Emotional
October 3, 2023

Blocked Emotions and Burn Pages

by
Dr. Roy Vongtama

Burn pages are a tool I learned from a mentor a long time ago, Angel Harper. I don't know where she learned it from, and it's probably not a new concept, but it was revelatory to me.

Basically you take some scrap paper, lock yourself in a room, turn your phone off. You agree with yourself to write for a set period of time, say 30 minutes. You cannot stop writing, for any reason- no bathoom, no drink, no phone calls.

What do you write? Anything, but more specifically, EVERYTHING. Just keep writing. When the clock is up, you stop.

THEN: You burn those pages. (In a fireplace or someplace safe obviously!)

Why do you need to burn them? Because then your mind will know that NO ONE WILL READ THEM! You are uncensored. You can write anything you want, because no one gets to read it. Not even you.

If it's a journal, you know somewhere in the back of your mind that someday, someone might find it. So you write with guardrails. That causes you to stay blocked.

Try it once, see what happens. (Personal story: The first time I did it, I wrote for almost 50 pages, but 25 pages were just one curse word in really big letters. I broke two pencils as well due to how hard I was pressing!)