One of my absolute favorite things to do is the Morning Pages. I have been writing them since 2002. For me they are a kind of meditation. You could consider them a ‘tool’. When I started using them, I hadn’t yet learned about presence or intuition, but without knowing it, I had stumbled across a way to regularly put myself in a state of presence and flow in which I actively seek my intuition. Over the years, I have explained to many curious friends what Morning Pages are, and eventually ended up writing the following summary to send out. Just this week I sent it to a new friend, and it occurred to me I should share it here.
MORNING PAGES
The concept of morning pages was invented by a great teacher named Julia Cameron. She teaches creativity, believing that all people, no matter their profession, are creative, and that fostering their creativity is going to help them get the most out of their lives. She wrote a beautiful and influential book called The Artist’s Way. Her ideas initially applied to just artists, being the most obviously creative people. But these ideas have since been expanded to people who work in business and so on; the book that did this is The Artist’s Way At Work.
So – what I’m giving you here are some ground rules, just to get you started. If after you start you want to know more, do get one of the books. They’re full of useful, logical and playful ideas for what to do with what your morning pages reveal.
Morning pages are 3 pages that you write by hand. You write them everyday. It’s like a conversation with yourself. There are no rules about what to write about or how to express them. You write whatever comes to mind. Morning pages are not art, not even good writing. They don’t even have to be grammatical. They are stream-of-consciousness, anything-goes writing.
Why 3 pages? Because experience has shown that the ideal amount of writing you should do will fill about 3 pages of A4 (or similar, ie 8½ x 11) paper. It’s the right amount of ‘simmer’ – if you write less than that, your thoughts won’t be deep enough. If you write more, you could become too introspective for the rest of the day. Initially, you may spend maybe 45 minutes or so writing them, but generally you’ll speed up as you get accustomed to them. I find that the amount of time it takes varies from week to week.
I sometimes do and sometimes don’t tell people the following, depending on their reaction so far: If you find the idea of 3 pages intimidating, then here is a fall-back. Just write for 20 minutes. If at the end of 20 minutes, you want to continue, then do so. You probably will.
I suggest that you get yourself 2 things –
One: a nice feel-good notebook – something with good quality paper that is going to make you feel good when you write in it. You can buy notebooks smaller than A4 of course, but just be aware that you’re writing about three A4 pages’ worth. Just don’t get a notebook that is too small, because that will cramp your thoughts…. And I don’t get notebooks with too many pages because it’s fun to change notebooks frequently; I like using a different type each time.
Two: a nice pen, which you use only for morning pages. I have French fountain pen that I love, but you don’t have to get something lavish, just something you enjoy using. You might already have something like this around.
Why longhand? Because there is something about morning pages being hand-made that is important. Writing longhand takes time, and so the pace of your thinking will adjust to the pace of your writing. Your handwriting doesn’t have to be legible to anyone but yourself, so write neatly or scrawl, it doesn’t matter. The reason you shouldn’t use a computer is that it’s too easy to edit and erase. Morning pages are meant to show your thoughts unedited, no matter how disorganized you think they are. Hand-made morning pages end up being more honest.
Why in the morning? Because that is when your mind is most free. The later in the day you write, the more you’ll just be thinking about the things that have happened that day. But in the morning, what comes to mind are just the important, recurring things.
Morning pages are written for yourself. They are private, for yourself only. They won’t be shown to anyone else. This is important. This is necessary in order to create a sense of security, so that you can write anything at all in them without being self-conscious about what anyone else might think. In fact, don’t even tell people that you’re writing morning pages, at least not until you’ve been doing them for a while. Otherwise you will be putting pressure on yourself, because people will ask “how are the morning pages going, what are you discovering or solving?” and you will feel forced into finding an answer before you’re ready to give one.
You’ll probably encounter a bit of self-censorship as you get used to writing morning pages. Experience will help you overcome this. You’ll find yourself wanting to say things that are very private, and it will take time to get used to getting them down on paper. Remember that the morning pages are for you to read only, so feel secure in doing this. At the same time, you’ll find parts of yourself having lots of fun. You’ll find yourself wishing and wondering, which is great: “I wonder what will happen if I….”. “I wish …”. This is where your solutions will come from.
For the first 2 months or so, don’t re-read your morning pages. This is probably a shock to know! You can re-read what you’re writing on the day, but try not to read what was written previously. If you do, you will be influenced by what you’ve written before. Instead, you want to be writing afresh each day. At the same time, it doesn’t matter if the morning pages are repetitive, because as patterns of thought emerge, so will solutions to what you’re sorting out. I personally find that I don’t re-read my morning pages much at all, and instead I simply pay attention to what shows up in the current day’s pages — the current moment.
Well – that’s it. You’re on your way….
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