A Morning Choice

Be grateful that you live! Make the choice each morning to appreciate that you are alive for purpose. 

Not easy to feel gratitude when you are in pain (whether physical, emotional, or mental) or worn out from your challenges. Hard to start fresh when the previous day's events are still spinning in your head. 

Remember drawing with an Etch-a-Sketch? Simply shaking it erased what you drew! Consider all the worries and concerns you mull over as you sleep. Julie Cameron's Morning Pages (as suggested in her book "The Artist's Way" on unblocking creativity) became my morning Etch-a-Sketch so I could choose to write-out my worries and then let them go. 

Here is a how-to summary, as I recall from Ms. Cameron's book:

(1) Write first this before you do anything. Before you talk to anyone, check your cellphone or Facebook, or turn on the news. 
(2) Write a page and a half (front-back-front) in a spiral notebook, whatever comes to mind. No judgement or critique, just let it flow. 
(3) Do not reread any entry until you have done this daily for 12 weeks, long enough to have MPs become a habit of choice, and to reap the benefits of starting each day with a clean slate. 

I see Ms. Cameron's Morning Pages "reawakening creativity" tool as more than a mental core dump. With practice it becomes a wonderful Self-honoring. Doing MPs can free you from reliving yesterday, so you can be fully present to today's potential.