For cat lovers this isn't referring to kitty stories. Nope.

The positive thing about writing is that you connect with yourself in the deepest way, and that's heaven. You get a chance to know who you are, to know what you think. You begin to have a relationship with your mind. - Natalie Goldberg

Perhaps, I feel, even more important than having a relationship with your mind is getting in touch with your feelings. My Puss Pages help me do just that. Otherwise known as the 'morning pages' spoken of in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

Each day, if I can, I squeeze out all the mental puss by writing, uncensored and unmeasured, in a cheap ole notebook. There is little beauty to be found here and they are not to be read back over. (These pages are not like my journals which contain only the beautiful strands of my everyday tapestry.) There certainly isn't checking of spelling, grammar or sentence structure. You simply go at it, not stopping until you have filled both sides of an A4 piece of paper. Sometimes I'll scribble (if the puss isn't free flowing) down something nice, like the how pretty the flowers look in front of me but, for the most part, it's all the ruminations, anxieties, upsets and the tumbles of everyday.

Kept up and done regularly, these pages can cause the fault lines running through our life to shift and move. In short, they can cause little miracles and blessings to happen. It's like walking through dense jungle and then suddenly having a kindly native come up and walk in front of you, machete in hand, clearing the way before you. You'll become suddenly very aware of what goals you need to set or what areas of your life you'd like to change or improve. Indeed, everything becomes a lot clearer.

Last Sunday, I felt deeply agitated and edgy. I then I realised, I'd failed to do my Puss Pages for the last week or so. Oh I'm a master at this. I have severe lows, I relearn all the things that help, I manifest little signs of improvement so then, stupidly, stop doing all the things that help and then, obviously, still being firmly ensconced in the Fragile Camp, I start sinking again.

Your pages almost certainly won't contain epiphanies, winsome words, grandiose thoughts; they will however, be packed with all the everyday tedium, fretting and daily angsts. Stick with it though. Life sure gets a lot clearer and calmer when you clear out all the mental garbage each day.

Imagine if you didn't empty your rubbish bin regularly!

Suzy

A Moodscope member.