The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is a daily practice called Morning Pages.
-Julia Cameron
For several years, after I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, I’ve been writing morning pages. I sit and write in my journal, first thing in the morning, without any limits. I’ve realized that one of my greatest fears is being alone, people not liking me for who I am, so I’ve comprimised my boundaries a lot over the years. This practice helps me to be authentic and to face what I am really feeling and needing and to catch myself when I’m playing into this fear. Once it’s on paper, it’s hard to ignore. I don’t censor the pages or worry about what I am writing. I just write what comes to me. Three pages is an adequate amount to push past the general mind clutter in order to access what is beneath the surface of our initial thoughts.
Morning pages are not meant to be done a certain way. It is stream of consciousness writing that should be free of judgment or censoring. It is for your eyes only! This is a great tool to get everything out of your head, all the things rattling around in there, to free up your mind for the creative self to come through. Eventually, you will look forward to writing your thoughts in the morning and the freeing sensation that it provides.
Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, describes morning pages as a place where you can complain, be grumpy, write your to do list, whatever is on your mind. The idea is to get it all out onto the paper to free up your consciousness. Listen to what she says about morning pages here.
Morning pages only take 15-30 minutes a day and they are the most freeing tool I’ve used. Not only is it a good self-care practice, it also helps you out of that frenzied mind space that can be the single determining factor in approaching each and every day with much more success.
I’d love to hear how you do with your morning pages over the next month. Be sure to message me with the results so I can share it with the Freebrooke community!