle-aged man, carrying a backpack, went to sit on the vacant seat with our envelope there, reading: FOR YOU, YES YOU!
He, with a sort of scowl on his face coming into the train, took on a slight smile as he picked up the envelope. Fredy and I tried not to stare, but watched him.
He read the envelope, turned it over a few times, readying “Practice more random acts of kindness”, etc. He carefully opens the envelope – trying not to rip the flap with my words and drawn little hearts – he did a good job.
He unfolded the heart-shaped paper and began reading my lovely cursive; the scowl now turned to a smile and he seemed moved. He stared at the letter a few seconds after reading, turned it over again. He carefully folded it back, as if it was delicate and important to him, and put it back in the envelope. He held tightly to the letter. Then, a few minutes later, he opened it again and re-read it! This time with that happy smile of a person who really needed to hear/see those words. He was moved and it nearly made me cry.
Once again returning it carefully to its envelope, he exited the train, carefully making sure he had the love letter for him!
My friends, it feels good, even just knowing you are making someone’s day. You may change a life or encourage someone to pursue their dreams. You may be a catalyst to someone in the world who needed exactly your words of encouragement, at that exact moment. Everything happens for a reason.
Go ahead; check out my page or the pages below . . . start spreading love to the world, one stranger at a time. You may be the very miracle someone needs. You may save a life, change a life, for the better, comfort a bullied child or adult, help someone get through another hard day.
The truth is clear. The more you give, the more that comes to you. It is the law of nature. What you give out comes back to you tenfold. Oprah has and is giving away millions of dollars, all the time. She is blessed with success all the time. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Bill Gates are “givers” – money, time and more. They are all millionaires or billionaires.
Whatever you believe, the Universe has blessed these givers with financial security, loving families and joy.
Here are links, once again, to several of the love lettering Facebook pages and websites.
Send Your Love Letter Finds To: More Love Letters.com
Article: Love Letters To Strangers
Article: 30 Days Of Random Acts of Kindness
Facebook Link: The World Needs More Love Letters
Facebook Group: The Giving Group
- Beautiful Cards Bring Joy
Facebook Group: Love Letters Anonymous
Facebook Group: Love Letter Nation
Angela Theresa: Renaissance Woman 