I did the morning pages for three weeks and then read them back and did not recognize the person who had written them
Not in a bad way. Just unexpected.
Started the pages thinking I knew myself reasonably well. Functional self awareness, decent understanding of what I wanted, clear enough picture of why things were or were not working in my life. Three pages every morning felt like it would confirm things I already knew.
It did not confirm things I already knew.
Week one was surface level. Complaints about being tired, observations about the day ahead, nothing that surprised me. Week two the complaints ran out faster and something underneath them started coming through. Opinions I had not known I held. Frustrations I had been packaging as acceptance.
Things I wanted that I had quietly stopped admitting I wanted because wanting them and not having them was harder than just not wanting them, started taking whatever surfaced straight into something called Skrib Writing while it was still fresh and drafting from that place has felt more honest than anything I was producing before I started this process.
and not having them was harder than just not wanting them.
Week three I wrote something about my creative life that I had to read back three times because I did not remember writing it and could not argue with it. A true thing that I had apparently known for a long time without letting myself know it.
Read back through everything after week three and the person in those pages was more honest than the version of me that walks around in daily life. Not more dramatic, not more troubled, just less edited. Less concerned with being reasonable about things that were actually bothering me.
Cameron says the pages are not meant to be read or analyzed. I broke that rule and I think it was worth it just once to see what three weeks of unedited honesty looked like from the outside.