I Wasted Three Years of My Life Doing Morning Pages
- Leah Renee
- Nov 15, 2025
- 5 min read
Julie Cameron's The Artist's Way suggestion of daily dumping kept me trapped
You might be surprised to learn how many of the most successful creators in world swear by the inspiration they found in The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s seminal book. I found it in 2022. It was a great replacement for the scripture study I’d dedicated my life to as a lifelong Mormon, but having left the faith, also left regular spiritual habits. It was just woo-woo enough to feel mystical without feeling Mormon.
I liked the routine. Every morning when I woke up, I’d write for three pages (which I learned took about 30 minutes) and dump everything that came to my mind before the demands of three small children dictated how I spent the balance of the day. It felt good to take care of myself, to have sacred time set aside once again. As a neuro-salty obsessive, a delicious routine that ensures me, if not a place in heaven (the reason I did scripture study) a place of peace is time well spent.
Although you are meant to write down anything, I knew the chance that my husband and/or children could one day find my internal dialogue was high enough that I never felt comfortable keeping the pages around. I’d crumple them up and dig to the bottom of the bin to be sure they’d be covered in rotting food and debris to prevent any ambitious looky-loos from penetrating the recesses of my subconscious.
I came up with a solution of overlapping tiny writing that meant no one, including myself, could decipher my scribbles. I wanted my thoughts to disappear like a fart in the wind. It was economical too! I saved paper and perturbation.
Here is an example of what my Morning Pages look like:
Oh, sorry, that was from my preschooler’s Morning Pages.Here’s mine:
Interestingly, I found I’d picked up the habit of inserting a “filler phrase” in my writing when I hit a natural pause. When I used to pray, sometimes between thoughts I’d say/think, “I’m thankful for”. In my Morning Pages, I noticed I’d say, “I don’t know” for brief transitions or to abruptly end something I was tired of complaining about.
The idea is to keep your hand moving and not think, so this was something I unintentionally wrote as I transitioned to a new thought. (Isn’t our subconscious interesting?) After I noticed I was doing it, I wanted to replace it with something else.
It’s fitting that during my “I don’t know” Morning Pages, I was living nomadically with my family of five. Our life was up in the air (sometimes 30,000 feet in fact). We had no home to return to when we came back from living the UK. We lived for six months across the United States in Airbnbs. I was happily living in what Zen Buddism calls “don’t know mind”. I enjoyed the freedom of not knowing, but it was unsettling, in multiple senses of the word. Every couple of weeks or months we’d re-pack our bags and take a long road trip to our next destination.
I would like to brag for a minute. This is all our luggage for five people. I don’t like checking bags so we managed to live off carry-ons for a year on the road.
We embraced a life of uncertainty, but eventually my family grew tired of 11 am check outs and learning how to operate yet another new shower head. We finally decided Philadelphia’s cobbled streets were where we’d tether our tender taproots after two years of tossing around ideas.
Having a house key we’d not have to return to a lockbox (at least until our rental agreement renewed) was the stability I didn’t know I wanted. The first few months were difficult, as we’d started from scratch when we moved back to the states. Decision fatigue, enrolling kids in school, getting the lay of the comedy scene in Philly and trying to build a friend group from the ground floor must have been what kept my “I don’t know” phrase popping up page after page.
Eventually a new phrase started to emerge on my pages. This didn’t intentionally happen but over time the line went from “I don’t know” to “I’m so happy”.
It’s hard to remember when “I’m so happy” became the base thread woven throughout my writing, but I do remember deliberately letting go and actively questioning my habits and thoughts during the day. I tried very hard to have a clutter-free and welcoming internal space, but it was challenging.
I’m genuinely an upbeat person. My baseline is about the level of Graham Norton with frequent peaks to 80’s aerobic instructor. I’m almost never at Morissey levels of melancholy. In fact, music is sometimes the only thing that clues me into the fact that I feel a bit pants. But the truth is, as happy as a person as I am, I have always struggled with ruminative thoughts.
The fact that “I’m so happy” mottled my Morning Pages revealed that as good as I thought life was, it was still getting better.
It’s probably helpful for me to share this list I made and posted on my wall. I’d refer to it when I was writing to center me in the purposes of Morning Pages. Note that everything on the list was directly lifted from The Artist’s Way.
It wasn’t until I found Dr. Dispenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and the very misunderstood idea of manifesting that I found, my first years of Morning Pages kept me in a holding pattern. While I still stand by this list, there are a few items that I found counterproductive upon learning: “where attention flows, energy goes”. While I liked the idea of “no wrong way to do them”, I now understand that what I write has consequences.
Initially it felt great to have a place for “negative, fragmented, self pitying, repetitive, stilted, babyish, angry, bland, silly” without being judged, but eventually it felt really limiting.
I could never write tiny enough to hide the fact that what I wrote kept me where I was. I can change who I am by thought alone. My Morning Pages could be a place to spread my wings rather than whinge. I could use the space for articulating dreams independent of my environment.
Earlier this year I transitioned to being “Abundant Leah”. I started to label any limiting or negative thoughts as scarcity. When a ruminative thought came in my mind, I’d say, “That’s ‘Scarcity Leah’ but we’re ‘Abundant Leah’ now”. When Scarcity Leah tries to get a word in my Morning Pages, I override her with gratitude, not only for what I already have in physical reality, but what I have coming my way.
I now think, speak, and write in ways that reflect and broadcast inevitable abundance. I have lost the desire to make my Morning Pages a place to “complain, enumerate, fret” and now spend many mornings outright fantasizing in glorious detail. I’m not sure if you’ve ever Walter Mitty’d to that extent; I do recommend it.
Why on earth would I spend my sacred time hashing out grievances, when I can be in a writer’s room in New Zealand with Jemaine Clement and Aunty Donna or sipping coffee whilst watching the sunrise on my balcony in my private gîte in Provence? If we can use our imaginations on anything, why do we squander them on such mundane stuff?
I no longer waste my Morning Pages on humdrum. My ink is reserved for what I call re-minding: growing a new beautiful brain and ultimately my physical reality.
Each day the average person thinks about 60,000 thoughts. Most of them are thoughts we’ve already had, thousands (maybe millions?) of times before. Knowing that, I intentionally seek out really juicy thoughts: wonder, excitement, experiences I’m awaiting, curiosity, and most important of all: gratitude.
xx Leah
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