Using Morning Pages to Deal with Emotional Pain
There are things in life that we don’t want to talk to anyone about. These things are so painful that the mere thought of putting them on paper terrifies us. Because they are real. And they hurt.
This might be a trauma we faced in our childhood, or an extreme life change that happened a few weeks ago.
When we go through emotional pain we tend to keep our hurts and anger to ourselves. Repressing our memories associated with unpleasant feelings is our natural way to deal with them. We don’t want to go through uncomfortable emotions, so we escape these emotions. But they are still with us. Only in the trapped mode.
Why is trapping emotions bad?
Emotional denial keeps us from taking action. Facing the truth is painful. It's a lot like having a surgery. It will hurt, but we will get over this pain. If we don’t take action we will keep ourselves living with our trauma. This leads to stress and depression.
To get unstuck from negative emotions we need to acknowledge them. There are tools for this.
Morning Pages heals
Morning Pages is a technique I use to deal with unpleasant emotions. It is a form of daily expressive writing, a therapy where you write your deepest thoughts and feelings to improve your health and wellbeing.
We created the Morning Pages app for iPhone. You can use it as your private journal to write about your pain, your fear, your weaknesses, and things that keep you up at night.
How do you cope with a traumatic experience using Morning Pages?
- Facing your emotions is necessary for healing. Think about what bothers you most. Focus on this and get your thoughts out of your mind and into words. Write only for yourself. It’s not a letter, nobody will read it.
- Write only about traumas that are present in your mind. There is no point in remembering situations that caused unpleasant feelings in the past, but that are no longer painful to think about. Write about issues relevant to here and now.
- Trust where your writing takes you. If you jump to another topic, go with it. Write continuously, don’t stop.
- Consider topics you have been avoiding. If you start writing about what movie you’re going to watch tonight, force yourself back to the trauma.
- If the trauma is too intense, or an emotional upheaval occurred very recently, don’t write about it. Time needs to pass before you can be ready to come back to your painful memories.
James W. Pennebaker, a psychologist who studied expressive writing, suggests writing for 20 minutes. Julia Cameron, the author of the book “The Artist’s Way” who coined the term Morning Pages, suggests writing three pages longhand. In our Morning Pages app, we recommend to type at least 500 words.
When is it best to write Morning Pages?
The best time to write Morning Pages is when you aren’t inundated with other tasks and can have some time to yourself. It’s great for vacation and weekends — the time when you don’t need to rush anywhere.
Morning is a perfect time of day for Morning Pages because your mind isn’t busy. Later in the day when you get occupied with work, family, shopping, getting ready for the party and other issues, you can hardly get in the right thinking mode.
Create a writing ritual
If you prefer to write regularly, establish a writing ritual and write at the same time every day.
Morning Pages is a lot like meditation. It’s a quiet practice and it needs all your attention. Don’t go straight away to a business meeting after your writing is complete. It’s important to have some time to reflect on what you have written.
It’s a good idea to create a unique environment where you write Morning Pages. This can be a comfortable place where you don’t work. For example, an armchair in front of the window.
If the first thing you reach out to when you wake up is your smartphone (with our Morning Pages app installed hopefully) you can develop a habit of writing Morning Pages in your bed.
After your writing is done ask yourself:
- Did I fully express my feelings?
- Do I feel sad or upset?
- Do I feel happy?
- Was my writing meaningful today?
- What has it revealed about myself?
These questions will help you analyze your emotions and discover more about yourself.
