Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Explore “Everyday” Passion, Even During These Pandemic Times

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You might think to yourself, as many do, passion is this huge experience, this mountain-top time of pure, unadulterated delight. 

Today, I am inviting you into everyday, ordinary passion – because this is the space in which life may begin to truly feel vivid and refreshed and ready to be lived again, even in the midst of this negative, life abrupting pandemic time. At the bottom of this blog post, there is even a mini-writing workshop video so you may try the prompt right here and now, “almost live”.

It happened again to me this morning. I was feeling very committed to staying grouchy. I was resentful of the oppressive heat rolling through California which kept me from walking around outside to keep up my daily walking practice. I discovered I was self-triggering when I walk inside because in the past I only walked like that when I was excessively agitated.

I did it anyway. I walked around the house – up and down the hallway, into the dining room, a swing through the kitchen and back again. Up down and around. Up down and around. Up down and around.

As I was walking I thought about an art challenge and my ideas for today’s prompt. Surprisingly I didn’t think how bad my idea was in relationship to others I had seen so far. I walked my loop a few more times before plopping myself into a chair at my project table and simply starting to make a tiny work of art.

I didn’t think about what I was doing, I simply did it.

My thoughts left, my inner grumbling silenced, my first mistake was tossed aside and then I was finished almost as quickly as it took to get started.

Now I had a smile on my face. 

Now I wasn’t grumpy.

Now I was ready to get the other tasks done on my to-do list.

Now I was looking forward to the rest of my day.

This, my friends, is ordinary passion.

This, my friends, is how something so plain and minor and insignificant can become a method to making the best from a challenging time.

Mary Oliver said, “Let the world have its way with you, luminous as it is – with mystery and pain,  graced as it is with the ordinary.”

Instead of stopping your natural rhythm and flow by staying committed to the blahs and blocks which may have been holding you back, now is your time to grace your life with your ordinary passion – and before you know it, the everyday stuff of life will shine. The everyday, mundane, not-even-energizing-enough-to-be-annoying will become a gift. 

You may choose to grow from your pain.  You may choose to breathe life into the ordinary.

Imagine it: mundane moments, becoming fertile ground for passion. Extraordinary-ordinary passion is in your everyday life.

Let’s write about it,together.

Think about the “little things” you really enjoy.

Walking past the rosemary bush with its hauntingly inviting scent.

That moment when you step into the shower after a long day at work or at the beach (or the moment you step out of the shower.)

Your first sip of cold water after a run.

That moment when you finish a puzzle or a project or a game that makes you smile so wide you’re glad you have ears so your smile won’t wrap around your head.

This is the world, having its luminous way with you.

Let’s write it:

My recent moment of everyday passion was when _______. What made me feel so happy was…… (and now, you write, starting with writing for five minutes reliving that experience of everyday passion. Write the details, keeping them as engaging as possible.)

We’re ending your blahs and blocks that so many are experiencing right now by using inspiring, mind-and-heart opening prompts that will help you gain clarity about what is the most important right now.

If you want to continue exploring and feeling better instead of worse, join us for our #5for5BrainDump experience. Writing for just 5 minutes a day for 5 consecutive days with curated prompts for exploration.

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:

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. 

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Rumi, A Walk in the Park & You

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Some of this might take you out of your usual comfort zone of understanding. Right from the first line I talk about my heart having a front door. Whose heart has a front door?

I invite you to think differently today – and consider if you are, in fact, a “guest house” and your heart is the doorway into the house. I would love to know how your writing goes if you choose to write.

The front door to my heart rang this morning. When I opened the door, I heard a subtle invitation:

“Would you like to spend your haiku time today at the

Panorama Vista Preserve?”

I thought for a moment as I got into my car, “Oh, I might indeed want to go to the Panorama Vista preserve this morning. Hey – that’s a cool idea, I was considering where to aim myself to write my haiku- I might just take you up on that idea.”

The knock on my heart wasn’t totally unlike the concept of someone saying “May I buy you a drink?” or “Would you like to go to the movies?”

Once there, my senses and my heart opened fully to whatever it was my host aimed for me to see. 

My being human is a guest house, I thought. Divinity swings by sometimes with assignments I may choose to take or not take. I have the option of writing and storytelling and sharing or not sharing. No matter what happens – even nothing – there is learning and growing as a result. 

Today as I tromped along the dusty, recently horse travelened path, I was astonished about the new things I saw: two no-longer-alive trees called to me as they stood, towering over the smaller, well cared for bushes and plants planted by the Kern River Conservancy folks.

I found a bench farther along the path than I have ever found before – because I had never walked that far. This morning I didn’t set out to see new things or walk farther than I had before, it just happened because I opened the door to receive the invitation and responded.

I allowed myself to be further romanced by dead trees at sunrise and because of that, I moved forward farther and with more strength and sure-footed than I was the last time I visited.

This time, I saw more bunnies hopping around there than I had ever seen. They made it into my haiku. I heard a different sort of bird than I am used to hearing. I posted a video on my daily haiku sharing and have started a conversation to find out what sort of bird I was hearing.

I was able to fully embrace the dusty, burnt plants air and admire the work of the Kern River Conservancy in their outdoor green-house. When I first visited here a good ten years ago there were lots of those dead-looking trees, not an abundance of native plants under cultivation.  

I sat on the new-to-me bench to write and it was because of my quiet that more animals grew to trust me and made themselves known.

This being human IS a guest house. My guests include you – and the animals I saw – the egret, the bunnies, the insects, the birds-I-can’t-quite-name-yet. 

Each aspect of this experience was and is sacred. Each aspect is profound enough for me to remember so that tomorrow, I will open my heart so that more guest house visitors will be welcomed in.

I forgot to mention the ending of this story.

I walked back to the parking lot and a car that had been idling for at least twenty minutes started moving, doing donuts and making huge circles of dust in an out-of-control way. I hurried to get seated and get the ignition on so that I might be able to write this. I stumbled and was flustered and before I could even begin to move, the other car was driving away. 

One moment, my heart was pounding and full of fear and the next, I felt safe. I allowed the momentum of the love and joy and witness of the sacred in the ordinary guide both my writing and my experience. Yes, the wacky-scary donut driving car experience also happened, but the one negative didn’t overshadow the beauty because I knew “I am being a guest house, not a house of horrors.”

I look forward to going back and walking further than the two dead-looking trees and the second bench. I will continue to follow the flow along the current of the sacred where I know every morning there is a new arrival waiting for me.

I wrote this post in less than 5 minutes using the same methods we use in the #5for5BrainDump experience: we write from a prompt for 5 Minutes for 5 consecutive days and as a result, some pretty magical insights take place… and new pieces of content are born. This five minutes will, I know, be used in social media posts beyond this blog post – and reliving this morning’s experience in words makes it even that much more sweet.

Simply use the prompts from the image above to begin your renewed writing experience. All it takes is 5 minutes.

It’s all waiting for you to simply say yes. Thank you for reading.

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

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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. 

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How to Create a Simple Intention that Will Change Your Life for the Better Even During these Uncertain Times

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I confessed to you in yesterday’s blog post I had one of the largest blocks of my lifetime last Fall after having a near-death experience. It wasn’t only the almost dying that shut down my creative will to make things, it was the unsupported recovery.

In the perfect world, I would have had numerous caretakers hovering nearby ready and able to be at my beck and call but in reality it was Emma and me… and since I never trained Emma to “adult” – my mom never trained me, I just became an adult from about age eleven and increasing as I grew older – so there I sat in my corner recliner doing nothing except walking to the restroom back to my chair and walking to the kitchen and making myself not to terribly healthy meals and back to my chairs and at the end of the day, I would either sleep in the chair or wander to my bedroom.

I had friends swing by and take me places, doing the best they could, but no one really knew what my life was like inside my house.

I wasn’t about to tell them because that would make me a creative failure, a wannabe, a nothing. After almost dying, I felt so lackluster that being “a-nothing” was where I hovered the most.

I would look at the computer, but wouldn’t use it. I wouldn’t go on the internet and scroll, I would look at the turned-off screen, not interacting with the keys or watching videos or anything.

I would hold my notebook in my lap, but I wouldn’t move my pencils or pens or crayons.

In retrospect, there were two necessities that were far from my experience. I needed an intention and I needed someone to give me a bit of a believing push.

I needed someone to say “I believe in you. Your work is important to the world! It’s time to love and live an inspiring question because you love the people in this world and sister, they love you, too.”

I existed through November and early December, normally exciting times for me. I slowly started feeling better.

It wasn’t until a December sunrise shortly before I went to visit my daughter Katherine and her husband, Donald, that my creative will started to move through me with any sort of consistency.

What made this shift happen? I decided to live and love a question while keeping my heart open to the forward flow of intention:

“What is it that I used to do that made me feel better that might make me feel better now?

Some possibilities that rose up were good, but I couldn’t do them without the help of others. I love karaoke, but my lungs and voice didn’t feel ready. I knew my recovery would take at least six months. I would adore being on stage again, but same challenge – PLUS I would need to have a director who really wanted to cast me. I couldn’t imagine that happening anytime soon.

I chose writing haiku which combined writing – which I have always loved – with haiku – which was a very short poem and therefore, an easy idea to put into motion. 

I also knew if I failed, it wouldn’t be heartbreaking because… it is only a short poem once a day. Besides, no one would be paying very close attention. I made it even easier because I said “Must complete in the morning,” which meant I didn’t have a long time to think about how much I really didn’t WANT to write a haiku. 

I didn’t have time to think about how much I didn’t want to do anything but sit alone in a corner.

After a week which included quite a bit of family travel which is wonderful and stressful and tense, I realized my question, “What will help me feel better?” changed everything when I loved the question, was patient with myself in allowing the response to find its way to me, and I took a very small baby step every day.

Interesting to note it was that same week when I insisted I was going to visit my parents in Flagstaff sometime around my birthday, an idea and an intention I had been holding for over a year but other people’s needs and my own lack of planning continued to interfere with the actual implementation of my plan.

I will forever be grateful I visited my parents in the middle of February. It was only a few weeks later a simple visit with them would be impossible due to Covid-19.

A simple question: “What would make me feel better?” and a contemplation of which activities were do-able yet also a bit of an inspiring stretch, has changed my life in ways I never expected.

It is important to make considerations as to what you are willing to…. do or be or accept or let go of in order to feel better or do better or be better. You may have to let go of your perfectionism or be willing to get up earlier or be willing to drink more water or take something out of your schedule or you might have to be willing to make people angry.

In the long run, none of those small annoyances – or what may feel wildly uncomfortable now – will compare to how great you will feel by consistently aiming for what it is that will make you feel better. You have the wisdom within you right now to determine what that is.

I believe in you. I look forward to seeing your “what’s next” with a little extra nudge of intention added to your experience.

Even with the challenges of 2020, I am more alive and more connected and more compelled to make a difference than I have been in years. Often during my visioning work, I imagine 5 or 10 or 500 or 25,000 people feeling better, too. I imagine the impact that would have on our planet.

Do you have five minutes to write in response to this prompt and others like it? It’s all waiting for you to simply say yes. Thank you for reading.

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

Subscribe

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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. 

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Set Your Words Free From Pandemic Blahs & Blocks

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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. 

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How Connection Shifts & Grows & Makes Everything Better

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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. 

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

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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. 

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

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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).

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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!

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

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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. 

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

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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!

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

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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.

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