This is one of my favorite morning rituals…one that I have been doing on and off for over 10 years: Morning Pages.

I found it in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and I know she’s talked about it in many of her other books. Googling “morning pages” gets all kinds of great results too, and this site was full of helpful hints.

It works like this:

First thing in the morning - still in bed even - reach over and grab your ragged notebook and writing instrument (I love a good smooth pen). Start writing, three longhand pages of whatever is traveling through your mind. Don’t stop until you get to the end - 30 minutes later give or take. Try not to get interrupted.

The idea is to dump all the chaos of that morning out-of-control mind onto those pages. Just get it down and out of the way so you can really get your creative juices pumping.

When I started, I found that if I didn’t get out of bed, I’d be asleep half a page in. Sometimes a quarter. So I’d have some water and nestle in a chair. You wouldn’t believe the lively curses that I could muster some days. The boring drone of complaints and annoyances. Mostly about relationships and money and the combination thereof, interjected with heavy doses of self criticism. My dreams would come by here and there for a visit. Sometimes I’d repeat myself over and over: “I’m tired. I don’t know what to write.”

Then, something happened. Sheer inspiration. Flowing from my pen, first thing in the morning. Stories, images, ideas. I would dance as I wrote, or at least, felt like I was dancing. Creativity flowed through my body and out my pen.

I don’t know - maybe I finally dumped enough sludge from my mind that interesting things could emerge. It didn’t matter to me…I could hardly wait to get to that page to see what might come out. What possibilities it might present for my day. If I decided to act on them, that is, and there was freedom in knowing I didn’t have to.

In fact, Julia Cameron recommends that you don’t do anything with those pages. That you write and store it away for months before you read it. If you ever read it at all. I cheated at that after it got really good, transcribing my inspirations to my computer right away (and I don’t regret it). But mostly, I let the negativity lie.

Once, I did pick up one of my old notebooks. I was bemused to see that some things hadn’t really changed. Still angry about the same things. Guess I can work on that a bit harder. And I was happy to see that some of them had changed…that I’d actually forgotten how much those things used to annoy me. I closed the books and returned them to their dusty shelf. 

I have a few clients that I’ve encouraged toward the practice as well. Recently, one of them told me that after the first page of trivialities, she found herself listing all the things she was grateful for - a list that had grown substantially since she had found her joy.

I’ve heard of prayers emerging, business ideas, all kinds of inspiration. I think it comes from getting the mind out of the way and giving the deeper inner voice room to speak.

One last bit of advice before you jump in: At first, take it seriously. Do it everyday, in the morning, first thing. After that (could be a couple weeks, a couple months), don’t worry if you miss a day or two, or a few weeks. Get a feel for how it works best for you and follow that guideline instead.

For many people, one of the biggest problems with meditation is finding the time. Who has an extra 30 minutes a day to sit and desperately attempt to quiet the mind? It takes serious discipline to make that a practice, especially when piled on top of work and exercise and foraging for the next meal and relating with people and cleaning the house and everything else.

Meditation in a New York Minute

That’s one of the reasons I love this book. You see, what you really don’t have is an extra 30 minutes in a row. You do have driving time and eating time and pauses while you wait for your computer to catch up. Mark Thornton’s Meditation in a New York Minute takes advantage of all those extra moments (way more than 30, by the way) and shows you how to use them to destress your life.

He has numerous exercises on how to do this, ranging from simple to advanced. For example, why not put an alarm on your PDA to remind you to take a deep breath? I have something like that on mine - and occassionally I’ll change the alarm time or the message to help me see it in a new light.

My favorites activities are, of course, those that help you really develop an awareness of your body - when you’re eating, walking, brushing your teeth, working in the garden. I often encourage my clients to do the same with their senses - anywhere, anytime - feel the experience of life in that moment. After all, the input is there. We’re always smelling, tasting, hearing, touching, seeing. Simply allow yourself to notice.

In the solitude of your mind

are the answers

to all your questions

about life.

You must take the time

to ask

and

listen.

~Bawa Mahaiyaddeen 

This from the Daily Peace Quote, sent to you by email from Living Compassion. Occassionally, one of them really strikes me, and this is one of my favorites. I hope you like it too.