On morning pages
Morning pages are a brilliant tool we can use on retreat and to help create changes to our lives back home, says Caroline Sylge
Morning pages are one of the most transformative tools I've found in Julia Cameron’s brilliant book, The Artist’s Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, which teaches techniques and exercises to help you gain self-confidence and harness your creative talents and skills.
As an exercise, morning pages sound incredibly simple, yet they’re amazingly powerful. The idea is that, as soon as you wake up, you write out three pages in long hand as a stream of consciousness. You don’t censor yourself in any way, and it doesn’t matter what you write. There is no wrong way to do morning pages – just write anything and everything that crosses your mind, from desires, dreams, thoughts and worries to shopping lists, inane comments or profound poetic lines - anything at all. For best results, you do need to do them every day.
The idea is that morning pages clears the my mind of the low-energy nonsense that can float around and clouds things. The process of writing down grounds your feelings and thoughts, so you can begin your day afresh each time. Morning pages also help you notice repetitive patterns of thinking and emotions that keep surfacing. Recognizing and identifying these is part of letting something much bigger dissolve, so you can connect with the part of you beyond your mind that is calm, joyful, creative and expansive - your true self.
How to unleash your inner artist
The Artist’s Way helps you see the connection between your artistic creativity and your spiritual self, and practise the art of creative living. It comprises a 12-week course that helps us gently unfold and unleash the creativity that we all have inside – whether we are writers, painters, dancers, gardeners, cooks, business people or just humans who want to express our creativity by living life to the full.
Here are five tips from The Artist’s Way to get you started:
Every morning set your clock half an hour early. Get up and write three pages of long-hand, stream-of-consciousness morning writing. Do not reread these pages or allow anyone else to read them.
Every week, take yourself on an artist’s date. For example, take five pounds/dollars and go to a stationery or art/craft store. Buy silly things like sparkly sequins, glue, crayons, gold stars - whatever takes your fancy.
Take your inner artist for a walk, just the two of you. Keep all your senses open. A brisk twenty-minute walk can dramatically alter your consciousness.
Sit down, breathe and make a list of twenty things you love doing (rock climbing, making bread, riding a horse, reading poetry, running, and so forth). When was the last time you allowed yourself to do these things? Ponder if you might allow yourself to do them again.
List three old enemies of your creative self-worth. Think back. Who were the historic monsters who sat on your creativity and smothered it? Create a monster hall of fame and start writing out (or painting) those old stories. Time to let them go.
