Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Set Your Words Free From Pandemic Blahs & Blocks

by

It seems like forever ago when the pandemic began and we were scared: this was the beginning of a temporary situation, all would be well soon, we said – and we put some aspects of our lives and thought, “I can do this for a while, I suppose.”

And we did. And now a while is a lot longer than we expected or suspected it would be and many of us are left feeling either defensive or constricted or unable to break through the barriers. We know, intellectually, we have been the ones who create, tear down and build up our thought barriers yet here we sit.

Pencils unmoving. Pens, immobile. Fingers a long way from the keyboard.

Some of you don’t know I almost died of Sepsis back in October. For many days I sat in this exact spot I am sitting in right now and wouldn’t touch my computer that sat on the table right next to me. I just couldn’t do it. As much as I loved writing and knew underneath this wall of inability and destructive thoughts it would be what would make it all better, I sat. Facing the opposite direction. Once I got home there was no television, I didn’t know about podcasts, few phone calls from friends or family, very little interaction at all. Every day it stayed the same.

Julie JordanScott in the hospital while she was battling pneumonia, sepsis and multiple organ failure.

It was my rehearsal for the pandemic.

In retrospect I look back and wish someone had handed me my computer and my keyboard and asked me to type in a question.

I know myself well enough to know the question – any question – would be all I would need to begin to write – and to begin to feel – again.

This is why I feel so strongly about leading these writing sessions, these mini-workshops. They’re open for anyone who can tune into either YouTube or Facebook Live. We will be there, everyday, I will provide you a question and together we will write.

We will – you and me and whomever else is there – feel better and spread that “feeling better” to our communities.

That sounds excellent to me right now, on this Sunday in August, 2020.

Would you like to participate? Two ways to do so. One is by receiving an email every day when #5for5BrainDumps are in session. The other is by joining our Word-Love Facebook Community.

Both options are available right here:

To receive an email with a private video message and writing tips, please subscribe to our #5for5BrainDump Email List:

Subscribe

* indicates required

To participate in conversation with other participants, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary prompst from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. 

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

How Connection Shifts & Grows & Makes Everything Better

by

My lousy mood had no chance when I created a Connection and Gratitude Breakfast Sandwich. Add in a cup of yummy coffee and the rest… took care of itself.

One of the sure-fire ways for me to get off course is for me to be in a bad mood.

If I am in a sour mood, I find it difficult to get work. I find it difficult to focus. I find it difficult to create a shift which I know would make everything get better almost instantly.

Maybe you are one of the people in the world who is full of sunshine all the time. I tend to be an optimistic, happy person but recently, it has been more and more difficult to lift myself up and out of a not so great mood.

This morning I found myself in a grumbly, frowny face state of mind. Little annoyances piled into a leaning tower of inner bickering. A chorus of bad vibes were pointing and laughing, taking note of short-comings from as long ago as seventh grade.

This was how I felt before my livestream #5for5BrainDump today – when I was to talk about connection. Being in a foul mood when I am scheduled to talk about one of my favorite subjects was like disappointing a most loved friend. I dreaded the livestream yet I knew I had a date with – less than perfection. 

I was connecting to less than perfection whether I wanted to or not. Full steam ahead.

I started like I usually do – with breath exercises and focus and suddenly, as I breathed the light of connection into my heart space, everything felt better.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was better. I felt better – and the livestream went on.

Was it my best ever live-stream? Not at all.

Did it provide value? Yes! It did! Here is the prompt we used and you may use now, too:

We are connecting both this week and next week for #5for5BrainDump sessions. If you would enjoy participating, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and live-stream sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary prompst from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. 

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

How to Choose Aliveness Over… (Insert Bleak Sounding Term for “Uncertain Times”)

by

Most of my days I wake up away from home because I house sit for a friend who has been quarantined away from Bakersfield. Lately I have been waking up, walking my way into a haiku poem and photo and getting home in time to fix breakfast for Samuel and myself and starting my work day in my home office.

Today I was shorter on time than usual because I host Ta-Da Tuesday at 7:30 am and I had my #5for5BrainDump writing session to facilitate at 9. I didn’t have time for a lengthy walk and I wanted a walk. Oh, how I wanted to take a walk and it was making me grouchy that I wasn’t able to walk longer and just cavort according to my own choosing.

I arrived at one of the parks I sometimes enjoy spending a slice of time in the morning and felt ornery when I heard leaf blowers. And then I heard lawn mowers. And then I almost didn’t get out of my car to walk because “the noise was ruining my experience (how dare they.”

I remembered I have the luxury of choosing what my responses are. I have the joy of choosing whether or not I walk or whether I take a photo and write a haiku.

I opened my door and stepped out and into the parking lot and immediately smelled fresh, cut grass. I smiled. Yes. I made the right choice. 

I walked across the parking lot and as I lifted my foot, I saw a spent hypodermic needle. I shut my eyes and felt the tendrils of anger rise up from my gut. To the west of the park is a methadone clinic. Naturally there will be heroin addicts around.

I took that anger and breathed love into it. Tonglen meditation says to allow the revulsion to be there and breathe in the revulsion of the many and exhale relief for revulsion. In this moment I breathed in compassion and prayer for the pain of the addict who used the needle. I exhaled relief, I exhaled peace for the person and for other junkies who may have dropped needles in other parks.

All of this was done as I continued to walk. I paused as I walked toward the pond where ducks were swimming to inhale the scent of grass, mounds of freshly cut grass filled me with delight. I went on a short trip in my mind to my elementary school classroom. My heart thrilled at the side-trip.

I realized how sunrise was still putting on a show and felt such joy. I admired the mallards and the other, not-identifiable probably “mutt ducks.” I noticed the pigeons on the roof of the bridge. I smiled as some started circling and dancing and playing as if they were celebrating the sunrise and the freshly mown grass and they were flying around to celebrate the feeling good rather than feeling lousy. I am not yet able to circle around in flight, so I pulled out my notebook.

I noticed as some of the pigeons were not stereotypical looking. One was brown with white spots. Another pigeon was smudged with shades of black. The other pigeons didn’t seem to mind, though in their pecking order I am sure some may hold their beaks in a particularly superior way, but I am not one to pass pigeon judgment.

I didn’t want to leave the park but people were waiting. The rest of my life was waiting.

Because of the seemingly inconsequential choices I made, I was filled up to the brim with passionate aliveness even with noise, even with ugliness, even with any number of things I might have, at another time, labeled as wrong.

This morning I chose passion above being a grouch.

This morning I chose movement above staying stagnant.

This morning I chose tonglen meditation over grumbling about something I stepped over. 

This morning I chose peace over spilling anger and aloofness.

This morning sunrise found me, unexpectedly, as I found myself back to people I connect to with love.

Today, what will you choose?

Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary prompst from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. 

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

For the Love of Intention: Acting with Flow for Your Best “What’s Next”

by

You are worthy of positive results: set your intention and create a path, always. Person walking through tall grasses, blazing a trail.

Do you know that person? The one who is always stopping you when you’re on a roll, talking about something you’re setting forth, a hope a dream a plan and then that voice pipes up, “What’s your intention here?”

That person speaking up is more than likely me, if we’re together.

Here’s the secret underneath that chronic question: When we start with with intention we are claiming and activating something similar to when we pull back the bow and release the arrow. We are engaging ourselves to take energetic steps on this same spiritual road the arrow takes toward a destination. Do you follow?

Intention is the road, it is the journey, it is the path.

Intention may initially feel like full steam ahead in a linear sprint but here’s the beauty: the road isn’t usually straight and I don’t believe arrows are actually perfectly straight, either.

How about we just let go of the idea that straight one-way-only push push push is the only way to approach life or business or love or anything that matters?

We’re stepping into intention because it matters to have an idea of where your heart most wants you to end up. Like my friend Henry David Thoreau was talking about when he said ‘If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.’

When I throw anything the air is a part of the journey, even if the destination includes a mud puddle.

Basket of possibilities: a beige basket with towels and flowers, an image of self care

Let’s pick up our basket of possibilities and have the courage to consider taking aim. There’s no wrongs possible here. You’re good and you’re surrounded by good.

What’s your intention here?

==@ ==> ==@

The Joy of Writing for Magnetic Attraction: Title in a Circle to Set Your Words Free + cursive writing

We’re opening our hearts and our notebooks for our next Writing Adventure Challenge: Writing for Magnetic Attraction: the series to amp up your writing. For exclusive content via email, sign up for the list below. To participate in the writing community join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community. You may also find us outside the group (if groups aren’t your thing) on Facebook at Writing Camp with JJS, pn my YouTube channel and on Periscope (so if you are on twitter, you will see it there at the same time).

Subscribe

* indicates required
Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary promps from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, be inspired and re-start your 2020 even if you have been hopelessly stuck in the “everything sucks” space. The Bridge to the New Year Space is welcoming, it includes weekly goals and intentions AND it is free to be a part of it – simply invest your energy in the community and it’s all good!

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Connect: Keep the Channel Open – to Your Past Self & Your Present Wisdom

by

A dancer, along with the words "Keep the Channel Open" a nugget of wisdom offered by Martha Graham and continued in this blog post by Julie JordanScott

This is the story of how Facebook Memories reminded me of something and may remind you of something you said or did or made that is still relevant and rather than just let it pass by, you decide to reach into that memory knowing the message is meant for someone right now.

Are you the someone waiting to hear this message?

Flashback to a moment in time from four years ago, complete with a video LiveStream with a lot of excellent content toward the bottom of the page.

Mixed media art of a girl climbing a tree with the Martha Graham quote, There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."

I wrote for five minutes (yes, a #5for5Brain Dump!) on the topic of “Keep the Channel Open” which is the foundation, the grounding and the divine inspiration behind this quote.

I primed myself by repeating in my mind “Keep the Channel Open….Five minute write….”

As I often do, I took a deep breath before beginning to write.

“Keep the channel open, Julie… keep the channel open.”

This quote has meant so much to me, to remind me why it is important that I do my work – that I engage with the people who might be served by my work and to just keep doing it, even when kerfuddled or bewildered, like I feel today.

Keep the channel open when bewildered or kerfuffled, which I don’t even know whether it’s a word or not.

Keep the channel open even when tired, because sometimes keeping the channel open means going to sleep. Sometimes it means laughing out loud at something ridiculous, like Cameron’s cartoon character version of answering the phone today.

Keep the channel open may mean reaching out to friends and saying, “I’m not feeling well,” and instead of believing somehow they will hate you for the rest of your life, they will receive your words with grace, thinking “How may I come alongside Julie so that she may feel better and more capable tomorrow?

Keep the channel open may mean looking at someone with a wide open heart, even if that person has hurt you repeatedly.

Keep the channel open so that you will be the patron saint of “alive and well and present and warm. And feeling loved, even and especially while fast asleep.”

Keep the channel open so that you may be superbly human and transparent, fiercely super powered so you may take on any challenge with panache. And…

There is applause coming from inside my computer from my timer saying “your writing time is up!” which makes me laugh. Remembering this will keep my channel open!

After I wrote this, the “channel stayed open” and this livestream was created.

Click on the link that starts with pscp.tv to watch the video from this exact date in 2016.

I watched this video and felt so deeply connected to so much of what I said. Last week I was back at Hart Park in the middle of the day because I was stuck in what felt like a hopeless block. I saw this same spot where I broadcast. It is almost as if the past me was waving to me, inviting me to come close to the memory. To remember about keeping the channel open, again and again and again.

More writing prompts from this memory are open as I continue to keep this channel open today – and in next week’s #5for5BrainDump session. To participate, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary prompst from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. 

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

3 Top Ways to Most Effectively Use Your Journal Writing as a Content Creator

by

As a blogger with a social media account, there is a constant demand to creator more content, create more content, create more content. I have a secret for you: some of your best content ideas may be found in your journal or everyday notebook you write in "just to braindump or blow off steam" before you get down to your "real writing."

As a blogger with multiple social media accounts, there is a constant demand to creator more content, create more content, create more content. I have a secret for you: some of your best content ideas may be found in your journal or everyday notebook you write in “just to braindump or blow off steam” before you get down to your “real writing.”

Here are the three most important ways to take your notebooks and make them into sizzling content.

  1. Have a separate to-do list or planner next to you to jot notes about content ideas and strategies as they pop up. Immediately, in one fluid motion , do this. Treat your separate list as if it is a part of the same document. Be fluid as you jot items in there without losing your writing momentum.
  1. Either midday or at the end of the afternoon, review your morning journal writing for the day to highlight and capture any particularly interesting turns of phrase or insights you had during the earlier session. Consider the action you may want to take from the insights you had and/or if what you wrote in your free writing may be a source for future blog posts, video scripts, speeches or social media posts. 
  1.  Set aside a time to review your past journals. Sometimes when we are too close to the writing, we can’t gain from our messages. Once we have lived longer, the voice of our “past self” seems to magically become wiser.  Be sure to use a highlighter and/or a separate to-do list (like in #1) to follow up.

Be prepared to instantly become a more productive content creator from writing you once thought was a throw away. Your journal or free writing notebook is where you are most likely your most authentic self. Use it for your good and the use of others.

Julie JordanScott writing poetry at a downtown Bakersfield flower shop.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us now in 2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. Click the graphic below to join the Private Facebook Group to join the conversation!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Revised-Refresh-general-flyer-1.png
Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Discover More than A Title Can Hold: Poetry & Writing Meditation

by

Morning writing time: coffee is beside me, a timer is set. All my metaphorical cards are on the table beside a quote, a line of poetry. “It is so near to the heart, an eternal pasture,” from poet, Robert Duncan.

I’ve allotted five minutes to write meditatively so I write. I write free-flow style, not thinking or editing, just allow whatever wants to be heard to be heard without judgment. Can only five minutes of writing do any good?

Writing Meditation Doesn’t Have to Take a Lot of Time

The words come from my keyboard and a memory pops up, quite happily and next, a painful memory right on its heels. “What are you thinking, having a good memory? Who do you think you are? You know you aren’t worthy of good memories or happy times or God forbid, nice things! Get off your high horse!”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

Who is running the show here? Is it the smart, funny, woman labeled as brave and capable leader by quite a few people? Is it instead this nasty alternative voice roaming about her head, roping up her truthful, constructive, happy thoughts in attempt to put them in thought quarantine?

Sometimes the Voices that “Speak Up” in Meditation Surprise Us – and it is all a good thing.

My eyes look up and catch a typo. “Heals” in place of “heels” which is precisely what I decided today as I drove home from my daily haiku discovery time.

“That’s it!” I declared earlier, as I drove home. “I am done with being mean and belittling to myself. It is poison!” Thoughts begin the healing. Actions are the glue which keep the healing together as they begin to build a foundation.

Did you notice how mistakes made during meditation showed a-ha’s downloaded as a result?

Writing and meditation: Breathe in: you are allowed to be all the goodness and light that is you. Breathe out, More goodness and light for all, please.`

It is so near to the heart, this healing, this lying down and resting time, this peace, this pleasantness, this receiving of grace.

I look up from the keyboard and watch a man walk by my house in a grey and red track suit. It is cold outside today – unusual in Bakersfield at this time of year. I see my sprinkler water, feeding the hungry soil. Another typo – feeding the hungry soul.

Soil and soul, only one letter different.

Today I am being aware of openings, alert to spaces as they speak to me. I am inviting synchronicity and light to tap me on my shoulder or draw me close in a hug, whispering “Look, over here,” as has happened several times today.

I invite you to do the same.

We’re taught typo’s are bad: not so in meditative writing.

Look at the typos I’ve written as evidence. I wrote heals instead of heels, like high heals on a shoe or heals as in the back of my foot.

I wrote soul as in my interior self versus soil, the place where plants grow.

Truthful, constructive, capable, happy is who I am. God (in whatever name you prefer: nature, love, universe, divinity, creator) is definitely not forbidding me from anything good or right or holy or me being exactly me.

Now – as in the present place I am in, is forever my eternal pasture, near to my heart, when I engage with it like I am this morning.

Does that make sense? Would it be helpful to say more?

Let’s say what I just said, slightly differently.

I invite you to do the same.

Truthful, constructive, capable, happy is who I am. God (in whatever name you prefer: nature, love, universe, divinity, creator) is definitely not forbidding me from anything good or right or holy or me being exactly me, as you are allowed to be all the goodness and light that is you.

You are allowed to be all the goodness and light that is you.

Today's poetry meditation line comes from Robert Duncan's "Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow". The line I chose specifically is "It is so near the heart, an eternal pasture." and the view is wildflowers in a pasture, absolutely gorgeous.

I’ll dip back into meditation for a bit – and trust you are choosing not to listen to any nasty, alternative voices and are instead replacing it with the capable, strong, courageous person you know yourself capable of being and becoming, starting here and now.

To read the poem by Robert Duncan, visit here at the Poetry Foundation Website.

Julie JordanScott was a writer before she was literate – she would dictate letters to her very patient mother which she would then copy using the wide, kindergarten style crayons that come 8 in a box.  It is no surprise Julie turned to poetry following the after-effects of Valley Fever and a near death experience. A single question, asked earnestly while watching the sunrise out her Alta Vista Drive living room window, “What can I do to feel better?” marked the beginnings of this body of work. For 377 consecutive days, Julie wrote a short poem – most often haiku – capturing the world that surrounded her day-to-day life.

After Julie’s completion of 377 Haiku, she turned to Tree Hugging – and is now in the midst of 377 consecutive days of hugging trees. The combination of poetry and nature – even and especially urban nature – is poignant and powerful.

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Revisit Your Opinions: Is Your Shadow the Enemy?

by

A view of the beach at sunset time frames the quote "There is no light without shadow. Light without shadow, just as there is no happiness without pain." from Isabelle Allende. This begins the article about writing as meditation.

Before you begin to exhale your knowledge about different teacher’s concepts of “The Shadow” or “Shadow Sides” or anything with Shadow in its title that a wise person once said, remember back to childhood.

barefoot child at play in the playground, enjoying his shadow. Children don't see the shadow as a bad thing, but as a good thing.

Remember the wonder of your shadow. I remember my son laughing in delight on the playground, watching his shadow follow his silent command. Where his feet went, his shadow feet went.

This weekend I took a photo and I realized my shadow had the capacity of being a character in the photo that gave it an entirely deeper meaning as object being witnessed.

What would happen if you chose to return to pure enjoyment, without your intellect rushing in to explain?

What if you simply took time to enjoy your shadow?

One of the voice in my head hangovers I have heard since perhaps the moment I was conceived is “Whatever you do, don’t get “it” wrong.” It could be whatever I hold the dearest in that particular moment.

“Don’t fail” and “don’t fail’s” sibling ‘don’t try because if you try and fail…..’ and…. what?

I solved this conundrum in adulthood by holding a tiny bird in the center of my palm saying “There is no right, there is no wrong, there is simply ______” Most of the time I say writing.

I could put almost anything as that final word.

“You can’t get this wrong,” I remember telling my friend Josh when we were cooking dinner together. “It is impossible. With this, there are no wrongs, there are only different version of right.”

Samuel is still angry with me about what ‘could have been’ if I had been braver and allowed him to possibly experience failure.

He is possibly and perhaps probably right and perhaps probably wrong and we will never know.

I recently asked myself, “Would you do it over again?” and I said, “Yes, I would do it over again braver, taking more risks and not allowing fear to overshadow the light within me.”

In fact, I wish I could.

I wish I could get taken up into a science fiction life, step into a different dimension and come out with a who-knows-how different ending.

What I can do today, even without the science fiction ending, is to change my responses that might have swung into fears and whispered long-standing warning shouts of “don’t get it wrong!” today and tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow?

Take some time to create from this question. Don’t rush or push or make it into “I have to do this,” write to it because it feels good to do so.

This writing was borne from Meditation Month of Blending Poetry and Meditation. I meditated on the quote in the graphic from Ursula Le Guin’s poem “Leaves” and this morning, 24 hours later, wrote this brief essay in one “writing as a meditation” swoop.

The poem "Leaves" by Ursula K. Le Guin shares this line, "Might as well say I am the shadow," which I used to center my meditative practice yesterday. The tree is the mulberry in my front yard, where I livestreamed on Instagram Live and Periscope.

Julie JordanScott has been writing since before she was literate by dictating her thoughts to her mother and then copying in thick crayons onto construction paper. She was a pioneer in epublishing and continues to reach readers through her blog, bestselling books, greeting cards and her essays and poems in anthologies. Join her for #5for5BrainDump beginning August 10- to experience the freedom of writing in an online setting. Join the Facebook Group Word-Love Writing Community to meet other writers and explore writing more deeply.

She also hosts or writing circles and a writing for social media program.

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

How Seeing the Everyday, Ordinary Stuff That Surrounds You Differently Suddenly Become Magical

by

One of the earliest exercises I created for people in my writing programs is to pick up an ordinary object in their space and take a mere sixty seconds to experience it and describe the object. Once the object is noted, we check in regarding the experience.

pink balls of yarn are the basis for this quote from "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon. "Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come." This is Inspiration for National Poetry Month (and beyond) from Creative Life Midwife Julie Jordan Scott

Ordinary objects like waste baskets and water bottles come alive with close inspection. When a person takes time to notice differently, the associations, the appreciations and gratitude rises up oftentimes in surprising ways.

To read the poem “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon, click the link here to read it in its entirety.

To “let evening come” (or morning or midafternoon) in your own life, take a moment now to do follow the prompt and see what words flow as a result.

Pink yarn balls are above the writing in this image, encouraging people to write of this: "Write what you notice around your home, your yard, your street. Allow the ordinariness of objects and events in your ordinary life stir your words. Don't describe these objects and experiences as you always have. Let the overlooked details surprise you." by the Creative Life Midwife Julie JordanScott

To rephrase the prompt “Write what you notice around your home, your yard, your street. Allow the ordinariness of objects and events in your ordinary life stir your words. Don’t describe these objects and experiences as you always have. Let the overlooked details surprise you.

Take 5 minutes at a time and write, just write. Allow your pencil or pen or fingers on the keyboard float across your page.

In the comments, share one or two or three ordinary objects you might enjoy getting to know more clearly. Even this one simple action will enrich and deepen your appreciation for the everyday right now.

Julie JordanScott creates content to inspire creative people to lead more satisfying lives even during this pandemic. Walking and sitting at the Panorama Bluffs helps her feel centered.

Julie JordanScott has been writing since before she was literate by dictating her thoughts to her mother and then copying in thick crayons onto construction paper. She was a pioneer in epublishing and continues to reach readers through her blog, best selling books, greeting cards and her essays and poems in anthologies. Join her for one of her upcoming #5for5BrainDump programs or an upcoming writing circle or writing for social media programs.

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Care and Compassion Question for Transformation: What if…

by

How many of us treat others with much more care and compassion than we do ourselves?

What is up with that?

Today I am thinking about how I might feel about myself if I spoke myself with the same kindness and curiosity I speak with others.

In fact, it just happened. I started straying off course, I was searching something about “my why” via the work of Simon Sinek and the next thing I knew, I was about ready to start watching another 15 minute video.

I had forgotten I committed to writing for 20 minutes: or rather, writing this blog post (which I wanted to also make into social media posts in Instagram and maybe twitter and on my facebook page and group.)

I actually said aloud, “Oh my gawsh, I got lost again.”

Because I had just read this prompt, I stopped myself and said, “What would you say to a loved one?”

Soft smile, “Julie, hey… let’s come back here to the prompt, remember?”

The Version of me that was off course would look up, sheepishly…. “He is just soooo good!” and then, “I can’t believe I got lost again.”

The compassionate soul-leader-me would respond, “You were just distracted momentarily. You know who and where you are and you know how delightful it is to find people who believe optimistically about humankind like you do… so let’s spread the word….”

And the two-versions-of-me merge again.

All is well.

All is better than well when I treat myself with the same tenderness and care as I treat others.

Prompt: What would happen if you treat yourself with the same tenderness and care as you treat others?

Julie JordanScott writing personalized love poetry.

Julie JordanScott is a multi-creative who lives in Bakersfield with her daughter, Emma, in an eighty-year-old house with two palm trees in her yard. She loves writing and reading poetry, sitting by the Kern River and learning new quirky facts about literary grannies and what makes people tick. Her current project is finding ways to end the secret epidemic facing the US – with 60% of Americans affected by it. This love poetry project is another way she is working to eradicate loneliness – more information may be found on how you may be involved in the cause at EradicateLoneliness.com

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest