Up: [[Life Writing]] Related: [[Creating a Body of Work]] Created: 2023-06-29 Updated: 2025-12-28 ### The Experiment Marion Milner engaged in a seven-year self-study to try to figure out what made her happy. The results are published in her book, *A Life of One’s Own*. Milner thought she could conduct a scientific self-study by setting the intention to be happy and then trying out various methods of achieving it. She soon learned that what she called “blind thoughts” would swoop in and take her in unanticipated directions. So she changed her process to recording moments of happiness in her day and then, over time, returning to them and analyzing them to see if she could determine any rules. ### Her Conclusion In reviewing seven years of material, Milner found that understanding wasn’t linear, so organizing her writing chronologically wouldn’t work. Rather, she'd often have to go through similar experiences many times, and it might be years before the meaning of those experiences would become apparent. She concluded that understanding is an ascending [[Spiral]], not a straight line. ### Her Discoveries #### Process Paying [[Attention]] made an enormous difference. Milner repeatedly stated that *the act of looking changes the significance of what is found.* [[Freewriting]] was one of Milner's favourite ways to pay attention, especially when she had to make an important decision. Freewriting allowed Marion to tap into her unconscious. Marion also kept an Opposites diary for considering the opposite of a strongly held belief. See also [[Tension of Opposites]]. #### Insights Marion found that she could sometimes change her mood, particularly from melancholic to happy or contented, by narrating what she was seeing. For example, “I see Mom sitting in my brown chair reading the news on her iPad, and I hear Toffee grumping when a car door closes.” Constantly trying to improve is just another way of [[Being Better Than You Are]]. The better choice is to stand back, wait, not push. In other words, [[Surrender]]. It often wasn’t easy for Milner to know her own mind. *It was far easier to want what other people want and then imagine that the choice was one’s own.* (p. 69) Whatever Marion thought she was worrying about was never the real problem. And using tasks to distract herself didn’t work because the emotions were still there. Milner struggled with the self-attacks that often plague me. After a long time she *came to the conclusion that the nagging thought was always one that was concerned with some unsatisfied emotional need, a need which for some reason I was refusing to recognize and which could not therefore obtain direct expression.* (p. 142)