Morning Pages Routine - Helpful for Defined Head Center
Quick Overview: I'm a 3/6 Generator with Sacral Authority in Human Design. I’m sharing my personal experience with the Morning Pages routine as someone with a defined Head and Ajna center and an undefined Throat center. Writing these 3 pages every morning has helped me identify patterns, mental inflexibility, subconscious beliefs, and process through an onslaught of thoughts, feelings, ideas, and mental chatter. The end result, I cultivate joy and contentment. Deep sigh of relief….ahhhh…
"I'm reading The Artist's Way and writing my morning pages every day, and it's the best thing I have ever done," my friend shared via Marco Polo with me.
"Cool," I thought. But I didn't pay it much attention.
Over the next few months she talked about it several times, and with each mention I felt more drawn to it.
I finally got my sacral pull to check it out, so I put my name on the waitlist at the library.
Many weeks later, I got my turn and dove in. Julia Cameron, author of the Artist's Way, is credited as the inspiration for writing three full pages every day in order to flush out your thoughts. Anne Lamott talks about it in Bird By Bird. There's an entire website, 750words.com, dedicated to this practice. In short, you write everything and anything that comes to mind - a dumping grounds - to clear out the mental clutter, so you can eventually get to that inner voice. Where inspiration can flow from the sweet spot within you.
As someone with a defined Head and Ajna center and an undefined Throat center, utilizing my morning pages routine the last 9 months (and with no plans of stopping) has been nothing short of life changing!
If you’re new to Human Design…
Those two triangles at the top are the Head and Ajna centers. They are filled in which means they are defined and I have access to that energy all the time.
Writing 3 pages in a 5” x 8” journal was eye-opening. For one, it took me way longer than I expected. On a free flowing day it can be as fast as 40 minutes. On a jumbled day, where I'm over thinking and not allowing my inner voice to express itself, I am pulling words out for an hour. Sometimes I even drift back to sleep sitting up in my bed. (I've learned this is a sign that I'm thinking too consciously and not diving deeper.)
Secondly, and I guess not that surprising – I had so much to say! Most importantly to me, it offers a lot of clarity and direction in my day.
Writing in my journal every morning gives my defined Head and Ajna a place to *see* alllllll the thoughts racing through my mind. They become real and right in front of me. Writing them on paper with a pencil pulls them out of the invisible realm and solidifies them in the 3D world. This helps me connect dots that otherwise would stay hidden.
I once read that as someone with an undefined Throat center, I do best verbally bouncing ideas off of someone.
Steve (my husband + biz partner) has a defined Throat, and he is a champ at doing tasks and executing ideas by just going for it. (This volleys back and forth from being awesome...to...we should have talked this thru first.)
I, on the other hand, have learned that I will sit and spiral if I don't talk ideas though first. I get easily distracted. (Gene Key 56: Hello, my Conscious Sun + Mercury!) I am very aware of this pattern, hence conscious side of my HD chart.
I do best if I talk it out first, and then I can move more clearly and directly forward. Yet, my Sun is a Cancer crab, so I still scuttle more from side to side making my way forward, rather than Ramming forward like my Aries Ascendant may lead you to believe.
The issue here for me is I can fall into a co-dependence pattern (Gene Key 19, my Conscious Moon), and I am working on being more self-reliant.
I don't believe there is anything wrong with asking for help or bouncing ideas off of someone else to get another opinion or POV. However, I saw within myself how I had slid into an unbalanced side of not taking responsibility.
With my defined Head I have so many thoughts and ideas racing through my mind all the time I get overwhelmed and start to spin – like a website trying to load but it needs a moment to process all the data and large images first.
My morning pages have become the place for me to process through it all so I can make some sense and order out of my thoughts and feelings. It's less mucky.
I've realized that now when I see my words on the page I can identify patterns, mental inflexibility, subconscious beliefs, etc. My defined Ajna enjoys seeing it right there on the paper and it jumps out more clearly.
Because I've pinpointed it in my brain and have seen it on the page, I'm able to more clearly identify when these things are showing up in real time. If I say something, hear my inner critic nagging, or notice I am reacting defensively or feeling triggered, it's like I'm playing the game 'Memory' and have matched two of the same cards.
The lightbulb goes off within my head and body as I energetically feel "this is the same energy as I was writing about today!" And that awareness is so powerful.
Having the awareness means I can learn. (And learning lights.me.up!)
I can observe what created this energy, how I am feeling, what I can do differently next time. Perhaps there is nothing I need to "do" – sometimes I just need to clear some fog to see through the distortions of my mind.
Curious to try this for yourself and want the details on how to get started?
If you're a "take me to the source" type person: You can learn more about 'Morning Pages' in The Artist's Way book by Julia Cameron for all the details. I have yet to finish the entire book of weekly exercises, but my Morning Page practice is what I cherish most from this book.
If you're a "just tell me what you** do" type person: I began by setting my alarm 45 minutes earlier than I needed to get out of bed. I really enjoy staying in bed and writing as my husband and dog snore peacefully beside me, and I can glance out the window from time to time, watching the sun rise and stream across the back yard.
I put on a robe, switch on my lamp, and grab my 5x9 journal. (Size doesn't matter but, let me say, I'm glad I went this small because if I had to fill 3 pages of a full standard size notebook I'd be there a loooong time. ha!)
And then I stream-of-consciousness "write". Let me be clear, this isn't pretty writing. It hops around from one thing to the next as thoughts pop up in my brain. I also frequently have thoughts like, "I hope no one ever finds or reads this." (For many reasons.)
The first week was the toughest. My mind threw a tantrum nearly every day. "How long is this going to take? Am I really going to lose sleep over this? I need to hurry up, Steve is now up and I've got to get a move on."
Eventually the mental resistance faded and it became something I looked forward to, even protected with loving boundaries. Often, I will wake in the night needing to pee, and as I sit in the darkness my mind will land on something and I think, "I can write about that in the morning!" It brings me peace knowing I will address it, and it actually gives me something to look forward to.
**A pretty big Caveat.
In my Human Design the top left-side arrow points Left. That means that I do well with consistency of the same (morning) routine. If your arrow in this same location points Right, you enjoy less consistent routine. So you may do your Morning Pages in a different spot every day, or play around with different times of the morning. Before you eat? After you shower? etc. Make it your own. There is no hard and fast rule, find what feels right for you. I believe doing it when you want and how you want is "probably" better than not doing it at all. And probably means, it's not for everyone and don't feel like you "should" do it because anyone else is doing it or thinks it's a good idea. Filter it through your own discernment.
Have you tried a version of Morning Pages before? I invite you to share your experiences below.
Feeling pulled to try it out? Let me know how it goes!
Here’s to cultivating more joy and contentment in your own life 💫
Anne
