After watching my friend, Kristine of Live Free Eat Well, complete the Morning Pages Challenge, I was more than excited to add it to my February Bucket List. Kristine shared her thoughts on the challenge in an informative blog post and I was curious to see if I would have a similar experience. The challenge was based on a journaling practice that Julianne Hough SWEARS by. She is not the only one! Others have agreed with the claim that morning writing helps you write without inhibitions and sparks the flow of creativity.
The challenge itself was pretty simple: wake up and free write for 10 days. That’s it. How hard could it be?
Here is my quick take on the Morning Pages Challenge:
What worked
I completely took to the feeling of writing without inhibitions. I didn’t worry about my handwriting, grammar, spelling, finishing thoughts, or the content of the day’s entry. Instead, I embraced the idea of writing about how I was feeling or what I was thinking about at the moment. There were days that completing my morning pages was cathartic. It helped me sort out some of the emotions that I had about some issues that I was experiencing. As someone who tries to avoid confrontation at all cost, it was therapeutic to take a second to get out some of the illogical feelings so that I could plan to address the problems (yep…I said plan how to approach a potential confrontation).
The simplicity of the challenge was another plus. 10 days didn’t feel like a daunting task.
What didn’t work
The simplicity of the morning pages challenge could go in this category as well. I LOVE structure. I was constantly wondering if I was writing enough. My head was filled with questions such as am I doing this right? Is it possible to do this wrong? Logically, I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but there was a part of me that doubted my theory with every pen stroke.
In addition, this challenged helped reinforce something that I was already starting to realize about myself: free writing is just not my jam. There were days where it was super helpful to talk to myself, but there were also days where I was writing nonsense phrases all while waiting for an acceptable time to move on to my next task.
Would I do it again?
Probably not. I appreciated the challenge for what it was. The morning pages challenge was a quick deviation from my normal morning journaling practice. It helped reinforce my recent discovery that journaling is not a “one size fits all” approach. As with many wellness and life ventures, you have to find the method that works best for YOU. So, to finish the phase in the title of this article:
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