Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

When You Fall Short, Do This Instead of Giving Up

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Instead of writing this on the evening of January 4, I am writing it on the morning of January 5. This is problematic because part of the reasoning behind writing these every day is to set me up for strong evening practices of mindful creativity.

Who decides what is a problem?

This morning when I wrote up to do my daily writing, I discovered a solution which I will put into place today, this evening, so I will follow through successfully.

Why am I telling you this?

I am telling you this because it is important for us to be in the habit of authentically and transparently speaking up and saying what is true and then letting go of our own concept of “failing” or “getting it wrong” whatever “it” may be.

Maybe “getting it wrong” is an important part of your process.

What sometimes happens is we don’t do what we said we wanted to do and we do and say nothing. We pretend none of it happened. Then that day nothing changes and nothing changes on the third day and then it is as if the desire never existed.

My night time spiritual practices are much better than they once were but they are far from perfectly executed. It takes practice and time for “perfect execution”. In fact, perfect execution is far from the point.

The point is to show up as best as you can and move forward, with love.

Three Good Things:

So now, on the morning after, I will happily share with you about yesterday.

  • I drove Samuel to work this morning, nice and early. He is loving the day shift and I am loving what it opens up for me. Ta-Da Tuesday is about to be re-invigorated!
  • I bought some adorable new flannel sheets. I love sliding into clean sheets – it is one of those simple pleasures that help me feel loved – probably because I loved the ritual of being tucked tightly into bed with stuffed animals when I was a little girl.
  • I doodled and drew in my art journal. I have been considering using art journaling for #The100DayProject but hadn’t completely decided. I am feeling like art journals are calling me back because #1) I enjoy them and #2) They are a different way of flexing my intuition which I haven’t used lately.

Art journaling will continue to be a blessing as will soft sheets & collaboration!

What are three good things in your life today so far?

Write them in the comments below or journal them, in any form.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creator of the One Small Shift Course which helps people practice consistency and completion daily in order to experience a more incredible life experience. She came to this conclusion after almost dying and coming back to true healing by writing 377 consecutive haiku… and a lot more along her way to building that streak! To find out more about this program, visit this link, here.

She has been a Life Purpose and Creativity Coach since 1999. She has taught workshops in college classrooms, hospitals, teleclasses and webinars with participants across the world.

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What Creative Activity is Calling You While You Social Distance?

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An invitation to creative practice while you are experiencing quarantine or social distancing.

I woke up this morning and knew my notebook was calling me so I chose not to putter, look at my instagram feed, check the latest news or otherwise distract myself, I sat down to write. I set my timer for an hour full of creative process.

I stumbled into a thread of Thoreau writing about lives of quiet desperation and Tagore writing about bird song… and I might as well have been on a writing retreat in a tucked away North Carolina cabin.

It felt so good to pay attention to the light.

It felt so good to honor the call to creativity.

It felt so good to take action instead of thinking about and talking about and considering writing – instead I wrote.

Did I write the start of the best American novel? Definitely not. Did I write a poem that will be quoted for a generation and then some like my beloved Mary Oliver? Not in the least, not even a rough rough draft of such a poem. Make that not even a triple rough draft.

Did I write sales copy for my next creative coaching program that will bring people from everywhere to enjoy the journey with me? Nope – although I did do a bit of business processing writing.

Did I write a screenplay, an inspirational essay, a thank you note, a something tangible that would make people like and appreciate me more?

No, I did not.

What I did was enjoy my process. I literally sat at my art table as the sun was coming up and enjoyed the dance of her rays hitting my page. I made a short video and noticed for the first time how my pen actually creates its own vacuum when the letters I swirl magnetize their message (that will be on my Instagram story later today.)

I planted some trees on my focus app which always makes me happy – silly and true.

Because I was sitting at my table instead of squirreled away in my room, Emma could pronounce to me she saw an opossum in our backyard! Hooray for opossums!

Before I went to sleep last night, I knew writing would be the best way to start my day. I have known this for years. Today, I took action. I smiled as I wrote and I wrote as my coffee perked and I wrote as I lived fully despite being “stuck” in my home for who knows how long because the world and the people in it deserves my cooperation.

Next up is my morning walk, which I am now calling a haiku walk.

Later today I will attend my friend Paula’s art zoom and then host the Coffee and Connected Conversation Zoom I’ve been hosting and will continue to host for friends – some of whom I have never met “in real life” and some I have.

What is calling you into connection today?

How will you honor that call?

To be inspired by joining a group of people in a Zoom “Coffee Date” you may join us at 1:30 pm today (we meet daily, you may pop in whenever you’re available.) Click this link to register now.

Julie JordanScott is a creative life coach, writer, poet, Mama extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here.

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How Living Questions of Transformation Allows Your Life to Expand Positively

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Transformation questions bring personal growth to the forefront. Bringing light into your life creates a new way of seeing, connecting and acting.
Using daily questions through creative processes will shift your mindset and your actions.

Transformation questions are both life-changing in a heart sense as well as exceptionally productive.  The power inherent in living questions first arose when I was introduced to Rainer Rilke’s quote in “Letters to a Young Poet”:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.”

The questions I am posing in this series may be used in many ways to create a more satisfying, meaningful life. When you live these questions, you consciously turn the questions into a transformative process. For you, that may mean journaling – either written or art journaling. It may be asking the questions before exercise or meditation.

Spreading gratitude for the light you attract through living transformation questions brings light to others.
Gratitude: one of the highest forms of energy, will make your light shine even brighter. Connecting through writing, creativity and discussion helps, too.

Some people begin by using the questions to open a conversation, to reflect on one’s past, present and future as well as create new solutions in their families, work lives and passion projects.

These questions will allow you to reflect, connect and direct you into a course of passionate action.

Your first question:

What if I claimed my light, fresh and new, every day?

Follow up questions include:

What if I held my light, shared it, and spread glittery gratitude for it through my attitude and action?

What if I playfully experimented with this idea today and in the future?

What if I lived this question with passionate detachment and love?

I look forward to hearing your first responses in the comments as well as follow up – because when you live these questions, they will begin to live within you. They will transform your responses and shape the actions you take to be increasingly light-based.

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How to Use Journaling to Magnify Your Intentions & Affirm Your Strengths

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I am a gutsy and glorious writer, I am a gutsy and glorious human. I enjoy the uncovering of reality and authenticity and steer my jeep clear of the bullshit jungle that is all pervasive in the mindless world today, the world that doesn’t ask questions and is so numb it doesn’t even recognize injustice or question glitches in the system.

Yesterday something dramatic happened in the American political sphere. I don’t normally talk politics here, but because this intersects with my life, it is gutsy and glorious for me to share.

Yesterday a writer (anonymous, not entirely gutsy and glorious) wrote an op-ed piece for the New York times that gave voice to what many people gossiped about, talked about over the water cooler and discussed behind closed doors.

The elephant in the room, the stuff we hide in the attic or edit out of photos was out in the open.

I watched numerous commentators talking about this last night and one optimistic man said, “People are finally openly talking about this. It is on the table, finally. “What everyone has been talking about behind closed doors is now out in the open,” this is a good thing!”

Earlier this year I felt ashamed for not being open and public with some things I knew and standing up and saying “This is wrong,” openly has caused me much grief, loss of friends and added to my already lengthy gig of self-imposed exile.

I knew it was gutsy and it didn’t feel at all glorious.

I doubted myself, I loathed the situation, in addition to losing sleep and friends and any sense of comfort or safety even at times in my own home, I continued.

I continued.

I continued.

I have strengthened my boundaries and have returned to practices I used long ago. I have started weaving old faithful practices with new, enlightened practices.

I am a gutsy and glorious writer, I am a gutsy and glorious human.

In revisiting old notebooks and blog posts and poetry, I am reacquainting myself with who I once was and I am enjoying her company immensely. This affirmation, “I am gutsy and glorious” came from a blog post in 2003 where I shared the affirmation and a story about the then two-year-old Samuel waking up in tears at 4 a.m, and our loving moments that day, even amidst the reality of pre-dawn tears and Mommying that would rather happen in usual working hours.

I am a gutsy and glorious writer, I am a gutsy and glorious human.

In my art journal page I started to create this morning, I wrote, “I am a gutsy and glorious human” followed by a check list titled “evidenced by” – a brilliant marriage of past, present, and future me.

Art journal, writing notebook and my altered book all  in the transformational act

What will you affirm about yourself today?

My unique trick is to journal the affirmation in the evening before sleeping and then re-journal upon awakening. The night time journaling allows your brain to bring it into your day even before your day starts.

Your affirmative statement. “I am….” is like the person at the starting line saying, “Gentle people, start your engines!” I am gutsy and glorious – in the smallest’ humblest ways and in the over-the-top, silly, and the strategic, business building and the world transforming encouragement I offer others (including you.)

Please comment below with your statements of affirmation for today and tomorrow.

Let’s do this!

We are proud to announce our New Women’s Circle is open for registrations. The link below will take you there.    

Welcome to Your Writing Home
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September: Revisiting the Notebook

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“The best thing to do when fear strikes is to stand with it, learn from it, then act from what you learn.” Now, let’s keep learning, together. 
Julie JordanScott in her journal: September 1, 2015 

Rewriting one's narrative is essential when we journal for healing. Creative Life Coach Julie JordanScott will write daily during January from earlier journal entries to continue the discovery process here, in this blog.

What I’ve learned from fear since that day three years ago is so rich and deep and varied and so much a continual process and practice, I recognize the value of sticking with this question and different aspects of it throughout this first week of the month of September, 2018. Longer if necessary.

We will assess and then choose different subjects to write about over these next thirty days of writing for five minutes a day, day in and day out. Now. for the nitty gritty.

Ironically, my theme in September is Intentional Abundance, like it was in September, 2000. I remember because this is right when I found out I was pregnant with Samuel and actually now that I peer over my left shoulder at the memory of who I was in August 2000 was a supremely brave person inside and out.

My actions were aligned with the bravado – and the bravery wasn’t exactly courageous it was – I see it now, a work-in-progress and part of that “act-as-if philosophy” more than anything else.

Three years ago I had dropped Emma off at the University she attended. I had woken up on Katherine’s dorm room floor at Princeton Theological Seminary, I had met my now son-in-law Donald and shared our first meal together. I had, before this day or maybe on this day, driven with a friend from Las Vegas to Bakersfield.

She and I are no longer friends and that took courage. Perhaps that was a turning point into true courage, to do what hurts and is horribly uncomfortable because it is the aligned action to take.

When I stand with fear and learn from it, I am in alignment with my life purpose. I know with grace and soul connection, no matter what happens, it will happen and I will respond.

I gave up saying trite phrases like “everything will be ok, don’t worry about it,” because that sounds so fake yet when one of my parent-club friends gave me the advice this week that said, “Chin up…” and keep moving, basically – that felt aligned to me.

What in the past might have brought a bristling response from me this week what I heard and translated from “Chin up” was, “You are tuned in. Instead of concerning myself with what feels sad or not-exactly-right.. well, those may be the facts just like the fact is – I aim to continue to walk, march, hobble sometimes and hopefully with a straighter spine and a more spritely step in the days to come – toward the end result I have hoped and prayed and gazed toward for far too long without making forward progress

It is not unlike my favored saying. Show up. Look up. Translate.

I have learned people do the best they can in the moment they are in. That includes me. I have learned forgiveness doesn’t mean stepping back into relationships though sometimes it can. I have learned what might look like the best circumstances aren’t and what looks pretty icky and wobbly may be the surprisingly perfect fit.

My timer didn’t sound, though my five minutes are more than up.

Please follow along in September as I revisit past journals and notebooks and continue my quest to rewrite one’s life narrative to lead a more compelling, creative and complete life filled with purpose, passion and play. (So sorry for the alliteration foul: sometimes with brain dumping or free flow writing, that sort of shows up. These posts will be largely unedited, first draft versions which I hope will help each and all of us recognize the power is in the “showing up” not the worry about whether or not something is absolutely “correct” or “incorrect” (whatever that means.)

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7 Simple Steps to Set Yourself Up For Journaling & Writing Success

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Writing success is so much simpler than people believe AND that doesn’t necessarily make it easy.

Simplicity definitely does make it do-able.

The first simple step to take is to set yourself up to write.

This is as simple as preparing a place to write. Just like we set the table before we eat a meal or set up a shot before we make a video or take a photo, we may also set up for writing.One of the suggestions I make to those who are almost always “going to write today” and then don’t is to literally put out all the writing tools they need, take some other unrelated action, and then plop down in the chair and write.

How it looks in seven easy steps goes like this:

  1. Place your notebook (or journal or writing paper), your pen or pencil (or tablet or phone).
  2. Set a water bottle beside your writing tools.
  3. If you like to write with music, preset the music you like.
  4. Whatever it is you prefer to have for your writing experience, literally put it all in one spot.
  5. Write a prompt across the top of the page or document. (There are many right on this page. Pull one down and use it, choose several to give you variety if that helps you get your energy flowing.
  6.  You might write a question such as “What is the best focus on my social media this week?” or “What are some sample headlines I might use for blog posts this week?” or “How may I be a heroine for my clients, customers and readers this week?”
  7.  Then do the opposite of writing: take 15 minutes (or your preferred allotment of time) to cook, to walk, to do a yoga sequence, a photo taking session, a drive, a shower – whatever it is that you enjoy doing to clear your mind and get into your body, to become more alert and then without any hesitation, sit in the chair and write.

You may want to light a candle or speak your intention aloud. I like to have my essential oils diffusing, so that’s an example of an extra item I use.

It is that simple.

You may follow along this week as we continue to learn tips, hacks and share stories on my livestreams (Periscope, Facebook Live, Instagram Live) this week as well as on IG-TV, Instastories, and YouTube. If you feel compelled to create content from what we’re sharing here, please tag me so I may support you and share what you’re up to with others.

Let’s have a more successful writing week than we ever imagined.

What’s the first writing project you will set free this week?

Our 5for5BrainDump 5 Day Writing Adventure is coming up next week – it is free for you to make your journaling and writing better at any time! To join us live, please take a moment to register here – and in thanks, you may download our free Strategic Journaling Guide for your future success with writing and with life, overall as well. 

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Art Journaling Plus Writing Follow Up = Insights Galore

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Sometimes art journaling and art making lead to surprising word combinations I enjoy taking more deeply with journaling of the more conventional kind: free flow writing.

Look what happened here:

The phrase “compassionate punishment” has continued to sit with me. If we were sentient beings in the same room, compassionate punishment would be sitting in a fashionable knock-off of a mid-century modern arm chair and I would be here, in my writing corner recliner wondering how long it will take me to feel better this morning after a difficult night.

When I feel like this, I hear voices of the past, like these:

Blond woman at Moms Group at church or was it, perhaps Bible Study, “Sometimes you just have to get on with it,” when I spoke about depression and loneliness.

I translated that into “Don’t talk about your feelings here at church. People won’t like you. Stay away.” My compassionate self-punishment was to not engage vulnerably with that particular woman again. I found others people to interact with and chose to stay away from that with her even though I would be happy to see her again.

Speaking of staying away, I… lost whatever image I meant to portray here.

I lean back in my recliner and decide which portion of this brief writing to leave unspoken.

“Earth is forgiveness school” Anne Lamott’s words and memory continues to haunt me.

I typed those words and a sweet bird sits on the brand of the tree that lives in my yard. Hop up, hop down.

“Earth is forgiveness school.” The bird, a vision of grace, reminded me of the love surrounding me, always.

Most recently, someone who was once my friend said to me not once, not twice, “Are you happy now, Julie?” in another moment of time that is scorched into my head. It literally took me about an hour to figure out what she was talking about, but I knew immediately the intent was for me to feel ashamed.

This morning I spoke with a friend who described me as grouchy. “I am allowed to feel what I feel,” I told him. “plus I wouldn’t call authentic feelings grouchy.”

Thankfully investing an hour or so in constructive conversation was exactly the medicine I needed to feel better. I can see the sentient-being-compassionate-punishment armchair has fallen asleep for now.

All’s well.

= = = =

The next #5for5BrainDump session: always free with miraculous creative breakthroughs, has been scheduled! August 21 – August 25 we will be creating/journaling/writing along the themes of Starting Fresh: Your Creative Rebirth. To receive emails about the free session details as well as a weekly tips-and-tricks note from Julie, please sign up (yes, always free) here. 

 

 

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