Welcome back to Field Notes – my running log of small discoveries that shape how I think, lead and create. This week’s exploration? Journaling as active self-renewal.

Picture by me, 2021: Parc Beaubien, Outremont, Montreal.

🔍What I Noticed

Last summer, I lost my job. Suddenly, the scaffolding of busy and purpose collapsed. I was adrift – no deadlines, no never-ending inbox, no one expecting anything of me. It was brutal.

In a panic, I reached for a book I’d long dismissed as too woo-woo: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Her core idea is simple: we all have an inner artist who’s been shut down by fear and judgment. To recover, we must write daily, honestly, without witnesses.

She calls it Morning Pages:

Three pages of whatever crosses your mind – that’s all there is to it. If you can’t think of anything to write, then write ‘I can’t think of anything to write…’ Do this until you have filled three pages. Do anything until you have filled three pages.

Julia Cameron

That was 372 days ago. Some days are brain-drain writing, some days are meditative. But every day I write, I know I am facing the day as my most grounded, clearest self.

🧠 What I Realized

Looking back over the past year, I see a loose arc: a set of seven phases I passed through over, and over again. Less like climbing a ladder, more like surfing a Mobius strip.

1 – Brain Drain

At first, I just needed to do something. With no job and no structure, my identity fell apart. I tracked minutiae obsessively: wake times + weight + social media follower counts. Cringe. Each entry read like I was trying to prove I was still someone.

Day 15: There is skill involved in turning my life from 1-dimensional (work) to multi-dimensional!

2 – Shame & the Inner Critic

Then, my inner critic arrived. She was loud, vicious, and always had something to say: loser, fraud, broken, freak… The pages filled with reams of cruelty I didn’t know I was carrying. But by writing it down, I saw clearly: this voice wasn’t me, it was a distorted synthesis of every negative comment ever said to me, internalized and eternalized. It was a narrative I could observe and, eventually, name and disarm – although she still sometimes trips me up!

Day 23: When I don’t name my emotions, they literally eat at me, wasting my day, causing devastation to my plans. When I do name them, I can see them for the gremlins they are, and they scare me less. I still feel awful tho.

3 – Unravelling Emotional Truths

Eventually, my critic ran out of spiteful things to say, and what rose to the surface was much deeper: humiliation, longing, loneliness. Old wounds I’d buried under ambition and pride began to stir. I began having vivid, unsettling dreams.

Day 26: I’ve noticed that somewhere in the past few years, sharp emotion doesn’t lead me to want to write. It leads me to withdraw, to pull back, to feel I have nothing to say. I’m not willing to get to the true emotional core of anything anymore, and that scares me. I hope this recovery actually works, because it feels like my soul is on the line.

This phase was draining – I found myself sleeping 10-12h every night. It felt like I was healing on a cellular level.

4 – Homecoming

Around six weeks in, I felt a subtle shift. I started wearing nail polish again. Taking long walks. Signing up for a writing class. These weren’t new habits: they were old joys I was finally ready to incorporate into my life.

Day 42: Thinking about it, I am softer because I am less guarded. I am not sure how much is no longer finding myself in environments where protection is required and how much is releasing myself from carrying other people’s opinions as my own. I guess the boundaries of my identity are more clearly drawn now, so I don’t need to be as guarded.

5 – The Ache of Self-Betrayal

With self-acceptance came the sharp grief of realizing how long I’d lived at war with myself.

Day 48: My friend talked of the ache that comes from not being enough, from not being chosen. An ache I’m oh-so familiar with. Except within the safety of these MP, I can ask: is it an ache of not being chosen by others… or is it the ache that comes from not choosing oneself?! The ache of self-betrayal!!! Goddammit, these MP are definitely going to change my life. There it is: the ache is when I don’t choose myself and I give over my worthiness to someone else’s discretion and jurisdiction.

That insight marked a turning point. I began to live differently – exploring on the page the physical signals my body sends me everytime I’m about to self-sacrifice or self-abandon.

6 – Rebuilding

Four months in, I began to rebuild. I let go of the should’s and started following curiosity. I redefined progress not as output, but as alignment.

Day 127: It’s this feeling of returning home, of getting back to who I’ve known myself to be at my core. I feel so much less frazzled now, no doubt because I’m not spending so much energy fighting myself internally that any blow or nudge from outside of me sends me ricocheting around. I feel grounded.

This was a phase of spring cleaning – literally and metaphorically. I purged everything that no longer belonged in this new chapter of my life.

7 – Continued Self-Discovery

By month six, Morning Pages had become more than a habit. They are my creative and emotional compass.

Day 195: Because every time I do my MP in the face of stressful deliverables, I am teaching myself that I will show up for myself no matter what. And that feels so important as I begin to stretch my comfort zone. I need to know I will be there for me. That I will fill the form, on the good days and on the bad. That layer of foundational trust is what makes this work possible.

A year in, these pages have led me to clarity: I’ve claimed my purpose within a broader social fabric and co-launched a startup.

📝 Why It Matters

We live in a world that fragments our attention, rewards performance over process, and pushes us to bypass the hard stuff. But writing without witness changes that. It’s not just self-reflection. It’s about integration, about becoming a person who can hold difficult truths and still move forward. It’s the daily act of saying: I’m here. I’m willing to face that which scares me. I won’t betray myself today.

And I’m not the only one who thinks so:

• Matthew McConaughey journals to find meaning and momentum.
• Suleika Jaouad calls it creative alchemy.
• Dax Shepard credits his journalling with staying sober.
• Harvard Business Review reminds us that the more senior the role, the more vital reflection becomes: journalling builds resilient leaders and organizations.

Imagine what the world would be if we all took the time daily to combine the light of insight with our power for expansive change?

💡 How I’m Integrating It

Now, deep in startup life, my journalling practice continues to evolve. Here’s what it looks like today:

• Daily Morning Pages: I often write 6 pages – two each for personal life, creativity, and startup thinking.
• Monthly Reviews: I note recurring emotional themes and patterns on the last page of every journal I finish.
• Leading Indicators: I track sleep, bedtime, screen time, daily steps – not for optimization, but to spot emotional imbalance.
• Mind-Body Link: I journal in workout clothes, light a scented candle, play classical music and do 30 minutes of breathwork/stretching right after.
• Operational Separation: I keep a notebook handy for action items that come up while journalling, keeping my Morning pages emotionally focused.

What fascinates me most is how themes repeat across domains, like rigidity in my boxing footwork, or in a hard conversation, or in problem-solving. Writing loosens me up, giving me the space to approach the emotional core of any issue from multiple angles, shifting not just my actions, but also my perspective.

📣 From Me to We

A year of Morning Pages has taught me this: writing without witness leads us to deep wells of clarity, courage and creative trust.

It is very difficult to complain about a situation morning after morning, month after month, without being moved to constructive action. The pages lead us out of despair and into undreamed-of solutions.

Julia Cameron

Undreamed-of solutions?! Yes please.
Try it. Pick up a pen. See what you discover on the other side of the page.