Morning Pages
“Anyone who faithfully writes morning pages will be led tot a connection with a source of wisdom with in. When I am stuck with a painful situation or problem that I don’ think I know how to handle, I will go to the pages and ask for guidance.” - Julia Cameron
As we embark on the month of January after such a tumultuous year, I am left to reflect on what realistic commitments we can make to ourselves to feel nourished and empowered. I don’t love the word “resolution.” In fact, it brings up anxiety with a parade of “shoulds,” “musts” and “have-tos” marching around in my head! But one ritual (doesn’t that word already sound much better?) I do want to share with you that I am working on this year and that I have found very rewarding in the past is Julia Cameron’s idea of “morning pages.”
What are they?
Julia Cameron’s bestselling book The Artist’s Way has served for about thirty years as a trusted guide for many to ignite personal spiritual and creative journeys. If that sounds appealing, I strongly encourage you to pick it up! Today, however, I want to focus on a powerful tool Julia shares : the daily morning pages.
The concept is fairly simple: Wake up each morning and write three pages. The pages are longhand (not typing) and completely stream of consciousness. Julia says that we should write absolutely whatever comes to mind. The pages can address anything from your grocery list, your frustration about not knowing what to write or the stress of what you have to do that day.
The important thing is that you keep coming back to the pages each morning and write. They can be in a journal, on looseleaf, pulled out of a spiral notebook, written on the back of computer paper, the list goes on. She encourages us not to read them at all in the beginning (to avoid judgement) and to put zero pressure on ourselves as we put the pen to paper; just dump out onto the pages everything bouncing around in your head. There is absolutely no WRONG way to do the morning pages. Just show up.
The one rule Julia states is that morning pages are “nonnegotiable.” She is clear that we should never skip them or leave them incomplete no matter what we are feeling that day. The idea that we need to be “in the mood” to write is a fallacy according to Julia and, in fact, it is likely on those days that we may need Morning Pages the most. Do whatever you need to do, but fill all three pages is Julia’s charge.
(My two cents: When I hear that something is a MUST, I get stressed because I just know that no matter how hard I try or what I plan to do, it’s just unrealistic to think I will be able to do anything daily forever. It puts pressure on me and then when I don’t do the thing I’m supposed to do every. single. day. I feel like a failure. So, though I agree it would be ideal to do these pages every day without fail, the approach I’m taking is that I will very much try to them every day but if I somehow get caught up in something else and it is then 1 pm and I have not written “morning” pages, then it is okay. I can write them right then or I will just wait until tomorrow. What I will not do is give up the entire ritual entirely because I was not perfect and because I missed a day, or maybe two. I can bounce back and start again any morning and the rewards will still be there waiting for me. The failure would be never doing it again and missing out on all the benefits and things I could have learned. Whew).
How do they help?
They let you get out all the extra nonsense, distracting stress, logistics and negativity that is in between us and our productivity or, as is Julia’s focus, our creativity. For me, they have helped me solve some problems or outilne the day so that I then have a clear picture of how to tackle things and I feel more confident to get them done.
They help us move past self-criticism. In her book, Julia explains that most of us are riddled with judgments and quips that we hear each day from our inner Censor. These negative or self-doubting thoughts like, “You’re never going to start that project,” or “Today is impossible, there’s too much to do,” or “You think that’s good enough? That’s a joke!” imprison and preoccupy us. When we get them down on the page, maybe the block is removed and we are now able to move forward with freedom. Specifically with creativity, Julia explains that since there is no right or wrong way to morning pages, when we show up and complete them, we are “evading our Censor.” (more on "the Censor” below).
They get us “to the other side.” Julia says, “Morning pages do get us to the other side: the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods.” I have to say that this is true. When I have gone into the morning stressed and then spent the time focusing on the stress in the pages, I walk away with a clear head and the anxiety has lifted. It’s pretty impressive because the alternative could be that I walked around with that energy for hours or, perhaps, the entire day! Getting it out in twenty or thirty minutes of writing is a much better better deal.
For artists, it gets all the left brain thinking out of the way and opens up a path to dabble with the creativity of the right brain.
They can serve as a meditation. Meditation can help us move from one state to a different one and allow us to connect with a new part of ourselves or the world around us. When we write the morning pages, the same process can take place as we tap into deeper thoughts or “creative insights.”
“We meditate to discover our own identity, our right place in the scheme of the universe.” Through meditation, we acquire and eventually acknowledge our connection o an inner power source that has the ability to transform our outer world. In other words, meditation gives us not only the light of insight, but also the power for expansive change (The Artists’ Way, 14).
These pages can give you a greater sense of who you are, what you desire, your dreams and how tot get there. When you write every day, you might see themes come up or topics you are ruminating about over and over. It also might become clearer what you value and hope for and what your opinions are about certain issues, maybe in a way you hadn’t noticed or clarified before.
We can tap into our inner wisdom. I have found this to be really true. I might be struggling with a question or idea throughout the day. When I actually give myself time to write about and think from different angles, I find that I have had the solution within me all along. Perhaps the busy pace of the day or other distractions or self-doubt get in the way of these answers, but through the morning pages I have found that I can rely on myself to figure things out and that feels really good… and is a nice reminder!
Soo, that seems like quite an abundance of rewards in return for some morning writing. I also think that making this quiet time for yourself in the beginning of the day is just a beautiful gift. If you can go somewhere where you won’t be interrupted or get up twenty minutes before everyone else in the house, this could be your sacred space to set the tone for your day and make some amazing discoveries about you.
Have fun trying this technique and perhaps it will be a rewarding routine you can enjoy for decades to come! To learn more about Morning Pages and unlocking your creativity, of course, find The Artist’s Way and dive in!