How do you wake up in the morning? Are you having some self reflection? Thinking about dreams, goals and aspirations? Processing and planning with a clear and level head? Or does your alarm come in the form of a child jumping on your head, followed by you staggering down the stairs only to be greeted by a million demands and questions?
If it is the former, you can skip my article. If it is the latter, and I am guessing this is most of you, you just might think my article is insane. It can't be done!—might be the collective exclamation. But hear me out, Perhaps this can be goal for one day, something to try when your kids have moved out—I jest, or maybe daringly you can try this now. What I am going to suggest is for you to carve out a little sliver of self-care and time for yourself in—get this—the morning!
Yes, the morning! A time when everything is getting started and your house is likely at its most chaotic, but maybe just maybe, if you really try you can make these few intentionally executed minutes a reality.
Your bedtime might have to shift back a little bit and an alarm might have to be set to get a head start on the family rousing but it will be worth it. Here is what I want you to do: as soon as you wake up, grab a pen, a notebook and write three page. No more, no less. Write about anything and everything that crosses your mind. It doesn't matter. You can write about how ridiculous this assignment is for several lines, write a partial grocery list or maybe you will write about your hopes and dreams. The point? Not to save it, interpret it or use it again, but rather to process. Author and artist Julia Cameron wrote about the idea of morning pages in her book The Artist's Way. She calls this tool “the bedrock... of creative recovery.”
The point of morning pages? To “provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand.” Julia started the morning pages as a way to find and retrieve creativity. and it is one of the key ideas outlined in her internationally known book.
I have used the morning pages and found it excellent in sorting out my thoughts. I describe the process as similar to how I experience an early morning run, during which I am often having such a meeting of the two minds, or rather my left brand and right brain, that I am dying to pull off the road and find paper and a pencil. Starting the day off writing helps me sort out my day, process issues my subconscious has been working on through the last day and night and provides a place to work out some ideas. I have found it immensely helpful and I hope you find it helpful too.
So whether you are working on a large artistic venture or just wanting a little more creativity in your day this might just be the good in good morning you have needed.
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