Child Letter

Wow, you received the Connected Hearts Journal!

Congratulations!!!

Do you know the legend behind this journal?

As the story goes, long back, several hundreds of years ago, in a land far, far away called Trutopia, everyone used to live happily and in peace.

The reason for their happiness and peace was that all the parents and children of Trutopia had special magical powers -- they could cure each other of any form of sorrows, fears or unhappiness.

This unique magic came from little invisible threads called heartstrings that went between a parent’s heart and the child’s heart.

Nobody knew where the little heartstrings initially came from, but every time a parent and child had fun together the heartstrings multiplied, and every time they had a fight a heartstring would get broken.

So parents and children always took great care to do more fun stuff together than to fight.

And by the time the children grew up, they would have so many little heartstrings between their hearts, that even if they went far away from their parents, say to college or to find a job, they could still heal each other.

For most parents and children, hundreds of miles between them was no problem at all. And in many cases, there could be thousands of miles between them and they could go for years without meeting each other, and still the healing magic of their invisible heartstrings would work. They would all still always be happy and at peace.

As time went by though, life got busier in Trutopia. Parents and children had less and less time to spend with each other.

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Suddenly, they weren’t doing so many fun things together anymore and the heartstrings weren’t multiplying nearly as much.

As time went by, the magic between parents and kids became weaker and weaker. There were very few heartstrings left between parents and children. And then, there came a time when the last of the heartstrings was broken, and the magic completely stopped working.

Parents and children could no longer heal each other’s sorrows or fears. When kids went out into the world for college or to find a job, they completely lost touch with parents.

Slowly, the children shrunk away into sadness and the parents were left with broken hearts.

Years passed. Trutopians were no longer happy and peaceful people. Instead, they were doomed to feeling sad and afraid all the time.

Until one fine day a group of traveling wise men and women passed through Trutopia.

These traveling wise people who had heard of Trutopia’s fame as the most happy and peaceful place on earth were shocked when they saw it in its current sad state! They were devastated by the sorrow and fear in the eyes and hearts of Trutopians.

So they vowed to figure out a solution to help them. And set about to find a way to bring back the heartstrings to parents and children of Trutopia.

For the next 4 years, they traveled to different corners of the earth looking for anyone who still had invisible heartstrings.

Finally, when the 4th year was just about to end, they found one young man who lived 8,431 miles away from his parents, but was still very happy. He had the healing power of the little heartstrings!

So, the wise people asked him: “How do you still have the healing power?”

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The young man replied: “I don’t know”.

The wise people asked: “But we thought all the heartstrings were all gone! How did you get them back?”

The young man said: “I don’t know” All the wise people were stumped by this answer. So the oldest one said: “Please tell us exactly when and how you got back your healing powers”.

The young man thought for a bit and replied: “Well, my parents and I used to play this game when I was a child. See, they believed I was special, but I thought I was just ordinary. So every day they would ask me questions to help me see how special I was. And they would tell me about the things that made me special. This went on for a long time, until one day I realized I was indeed quite special. And that’s when we realized that we had the special magic to heal each other”.

The wise people were stunned. And excited. They had discovered the secret to build new heartstrings!

See, wise people that they were, they knew that every single child was special in his or her own way. But most children normally believe that they are just ordinary. When the child and parent figure out together what makes the child special, new heartstrings are formed!

So they rushed back to Trutopia. And shared their secret. And instructed the parents and children to set about figuring out what made each child special.

But this first attempt fell flat on its face. Parents and children in Trutopia simply had no idea how to figure out what made children special!

The wise men and women, however, were committed to bringing happiness and peace to Trutopia.

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So they again set about to work. They retreated to a cave for 17 days. For the first 4 days, nobody spoke to each other. All their time was spent thinking. During the next 6 days they discussed their thoughts and ideas with each other at length.

Then for the next 4 days they wrote down furiously. And finally during the last 3 days they created special art.

When they came out, they had in their hands a journal that they called the Connected Hearts Journal which included special questions and prompts and coloring art pages that would help parents and children figure out what exactly made each child special.

The people of Trutopia were skeptical at first. But they had lost all their happiness and peace anyway and had nothing more to lose. So they decided to give it a shot.

Parents and children started coloring and writing in the journal together. As the children slowly realized that they were special, they started to smile a lot more. As time went by and they completed more and more of the journal and children began to see that they were indeed very special. And just like that, the magic healing power of the heartstrings was back.

For centuries after that people of Trutopia lived in happiness and peace. Every family made it a priority to fill out their Connected Hearts Journals. Their civilization flourished and Trutopia was once again the happiest place on the planet.

These days nobody really knows what became of the civilization of Trutopia, but we have found their magical journal!

And since somebody loves you very much and believes you are special, you have received this very unique gift today.

Show it to your mom or dad. And convince them to complete this journal with you. When you discover together what makes you so special, you too will have the magic power to heal each other‌ now and forever!

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Instructions for Using the Connected Hearts Journal 1. The Table of Contents within the journal will give you a choice of many

different sections. You can do them in any order you wish. Use the check boxes in the Table of Contents to keep track of which sections you have already completed.

2. A ll writing pages have a red lines are black lines. The red lines are for you to write in and the black lines are for your mom or dad to write in.

3. C olor the coloring pages with any choice of colors you like and make this journal uniquely your own. There are mini-coloring borders on the writing pages as well. You can color them if you want. Or leave them as they are. Either ways, they’ll look pretty.

4. T here are blank pages at the end of each section. Fill them up with any special thoughts or ideas you have. If you have any ticket stubs, artwork or photographs, you can stick them there too!

5. Last and most important, any time you have a secret to share, do this:

a. M ark the current page you are working on with the satin bookmark. b. F lip over to the end of the book and find a blank page in the “Secrets” section. c. Write down your secret.

d. Note down the page number where you wrote your secret.

e. Come back to you bookmarked page

f. At the bottom of the page, check the box that says “Yes” and copy down the page number where you wrote the secret

g. Next pick one of the checkboxes in the bottom row to let you mom or dad know whether you want to discuss the secret with them or not. Remember, they are always allowed to read the secrets, but you get to decide if you want to discuss it or not. This is a great way to get things off your chest and tell them about anything you otherwise have difficulty talking about!

That’s it. Have fun. And go get yourself some magic healing powers!

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