You Just Have To Think Up A Name That Works For You

I am always looking for the discipline that will make me...disciplined. I've tried using a journal first thing in the morning off and on for years. I thought it was supposed to make me more creative, if not more disciplined. It didn't do either.

Then last fall I added a short yoga practice to my workout a few days a week (which has done wonders for me physically--yoga cures everything). So I added some meditation to that because I read that some people find that meditation helps improve their concentration. In my case, not really.

But I've also read about various kinds of moving meditation, and I thought, hmmm. Why not writing meditation? It would be like those morning pages Julia Cameron talks about, only I'll call it "writing meditation."

This has been working for me very nicely. I'm writing about anything, about what I'm reading, about what I'm writing, jotting down ideas. It's really just all the usual junk you put in a writer's journal or notebook. I just call it "writing meditation," and that's made all the difference.

How well has this been working for me? I've had to miss some mornings this past week, and I feel myself drifting and feeling unfocused and somewhat lost. I definitely am less disciplined without the writing meditation.