How to make your fears powerless
The magic of morning pages.
The practice of morning pages that Julia Cameron gave to the world is rich and useful for any and all artists including those who may never create anything. Journaling is in fashion for a reason, and most of the efficiency and life-maximization experts promote it.
If being your most efficient self is what drives you, by all means journal like the experts recommend.
I’m here for writers who want their writing to get better so they can publish more that’s of better quality than they ever thought possible.
Morning pages are three pages of stream-of-consciousness, long-hand writing. In cursive. There are reasons for those rules and you should totally go to Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, to find out what they are.
Doing morning pages has been extraordinarily useful to me because they’ve allowed me to bury my dark thoughts and my worst doubts. By writing about them over and over again. Spelling them out. In painful detail. Day in and day out.
Morning pages are the ideal place for all your negative shit to go and die. Frustrations about your spouse or lover — or both. Your kids. The job you have to do to pay your bills and that saps your best energy, the energy you should devote to your best writing. Your doubts about your ability to make it as a writer. Your fears. Your worries about money. Your health. How you couldn’t sleep through the night because you’re suddenly reminded your youngest might just fail grade 9 math.
Morning pages are not meant to be read by anyone. Not even by you. They’re the perfect place to dump all your ugly feelings. It’s like a therapist you don’t have to pay. Better: A free therapist who helps you deal with your frustrations and makes your writing better.
I cheat on that one rule; I read my morning pages nine months later. I read them to pick out the little gems they contain. The turns of phrase that make me laugh. Some milestones I’d noted but forgotten. I read them once, take the notes out of them, then compost the pages so they disappear into something new. I find the symbolism powerful.
I have been writing morning pages every day without exception for over six years. I have seen my darkest thoughts over and over again. My worst doubts. My most annoying frustrations. On more than a few of those pages the ink was smeared because I’d shed tears on them.
Reading and re-reading dark thoughts, doubts, fears, worries and frustrations, repeated on a daily basis for years on end has, it turns out, a very powerful effect. It makes the dark thoughts, doubts, fears, worries and frustrations become much less scary. And after a while, what you stop fearing ceases to have power over you.
Not that your spouse or lover becomes perfect. Neither do your children. Or you, for that matter. But you become better able to focus on the things you can control and stop fearing the ones you don’t.
And do you know what happens when you stop fearing the things you can’t control because they are now familiar — almost ordinary?
It frees up a huge amount of your beautiful, precious energy to invest in crafting more, and better words that you feel are publishable.
If that’s not a goal worth pursuing by investing a few minutes first thing every morning to write, by hand, three pages of stream-of-consciousness, then what are you even doing here reading me?
If, on the other hand, you’re the kind of writer ready to write one million publishable words this year, I suggest you invest in a notebook and write three pages first thing tomorrow morning. It’s the best place for the shit you need to get rid of to go a die already.