If you have difficulties with someone in your life, you might spend some time alone and write a letter to him or her.  Give yourself three hours to write a letter using loving speech.  While you write the letter, practice looking deeply into the nature of your relationship.  Why has communication been difficult?  Why has happiness not been possible?  You may want to begin like this, ‘My dear son, I know you have suffered a lot during the past many years.  I have not been able to help you—-in fact, I have made the situation worse.  It is not my intention to make you suffer, my son.  Maybe I am not skillful enough.  Maybe I try to impose my ideas on you and I make you suffer.  In the past I thought you made me suffer, that my suffering was caused by you.  Now I realize that I have been responsible for my own suffering, and that I have made you suffer.  As your father, I don’t want you to suffer.’  Spend three hours, even a day, writing such a letter.  You will find that the person who finishes the letter is not the same person who began it.  Peace, understanding, and compassion have transformed you.  A miracle can be achieved in twenty-four hours.  That is the practice of loving speech.