The Practice of Morning Pages

After reading the book The Artist’s Way years ago, I decided to take heed of the author’s advice and create a ritual called “Morning Pages”; a stream of consciousness writing exercise at the start of the day.

There is no greater way to practice turning inward than to reflect on and read your own subconscious thoughts on paper. When one starts writing their thoughts down, there is simply no place to hide. Mental fragmentations become whole cohesive sentences, and on paper, we can literally and figuratively “see” the parts of our lives that we are so desperately avoiding.

It is in the act of writing down our thoughts that we fully recognize and realize our greatest potentials, and our greatest setbacks. While the exercise is not entirely significant when done in a day or handful of days, it becomes far more significant over time — we start to see trends and themes emerge, and it become impossible to ignore the choices and direction that we are so unconsciously choosing each and every day.

More to the point, we can’t continue to lie to ourselves when writing our thoughts down. Writing allows each page to become a mirror to our soul. We see ourselves for exactly who we really are.

I felt that some of the trends that came up over the last few months while making a movie and publishing my first book on Amazon were worth sharing, so here it goes:

1. The moment when things fall apart is precisely the most opportune moment to test your character.
2. There is a difference between power & force when walking through this world.
3. “Resistance” and/or a choice led by fear is what causes time to stop and delays progress. Allowing the difficult moments and questions to move through you rather than trying to resist or force an answer is oftentimes the quickest and easiest way to find a solution or answer.
4. Follow the people and environments that make you feel expansive. Walk away from things and people that make you feel contracted. Relying on intellect and analytics solely to make a decision might lead you into situations that make you feel contracted. I’ve found that if I follow the feeling of expansion, I am always exactly where I need to be.
5. Sometimes the most difficult people have the most to teach you when it comes to compassion.
6. Everyone in your life is just a mirror to who you are. We project both our insecurities and securities onto people and they reflect them back to us.
7. I am humbled by the gentlemen I worked with this year, who showed me grace and deep respect as many industries have been ripped apart by older definitions of masculinity. Collectively, we are better off when we work together and complement each others strengths & weaknesses.
8. Society is based on patriarchal concepts of “achieving” rather than “being”. When pursuing artistic projects rather than capitalistic projects, society makes one believe they have lost the plot. No, I haven’t lost the plot. I am fully aware that I’m not chasing ROI. I chose to do it anyway.
9. Many voices are still under-represented in media. Everyone has a voice. It is out obligation to encourage everyone to use theirs.
10. Time is a distortion. What we accomplish in years could be accomplished in weeks or months. Time largely depends on the emotional “weight” that we carry internally and the mental scripts that limit us and hold us back from our greatest potential. By uncovering these scripts and removing their emotional charge, the experience of time shifts.

And lastly, we all have a voice inside of us that has all the answers we’ll ever need in this lifetime. When things get quiet, and I sit still long enough, I realize that everything everything everything is waiting for me.

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