The Morning Ritual That Started Everything
Every morning, I wake up, put on my robe, let Abby out, feed her, make myself a hot matcha, and sit down at my desk before the sun comes up. I turn on the ceiling light and the light off to my left — the one with the countdown timer I set for an hour. Then I open my journal and I don't leave that spot until I've written three pages.
Abby Good Girl is my rescue dog. She's quick to jump into my lap the moment I sit down. Sometimes she'll rest her head on the desk and watch my hand move across the page. This would be a lovely arrangement except that she tends to achieve this position by perching directly on my right arm and I write with my right hand. Once I've gotten over how adorable the entire scene is, I reposition her and get serious about the task at hand.
Before the Pages Were a Practice
I started keeping a journal over forty years ago. It wasn't much of a habit because my writing was pretty erratic for the first thirty years. Then, a little over ten years ago, I started a journal habit that eventually evolved into a practice — it took root around the same time I started to question the world around me. Is this all there is? I suspected there had to be an answer — I just didn't have it yet. What I did have was my journal and my curiosity. I knew if I kept showing up each day, the answers would eventually come.
I had done all the things that were expected of me. The culturally appropriate and encouraged things — get married, start a family, work, go to church. I enjoyed those things, however, I was burnt out and didn’t know it. I also had some unaddressed issues from my childhood that kept popping up at the most inconvenient times, like in my relationships with other people. A small criticism, an offhand comment, someone's tone — any of it could set me off in ways that had nothing to do with what was actually happening. Another thing I didn’t realize at the time.
I had my curiosity, but I also had a growing sense of dread that my exterior and interior worlds were no longer aligned. I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. What would my life look like if my inside matched my outside? How do I get there? I felt left behind — like the train had left the station and I was standing on the platform, abandoned and in a panic. I stood there for a long time. At that point, I wasn't sure I wanted to catch up.
Whatever I was moving through, I couldn't avoid it if I wanted to find the answers on the other side. The clarity of that was sudden and — if I'm honest — desperate. I didn't have many healthy options to choose from. The only picture I had of the other side was a version of myself that finally felt aligned — inside and out. I had no roadmap. And I had a feeling that what I imagined the answers would look like and what the Universe had planned for me were going to be two very different things.
What Kept Me Coming Back
I've sat down to write in my journal every morning for the past ten years. Early on, there were days when I was so antsy, I could barely sit still. Those mornings it took much longer to get through my pages. I recognize now that those were the mornings when a breakthrough was percolating and I just needed to sit with the discomfort and put one word in front of the next until I calmed down.
What kept me coming back was simple — I wanted answers, and something told me if I kept coming back to the page I might find them.
How to Begin
I didn't start by writing three pages every morning. If I tried to do that from the start, I probably would have given up entirely. I started by setting a timer for five or ten minutes and wrote as much as I could until my time was up. I also promised myself I wouldn't worry about my handwriting, grammar, spelling — anything that had stressed me about writing in the past. That’s still how I’d tell anyone to start.
Start smaller than you think you need to. Five minutes. A timer. I promise the three pages will come if you work toward them. And when your emotions get inflamed and the page feels like the last place you want to be — go anyway. That's the Universe telling you something. In my experience it has infinite patience and it will keep sending you the same lesson in different forms until you're ready to face it. Journaling is how I faced mine. It might be how you face yours.
If you've been thinking about starting a journal practice and you're not sure where to begin, I made something for you. Thirty prompts organized around three things that matter — beauty, connection, and reflection. No rules about how to use them. Start with the one that calls to you.