Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

The Space Between Yes & No is Unknowing + Love – Everything + Nothing

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“In the space between yes and no, there’s a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it’s the legroom for the lies you’ll tell yourself in the future.”

Jodi Picoult

Five years before I waited at home thinking I would be feeling better at any moment,  I wrote this poem:

Lasting revolutions are bathed in silence –

in one moment when everything stops.

Choices wash away, swept into the

tide of “I must I must I can’t I don’t know

how and I can’t and…” suddenly we find

ourselves on our feet off our asses

Standing, wobbly. Saying no. Saying yes.

Saying nothing. Praying. Soundless.

We vaguely hear the breath entering

and leaving our nose, feel our chest

moving up and down, threatening to

heave unspilled tears out with extra human force. 

We swear there is 

so much heat in our blood our

skin will blister.

It doesn’t.

Did I know what was coming five years in the future? Did I know in ten years I would finally be finishing the book?

Did I know the biggest decision of my life was on the horizon? 

Ironically now I have no idea what made me so fired up that I thought the heat in my blood would cause my skin to blister from the inside out.

I sit here now, wondering where any concept of wisdom or brilliance or stunning growth may show up and share some unexpected or hoped for revelation.

It’s coming. 

It’s coming.

This is the waiting time Jodi Piccoult describes.

Where are you in that spectrum?

In the meantime, step back with me to two years ago when I wrote this writing prompt in one sort of collaboration with Brene Brown.

Brene Brown quote to inspire and own our story and loving ourselves through the process

Remember your lens is love. 

When you get upset or discouraged or hopeless, remember: your lens is love.

Write for five minutes. Remind yourself, “My lens is love.”

Repeat the process until you know in every ounce of your understanding.

“My lens is love.”

Julie Jordan Scott, writer, creativity coach, award winning actor walking in the woods
Julie Jordan Scott, walking in the woods

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs Coming soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Trying and Alone. Alone and Trying

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Even poorly planted

rice plants

slowly, slowly…. green 

Issa

English Version, David G Lanoue

Perhaps it is because I wasn’t present nor did I capture much of my life during the time between when I was told I had walking pneumonia and the time I was hospitalized that there are so many mysteries of what I was thinking, feeling, doing.

Maybe this space of unknowing may be what brought forward my desire to create daily. 

When I morph myself back into 2019, I remember thinking in the years prior it would be a time of incredible growth. Samuel would be out of the house.

I was going to finally be free to do what I most wanted: finish my book projects, become a nomad, explore all those interior rooms of my psyche and be the fabulous iteration of me that somehow didn’t feel comfortably expanding when I was always on red alert waiting for the next crisis to bubble up that would need me to rush in and run graceful, patient and peaceful intervention.

Naturally. 

Because yelling and fussing and drawing attention to myself is not something I ever did… except for on stage, where almost anything was allowed.

October 4, 2019 fell on a Friday. 

Most likely it was quiet. Most likely I sat in the recliner in the corner of the living room, resting, perhaps watching videos and chatting on my laptop computer which often sat atop my lap desk. I doubt I went anywhere substantial. I may have driven Emma around here and there.

I was quietly doing my best to heal.

It is only in this reflection that I realize how much I have improved in my daily-loving-of-myself.

I definitely treat myself now with much more tender loving care than in the past, when I forgot to be intentional, when I was struggling to get by, was researching loneliness because that was something I struggled with each and every day.

Today I am rarely lonely, probably because of mastering daily self-love as a practice.

Interesting because this week I have been balancing hospitality with my usual routines AND I think I accidentally bumped into a healthy equilibrium. 

What a gift from my past self to my present self.

What a gift to be able to share this with you.

I’m so grateful you are here, reading and look VERY forward to deepening our connection.

Woman at her desk, drinking coffee, preparing to blog.
Hi! It’s Me!

Julie JordanScott

 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller / Empowering Your Second Act /|New Courses/Programs soon! Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Hello, Valley Fever – Goodbye “Before” Near Death

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Five years ago today marks the end of my “Before Valley Fever Era”, Near Death and Beyond. It feels eerie to realize how little documentation I have from those days—especially for someone like me, who usually captures everything.

Between September 23 and November 27, 2019, I didn’t upload a single photo to Flickr.

Woman playing with snapchat filters the day she was diagnosed with Walking Pneumonia and perhaps Valley Fever.

Today, the detective in me returns to the evidence left behind, scanning this big, empty gap in my timeline, wondering, “What was happening?”

On this day in 2019, I went to Kaiser – the HMO I belong to. My doctor diagnosed me with walking pneumonia and possibly Valley Fever (Coccidioidomycosis, a lung infection caused by inhaling fungal spores). I felt terrible, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that it could be something as serious as Valley Fever.

In addition to getting the prescribed Valley Fever medication, I went to my favorite health food store and grabbed a super green smoothie and a shot of some healing tonic. I only know this because of photos on my phone that I never shared.

I also took a picture of Emma wearing her Shakespeare Festival t-shirt. Just days before, I attended a networking event. I was barely present but still valiantly showing up, trying to play along.

I had a headshot taken around that time—it looked fine, but even then, I knew it didn’t quite capture me. Now, I understand why. I recall bumping into my favorite floral entrepreneur, Amanda Klawitter of House of Flowers. I was barely coherent, apologizing for my demeanor, trying so hard to “be better,” whatever that meant to me back then.

Looking back, I realize I’ve always been someone who tries their hardest, who doesn’t want to let others down, who worries about appearing weak, all while carrying the weight of the world in my DNA.

The fact that I went to my doctor at Kaiser at all is remarkable. Historically, I was so focused on nurturing others that pausing to address my own breathing difficulties felt like an anomaly.

Five years ago today, Samuel was off at UNLV, and Emma was home in Bakersfield with me. We had no idea that a much larger event was just around the corner—one that would make lung diseases like mine a shared experience across the world.

What were you doing on October 3, 2019?

With Love,

Julie

Woman at her desk, drinking coffee, preparing to blog.
Julie Jordan Scott

Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

  | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

 | Empowering Your Second Act

| New Courses/Programs soon!

   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Renewal & Restoration: Begin Again

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It is another October – a time we wave goodbye to the beginning of the academic year and prepare to prepare to prepare for the rush of the end of the year.

My heart – my brain – and work as an artist of life nudged me to do the Ultimate Blog Challenge in a new way. A renewed way, a restorative beginning again way. A means of cultivating and curating my stories from the past five years. 

I will be sharing stories/insights/lessons learned from these last five years that have been so incredibly life changing to who I am as a human.

In October 2019 I had a near death experience and while I survived it, there is still unprocessed gunk, some lingering joy and lots of growth edges I have held very close instead of letting them out into the world.

I am honoring the call to let go, to stop holding on so tightly, and allow these stories and episodes and learnings their due.

The Ultimate Blog Challenge allows me the opportunity to focus on my blog and its readers while I reconnect with blogging friends and meet new ones, too.

I’m so grateful you are here, reading and look VERY forward to deepening our connection.

Woman at her desk, drinking coffee, preparing to blog.
Screenshot

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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Healing What Wasn’t Said “Back Then”

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In Spring of 2023 I said something aloud which is what I ought to have said about this haiku project long I did.

“I’m sort of on a pilgrimage” I said to a stranger.

While it was true of that Spring day and it was true of writing haiku for 377 days and hugging trees for 377 days (and beyond) and writing love notes for 377 days saying “I’m sort of on a pilgrimage” is easier to say to strangers or people you doubt you will see again. 

Even more odd was this person I didn’t recognize is someone whose history intersects with mine but I never would have known if we hadn’t had a conversation, inspired by me taking note of the writing on his t-shirt.

On that Spring Day in 2023 I was in a garden I visited regularly as a child. It is a public garden I used to walk by on my way to school. Honeysuckle grew on its fences, a delight to taste at the opposite end of the block where I spent 14 formative years. 

I decided to go there randomly on a recent Saturday because I was being called to deepen my healing – why or how or because – the details are unclear.  I simply knew that in order to get the work done I was supposed to visit the place where my memories began.

Where was the wild path?

Long ago invitation to fear –

Now step beyond it

“I was afraid of everything as a little kid,” I said to the man wearing the interesting t-shirt. “I was even afraid of lightning bugs.”

I rolled my eyes and looked away, more than slightly embarrassed.

 This was less than ten minutes into our conversation. He had spoken my childhood story, “Are you Sue Jordan’s sister?” referring to my older sister. She was the personified antithesis of being afraid of a lightning bug.

“I was afraid of the gully at Carteret Park,” I continued. I was on a roll. 

Somehow, I held onto my dignity enough to not mention my first near death moment choking on a gum ball outside the now long-gone Grand Union.  

The adult me, though, authentically spoke of being on a pilgrimage even though I had no idea why those words flowed out of my mouth with authority, but a soulful lightbulb went off in my head as I spoke to them.

These 377 Goals weren’t goals at all. They weren’t challenges or projects or something to check off a to-do list.

The haiku writing and tree-hugging and the daily love note greetings from my everyday life were all post near-death pilgrimages back to being fully alive. 

These experiences of pilgrimage left evidence that said, “I am still here. I am alive. I am curious. I am not done with this life and this life is not done with me.”

These haiku say “I am devoted to continuing. I am devoted to holding life and all the love I can inside these measurable, meaningful, love-drenched everyday containers of creativity.”

Patricia Hampl said “The paradox: there can be no pilgrimage without a destination, but the destination is also not the real point of the endeavor. Not the destination, but the willingness to wander in pursuit characterizes pilgrimage. Willingness: to hear the tales along the way, to make the casual choices of travel, to acquiesce even to boredom. That’s a pilgrimage — a mind full of journey.”

Inhale: look at what is in front of you (first line)

Hold: Allow yourself to bring the message of the image in front of you into your body (middle line)

Exhale: Let the image go – hold the clearest bits in language for transcription! (third line)

Hold: Check in – repeat or complete? Sometimes you may even break rules.

You, who is reading

With a body, breath and soul

Crack your heart open

Haiku as a Verb

Question: Have you ever taken a pilgrimage? Whether you have or haven’t, where would you go if you were creating a pilgrimage?

I’m so grateful you are here, reading and look VERY forward to deepening our connection.

Woman at her desk, drinking coffee, preparing to blog.
Julie Jordan Scott

🌟 Creative Life Coach & Muse Cultivator

 🎨 | Award-Winning Writer/Actor/Storyteller

🌱 | Empowering Your Second Act

🎉| New Courses/Programs soon!

🎁   Your presence here makes me feel grateful. 

✍🏻I am a writer first, writing & creativity coach, multi passionate creative next. Writing has always been my anchor art and to her I always return. Thankfully, with great love.

🎯 My aim is to create content here that inspires and instructs – if there is ever a topic you would like for me to explore, please reach out and tell me. My ultimate goal is to create posts, videos and more that speak to your desires as well as mine because where these two intersect, our collaborative, joyful energy ignites into a fire of love, light and passionate creativity.

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“Writing Through the Silence: How I Faced the Dark to Find My Voice Again”

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Several years ago I bribed myself to get my writing done. On that day in 2017 I earned a cup of coffee by writing about what I didn’t want to write about.

Perhaps this is the little-known secret for ending writer’s block: withhold coffee (or chocolate, or sex, or whatever a person likes best) until the first 500 words or 5 minutes are spent writing.

What do you think?

I quickly jotted moments in time from that painful era, but I felt extra fussy about what was coming up.

 They were tangentially about what I didn’t want to write about – they would be, if I allowed them, to be a path back to writing. It was as if I wasn’t really listening.

I thought I could write…

  • About walking down 19th St with Josh last night about the early days before and after Samuel’s diagnosis.
  • About seeing an educrat last night who long ago insisted it was bad mothering causing Samuel’s behaviors (which were so obviously spectrum anyone with any ounce of knowledge should have known.)

Or I could choose to investigate, try, explore

  • Putting myself back in my 2007 shoes – finding the gap of July 31 to October 23 without a blog post. Unheard of in that era. Most eras of my life actually.

I dove into the last option.

I discovered my final blog words on July 31, 2007 were “In order for the moonflower to completely open, it has to bathe in darkness. I am not a big fan of the dark. It scares me. Still. Yet I can not walk by this flower without bowing to it, without putting my face close to its opened-by-the-dark heart.”

I must have had the notion that the darkness was behind me: my brother had died and I was doing ok with that – only light on the horizon, right?

What I didn’t know was August, September and October did nothing but get worst.

Blog Silence for all of August. All of September. All of those early Fall months were filled with darkness.

It’s about time I trust myself enough to I bow to the darkness, putting my face closer to the metaphorical flower that is poisonous and only opens in the dark.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives.

Watch for the announcement of Stop the Stuck: Cultivating the Abundance of Your Inner Muse Group Coaching Program coming soon –

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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How Morning Writing Practice Helps Calm the Nervous System & Lead a More Effective Life

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Many of us yearn for a sense of calm and centeredness, especially those of us who may be grappling with mental health challenges. A simple yet powerful tool that can transform your mornings and your mindset is a daily writing practice. Often referred to as journaling, this practice offers a sanctuary for your thoughts and emotions, providing clarity and peace amidst the chaos.

Is your curiosity piqued? Is any resistance rising up? Please continue to read – and at least consider how starting a morning writing practice – a journaling practice – may help you to create a more joyful daily experience.

Benefit one: Unlocking Creativity

Morning writing allows you to tap into your creative side without the constraints of daily obligations clouding your mind. Here’s a three-step method to cultivate creativity through writing:

  1. Free Write: Start with a free-writing session for 5-10 minutes. Let your thoughts flow without worrying about grammar or structure.
  2. Prompt Exploration: Use creative prompts to spark ideas. Write about a dream, a memory, or a what-if scenario.
  3. Reflect and Expand: Choose one interesting idea from your free write or prompt exploration and spend another 5 minutes expanding on it.

Benefit two: Building Courage

For those facing mental health challenges, courage can sometimes feel elusive. Writing each morning helps build this courage incrementally. Follow these steps to foster bravery through your practice:

  1. Face Your Fears: Write about a fear or challenge you are facing. Acknowledge it on paper.
  2. Affirmation Writing: Create affirmations that counteract those fears. Write them down and repeat them daily.
  3. Action Plan: Write a small, actionable step you can take to confront your fear today. Reflect on your progress regularly.

Benefit three: Achieving Consistent Completion

Consistency can be particularly challenging for individuals with mental health issues. A morning writing routine offers a tangible way to experience the satisfaction of completion. Try this three-step method:

  1. Set a Timer: Commit to writing for just 5 minutes each morning. Gradually increase the time as it becomes a habit.
  2. Daily Log: Keep a simple log of your writing sessions. Note the date, time, and a brief summary of what you wrote about.
  3. Weekly Reflection: At the end of each week, read through your entries. Celebrate your consistency and note any patterns or progress.

Simple method to use: The Power of Experimentation

Understandably, the idea of adding another task to your morning routine might feel overwhelming. However, consider approaching it as an experiment. Follow these steps to ease into the practice:

  1. Start Small: Begin with just 5 minutes of writing. Focus on the process, not the outcome.
  2. Be Flexible: Allow yourself to write about anything—thoughts, feelings, dreams, or even lists. There are no rules.
  3. Review and Adjust: After a week or two, review how you feel about the practice. Adjust the timing, duration, or focus as needed to fit your needs.

Creating a Calmer, Centered Life

Incorporating a morning writing practice into your routine helps create a foundation of calm and centeredness. It provides a safe space to process your thoughts, reducing mental clutter and stress. This ritual may become a grounding force, allowing you to approach each day with greater clarity and intention.

Final Thoughts

If you’re navigating mental health challenges, embracing a morning writing practice might seem like “too much.” Yet, by being open to this experiment, you may discover a powerful tool for fostering creativity, courage, and consistent completion in your life. Start small, stay patient with yourself, and watch how this simple practice transforms your mornings and beyond.

Take the first step today and see how morning writing can become a cherished part of your journey towards a more calm and centered life.

What are you saying YES to in your life today?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in our re-energizing private writing and creative life facebook group.

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Today I am Declaring Independence From….

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I, Julie Jordan Scott, declare independence from my inner mean girl and in fact, I declare independence from and will no longer tolerate the behavior of outer mean girls as well.

Women encouraging, supporting, enriching one another has been my normal experience. I will NOT accept self-loathing, deprecation and meanness wreck my life anymore.

Bu-bye Inner Mean Girl. Consider yourself banished.

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What don’t you see? What experiences are you missing because you don’t look again?

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It is only the third of July and it feels so much later in the month than that, probably because two days ago my right knee had another flare up and that caused me to face plant emotionally. 

The good news is I learned so much in these last two days that would have been buried in my lack of awareness and busy, busy, unrelenting busy schedule and sometimes superhuman expectations I have for myself. 

Today my knee is sore, my hip is slightly sore, and I had the best sleep I have had in ages.

When I arrived at my desk this morning, I was without an agenda except for “to settle into” my day and here I sit, gloriously grounded even if the last week iteration of me would have been frustrated with the pace, the ever-expansive me is taking that last week me and holding her close saying something like “husssshhhhh, husssshhhhhhh, you have plenty of time to do all the things you feel like you must get done…”

Normally during the last week of the preceding month I set up the documents for the next month with my regular spiritual practices and my creative entrepreneurial plans.

It is July 3 and I didn’t set up one of my favorite, grounding, off-the-charts-effective “Mining for Storytelling Gold” daily writing practice.

I looked across the screen to my focus mate partner and said, “In this session, I am going to settle in…” having no idea what that really meant and I wrote “Good Morning, Love,” (my daily message to my facebook followers) and then realized I wasn’t ready to start “Mining for Story Gold” because I hadn’t taken the time to set the document up yet.

I then took the one step that changed everything: I decided to start the August document now.

I scanned last year’s August photo album and found the perfect photo.

What I had never noticed in that photo was glaringly obvious now.

What do you see in this photo?

What have you missed seeing in your everyday life lately?

Please let me know in the comments – 

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Who Is Julie Jordan Scott & What are her July Goals?

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First: I don’t normally talk about myself in third person, but here I am and here we are – and I am incredibly grateful you cared enough to visit this blog post and hopefully let me know what resonated the most with you in my introduction and in my goals.

We’re going to do a 5 + 5 approach: 5 Unconventional Facts About Me and 5 July Goals

Facts, just the facts about me, ma’am by means of introduction:

  1. I am the fourth of six children. My two younger brothers have died so since December of 2021, I have been the youngest child which has been quite strange (at least for me.)
  2. I enjoy doing consistency projects like writing Writing Haiku for 377 Days or Hugging Trees for 377 days. It has been a while since I have taken on a new big consistency project so this month I have a top secret experiment in a shorter term to see if I still get as much joy from these activities.
  3. My middle name is Ann, which I always thought was exceptionally plain and ordinary. I did think for a long time that one of my heroines, Julie Andrews, was actually Julie Ann Drews, so this made my middle name much less unfortunate.
  4. Rivers, lakes and the ocean are among my natural friends. In July, I will experience all three.
  5. When I was a child I wrote letters as a hobby. Perhaps as a way to encourage my writing, my parents never complained about the cost of stamps, even though I wrote upwards of 10 letters a week or more.

GOALS for July:

  1. By Mid-Month, send my book to the book designer (finally, not finally, right on time.)
  2. Create a sustainable evening/ pre-bed routine.
  3. Successfully on-board my new virtual assistant.
  4. Participate in Summer Reading Challenge
  5. Maintain a learning goal around writing fiction (I usually write creative non-fiction and poetry but participated in NaNoWriMo again this year and enjoyed it very much)

Who are you and what are your goals for July? What do you resonate with from my two lists?

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