Recently, I was influenced by Doechii to start reading the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. A while back, Doechii posted a video documenting her creative process as she read the book, explaining how she was harnessing her inner artist and feeding it with substance to grow and strengthen. Now she’s hitting charts and has grown to be a well-known artist with so many top hits and a Grammy award.
Like many, Doechii inspired me to try out this book to reconnect with my inner creativity. The book is structured into 12 weeks, with each week having a descriptive lesson and tasks that the artist must try to complete. The tasks themselves are relatively easy and vary from reflecting on your life to completing simple assignment, such as a 20-minute quiet walk. Each week also has two main consistent tasks that show up every week, one being morning pages and the second being a solo artist date.
My key takeaway was the morning pages. I can’t say everything else in the book was life altering but I can for my morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of unconscious writing in the morning before you start your day. You have to complete them every morning or at least try for the duration of the 12 weeks, and it’s also recommended to continue beyond that. As a hardcore ruminator, the pages grounded me so much as someone who runs on her emotions. It allowed to notice patterns in my day to day thinking and notice how I feel each morning when nothing has been poured into me.
In the beginning, creating the habit of setting aside time to write in the morning was very difficult. It felt a bit pointless, but continuing this habit allowed me to be more reflective of my decisions and what’s around me. Plus, there’s something magical about starting the day with a hot cup of tea and writing down the first things that come to my mind with my favorite ink pen. It turned into a routine which is something I really lacked from my typical schedule.
The conscious stream of writing allows me to clear my mind every morning and be more present with my day. It gives me power over my day by deciding how I will spend my day and the changes I will implement to do something. As someone who lets the day run its course, morning pages allowed my to take charge of the day. Be conscious of what I am doing and why I am doing things. It also made my goals a lot more clearer and reminded me of what I want to pursue and indulge in.
Before the morning pages, I would go about my day without a plan, just doing as I went, with no set schedules or rules. While this doesn’t sound as bad, to me it caused a lot of rotting in my bed all the way until 1 pm. I would not move a single muscle and before I knew it its 5 pm and get this impulse to be productive and go out and do something. It felt like I was just always killing time waiting for something to happen instead being that something. On top of that, me being a recent postgrad with no job made things worse. I lost the routine that college gave me and a goal that I was actively working towards. As a graduate the who doesn’t even know what they want to pursue, I felt like I had no goals to work towards and the only thing was to find a job.
I focused my morning pages on things that I enjoyed which weren’t related to work and finding a corporate job. Who am I when I’m not working? Ever since I was young education was everything. It’s always been the center of it all and what was suppose to provide me with opportunities. Without school, I felt very lost.
These morning pages gave me an opportunity to sit with my thoughts and reflect on my inner self. A way for me to distress and get all my thoughts on paper. My mindset about life after graduation has shifted, allowing me to regain a bit of the control I can have in life. It may not seem like much to others, but I can confidently say I notice a change.
