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Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Your Time is Now: Show Up & Follow Through Because This is How Satisfaction Starts

April 19, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

When I follow through and write like I say I will write, I am never disappointed. I am always glad – even if what comes out seems like the biggest mish-mash gooey meaningless slop of words, it is better than not moving my pencil, my pen or my fingers on the keyboard.

I know this is how satisfaction starts.

When I say, “I am going to write!” and I don’t – it is as if my hands get stuck in a tar-glue and I can’t move a thing. I can’t engage with my thoughts because everything gets heavier. Nothing is clear. It all slows down.

You might be thinking, “If I write freely, I might dislodge something I would rather forget!”

I’m slightly embarrassed to confess this, but I am guilty of not returning to yoga because the last class I took opened something up in me that caused me to sob so strongly I may have disrupted the class. I am yoga blocked even though I love it because of that similar fear I hear from writers.

I hadn’t realized that until right now.

So there you have it. I am with you in your writing block in my yoga block.

Who wants to join me in making an agreement?

How about it?

You “Yoga” (I’m using it as a verb here)  or Write (or Yoga and Write – a truly tremendous combination) and I will as well.

How about we start on Monday.

For some reason, in my head, I am hearing. “I’m Tarzan, You’re Jane.”

I’m willing to take it one more deeply.

I’m willing to take and share a photo of me Yoga-ing. Starting Monday.

I just sighed at myself. Really? Julie, are you certain about this? You’ve done some crazy stuff before but… are you sure?

I am sure of this. I need several breakthroughs. The only way to create breakthroughs is to take specific, focused action. This I can do.

I know it.

Note to self: When I follow through and yoga like I say I will yoga, I am never disappointed. I am always glad – even if what comes out seems like the biggest mish-mash gooey meaningless slop of a pose, it is better than not moving my body on the mat.

 

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 new programs coming in soon!

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

Check out the social media links above to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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What do you want to write about, anyway? Hint: Being Present, Alert and Authentic Will Show the Way

March 8, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Yesterday I sat on a bus stop bench in South Pasadena, pulled out my notebook and wrote, just wrote – captured the moment, the scents, the scene the rightness of my response to the tug of history I didn’t know and most likely will never know.

I wrote in South Pasadena on a bench I had never seen before pouring out words that will most likely never be read.

I looked behind me and noticed a wild, free form arrangement of purple and yellow star shaped flowers I later learned were lantana. I pushed my face into the flowers, breathing them in, slightly aware the people driving past wondered what this more-than-a-little-chubby-middle-aged-woman was doing and why was she so happy?

“Another off-the-course-of-reality” homeless person,” one of them might think.

I thought about my Granny, a long-time resident of South Pasadena whose one-time home would now be on the market for several million dollars if it was to sell.

I got in my car and responded to a call in what might be called the downtown section of her town where a metro train station now lives and a skateboarder named Brian waited for me to take him to North Hollywood.

I taught him the word “Country bumpkin.” He reminded me anyone you meet may be a writer, a poet, a person with a story to tell. I reminded him even older ladies you meet in Pasadena once skateboarded at the beach.

We are all connected, after all, there are no accidents – only synchronicity – and if we keep our hearts and eyes open, we will notice miracles awaiting our embrace day after day after day after day.

There doesn’t have to be a moral to the story, there is only and always and most importantly your story. Write it. Share it. Connect with others through it. Bring the world closer in the process. Feel happier. Smile more.

Isn’t that truly what we’re all after?

Here’s my blissful day in a snippet-by-snippet video. Fun!

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Filed Under: Creative Adventures, Creative Process, Uncategorized

Brain Dump to the Rescue – Especially when we are the least likely damsel ever –

February 23, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Writing makes things right again, pure and simple.

Writing makes things tangible again, brings us back to real time rather than yesterday or tomorrow. Writing allows us to sort the facts from the fantasy, both idealized and frightening. Writing makes things right again, every time we allow ourselves the space to let our thoughts flow freely – you know what I’m talking about, I am sure of it.

Not laborious, face of the red-pen bearing grim reaper of words third grade teacher you would rather forget but words, flowing freely like the cursive e’s I didn’t even know were “e’s” scrawled along blue lined paper.

When I close my eyes and allow my memory to drift, I can still feel that paper across my lap, against the skin on my little four-year-old-thighs. “I’m writing,” I would say, I’m sure earnestly. “I’m writing” and I knew it felt good and I knew writing could make anything better.

It isn’t the actual mechanics though it is.

It isn’t the finding perfection, it is allowing the perfection and the imperfect imperfection to crowl quietly down your forearm and dive off the tip of your pencil or pen. “Julie, do you remember? Julie, do you hear what I’m saying? Julie… darling one…. Hi.”

I remember the first time I was in a psychiatrist’s office and my head was bent and eyes, downcast in a stew of numb disbelief, unnamed fear and the silent, unwhispered help I sometimes see in the faces of homeless people who have given up begging because it stopped working.

That dear psychiatrist but his face in a place where my eyes would see him.

That’s what words do, too.

Sometimes I don’t recognize it until the first re-read and I say, some level of surprise greeting my face, “I wrote that? That came from me?”

YES! The you buried underneath all the stuff people say you should be, the tasks others say “you should do that” all the beliefs that created this brick wall of unworthy which we want to deconstruct and make into a meandering path to what is actually true for you.

I found in my Brain Dump the other day “righting” for writing – and that’s how my words reminding me, “Writing makes things right, every time.”

 

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Word-Love Play: Let’s Fall in Love with the Voluptuousness of Words Now

February 8, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

There are some words that make me swoon.

There are some smells that actually have been known to make me close my eyes and moan from someplace deep in my gut, beyond my physical hunger there is this place that understands the smell of rosemary and flour, a soft tickle of a breeze in the mid-summer desert heat, an especially tight harmony all land there and my response is a pleasure-sound from that ancient depths place within me that doesn’t even have a proper name.

(Perhaps its name IS a sound?)

Contemplative is one of those words.

Four syllables whose definition is pleasurable and the experience of it moving from my throat across my tongue and teeth and the sound like a prayer, “Con – tem – pla – tive” bursts forth, almost prayer like each time.

Is it possible to have a crush on a word?

I talk about spreading the word-love virus and I am serious about that. Words are potent and getting more adept at their use provides a power few understand yet. We are at a point of word-breakthrough here yet my fascination with contemplative feels almost like – dare I say it? – word lust more than word love.

Is this why I enjoy onomatopoeia, internal rhyme and assonance? I’m not a big fan of overused alliteration – too ordinary.

Oh, for a well-placed combination of vowel sounds. See what I mean. Say that aloud, “vowel sounds”. Now wait, this entire sentence. Say it! “Now say that aloud, “vowel sounds.” All those round, muscular “o” moments.

If you will excuse me, please. I need a drink of water and perhaps my notebook and some pens. And some uninterrupted time.

You understand now. I know you do.

 

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How to Create Positive Stories: Slice of Life to Spectacular Living

January 17, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Take your everyday life experiences and turn them into story moments. Why get angry when you may spin a positive tale and just feel better?

I texted. A quick response was sent in return.

I texted again, this time, no response. Repeated again, no response. Again I waited.

I could have chosen to get angry and upset. I could have made a fist and dramatically tossed it around lamenting my student’s irresponsibility and my own, for waiting until the last minute to wash the PE clothes my son forgot to take to school and here I am wasting my time instead of being productive and OH MY GAWSH this is horrid….

Instead of fretting, I created a positive, silly story.

I created. I made something – I made the waiting fun instead of annoying.

This is what storytellers do. We don’t wait for “the big thing” to fall into our laps, we walk around scouting stories. We connect with people, ask questions, laugh, and engage. In today’s world, we sometimes use social media to further the process along.

Here, a day in the life – that goes awry when… the forgotten PE clothes faux pas comes to light.

Here it is, briefly, in this short video – my morning, before the clothes were discovered at home. And then, after my exchanges with the folks at school.

Can you relate to these vignettes? Here’s more of the specifics underneath the brief video.

The time came when I had to go into the school office. I stood, waiting to chat with the secretary and noticed it. A proclamation from the Assistant Principal declaring leaving items for students was banned. I held the PE clothes in my hands, carefully hidden contents in a bag that has now been banned from the state of California.

My first hurdle: the discovered proclamation and the secretary.

My strategy: provide a solution, be polite and pleasant so I increase the chances of getting my way.

“Good morning! My son left his PE clothes this morning and I need to get them to him.”

She looked at me blankly, “Unfortunately we have a new policy….” she directed her eyes toward the letter I had noticed from the assistant principal.

“Oh, does that mean I can’t go to the Dean’s office and leave them? I’ve done that before this year…” I attempted to look non-chalant as I lobbed strategy number one her way.

“Go ahead then,” agreed the secretary, sounding perhaps slightly disgruntled.

“I have done it since November, I didn’t know about the policy,” I said, commiserating with her.

“No one does,” she lamented. “No one.”

I signed in, happily. Took my picture to get my badge, happily. I commented how much I liked my photo and joked more with the secretary.

My strategy worked! I was in!

Off to the Dean’s office.

Hurdle: Their allegiance with the administration may cause them to balk at my request.

Strategy: Pull the austism card if necessary. Be extra polite and understanding. Smile.

“Good morning!” (Upbeat voice, smile.) “I’m sorry, I know the policy about not dropping things here for our students but…”

“What policy?” asked the friendly Dean’s Office secretary.

I explained the policy and she, surprisingly, didn’t seem to care much and asked my student’s name. I told her. 

“Oh, I know Samuel!” she said happily. 

“Yeah, he turns his phone off at school, he follows the rules to a T so I couldn’t even let him know I’m here.”

“You’re fine! I’ll take care of it,” she said. She also told me about a special class they’re starting to help special needs students. She had a connection with me and wanted to share.

“That’s such a great idea,” I continued. “I bet parents will find real value in that.” (Sincere thought.)

I literally skipped back to the office to check out with my new best friend, the secretary.

The end of the story is I made an important connection for my volunteer work and parenting. I plan to go back tomorrow with some materials for my Parent Club AND I imagine myself to be a positive highlight to the ever undervalued secretary’s day.

While I was in process of creating this post I created even more story, shared my #5for5BrainDump on snap chat which I’ll repurpose into other promotions which will help the world get better when people continue to communicate more clearly.

This is SUCH perfection, all in quick, fun, quirky slivers of storytelling. I’ll take it!

I could have chosen to be angry, frustrated, mad at my child and myself and the school and instead, I created a win-win-win-many times over win again – just like you may, too.

 

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Filed Under: Business Artistry, Creative Adventures, Creative Process, Storytelling, Uncategorized, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: better life, creative process, mindset, Motherhood, parenting, shift, storytelling

End Your Fear of Criticism: Improve Your Work, Your Writing, Your Art Now

December 27, 2016 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Don’t let fear take over your best work. Befriend criticism to take improve your work and have a bigger impact.

One of the most worrisome challenges for many writers and artists is the fear of criticism.

I want to prove to you I know criticism well. There was this time when criticism hurt the most.  Here’s what happened.

I thought the work I had done was brilliant. I was ready to perform and wow everyone. I couldn’t wait for “sure to follow” praise.

What I wasn’t expecting was to have the work I had done fail from my acting teacher’s perspective

Instead, the critique came labeled absolute failure. Could the criticism be any worse?

My teacher told me to lie down on my back and re-speak my monologue, line for line, with no emotion. He wanted it spoken without emphasis, one sentence at a time.

And I couldn’t cry. I wouldn’t cry. If I cried, that would mean I believed I was a failure and I might not be brave enough to come back to class.

For a cryer-emoter like me, this felt like torture.  I was unprepared for the criticism my teacher offered. “I don’t buy it,” he said. “You aren’t being real.”

Eventually I saw this same criticism as an enormous gift.

I did what my teacher told me. I spoke my monologue from the floor. I allowed myself to fail well through criticism and returned to class the next week for more instruction, for more improvement, for more growth as both an actor and as a human. “This is what I would tell my coaching clients to do,” I reminded myself.

Guess what happened next?

I chose to improve from the criticism I received. I continued to practice. I auditioned for roles – some I’ve gotten and some I haven’t.

I’ve won acting awards. I’ve been in countless plays, some music videos, done some film work. I’ve directed and written.

I’ve taken the criticism I received and used it to improve, just as I have with my writing and mixed media art.

I changed my relationship with criticism, made it work for me rather than allowed fear and other emotional attachments to get in the way of future success.

If I never went back to that acting class – which would have been my usual pattern – the “What if I had?” would hold me in improvement limbo.

How might you apply what I learned that day and continue to practice every day of my life?

  1. Listen to the criticism offered fully and ask yourself, “Where is the truth in the critique?”
  2. Be aware of who is offering the criticism. Is it someone who is an expert in the field? Is this person offering objective or subjective critique? Where is the value in the criticism?
  3. Most importantly, continue to show up and do what it is you love to do.  Few of us, if any, begin as masters of the craft. This was an important lesson from my acting class – that even though I had raw talent and the building blocks of being a decent actor, there was still so much room to grow.

Usually when I tell the story of how I came back to acting after thirty years away, I share about the transcendent moment that came in the class session right before this one. Welcome to the rest of my story, when things got even better.

This was the moment in my life when I finally learned to accept criticism as a means to improve and a way to grow into this always continuing to achieve more version of myself. If I had stayed afraid of criticism, I would never continue acting. We get notes EVERY night at rehearsal. It is a nightly opportunity to get critiqued and the primary focus is fixing the mistakes you’re making rather than praising the moments you did well. As an actor, if you can’t take that, you’re sunk.

I have included several prompts for you to use for writing or other forms of creative expression including contemplative thought and conversation among friends and broadcasting or video. If you happen to use the prompts to make anything you post online, I would love for you to link back to this post as a way to say THANK YOU!

PROMPT: Remember a time you received criticism. What happened next?

Use the phrase, “I remember” to start your writing and then just let your words flow across the page without editing, forethought or planning. 

Stay with this perspective of criticism just like I stayed with my acting class, even though I was initially humiliated by criticism.

I have offered you some alternative prompts in case the first one didn’t resonate entirely.

Prompt: I remember the time I was criticized. It felt….

I remember the time I was criticized (describe the critique). It felt…. and in response I….

These quote sources may also help, especially if you choose to turn your writing into an essay, blogpost, video, live broadcast or a chapter in a book.

99 Motivational Quotes to Help You Deal with Criticism from Inc.com

34 Inspiring Quotes on Criticism (and how to Handle It) from PositivityBlog.com 

17 Quotes: Forget the Critic and Believe in Yourself (from the Muse.com)

The rest of the rest of the story is this:

My original acting teacher and I last worked together five or six years ago. He called me and said something like this, “I am calling to beg you to take a role in….” and I did. The woman who wrote the play told me afterwards my portrayal pleased her more than any of the other actors who shared the stage with me, but that praise mattered less than the fact I enjoyed myself completely and have stories to tell I didn’t have before. 

I am on hiatus from stage and screen and am making a list of who I want to work with the next time I opt onto the stage. My acting teacher is on the list. 

Here’s to more powerful criticism and even more growth for you. This post was inspired by a live broadcast created for the Peri10K.com community. If you are interested in being a part of a carefully curated, collaborative mastermind of thought leaders & world changers who aim to create the most inspiring content online, visit peri10k.com/join to be put on the waitlist and notified when the group re-opens to new members.

Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print since it was published more than 100 years ago.

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 new programs coming in soon!

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    and on Periscope 

Be sure to “Like” WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram   And naturally, on Pinterest, too!      © 2016

 

 

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Filed Under: Business Artistry, Creative Process, Uncategorized, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: criticism, critique, failure, How to Fail Well, Self improvement

Top 5 Methods to End Writer’s Block & Make #5for5BrainDump Work to Create More Content

December 27, 2016 by jjscreativelifemidwife


People get stuck on words everyday: can you relate to what I’m saying?

Sometimes people get stuck before they even start, the writer’s block happens before the thought of the pencil is put into the hand, before the computer is turned on, before the assignment of the term paper is given by the professor to the class.

My own daughter got writer’s block this Fall semester in college and I did what I do every day with people who come to me needing a breakthrough: I gave her some prompts without explaining why. I told her “Five minutes, just write for five minutes without worrying what your words say. Just trust me, just write.”

And she did just that. She wrote, without editing or thinking or planning or editing on each and every seemingly ridiculous prompt I offered her.

Guess what?

Her paper got done and she managed to get an A in a class she thought she was going to fail because she continued to write. She didn’t allow her negative thoughts or fear get in the way of the words that were waiting to be written.

The thing is, we need to let our words out.

We need to give space for those words to be “heard” by our fingers and translated into essays or instruction manuals or chapters of books or dialogue in the screenplay.

Are you with me?

Chances are you are here because you need to write something and you hit that wall we sometimes call “writer’s block” or sometimes we just call it “block”.

No matter what we call it, it has the same impact: we are unable to take our vision for what we want to say into a coherent written document.

This translates into an angry boss or a bad grade, perhaps, or at best not being able to express ourselves turns into an argument or a growing mountain of disagreement.

Here’s the thing: together we may prevent your writer’s block so easily. Ask this: “If you could discover how to overcome writer’s block in 5 different ways, would you be willing to try one (or more) to eliminate the possibility of pain writer’s block inevitably brings?”

Mark Twain wrote, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

These simple techniques will do exactly that: start you on your way to never having writer’s block again in 5 minute chunks of time. Just like that, you’re writing will start and continue over and over again in mini-writing-miracles so eventually your worry will be wiped clean. Any time you get stuck for words again, just do the practice again.

Magically – your words flow – just like that.

1. Word-Chant: Write the topic word or phrase repeatedly on the page. If you are alone, you may even say it aloud as you write. As you get into a rhythm, other words will begin to flow. Follow those words wherever they take you. Repeat as necessary within your 5 minute brain dump session.

2. Doodle on the page. Instead of trying for simply words, make shapes and squiggles while thinking of the word or phrase that is the subject of your writing. In the image below you will see the doodles for a brain dumper who was writing about “How to Create a Believable Character.” You may also find moving outside “conventional language” in this way helps a lot.

Doodling before you write helps a lot, especially if you have experienced any writing blocks at all.

3. Collapse the Inner Editor with Emily’s Method. Some writer’s get stuck with their brain dumps because they allow their inner editor or perfectionist (some call this “voice” the inner critic or for me, Miss Pizarro, my third grade teacher) space rather than fully turning the words over to flow. Emily Dickinson had a brilliant solution to this problem. She added plus signs as she wrote instead of searching for the “perfect” word, she jotted any word that might be a possibility onto the page beside or above the original word. See some examples of how that might look below.

4. Give yourself permission to write as horribly as possible for five minutes. This may be my favorite technique at all. It is so fun to be horrible with a flourish. Yes, my friend, you may be an awful writer. How exciting to think of it!                                                                                                                                                                                                       

5. Borrow from a favorite “Amygdala Hijacking Technique.” Gleaned Daniel Goleman’s work with emotional intelligence. Your amygdala is the part of your brain that is responsible for your emotional responses and has the capacity to shut off your neocortex (where your logical thinking lives) instantaneously. In my creative life coaching practice, I train people to stop the hijack by turning their amygdala inside out. It is stopped by switching the brain to any other thought. I like to do so in fives so I suggest when folks start feeling that wild fear to name five things of any category – five types of green vegetables, five girls names that start with A, five cities in Europe, five favorite musicals – it can be anything at all. Just start making lists and watch where your interest goes. Write according to that interest which leads us to a bonus tip.If you aren’t having fun with your #5for5BrainDump process, walk away for 5 minutes and come back to your writing after you have had a drink of water, a bit of a stretch and if possible, watch an under three minute video that makes you laugh.

BONUS TIP: Try to write again, using one of these five techniques without pausing after the video. You’ll still be laughing. The writing will be fun. You will have switched from writer’s block to writing beneficially.

Instant miracles, infinite breakthroughs and more insights you ever imagined.

To participate in #5for5BrainDump, visit our sister site at 5For5BrainDump.com now.

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 new programs coming in soon!

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    and on Periscope 

Be sure to “Like” WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram   And naturally, on Pinterest, too!      © 2016

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    and on Periscope 

Be sure to “Like” WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram   And naturally, on Pinterest, too!      © 2016

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Filed Under: #5for5BrainDump, Business Artistry, Creative Process, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: braindump, brainstorm, Emily Dickinson, end writer's block, flow, free flow writing, lists, write, write chant, writing block, writing improvement, writing tips

Will You Transform Your Life Today? Choices, Beliefs and a Challenge to Take Passionate Action

September 20, 2016 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Dear Beliefs

We often make choices based upon the things other people say to us or have said to us in the past.

“Monday isn’t a good day to…” and “People don’t like people who….”and sometimes as ridiculous as “only skinny girls may wear skinny jeans.”

There are times we don’t give any conscious thought of who from the past or present is actually steering our life. Think about it with me for a moment.

Your life may be driven by a belief implanted by someone long gone from our every day experience.

My thoughts go to my third grade teacher, who I often hear scolding me for my ugly handwriting or my siblings as children who were, like me, just doing the best they could to survive in their everyday existence, too.

Now that we are adults, we are able to – and privileged and honored to – make choices according to what we know is true. Sometimes this takes stretching our belief muscle to fully integrate that belief, to make it show up daily in our conscious actions.  When we do so, we practice making other potent decisions based on passion and purpose rather than fear and scarcity.

When we choose to take passionate, conscious actions we will shape our life experience so much more richly. “One choice defines your belief. One choice can transform your life,” said Veronica Roth. Every action, every choice we make proclaims to the world what we truly believe, not just what we say we believe.

Will you make a different choice today?

Will you choose to transform your life and world today through making choices that match with what you say you believe?

Today, I’ll devote myself to following my own heart-mind-soul beliefs rather than be limited by endlessly playing loops from the scolding or just limitations imposed due to unconsciousness from others.

What about you?

Will you devote yourself to consciously make choices that serve you and the world? Will you devote yourself to consciously make choices that are in alignment with the world you want to inhabit?

Share with me as your day goes along.

I’ll be tweeting and snapchatting my adventures as a way to stay accountable.

I would love to hear your adventures as your life is transformed through the conscious choices you are making now.

Related articles
Stop Singing the Gremlin Song: Change the Pattern & Step Into Your Purpose
Bye Bye Guilt: I Will Be Angry. I Will Grieve. I Will Stop Doing!
Stream of Consciousness Sunday: 5 Minutes on Solstice
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Filed Under: Uncategorized

Where is Intention Inviting You to Play?

September 19, 2016 by jjscreativelifemidwife

PAF Where is intention inviting me to play

Today is Passion Activator Friday – a day of intentional productivity many of us settle into as we end our week. I also use it as a platform to leap into the week to come.

On our opening Periscope Broadcast we collectively created this question in the form of  a writing and creativity prompt:

“Where is intention inviting me to play?”

Imagine for a moment "Intention" the energy or life force that fuels your goals, your mission, your purpose, was a being of some sort.

Flex your imagination muscles for a moment.

This is something that comes naturally to actors, artists and writers. I imagine if you've found your way here you are more than likely in that category.

Just let your mind go and allow yourself to engage with "Intention" as if she was living, breathing, had a voice and perhaps even a magic wand or pixie dust or the power of breath energizing her in a particular direction.

I brought to mind a Sylph character I frequently find myself doodling or painting.

 

Here is what I wrote:

I settle into my chair, music in my ears, Alice by my side. I vaguely hear my fingers tapping on the keyboard. My space bar isn’t catching up yet and I know she will.

My hands and words feel connected with other writers out there, writers who may feel stuck or wounded or unable to speak (because I’ve been there) and intention is inviting me to reach out to them and others who are passionate… yet perhaps disconnected. My people who don’t know it yet who are ready to be who they are meant to be, to express themselves more fully… to once and for all open themselves… to let go of the shackles around their wrists, their throats, their personal intentions.

My people are waiting to join me. As I type, I see intention pointing to the crowds gathered…

I see their fingers on their keyboards… I feel their hearts beating toward mine. I feel connected to their rhythms, their happiness… right on the edge….

With my words I step up and knock, I issue the invitation…. Intention has invited me to play. “Can Sue (Katie, Martin, Prima, You) come out and play with me?”

= = =

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Igniting Your Inner Visionary:

September 19, 2016 by jjscreativelifemidwife

IG Be a Visionary

 Do you wonder if you are visionary?

Do you consider how to use the secret methods of visionaries to bring your projects and ideas to life?

It is so simple to access their ways of being, doing and creating: look at these five steps as a pathway to your own brand of "Visionary."

1. Visionaries PLAY: they remember how it was to be a child in a land of make-believe.

A visionary is simply one who remembers how to play "make believe".  They aren't controlled by other people's opinions. In fact, they shock ordinary minds with the way they take something that seems like a fantasy and turn it into reality.

An example? Facebook.

An example? The Telephone.

An example? The car, the train, the airplane.

2. Visionaries EXPERIMENT – they don’t get angry if their hypothesis was wrong, they see what may be “more right” and choose to follow that.

As visionary adults we continue to playfully experiment: we get giddy with excitement about an idea and a visionary holds tight to that idea and sees the good ones through to fruition and let’s go of the one’s that aren’t so great although she may allow it too “percolate” in her subconscious mind.

3. Visionaries are PASSIONATELY EXPRESSIVE – even though they may be quiet, they are cauldrons of heat waiting to be served to many people who are hungry for their particular brand of Vision. 

That way she doesn’t abandon it fully, she just allows the “water to boil” because as all children have learned from their grandmother’s “A watched pot never boils,” visionaries remember quotes, proverbs and wisdom from ages past.

We don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and when we are smart, we use stories to communicate. We don’t use language people have to spend time translating in order to understand what we are trying to say. We meet people face-to-face, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul.

4. Visionaries see time differently than others. Visionaries see time as expansive and dynamic.

Visionaries remember how as children we mastered the art of seeing time as expansive, those days when we were busy building castles in the basement and our mother’s called down, “A half an hour until Julie has to go home!” and Danny and I squealed in delight at that glorious time left to continue with the castle.

We might finish it, we might knock it down and build it up several times. We had a vision which held our passion and we loved the thought we had so much time because… we did. As visionaries, we remember this expansiveness and reach into memory to manifest this childlike positive energy.

5. Visionaries LEARN FROM EACH OTHER – They make discoveries when they hand over leadership, even if just momentarily.

Visionaries remember to joyfully play follow the leader (readily swapping out leaders and learning from one another collaboratively only they don't use big buzz words, they say "yes, let's!" instead of blabbering on at length about engagement, they simply are engaged.

Children and visionaries who play follow the leader laugh, mimic, grow and learn without knowing this fun stuff is actually adding to the increase, making the world a better place, changing lives if and when they remember the power of make believe.

Remember, say it aloud and write it down:

A visionary is simply one who remembers how to play "make believe".

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter:   and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth.

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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 Ventura writing artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in Fall, 2015 and beyond.

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

  Check out the links above to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

 

Related articles
What if your knocking "I am so scared" knees are actually your knees, dancing?

 

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