Sometimes my brain wakes me up just to talk to me. Why else do I wake up at 5am with a million thoughts rushing through my mind? I start my day with everything on my mind which means new thoughts and ideas are snuffed out. I wanted to do something to tame all of these 5am thoughts, so I started the journaling practice known as morning pages. It’s a technique that I read in the book The Artist Way by Julie Cameron. Morning pages is a writing exercise that you do first thing in the morning. Cameron suggests writing by long hand three-pages worth of thoughts. This gets all those half-baked ideas out of your head.
Three pages was overwhelming for me, so I settled on writing one page. I still get a lot out of my head, and I don’t stress about filling one page. I know I can do that. Most days I fill a full page in about five minutes.
The idea behind the morning pages is that the writing is not precious, so just write away. In fact, you are encouraged not to even review what you wrote. Just get those thoughts onto the page.
Morning pages are a great way to actually use that half-full notebook you’ve been keeping for the right occasion. I used one of mine that had been lying around for years. Using a non-pristine notebook made it easier just to write. I wasn’t ruining a new, clean notebook with writing that I was never going to read.
My routine is that I reach for my notebook first thing in the morning even before getting out of bed. Chances are pretty good that I’ve been awake so the daily thoughts have been flowing already. It’s the perfect time to just let those thoughts flow out of the brain and onto the page.
Some of my morning pages are filled with the same thoughts - business ideas, comic ideas, what I had for lunch yesterday, etc. It’s all very random and I get mentally tired of having these same thoughts every single day. With morning pages, they have their own space to live now instead of inside my head.
I have been doing morning pages for six months now and can definitely say it has really helped me. My brain is free from reminding me of all those things I have now written down - some thoughts I’ve written more than once. But the more I write, the more new ideas have a space to grow. I do miss a day occasionally but I don’t worry about it. It’s not a race or challenge. I think of it more as a tool that I use most days to start my day.
My first notebook that I started with now has no more clean pages, and I did opt to switch to a new notebook mainly because it’s what I could find around the house. The first notebook I haven’t thrown away just yet. It is hard because I tell myself that there might be something in there worth pursuing further but the reality is that there probably isn’t. I hope to be ready to chunk it soon.
Overall the morning pages practice has been very beneficial. My head feels clearer. I am able to articulate my feelings better and my ‘why’ for wanting to do things. Even if part of the exercise of morning pages is to never look at it again, it’s amazing how good it feels to complete that page.
