The Daily Practice That Rewired My Mind and Reawakened My Creativity
How a daily brain dump became the most intimate form of self-connection I never knew I needed
It has been a year and frankly, I didn’t expect it to change my life the way it did. I was just trying to gain some clarity, so last year I had set myself a resolution: 2024 would be the year I would stop abandoning myself.
Funny thing about me? I actually follow through on my resolution promises, mostly because I make them broad enough to feel tangible.
But this one was sneaky.
I didn’t quite understood what I was asking of myself, but I had lived enough to notice the creeping patterns of self-neglect and self-betrayal poke their head and sabotaging my progress.
I’m an overthinker, the “talk-it-out-to-make-sense-of-it” type that speaks with birds and the wind while going on hikes. If you could peek into my mind you would see a background chorus of a thousand tabs open at all times. Always compiling, cross-referencing, composing.
My brain often feels like it’s buffering, downloading everything all at once.
Throw in some emotional intensity, a dash of exhaustion, and a tinge of existential dread, and you’ve got my usual Tuesday.
So when I stumbled across the practice of Morning Pages — the idea of free-writing three pages (or 750 words) first thing each day — I thought: I don’t know how could this work for me, but I do love me some word-vomit, so let’s give it a try for the next three months.
Speaking Myself Into the Present
I decided I would dictate my morning pages aloud into my computer because sound grounds me in ways text never could. Thanks, ADHD.
When I write, I often get tangled in mental clutter. But when I speak, I know what I say. I can feel the difference between what I’m saying and what I’m thinking. I can say what I mean without wrestling over semantics or second-guessing tone.
I speak, I listen, I notice.
At first I just noticed that I made it through the first week. But by the second and third, my nervous system was already scanning for the closest exit. What would be the excuse this time?
I had to remind myself that I had made a commitment to not abandon myself that year, and by the power of the New Year Lords, I intended to keep it.
So I kept going.
Some mornings I would wake up blank — no clarity, no insight. More like a fog, unsure what was swirling inside me — let alone how to name it.
I didn’t understand it then, but I was moving through a lot of resistance. I’d never had, nor given myself, the space to listen to myself, so why now?
Is this a trap?!
By the fourth week, I had made a habit of journaling outdoors each morning in my yard, when I noticed something else. I started to feel again. And I felt myself present. In fact, for the first time in my life, my mind wasn’t thinking about yesterday or five imaginary futures from now, but it was quiet, present, in the here and now.
From Brain Dump to Creative Rebirth
Speaking my pages also helped me tune into my body. I didn’t expect that.
One morning I was processing something heavy and noticed a tightness in my throat. As I kept going, I felt the energy shift — releasing from my throat, moving through my chest, and eventually settling into my stomach. It was like my words were opening trapped doors inside me.
Morning pages didn’t just help me cope — they helped me create.
Once I cleared the noise, creativity rushed in. That brain dump became fertile ground for new expression. I started designing clothes just for myself… which turned into a store. I began outlining a book… which became a deep dive into the layers of awakening. And eventually, I started the The Third Choice — this very Substack — a space I didn’t know I needed until I gave myself permission to show up honestly.
The practice gave me back to myself — not just as a thinker, but as a maker, a feeler, a voice.
Pattern Recognition = Power
Another unexpected gift? Seeing my behavioral patterns on the page (or the screen, technically).
I’ve been tracking not just thoughts, but synchronicities — even the negative ones. I started noticing how certain fears come back in cycles, how my body reacts when I avoid them, and how things shift when I meet them with compassion instead of judgment.
For instance, I’ve had this string of themes: physical constriction, relational fears, old patterns resurfacing. Thanks to morning pages, I was able to see them return — and this time, I knew what they were asking.
That awareness has been alchemical, to say the least. It’s not about fixing or transcending. It’s about honoring the spiral of cycles and making more conscious choices from the inside out.
Better Boundaries, Better Relationships
There’s another layer to this, one I didn’t see coming: my relationships got better.
The more I learned to hear myself, the more I realized how often I’d been abandoning my own needs.
Morning pages taught me how to tell the truth to me first — which made it easier to communicate my needs to others, to set (and actually enforce) boundaries, and to stop outsourcing my worth to how well I performed in someone else’s story.
I became less reactive, more responsive. I learned how to stay. With myself. With the discomfort. With the people I love, without betraying myself to do it.
Morning Pages Gave Me Back to Myself
Morning Pages isn’t just journaling. It’s relationship repair — with my body, my mind, my truth, and eventually, the world around me. More than anything, it has become my form of mental hygiene. A place where I get to be without needing to justify or fix anything.
There’s no room for perfectionism or people-pleasing here.
Just me, remembering who I am.
And if I can leave you with anything, let it be this:
Start messy. Start skeptical. Start raw. But start.
Because the voice you’ve been afraid to hear might be the one that finally sets you free.