Morning Pages

As I have become more involved with From Me to You I have found myself writing more. Not just letters. I have taken up writing a journal again. For some years now I have been writing  Morning Pages, which involves filling three sides of paper with words, stream of consciousness-style, first thing every day. "There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages," Cameron writes. (She introduced the practice in 1992, in The Artist's Way.) This means you can write about whatever's on your mind:  worries,  plans,  rants and  random thoughts.

When it comes to the how, there are rules. 

• The pages must be done first thing
• They must be longhand.
• You must fill exactly three sides of A4 paper.

​My feelings are:

• The three-sides rule is key: on an uninspired day, you might start writing banalities, but if you keep going, having dusted the cobwebs away, you might find breakthroughs occur.
• After three pages, you must stop, to avoid "self-involvement and narcissism".
• Brain-sweep complete, it's time to get on with the day.
• I struggles with A4 so I chooses A5 paper and that works for me.
•  I find it calms anxieties, worries producing insights and resolving dilemmas

After all, the psychological benefits of externalising thoughts via journalling are well-established. And that bleary-eyed morning time has been shown to be associated with more creative thinking: with the brain's inhibitory processes still weak, "A-ha!" moments come more readily. 

Morning Pages are private. I always destroy them after I have finished. Not because I've divulge lots of  secrets, but because it's liberating to know I could and when I have I feel safe that they have disappeared so I can't dwell on them. Morning Pages create a private space which i find invaluable. In a way it is my way of writing away my woes if I have any. I always feel so liberated and more productive on the days that I have written my Morning Pages.
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