Recently, I’ve been doing some geneology research and some personal writing because of working with the Artist’s Way materials
In the geneology research, it’s more about finding where the lineage ends with a particular person. I click the little leaf indicator on a person’s record and I start looking at the data and adding more information for the generation prior to the person I’m looking at. I keep this cycle going until I can’t go back any further and then I start the same process over again. Sometimes I end up with some really funky data, but this is just the foundation of further research about my ancestors.
My morning pages are the same thing except I am delving into myself and trying to discover my motives for certain behaviors that I want to change. It generally starts with an observation about the thing I want to change and then a string of questions that ask what do I get out of the current behavior. If I were to read them aloud, I’d sound like a three year old asking “Why Mommy? How Mommy?” “What Mommy?” Eventually I get to a point where I can turn it around. I build a mental and written model of what I want to achieve.
If it’s something that I’ve done before, I try to include the feelings that activity or change created and what I was doing when I experienced that feeling. Writing down those memories remind me that I can do it and have done it in the past. If it’s something new, I imagine the benefits of the change and how I feel once I have accomplished it. How will it add to my life? What will it change?
Rabbit holes can be good things and they allow you to explore your personal wonderlands.
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