For much of my youth I kept a journal, and although it was often the sole witness to many of the secrets and feelings I was too scared (or didn’t know it was possible) to share with any other human, the role of my journals was never solely therapeutic.
While there certainly was something deeply beneficial about having that private space - those pages in which to write my life down - there was something about my process that was almost expressly non therapeutic. To be completely honest, there was always a sense in the back of my mind that one day I would be a very important person, and people would be reading through these journals to see how smart and important I was even at an early age living in obscurity.
This self consciousness invaded my process, and while at times I would use my journal’s pages to pour out my heart, I think at a certain level I was still always censoring, moderating or modifying myself for some imaginary audience. The way I wrote, the tone, the choice of words, what was left out or included and how it was delivered were all shaped by reading the journals and autobiographical writings of many others, after which I developed my own self conscious style of journaling.
This wasn’t all bad - I’ve talked to other friends and acquaintances who’ve shared similar processes with their journaling, and still consider it a valuable activity. I’m sharing this old habit of mine because, while all journaling is likely of some therapeutic value, the approach I want to share with you today is basically the antithesis of what I described above: Raw, naked, unselfconscious, and gloriously not intended for anyone’s future reading.
Morning Pages
A wonderful model for this type of journaling (or writing) is taught by author Julia Cameron. Cameron’s Morning Pages method (a central practice in her The Artist’s Way program/book) involves a daily practice of three handwritten pages of totally unfiltered, stream of consciousness outpourings. These pages are not meant to be read by anyone else, ever. They actually aren’t really even meant to be read by you in the future. They are not a document intended for future review. They are more like a meditation - the kind where you close your eyes and connect to the presence of the moment. The purpose of the meditation is not to manufacture something for future review, or to create a document of what is real right now. The purpose of such meditation, as in the morning pages, is to connect with what is alive in this moment.
I find the value in the process, not the product. I don’t read the pages - that’s the whole point - but I am left with big shifts in how I’m feeling, and revelations to sit with or needs to address after witnessing what has poured out of me onto them. I actually don’t even do the pages in an actual journal - I write them on loose pages of paper, then put them all in a large envelope. They are still around, but not intended to be looked at at a whim. This is how Cameron suggests this practice be done, though if you prefer using an actual journal, you will still surely benefit.
Cameron emphasizes the importance of this writing being done by hand, on paper, and that’s how I choose to do this and most journaling work. For me, this is because there’s something more elemental and raw about the act of scribbling on paper. When I am writing out angry or highly charged feelings, the writing gets big and sloppy and wild. When I’m writing from a wiser, more centred place, the writing is tighter, more precise and graceful. I like that added dimension of handwriting - there is an element of physicality with it that typing doesn’t quite capture. If you prefer typing, however, that’s great.
Find a vein
In my own practice, I really strongly emphasize the stream of consciousness aspect. I don’t sit at my morning pages and think about smart or clever things to write. My intention is to keep the distance between feeling/thought and written word very close. I’m feeling blocked? Okay, that’s on the page. Then maybe I ask why - that’s on the page. Then maybe I get a really ridiculous infantile first thought that comes to my head in response to that question - that’s on the page. And onwards.
Often with creative and emotional or spiritual work, people’s biggest block is thinking they need to get something right - they don’t want to do it wrong. This practice is a place for that idea to go on hiatus. There is no right or wrong way, the whole purpose is to liberate ourselves from such restrictions for a moment and give our creative energy a place to stretch and breathe, and see what it might reveal about how we’re feeling or what we’re needing.
That’s what stream of consciousness means - just let it flow. It’s a stream, there’s no part of it that is stopping to question which way to go, what’s wrong or right. It just flows. That is the essence of what we are doing with this.
Additional Dimensions
Last week I wrote a post about emotional processing, and outlined a few simple principles for creating a dialogue with our feelings. When doing this type of free-form journaling, there is often a wonderful opportunity for us to not only nakedly express what we are feeling, but to have a healing dialogue with these feelings.
Often the feelings that come up for me when writing in this fashion involve a lot of fear, sadness, anger, rage, inertia, confusion, and whatever lies beneath them. I use the space to both wildly vent, and also to talk to myself from a higher-self perspective. Sometimes a whole session will turn out to be a pep talk from some divine big brother-type of voice. Other times it will be largely wild emotionally charged scribbles, interspersed with the odd question or deep, grounded, wise insight to shine a light deeper into what is going on - to illuminate the bigger picture that the hurt part of myself cannot or does not yet see.
As I said last week, this is a really significant part of emotional work - first feeling what is in us, and then holding truth and grace for what is collapsed or trapped in a story that does not encompass a larger, more expansive reality. The pages are a place for me to bring attention to what I’m feeling, and hold a lot of light for the parts that need it, if they need it.
What This Can Open
I hadn’t done regular journaling for several years when I decided to give the morning pages method a good go, and can honestly say that I was surprised at how much it moved and shook things up for me in a short period of time. I found certain fragments of myself and my experiences surfacing that totally shocked me, and what’s more, I found the practice lead to all sorts of tangible actions in my daily life. I have uncovered parts of me that wanted more attention, more love, and through the inner work got a clear directive to make some meaningful practical changes to my outer life.
One direct result of the morning pages and what they brought up has been the evolution of me hosting group events (which I recently moved online if you are interested in joining), among many other fun and beautiful things.
As an addition to other practices like meditation and focused inner work, this type of writing has been an amazing and supportive tool. As a writer, I think it also helps loosen some tight spots creatively.
Fun Prompts
Now, if you feel like you really ‘should’ be doing something like this but have a total aversion to actually following through, you might be accurately feeling that it’s just not the right thing for you, or you might simply be afraid of or unused to letting yourself loose creatively. For me it’s usually more of the latter. Once I sit down and get started, I never regret it.
If you sit down at the pages and things just don't flow, or your head habitually gets in the way of your flowing stream of consciousness, thinking about what the right thing to say would be (literally anything), having a prompt to work with can be helpful.
The most obvious would be: Right now I feel….
Some others that come to mind:
I don’t like this because….
I really want….
I’ve been avoiding….
I really love….
I’m proud that I….
I’m addicted to….
You’ll probably be supplied with your own prompt once you sit down and let things flow.
It’s pretty fun to just start writing and see what comes out. Then if the flow stops, to ask a follow up question (or jump to a completely unrelated tangent that feels alive). If I’m exploring a part of me that is avoiding even doing the writing, I might ask questions to see what it’s afraid of - to see what it’s avoiding feeling (writing everything out stream of consciousness, of course - totally unconcerned with whether any of it is right or wrong).
There is a famous quote that writing is easy, all you have to do is find a vein and let it bleed onto the page. I’m paraphrasing here, and haven’t been able to locate the actual source of this nugget of wisdom (Hemmingway? Wolfe?), but it really summarizes this practice in my experience.
It’s not about what is intellectually proper or makes sense. This type of writing is more about making a space for feeling what is and connecting to truth and wisdom. Julia Cameron talks about having conversations with a higher power through the morning pages, using them as a place for prayer or direct communication with the divine, and I think there is a lot of wisdom in this. A space for our feelings, for our authenticity to shine (or shout), and a space to have a dialogue with the divine. That sounds pretty good.
In a sense there’s no technique at all here - it’s just scribbling messily whatever comes up on a few pages of paper. But I find that the intention - to feel what is here, whatever it is, and bring love or support to wherever needs it, is itself very powerful.
That’s all for today everyone. If this post stirs anything for you, I’d love to hear about it. Post a comment below or reach out to me directly.
Header Photo by Rachel Lynette French on Unsplash