When Morning Pages Are Bad for You

This post is a rough transcript of my video on this same topic. If you’d rather watch than read, you can do so here.

One of the most popular posts on my blog has been this one: Why I Don’t Write Morning Pages (and What I Do Instead)

If you aren’t already familiar with them, morning pages are one of the pillars of creativity expert Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way method. To do morning pages, you start your days by writing out three longhand pages of…whatever. Whatever’s on your mind, whatever is distracting you, whatever is clogging up the flow of your creativity, you use your morning pages to get it out, and then, with all the blockages cleared out, you move forward with your real work.

They sound great, don’t they? We’re all looking for those simple, powerful habits that will unlock our creative potential, that will make our writing or painting or dancing or acting both better and _easier_. And for a lot of people, morning pages work really well.

I’m not one of them. For me, morning pages led me into a spiral of depression and self-loathing. Instead of purging my negative thoughts, writing them down gave them purchase. It made them real.

And I’m not alone. After I wrote that post nine months ago, I started getting messages and emails from others saying:

“I thought I was the only one.”

“I thought I must have been doing them wrong.”

“I’m so glad to know someone else feels the same way I do.”

It was like we all needed permission not to do the thing that wasn’t working for us. It worked for other people. It should work for us too and, if it didn’t, we were wrong or broken or worst of all, didn’t have that creative spark after all.

Nine months ago, I didn’t yet have the context that would make it all make sense, that would explain to me why morning pages made me feel terrible when they made others feel good. I just knew that other things felt better—meditating, answering guided questions, practicing gratitude, and, my favorite…boxing up my feelings and locking them away while I got on with my work.

Sooo, maybe that last one wasn’t so healthy.

But, for me, neither were morning pages and it took me months of working with a therapist to even figure out why. When most people sit down to write those three pages each day, it’s a really useful and effective way of gaining some self-knowledge to start processing all those insidious thoughts and feelings that pop up to block creative confidence.

For some of us, though…we just have too much to be processed, so instead of healthily dealing with whatever is lurking under the surface of the ocean each day, our morning pages just serve to wake the sea monsters. They’re not a powerful enough weapon to deal with (for example) the unresolved trauma in our past, so they end up just exacerbating the situation. Sure, we managed to scratch the leviathan, but that just made it angry. Of course it did. We’re out there trying to use a fishing pole to take down a kraken.

For me, even starting to deal with the kraken took a lot of help and a solid plan. As it stands, I sit down to write longhand once a week and, when I’m done, I burn the pages. It’s a whole ritual and whatever I dredge up either goes up in smoke or gets addressed in therapy afterwards. It’s hard and that one time a week is all I can manage right now, but I feel like I’m making progress. Instead of poking ineffectively at the monster each day, I’m relentlessly cutting off one tentacle at a time. I’m making progress.

If you feel the same way, it’s totally okay to say morning pages aren’t for you. If a practice isn’t helping your creativity—even if it seems like it’s universally lauded—don’t do it. There might be a very good reason why it isn’t working for you.

Here’s the thing though: don’t simply give up. We all have creative struggles. ALL of us. And I would wager that no two of us have the exact same process for overcoming them. Find something that works for you, something that makes creating just 1% easier for you. Try the next thing. And the next. Ask others what they do and try that. Try variations on that. Experiment. Figure out what it is you need to defeat the sea monsters and thrive in your creative life.

I don’t have the answers. I know you were probably hoping I did, but I only know what’s working for me right now and what doesn’t work for me right now. I know what I’ve tried in the past and how various creative practices make me feel. Me, personally.

Your job is to figure out the same things for yourself. But I want you to know…it doesn’t have to be morning pages.