Morning pages consist of three pages of longhand stream of consciousness writing.
Julia Cameron proposed the idea in her book, The Artist’s Way. The idea is to get everything in your head down on paper before you do anything else. No censoring, considering, or editing.
The purpose is to clear your head before you begin your day.
Morning pages are supposed to be great for creative minds, but they work for anyone.
You might wonder how this simple act of writing exactly what’s in your head can be so effective.
I think that morning pages are a kind of meditation.
When you meditate, you focus on one thing, notice any thoughts that pop up, then go back to your focus.
Morning pages sort of work the opposite way.
You gather all of your thoughts, round them up on the page — in no order at all — and then you’re done with them.
People have said that morning pages have changed their lives.
They don’t seem like much, and if you start doing them, you’ll wonder how that’s possible.
Most of our thoughts are pretty mundane. It’s not as though we’re bursting with brilliant ideas every morning.
And yet, you read over and over again about people who insist their lives were changed by this simple habit.
I am one of them.
If you work through The Artist’s Way — which is for anyone, not just artists — there comes a point where you look back on your earlier entries and examine them.
When I did that exercise, I thought there would be no changes at all.
I was surprised to find that I was wrong.
A change had taken place. Small subtle shifts had occurred that I never noticed.
I was a different person, made better by writing my thoughts each morning.
Who might you be if you tried morning pages?
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