The Power of Penning Prayer Pages to Manifest Your Most Authentic Self
For a while, you've probably heard me rave about a practice called Morning Pages. I debated leaving the term out of this article because I've truly discovered how unnecessary they are and, at worst, harmful. Author Julia Cameron introduces Morning Pages in her book The Artist's Way.
The prescription is three pages, 8.5 x 11, penned first thing in the morning. That's really it for rules. The rest is free-form: Write as much as you like, write about whatever you want, and don't re-read the pages. They're easy enough. I'd done them on and off for years since discovering them in 2015 when I desperately wanted to leave my corporate job to be a full-time writer.
Writing morning pages seemed like a rite of passage that could grant me the title I craved. I'd always been a pen-and-paper note-taker, anyway. In my consulting days, some junior consultants would wield their laptops from meeting to meeting, clickety clacking while our clients talked. It was so distracting and irked me in a major way. A little notebook and a pen were much more acceptable and tasteful.
More tasteful, a notebook allows others to speak freely instead of fearing I'd transcribe them word for word. I love the power in the pen for slowing our brains down and for the love of all things holy — getting away from the screen. As an author, entrepreneur, and coach, I do a lot of monitor tanning.
Years ago, I had already abandoned the rules for morning pages. I wrote however much I wanted, aiming for five days a week.
Read more about this Morning Pages practice in this article.
After learning about the unconscious mind, I was nudged to avoid using morning pages as a space to whine, complain, and let it all out. This wasn't my middle school diary.
Years ago, a student asked about morning pages:
"What do you do to stop Morning Pages from being so negative?"
This made me pause because I didn't see them the same way.
I had been managing my mind to squash negative mind chatter, so I didn't have that same problem. I had the idea to switch gears mid-morning pages. I'd add a forgiveness prayer called Ho'oponopono, an ancient Hawaiian clearing, and then launch into completely future-focused, positive writing. I'd detail what I was manifesting and creating as if it were here and real now — because it is.
I'd describe my vision in detail. Sights, sounds, smells, feelings, even tastes. Even though the vision was similar each day, the details might shift and change. After an experience program I took for the first time in 2024 (MMM by Female Fortunes), I put morning pages aside. I just stopped. It wasn't a conscious decision — it was simply something I no longer needed.
My clients would still use them, and I wondered for a split second if I should tell my students to stop. And that time is now. Sure. If they love them and the practice improves their lives, by all means, keep going.
I realized I had a more powerful tool than Morning Pages — my energy.
Which was going toward writing morning pages. So why not channel that energy in a higher frequency way?
After several months of my Morning Pages journals collecting junk drawer dust, I popped one open one morning and wrote a page of gratitude, joy, and manifesting for stuff around me.
And since there's no time, it's all here now. When I finished, I instinctively wrote at the top of the page, Prayer Pages.
And that's when Prayer Pages were born.
The name struck me at first, as I had an iffy relationship with prayers as someone raised Catholic and attended Catholic schools. We had our bedtime prayers, now I lay me down to sleep, and I'd later add-in, … pray the Lord my soul to keep …. exit liiiiiiight. 🤘 My parents listened to Metallica. And they didn't think the lyrics belonged in my bedtime prayer.
They'd ask when my sister and I were young, "Did you brush your teeth? Did you say your prayers?" I remember mostly asking for stuff. 🙏Dear God, please don't let me get my first period at school. I did anyway. Divorcing myself from the cult of the Catholic church, I thought prayer belonged there, too.
Through healing my relationship with God and Jesus (the real one, not the church one), which I think really means healing my relationship with myself, I've come to know prayer as a practical way of being. I'm working toward making my whole life a prayer, just like a meditation, which is simply being present throughout my day.
Prayer is a conversation, and I'm not one to whine and complain in my conversations with the humans in my life, so why would I write this to God?
I invite you to try on Prayer Pages for yourself. Use them to detail in words the life you love, what you see, hear, taste, and smell all around you. Write about who you ARE at your being, as your best self.
Call it in, and let them set the tone for the rest of your day.
Unlike Morning Pages, they're not something to "get through." Which is how Morning Pages are touted. Why waste time on something just to get through to the other side?
Prayer Pages are an extension of your prayer-filled life. Write them whenever the fuck you want, on whatever you want, with whatever you want.
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