My mother read about morning pages in a book entitled The Artist�s Way by Julia Cameron. She�s been doing them for quite some time now. When I first got to France I started trying to meditate in the morning, but it just didn�t work for me. I had too many thoughts zooming around my head about the upcoming day. I told my mom this and she suggested morning pages as a way to drain off all of the stupid crap from my mind so I could meditate in peace. They work extremely well. The excerpt from the book describes how to do them perfectly.
�Morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness: �Oh, god, another morning. I have NOTHING to say. I need to wash the curtains. Did I get my laundry yesterday? Blah, blah, blah . . .� They might also, more ingloriously, be called brain drain, since that is one of their main functions. There is no wrong way to do morning pages. These daily morning meanderings are not meant to be art. Or even writing. Nobody is allowed to read your morning pages except you. And you shouldn't even read them yourself for the first eight weeks or so. Morning pages are nonnegotiable. Never skip or skimp on morning pages. Your mood doesn't matter. Do anything until you have filled three pages. Morning pages get us to the other side: the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods. Above all, they get us beyond our Censor. Beyond the reach of the Censor's babble we find our own quiet center, the place where we hear the still, small voice that is at once our creator's and our own. It is impossible to write morning pages for any extended period of time without coming into contact with an unexpected inner power. Morning pages map our own interior.�
For morning yoga you need just enough space to stretch out in. This is not much, really. I do morning yoga in the tiny maybe two-foot-wide six-fee-long space between my bed and my desk. If you have hard floors I would suggest a yoga mat or a rug. The sequence of postures I follow usually goes like this: Standing forward fold, standing splits, Tree, Butterfly, Half Lord of the Fishes, Bridge, Corpse and/or lotus. Breath deeply in each pose and hold it for as long as your body feels is necessary.
If the names of yoga poses mean absolutely nothing to you its not a problem. Just stretch. We all had gym class at one point or another, so just do some of the stretches that you learned there. Remember that morning yoga isn�t supposed to make you sweat or build muscles. Its simply for enjoyment and relaxation.
When you meditate at the end of your yoga just try to clear your mind of all thoughts. You should try to meditate in either the corpse or the lotus pose. This means you should either be laying on your back with your whole body totally relaxed, or you should be sitting up straight with you legs crossed. Focus the mind solely on the breath. Be gentle with yourself, meditation is difficult.
Music goes well with morning yoga. I usually choose relaxing sounds such as Enya, Adiamus, Libana, or Sounds of Nature.
Starting morning practises such as morning pages and morning yoga is a step in the direction of self actualisation. I�ve observed that the morning can be the best time to clear away useless thoughts cluttering your mind and let your true self shine through. Once you�ve started you�ll find that missing even one morning can throw your whole day off. You�ll feel excited for the next morning to come because you know you�ll find peace and self love there. And that�s What its all about.
