Whatever morning pages may have or not, the habit so far has certainly helped me wake up early. This has been one of my longer streaks of waking up so early.
We all know the benefits of waking up early, even if the reasons were different. Getting up at 3:50 AM takes away some 40 minutes for writing morning pages to me. Even if we discount this 40 minutes from the start of wake up, we are still starting the day ahead at 4:30 AM. That is yet way ahead of the 5AM Club of early wakers worldwide. And we are within the Bramha Muhoortam time of 3 to 5 am as well, considered a very silent and auspicious time suitable for good activities as meditation etc. Bramha Muhoortam is a time when experienced saints are doing penance in the Himalayas for the well being of the world. Sure it helps us get their blessings if we are awake during the period.
Just as a lady guru once asked us to do the her 49 minute meditation method for 30 days, and see the benefit oursslves by the end of the period, and not question in between (and I did get answer to a long pending question for myself by the end of the period), so also this lady author, founder, and proponent of Morning Pages asked people to write Morning Pages every day as soon as we wake up, practice it for at least eight weeks by the end of which we would see the benefits of the habit by ourselves.
I never thought I could get a more practical, easy to understand, rational answer to my question that had been long pending for meditation at the time on the 27th or 28th day into practice. So also now whatever could be the long term benefits, already by this time into my 8th week, I am seeing at least one big benefit of the habit of Morning Pages. The founder proponent did not ask the readers of her book or her training participants to wake up early to do the morning pages. All she asked was to write 3 pages in a long note book by long hand (hand written). But that early wake up, kind of fell in place. At least for me!
Writing the morning pages every day which takes a good 30 minutes plus. Cconsider another 5-10 minutes for energizing ourselves and preparing to write. We are talking about a quarter under an hour for an activity that we would have never planned otherwise for the day, every day. And here is the best part. If we are into this, we wouldn't want to put down our emotions and thoughts at a time when there is a lot of hustle and bustle around to disturb us, right? The best would be if it were right early in the morning. Doing the morning pages is such a pleasure activity that it encourages me to get up from the bed. Compare that to something like exercising which requires us to put energy, put effort. That would easily discourage us from getting up from the bed. We would rather prefer staying cozy in the bed longer and take a longer nap.
We wake up sooner actually not by under an hour therefore, but longer, perhaps two, or maybe even more to get that whisper silence period, with a serene feeling. This period is ideal to put down our thoughts, moods and emotions, and whatever, not shared with any. Look now what happened to me. It made me wake up rather early than actually needed for morning pages. The extra time available now can be used for anything that is a priority. It could be meditation for me after completing the morning chores, it could be exercise for someone one, and it could be a vocal music practice for someone else. Writing morning pages is a low energy activity. So something to look forward to. It makes me put positive thoughts for the day (or remove negative ones by putting them on paper). It being an analog activity of using a pen as an extension of the hand, the activity steers the mind to right direction for the day. What better can anything get better than this? Get into it and see if it works for you as well!
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