You hate to meditate, but you want to calm you mind and you’ve heard about all the benefits mediation offers. You know you’ve got great ideas, but you just can’t calm your mind long enough to access them. Try this exercise to “free your mind, so the rest can follow … ”
Julia Cameron, author of the “The Artist’s Way,” tried to convince me to journal 3 free-writing pages every morning for years, but I resisted. Why? Because … I felt too darn busy with life.
And then at yoga-teacher training last year Phillip Urso, founder of Live, Love, Teach Yoga, talked about all the value “journaling” offered him and I decided to try again. But this time with higher-level commitment — serious-like, no messing around. And something different happened. I literally felt the dust lifting off my brain. I literally felt my mind clearing … So I stayed with “Morning Pages” to see what else could happen.
And the craziest, coolest things started to unfold, like, new insights soared. Conflicts seemed to resolve themselves and anxieties dissipated, so my voice rose up in my writing. And because my voice was rising in my writing, my voice was rising in my speaking. Yes! Say hello bigger confidence! Say hello greater clarity!
As I cleared all the clutter and confusion from my busy brain and busy life, my passion and my voice for all that I care about began to rise up from underneath the franticness of my wildly, over-scheduled, hectic life.
Morning Pages calmed me. Morning pages calms me. Like meditation.
And the best part about this suggestion? Morning pages can offer you very similar benefits!
Aren’t you eager to discover what is underneath all the reasons why you can’t do it, what’s beyond your endless to-do lists, what may be your greatest life’s calling, but you can’t hear it because you are just “too darn busy?”
And here is the Morning Pages exercise in a nutshell, easy-peasy:
When you wake up simply free-write 3 pages. Yup, that’s it.
OK. The best time? When you first wake up. That time when you are half awake and half asleep, the “threshold of consciousness.” Some say this is when Spirit speaks to us – I don’t know. But I do know this, crazy, over-the-top magic happened for me from writing at this time, so maybe “their” right, right?
One more thing. You’ve got to free-hand this “old-skool.” No computers. No iPads. Classic straight-up, long-hand writing for this exercise. And … you’ve got to fill 3 full 8x10s! It’s the rules. Yup. Julia Cameron says-so-rules. The Artist’s Ways rules. Ha! But then the glorious magic of Morning Pages starts to work! Hands-down!
No joke!
You’ll experience a clearing very much like meditation offers.
I highly recommend Morning Pages!
Good luck! Let me know in the comments section below if you already do journal, if you already do “Morning Pages” in the wee, gorgeously quiet moments of the morning and what it’s offered you, or if you try it, what opens up for you! I’d love to hear!
Here’s a great 2.5 minute clip of author Julia Cameron talking about her “Morning Pages:”
(PS – I don’t like the word hate, but from what I’ve learned, the idea of meditating does cause rise of very definite opinions.) 🙂
I have to try that, morning pages! 🙂 I do journal, I’ve created a specific journal w/ special sections that motivates me to journal, but I usually do it in the evenings…but you got me curious about that zombie-morning-state Carol 🙂 thanks for the tip!
I’ve tried meditating as well but I hate the never ending mind chatter that goes on inside my head 😛 lol it feels like torture!
I think you will love Morning Pages, Diana! Really amazing what they offer …. you’ll see. And … ya’ know what they say, that what we resist, we likely need most! Ha! To build your mediation practice, use guided meditations to help you get started. They are such a good way to get us started just quieting down. A few that I love, and you can find some of them on YouTube are Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization, Deepak Chopra, Byron Katie, Thich Nhat Hahn … check those out and let me know if you need more ideas. Thanks for stopping by!