Recently, I’ve been finding it more difficult to concentrate and to really know where to focus my attention. It’s really no wonder, given that I started working on a new business venture last fall and am also enrolled in a certification program that is equivalent to a part-time job.
These are both on top of running my full-time business and taking care of my kids, and also carving out time to exercise and maintain friendships and stay current with the Sunday New York Times and books on my reading list.
I know that I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed. I imagine that you can also relate to feeling pulled in many directions.
Understandably, I’ve been yearning for ways to recenter and reground myself and wanting to find things that I can do that integrate well with the routines and interests that I already have.
That’s where Morning Pages come in.
One of the major ways that I’ve been clearing my mind is to start writing again. Morning pages are a tool that’s based on Julia Cameron’s creativity book The Artist’s Way. It involves writing three pages of unedited, stream of consciousness thoughts.
Preferably you do it first thing in the morning, but I do it whenever I can find 15 minutes, as it takes me about 5 minutes to fill a page. I’m focused on just doing it rather than on having to do it perfectly.
Sometimes I only write one page. This past week when I was on spring break vacation with my kids in Amsterdam, I gave myself permission to write when it seemed right, which turned out to be half of the days, one to three pages a sitting.
I first learned about morning pages through The Artist’s Way course that I took with a small group of women while I was in my mid-twenties. Every week for several months we met in our leader’s second floor walk up apartment in Arlington, Massachusetts. We lit candles, drank herbal tea and shared poems, art work and experiences that inspired us.
One of the women in the group worked as a nanny and wanted to find ways to make and sell her art online. She eventually created a calendar of her work and also starting selling her paintings in a gallery in a coastal town.
I decided to take the course as a way to reconnect with my creativity, which had been dampened after graduating from college and starting a full-time job that involved writing articles to help small to mid-sized businesses purchase office equipment and services. The course helped me to get out and explore more of what was around me–to visit museums in the area, travel, go to dance performances and feel more connected to myself and what inspired me.
Why consider Morning Pages?
We have anywhere between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts that occur in our brain everyday. That’s a lot of random ideas to filter and sort out, and a lot of directions to be pulled in. Most of our thoughts are trivial, but it’s hard to always make sense of what is important and unimportant and to understand how to weed through the dandelions.
The goal of morning pages is to write about whatever comes to mind and to completely let go of trying to edit what you write. I think of it as a brain dump, a stream of consciousness, a place to dip into the craziness of the mind and to get stuck in the muck. It’s akin to stirring a stick in a muddy pond (our mind) and allowing it to settle so that you can see what comes up.
It’s a process that allows you to bring up whatever shit is going on in your head and to write about it without worrying about how it sounds or what to do with it. It’s the antithesis of writing for an audience, a goal, or a greater purpose. The purpose is simply to write and to let your mind take you where it needs to go. To accept what you write without judging it.
For me, that means that sometimes I’m writing about my day and processing what’s happened, and other times I’m just writing random stuff that pops up into my head–things that I have to do, ideas, memories from years past that surface into the present.
Just like my crazy mind, the words and thoughts that pour onto the pages are often clunky, superficial and disjointed. However, there are also moments of clarity and insight. Moments where I start to understand what’s really happening with my thoughts and feelings and gain an awareness of what I really want and how I might make that happen.
What I’m learning from writing Morning Pages
I’ve been writing morning pages for over a month now and there are a few interesting observations that I’ve made.
I’m becoming less anxious about my new business venture.
Somehow the process of writing down all of the junk is allowing me to calm my mind down and to feel more integrated. I’m less worried about what ifs and more focused on the steps that I actually need to take that are in my control like writing blog posts, editing my website, networking, etc.
I feel more composed.
I’m enjoying the process of writing, and I’m wanting to write more.
I’m still wondering if there is another shiny object that I should be focusing on and adding into my centering routine (now that I’ve started morning pages, should I start meditating or increase my yoga practice or drink less coffee and substitute it with tea?), but I’m able to write down these thoughts down and to let them be without having to act on them. At least for today.
For now, I think that writing three pages of unedited thoughts are enough to help me feel more centered. And that I don’t need to do more, add more, become more, but that it is simply helpful to continue to carve out 15 minutes to get my muck onto paper and out of my mind.
How about you? What centering practices do you do or would like to start doing? If you’ve tried Morning Pages, how have they worked for you?
