Practice of the Week
Morning Pages
Morning Pages
Category: May be a part of your Journaling practice, one of the three core daily practices.
"I sometimes think they should be called 'Mourning Pages' because they are a farewell to life as you knew it." (Julia Cameron)
"Morning pages" are a key component of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Cameron writes:
The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is a daily practice called Morning Pages. Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages – they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind – and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page…and then do three more pages tomorrow.
Journalist Oliver Burkeman was initially skeptical but is now a convert to the value of morning pages. In, "This Column Will Change Your Life," he writes:
As a journalist, I hate writing exercises: why do extra work nobody'll ever see? Besides, Morning Pages were invented in the new age hub of Taos, New Mexico, by the creativity guru Julia Cameron,...But this summer I read three articles that suggested the exercise was catching on with business types, too. Then my friend Joanna, no new ager, revealed that she swore by them....See this 3 minute video on morning pages:
"There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages," Cameron writes....She means you can write about whatever's on your mind: petty worries, soaring plans, angry tirades.
When it comes to the how, she's strict. The pages must be done first thing: "You're trying to catch yourself before your ego's defences are in place." They must be longhand. And you must fill exactly three sides of US Letter paper (A4 is close enough). That 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. "It turns out you can't really write about nothing for three whole pages," Joanna says. Or, as Cameron writes: "The second page-and-a-half comes harder, but often contains paydirt." Equally, after three pages, you must stop, to avoid "self-involvement and narcissism". Brain-sweep complete, it's time to get on with the day.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at how powerful Morning Pages proved, from day one, at calming anxieties, 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.
Crucially, Morning Pages are private. If you need to destroy them to ensure that, go ahead: it's more important than keeping them for reference. Not because you'll necessarily pour out secrets there, but because it's liberating to know you could. It's why good therapists work hard to create a "secure frame", right down to making sure no one can peer in the window. And why, in her book The Rise, historian Sarah Lewis stresses the importance of "private domains" in the lives of great creative figures: rooms of their own where they could bring their work into the world, externalising it without sharing it. Morning Pages create a metaphorical private domain – one so valuable, I find it hard to imagine I'll ever stop.
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