Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Into Silence: Choosing Quiet in Order to Discern What’s the Most Effective Next Step –

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“That perfect tranquility of life, which is nowhere to be found but in retreat, a faithful friend and a good library.”

 Aphra Behn

She was right. Aphra Behn, I mean. She was actually right in more ways than one.

She was right to make a living via writing: the first woman to do so writing in English, Her writing was seen as bawdy and improper and therefore – in my eyes – absolutely perfect and appropriate.

She wrote to get out of debt. She wrote because her other way of making money; as a spy for Surinam, didn’t quite work out as she had hoped.

She was also right in her assessment of taking personal retreats when one needs to experience tranquility, which is what I will be seeking over this next week.

I am taking retreat to assess, to plan, to care take myself, my children, my home and my business.

I will be publicly silent and privately, intensely sacred.

I can’t imagine not checking in with my “people” – and I know when I come back in a week I will feel refreshed, revitalized and more likely than not have a whole batch of fresh content and ideas to share with you about writing, the creative process and leading your most remarkable life.

Now we both have something to look forward to, yes?

With Great Love,

Julie

Take a mini retreat in the canyon, perhaps… or in a local park.

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

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

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

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How the Language of Every Day Creates…. Contentment, A-ha Moments & More

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What would you say if I told you this post was built upon two five minute writing sessions and a life inspired by challenges and overcoming fear, a long held and unrecognized until recently addiction?

Here’s the thing: I believe in writing in 5 minute chunks. This is well documenting. Allowing words to flow and then massaging them later simply works.

In the next paragraph there is a quote by William Stafford. I read this quote and a poem (tomorrow a video of me reading  it will be at the bottom of this post) and the rest of the words tumbled forth, musical notes accompanied by a five-minute exercise I created called the #5for5BrainDump.

Join me, now, on this word adventure.

“When you make a poem you merely speak or write the language of every day, capturing as many bonuses as possible and economizing on losses; that is, you come aware to what always goes on in language, and you use it to the limit of your ability and your power of attention to the moment.”

William Stafford

I challenged myself to write poetry this time: no institution or celebratory month is guiding me.

It is purely  my desire to practice, my will to dig more deeply, bring to life my idea that poetry creation might help me to figure stuff out a little bit better than… not.

I have a word pool (a collection of words to stir up the process and serve as a sort of paint-on-a-writing-palette and my timer is moving.

Grind groove habit hang up “into” manner matter of course mode observance.

It (fear)  comes upon me it seems without warning, like the breeze suddenly lifting my hair from my shoulders

Flirting with me, making me feel more than slightly feminine and deep inside my core whispers, “You are a girl, this is what it is, sink into that feeling of something else moving your hair, giving you that weightless out of control oh, doesn’t that feel just right” feeling and I stop, my stomach beginning to churn, “no, it isn’t like that it isn’t like that.”

Is it like the way you feel when you are dancing, grooving, moving your body in a way that feels slightly to the left of heaven and full steam ahead into paradise when you catch someone looking with the eyebrow raised just so and the tongue on the tip of the cluck so you skip a beat and stop and slow and sludge becomes the order of the day and you forget you love to dance and you certainly don’t get anything except regret back anytime soon.

It is a matter of course then? An item on the daily to-do?

Feel fear and be paralyzed, all the time?

How to invite fear and expand it horizontally and vertically in 5 simple blood curdling steps?

Take five doses of fear daily and be sure to get nowhere in life except frightened. Repeat doses daily, add another dosage if nothing happens.

I almost stop typing because it is so preposterous and I know the adage of “what we focus on grows” so I remind myself, “This is just a game.”

Passionate Possibilities otherwise known as my week long Daily to-do list:

When I feel fear creep into my space, take note of it. Pre-program responses such as these to say internally and aloud if it helps. . “Fear – I see you for who you are. You are not welcome here. Good bye! Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear creep into my space, I will feel my feet on the ground – every inch of connection noted to the floor, the carpet, the sand, the grass, the concrete and I will express gratitude for the feeling of connection. I will repeat, “Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear mocking my femininity through seduction or flirtation, I will note it and remember the potent heroes and sheroes of the feminine. I will reach my hands out and build a bridge with them. I will affirm myself, “This is a bridge over fear to courage. Today, I choose peace.” (The word after today I choose may change according to what feels the most resonant with that day.)

My five-minute-timer went off about three minutes ago.

I elected to continue writing because the insights were continuing to be born. I knew actively giving them space would net more benefit for me and for you, my readers, so I chose to stay with it because today I am choosing courage, peace, poetry and you and me.

Who will be brave enough to tell me about your fear or better yet, who else is brave enough to begin building that bridge from fear into courage?

Maybe you’ve built it partially before or maybe you just haven’t used the bridge you once built and it requires some slight adjustments.

In any and all of those cases, know I am here to listen, to sit alongside you and together we have the passion and collective power to craft intentionally toward your most vivid, aligned with your vision future.

To request an appointment with me to talk, text or message about my programs and upcoming possibilities, please fill out the contact form on my website.

The world is waiting for your words: you are worth taking the time to gain clarity and get your voice on the page and into the world now.

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-mediaartist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming through the end of 2017.

 

 

 

 

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Love & Fear & Pain and How Writing Always Provides a Path to Feeling Better: Every Single Time

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It happened again today, something happened that I long to write about but I don’t want to write because I don’t want to feel the pain of it.

I am still awake at 2:01 am. A fly is buzzing about my otherwise quiet room and I may open the window to tune into a bird who is singing outside the window, or was, before I attempted to construct this sentence.

I open the windows, I set my timer and the bird no longer sings.

A car drives by, a candle flickers next to me: no bird song.

What a moment ago brought infinite delight may so easily be clouded by unnecessary thought pollution: “I did something wrong, I didn’t appreciate the bird so the bird flew away. Perhaps the mulberries went stale from the power of complaints about them earlier today. My neighbor hates my mulberry tree and probably hates birds, too. Especially when they poop purple.”

I take my hands off the keyboard.

I listen to the silence, coaxing the bird back.

Here’s the thing: I can’t coax the bird back, I can only coax myself back to the keyboard, one word at a time. I remembered earlier today throughout the day, “I feel better when I write.”

The several days ago version of me must have known this version of me would be appearing, the version of me that gets buried in sadness, that gets tugged at by insecurity and worry and fear.

I was startled by the sound of applause, my timer setting announcing my five minutes of writing is done.

I examine my fingers, distraction addiction, and I decide to “re-up” for a second five minutes, focusing on love. Love as a prompt, I think, toning “love” in between sentences, phrases and quotes of love.

Like the Beatles singing, “All you need is love…” and the cynical version of me shoves a raspberry in her mouth and blows out in disagreement, blotting the thought from my consciousness. Love: is a many splendored thing.

I don’t understand lyrics and writing like that. What is a “splendored thing” anyway?
Reminds me of the many ways NOT to use jargon in writing. Splendid I understand, superb I get. These are good, more than adequate.

Splendored is silly almost junior high aged attempt to be smart sounding?

Love is. Love IS! That’s the perfect love sentence and in fact, is quite grounding.

Love is patient, as Paul says. Love is kind. Love is purple – lavender, the color of sunrise and sunset and transitions. Love will keep you steady during transitions and times of difficulty. Love sometimes leans in and holds you when you need it. Sometimes love wants to show you a slightly different way and you might even feel hurt by it (like the… and the applause comes again and I decided to stop before I ramble down that lane that might come across as negative.

It is 2:14. The time twice a day that remembers Valentine’s Day.

As almost always, I feel better now than when I started. Which is why I write and suggest, so strongly, other people write, too. Just let your words flow, don’t worry about grammar or syntax or rules you long ago learned and forgot.

Just move your pencil, your pen, your fingers on the keyboard.

And now I have a writing prompt for tomorrow.

Things just keep getting better.

 

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The Struggle is Conceived in Your Mind and Cemented in Your “Buy In” + Lack of Intentional Action

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Please, please, please may our lives move beyond memes and into three dimensional living?

I am trying to not be a pain in the derrierre. Truly. But there are certain lines I just can’t cross.

I have taken a stand against foul language as well as violent language. If marketers or even brilliant people say they have a killer program or they want to slay or kick (usually a version of a donkey) or the like, I just won’t consume that product.

So I felt a real “ick, no won’t get there” vibe with the word “struggle” and when a challenge I am in focused on my ideal client’s struggles and writing struggles into being so that I could slay them I just had to say no.

I am choosing not to do that.

I decided first I would try to play nice. I would do some research on synonyms for struggle and all would be well and I would transform my thoughts.

The exact opposite happened.

Synonyms for struggle all lined up with violence and battle and difficulty and all of those not-Julie-isms I realized there is a reason for this disapproval. There is a reason none of this sits well for me and I get blocked by it.

When I say I am aligned with peace and justice and equality and love, I need to use language accordingly.

Instead of struggle, I will choose to create with the word “Challenge” because that – my friends, is something I thrive on.

Why?

A challenge may be won by many.

A challenge may be embraced collaboratively: there doesn’t have to be one big kahuna, there may be a tribe standing in a circle and singing “kum-bay-a” as they reach the top if that fits.

When I was a kid my siblings teased me mercilously because I didn’t want to play the family softball games. “How about no score keeping this time?” I would offer up. “What if this time we don’t have winners and losers?”
Back then it was because I didn’t like having responsibility for making my team lose, but little compassionate sweet hearted Julie is still alive and well in middle-aged Julie.

I challenge you to pay close attention to the words you are using and the way you are using said words.

I challenge you to aim towards being the most successful person you may possibly be and perhaps even gathering a few others up in your reach and inspiring them to be ridiculously successful, too.

I challenge you to laugh, to love, to sing, paint, dance, hike, build others up with abandon. Wear tie-dye if you feel like it. Wear a three piece suit or carry a personalized Coco Chanel bag.

Or create a vision of yourself in your ideal place. Dream wide and deep and colorful.

Let’s do this – whatever your this is.

The world is waiting.

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

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

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How to Find Inspiration – Discover Infinite Topics to Write About Today

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Sometimes you need to find inspiration rather than hoping, wishing and praying inspiration will find you.

This morning I was inspired by the very experience of waking up in a different than normal room. It was a rare all alone morning. I was greeted by the sunrise to and in two hours was terrifically inspired and documenting playfully brought so many rewards, including this exact blog post.

Here is what the morning delivered to Instagram, first take.

Sunday morning in the Tank Room: my notebook, a steaming cup of coffee, windows with fresh chilled air wide open. The pages await.

The sadness and perceived failures of last week are gone. Processing is ongoing. The words are waiting right on the edge of my pen, the paper waits in joyful anticipation.

As a new week begins, take a moment to forgive yourself and have compassion as necessary for what was. Stand in the blessings of what is now – no matter how gloomy or sunny or pale and pasty it looks.

Take out your notebook and write. Start with gratitude or a description of where you are and simply move your pencil. Follow where it leads you.

Tips and Writing Prompt:

Review your weekend for gold nuggets and seeds for writing and reflection. On a fresh page in your writing notebook (or in a document on your computer) start a list from 1 – 10.

Recall moments that are continuing to show up because of either how they felt as they lived them or what your senses told you in the moment of experience.

I have many from this particular weekend because I finally got out of town after a long time of no visits anyplace other than my own four walls and places in the near vicinity, but this experience of nuggets and seeds for writing is something that happens every day, no matter where you are.

I will prove this by providing a list from my own life daily this week so that you may see this practice put into use.

I am setting a timer and giving myself five minutes to complete this list.

Feel free to do a quick review of any images you took, snap chat story pieces you told and Instagram photos and well as tweets and facebook conversations.

I made a fun and short youtube video. Do you want to watch it? Check it out by clicking on the image and visiting Youtube. Subscribe to me there.

These “throwaway” items may be exactly the seeds you need to create some content that inspires and delights your audiences.

I’m setting a timer to get my list done efficiently.

  1. Amtrak to Fresno. Mimosas and for me, What was I doing with my phone?
  2. Walking in the heat, ugh, didn’t like that part.
  3. Poppies
  4. A room of my own – sunrise haven
  5. Living in a tree
  6. Sun-moon-room
  7. Hussle hussle hussle…. J
  8. Undercover Uber
  9. I felt old, so old
  • Little Julie writes in a windowsill
  • Two poems on one morning
  • I manifested this?
  • Syncronicity rules – this roost, this nest I’m finding myself in
  • Agriculture and politics
  • Do I fit in anywhere? No. And it doesn’t matter, really.
  • Why aren’t I doing this?
  • Confidence cluster (build it)
  • The magic carpet backpack
  • Blonde Chicana, cake and I need to connect more
  • Emma’s story intersects with my story
  • Need to reach out to contact Arcadia because that one faculty member won’t let go, isn’t appropriate and is being downright abusive.
  • Midsummer Damn I need to rent you
  • Can there be any more mulberries?
  • Pizza on the street and Chocolate cake in the Zen Meditation Tea room
  • Beer in red cups in a skate shop with a bunch of poets
  • He looked like that guy in 30something? YES! He did!
  • TIME!

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

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

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Poetry: Love it, Hate it, Bored by It? Let’s play a free association game now —

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When you see or hear “poetry”: what springs to your mind first? Read this essay to relate to poetry in a useful, reflective way.

I subscribe to a variety of writing websites, read writing instructional books regularly and attempt, always, to be at the forefront of thought around writing so that I may serve my students and workshop participants and coaching clients as well as I possibly can.

I also make it no secret that I am a poet and an actor.

Today I was reading one of my subscriptions, saw this and literally gasped aloud:

“Reading poetry often bothers people. Sometimes poetry feels lofty and pretentious and seems to say, “I know something you don’t know,” which is obnoxious, like an older sister taunting us.”

I was mortified.

“Reading poetry BOTHERS people? How can that be?!” I found myself taking this assertion personally. “How dare they think such a thing! They are missing the fabulousness that is poetry and anyone knows…” and then I thought back to the years when I wrote poetry and neglected to read poetry.

It is sort of like being a selfish-all-about-me person who enjoys other people’s company as long as the focus is solely on what they like and what they want and the conversation revolves around them.

Poetry isn’t like that. At. All. If poetry is a one way “I just write poetry” or “I abstain from all poetry” you are missing out on a huge area of growth as not only a writer or creative, you are shutting yourself off from the sheer pleasure of word play that comes with it.

What if a poem was an invitation?

My father was one of those who didn’t like poetry because he couldn’t “figure it out” and then I wrote a sonnet about hearing my grandather’s voice in a train whistle.

Suddenly poetry – according to my father especially poetry written by me – was enjoyable and easy to understand.

Let’s take a moment to free associatie – I will share three lines of poetry, one at a time.

When you read a line, jot notes of how you connect with those words.

“We have the town we call home wakening for dawn which isn’t here yet but is promised.”

Philip Levine

Make associations – what words do you connect with here? What do you see in your mind’s eye from this one line of poetry?

“The grass never sleeps”

Mary Oliver

Associations, please.

“I saw you in a dream last night –

Quiet and pale, but still my handsome cousin.”

Dana Gioia

Associate (Do you have a handsome cousin?)

“Time for gardening again; for poetry”

Margaret Atwood

More associations – play!

I just pulled random collections of poetry from my shelves, opened them, and wrote the first lines I saw. I didn’t have to hunt for inviting word sections or the easier to understand lines or the ‘dumbed down” versions.

See, what I love about poetry is the simplicity I find there, the purity and the relationship between me and the words and by association the poet. Three of  the poets I chose are currently living, breathing this same air I breathe, standing on the same ground I stand upon albeit in different spaces. Phillip Levine died in 2015 in Fresno, California not far from where I live in Bakersfield. Have you been to Fresno? The most unpretentious people you have ever met live there.

Dana Gioia and I had a conversation in December but I doubt he remembers me. I became a fourteen-year-old girl holding a copy of a fan magazine when I spoke to him. Giddy, with rapid speech, nervous about my choice of outfit and wishing I had taken more time with my appearance when we spoke. He is the current poety laureate of the state of California and the word craft in his poetry makes me swoon.

There is a new television show starting based on one of Margaret Atwood’s books.

Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Philip Levine is also a Pultizer Prize Winner who chose to focus on the working class in his poetry and the place of his birth, Detroit, was one of his central inspirations.

I went back to the article that started this train of thought and discovered a shift there, as well.

“If we keep reading, poetry often moves us in ways a paragraph can’t. It requires a compression of language and meaning, tucked inside precise words that create concrete images. Poets, with a wink and a wry smile, trust us to read well.” Joe Bunting, TheWritePractice.com

Share in the comments what words you free associate with POETRY. Whatever you think or feel, let it drip onto the comments here. This is going to be fun. Let’s read your thoughts now – 

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I texted. A quick response was sent in return.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My first hurdle: the discovered proclamation and the secretary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My strategy worked! I was in!

Off to the Dean’s office.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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