Morning Pages & The Healing Code: Using Truth to Overcome Negative Thinking 

Every morning when I awake, I engage in a reflective practice called Morning Pages. Julia Cameron describes Morning Pages as taking your shadow out for coffee. For me, it has become a therapeutic modality – a way to observe myself, confront my thoughts, and alleviate the repression of negative patterns that I am prone to. Julia Cameron, draws heavily from the work of Carl Jung. Jung’s concept of the shadow – the unconscious parts of ourselves that we deny or suppress – aligns closely with our need for exploration of the known and unknown aspects of ourselves. 

By writing freely each morning, we engage in a form of shadow work, gently bringing hidden fears, desires, and patterns into the light. This process allows for the dissolution of repressed emotions and the gradual integration of the shadow, a vital step toward healing and self-awareness. It enables me to bring hidden emotions to light and start each day with greater clarity. 

Morning Pages involves writing three pages of stream-of-consciousness thoughts as soon as I rise. I often imagine myself sitting in a small wooden boat, gently rocking in the middle of a vast river. This visualization was inspired by a painting that hung in my living room for years – a canoe resting at the river’s edge. Each morning, it felt like an

invitation to step inside that canoe and drift away. I began using this image to reflect and observe my thoughts. 

You can use any imagery that resonates with you to connect and watch your mind unfold. For me, water feels natural and comforting. The boat brings a sense of safety, and I love how the river’s currents mirror my internal world, shifting as my thoughts do. The river stretches endlessly in both directions, shimmering with the early light of dawn. This river is my stream of consciousness – the flowing current of my thoughts. 

Some mornings, the water is glass-like, calm and steady, and the boat hardly moves. I sit with ease, watching the gentle ripples of thought drift by. Other mornings, the river surges, rushing faster than I can paddle, and I scramble to keep up, scrawling thoughts furiously as they tumble over one another. There are days when the sun is radiant, casting warm hues over the water, and the journey feels light and inspired. But there are also days when dark clouds loom overhead, thunder echoes across the expanse, and the river twists dangerously beneath me. The boat creaks under the weight of what lies beneath the surface. On those mornings, writing feels like clutching the oars to keep from being swept away. 

In all of it – the calm, the storms, and everything in between – I write. I let the river guide me. And this morning, as the current led me onward, a new awareness emerged. I realized that this stream of consciousness is not random. It is the act of creating itself. The river carves a path, one I have no choice but to follow. Each word, each thought, shapes the landscape I am destined to explore. 

As I wrote, I noticed a familiar pattern – a striking tendency to remember the negative, as if the river insisted on revisiting the storms. I found myself crafting solutions to problems long past, redesigning bridges that had already crumbled. There was a moment when I stopped rowing and simply observed. I saw how often I tried to relive the journey, not to appreciate the lessons, but to alter the course as if I could reach back and shift the currents. 

I find myself returning to the question, why did I have to endure so much? There are moments when this question lingers, not for answers, but as an invitation to reflect on the journey that shaped me. Yet, I know without the so much, I would not have gone searching for the answers to the deeper questions: what is the trauma all about? and how do I permanently overcome the traumatic, fear-based responses that capture so much of my attention?

Without these questions, the Becoming Method and its associated theoretical framework, Smashing the Mirror, would not have come about. Yet the code and anticode linger. In the process of unraveling trauma, I’ve found that truth is not always comfortable, but it is liberating. The truth often reveals the hidden patterns of thought that perpetuate negative cycles. By confronting these truths, we begin to dismantle the illusions that keep us trapped. 

My answers came after years of seeking. I went down so many rabbit holes of madness, and the journey took much longer than I anticipated. I realize now – had I had a guide, someone who knew then what I know now, the journey would have been easier, smoother, and perhaps shorter. But even that thought is another form of looking back with regret, isn’t it? I cannot regret a gift that now allows me to make the journey shorter for so many others. 

I realized then – Sanity is creating what I want. As I reflected on the weight of my experiences, a quiet shift emerged. But what do I want but the calm waters? What do I want but peace? What do I want but wholeness and purity in thought? What do I want but to create a reality I don’t revolt against because peace is my nature and pure creation is my right. Why would I choose to look back, focus on the shadows trailing behind me instead of creating the light ahead? The river does not flow backward, yet I’ve been paddling upstream, exhausting myself in the effort. The beauty I longed to create, the landscapes I desired to see, awaited me in a gentle flow and a path easy to follow. Now all I had to do was let go. 

I have encountered many traumas in my life, and at times I find myself still unraveling their impact. At age 3, my mother immigrated to Canada, and during a pivotal stage of development, I experienced the breaking of a love-bond. This fracture shaped my ability to attach to others in ways that felt trusting, hopeful, or comforting. 

At age 10, I watched my brother get hit by a car, and at that moment, I was certain he was dead. The event has lingered in my life, weaving itself into the layers of defense mechanisms I’ve had to navigate – sometimes overwhelmingly so. 

Two weeks after my brother’s near death experience, I immigrated to Canada, reuniting with a mother who, overwhelmed by her own stress, could not comprehend what I was experiencing. My experience with my mother was one of enduring stress. One night, she beat me so severely that I was certain I would not survive. In the aftermath, a great sense of doom and fear became the survival mechanisms that shaped my world. 

In all of it, the racism tied to my melanin-rich skin has been a persistent undercurrent, prompting me to question where I truly belong. 

All of this has woven a complex web, causing me to re-experience these events in new forms, with different people, time and again. At times, it feels like too much to hold, yet I continue to seek meaning and understanding within it all. I have been coded to survive at all costs, and in the aftermath of survival, I have been coded to replay the experience over and over, almost to the point of insanity. 

• “Why did that happen?” I ask. 
• “Why did you threaten my existence?” I revolt. 
• “You did me wrong, and it should not have been so.” I regret. 

I have been coded to see pain and want to rewrite it. But hidden within this programming, I sense another code – perhaps an anticode – quietly whispering, “Change it.” Yet, I know I cannot change the past. To try is madness. 

I imagined the boat drifting once more, this time allowing the current to lead. I understood that the seeking was not a flaw – it was the point of the journey. And in the seeking, I found the guide I longed for – not outside of myself, but within. The voice of truth had been there all along, seated quietly at the stern, waiting for me to notice. 

The journey is not about what we do. It never was. We are not the sum of our projects.