Creative Adventures – Creative Life Midwife

I Gave it All Up Until…..

January 14, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

Artists often give up at some point due to fear. The image inspires the rebirth to those who may be ready for what is better for them: art again.

I was in a theatre time capsule from the time I was eleven-years-old until I was forty-two-years-old. My children were involved in theatre. I happily played the role of “Theatre Mom” until I took an acting class by accident (I wanted a singing class) when all of a sudden my eleven-year-old self woke up and I found myself auditioning and being cast in my first community theater event ever.

At first I did shows constantly. I was cast in nearly everything I auditioned to be in. When I wasn’t on stage, I was on the tech grew, learning and growing constantly.

Life got busier and I didn’t do as much anymore even though I was still immersed in the local theater world. Over time I slowly – unnoticed- found myself feeling sadder and sadder and didn’t feel compelled to take the risk of auditioning anymore.

I got turned down one too many consecutive times. The time when I agreed to do a show I hit obstacles in my personal life and it wasn’t fun anymore. I gave it up, again.

Even though I am feeling better now than I have in years, insecurity rises when I think of auditioning. The familiar bully named FEAR joins the chorus. Once again I turn away from one of my great loves: the stage.

Birds don't question their abilities, but they sing anyway. This yellow bird shows us that. Why do we assume we aren't any good?

I have been reading Rachel Hollis’ book, “Girl, Stop Apologizing” before I go to sleep at night. In it, she talks about the power of “What if” questions. Now in my notebook there is an ongoing list of “What if” questions to use as prompts. Here are three I am working from as a result of my theatre conundrum:

What if I am not as good as I think I am?

What if I am better than I think I am?

What will I risk losing if I don’t try again?

These are not only for me. Use these writing prompts to guide you in the choices you make. Use them for meditation, for art, for contemplation as you exercise.

Share them with friends in your next conversation.

There are a lot of people out there who forget their gifts. Let’s reach out to them now, starting with yourself.

How Living Questions of Transformation Allows Your Life to Expand Positively

January 7, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 6 Comments

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.

4 Simple Ways to Start and Nurture a Daily Personal Growth Practice.

January 1, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 10 Comments

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau

2020 is arriving in several hours and here I sit, after declaring I would write this HOURS ago.

It is still 2019, I still have latitude between declaration and execution, right?

My lack of remembering was valid: there was the clogged toilet incident I was solving. After that, I was assisting my long term friend who fixed my roof right before I left for my cross country trip and prevented havoc during wild weather while I was gone. Who knew four hours to help trimming dog’s nails and getting pictures developed was going to turn into accompanying him to the dentist office and securing meds? I knew if I didn’t push the pharmacy pick up it might not happen until tomorrow afternoon and being the responsible, deliberate person I… realized how unintentionally I almost forgot Thoreau.

My actions today reflected my forgetting.

I was not living deliberately. I was living reactively, as has become my habit.

Being reactive rather than responsive is one of those unconscious habits I aim to shift as this new year and season and decade of my life begins.

The cost of this habit brought about a rather unremarkable life ruled primarily by fear with spurts of passionate living. The person I was I was twelve years or so ago, lived a very passionate life with only occasional spurts of fear.

As 2019 came to a close, clarity spoke to my heart and my mind loud and clear.

I aim to live deliberately – with passion, purpose and intention, every day.

This doesn’t mean building a small cabin in the forest like Thoreau did, this means I don’t miss the individual trees. This means I submit to delicious daily practices to feed my overall intentions.

I started this by asking, “Back when I was at my happiest and most productive, what consistent practices was I engaging in to help me feel so good?”

I was writing daily haiku and taking photos of everyday activities and actions, every single day without missing a day. If I did miss a day, I offered myself grace.

I want more of that, again.

Eleven days ago I started writing a morning haiku (though any form of short poetry or micro-poetry will do.)

I snap an accompanying photo and post on one of my social media accounts where I once had a regular audience cheering on my short poetry.

How do I feel, eleven days in?

Accomplished, satisfied, and delighted to have something daily an audience is waiting to read.

Choose a practice that won’t take too much time or effort so success will come easily to you.
Scan your past successes and use those as a compass for what is likely to work now.
Share your intention with others who are supportive of you rather than the naysayers in your life who stare down their noses at your ideas.
Start your practice and if it helps you to continue, share publically and ask people to respond.

Here is what you don’t know yet.

Three months ago, I came face-to-face with death. I stood on the edge and decided I had life yet to live, there were connections left for me to make.

When I come to those crossroads again, I want to be able to recognize that from now on I am choosing deliberately to create a life that reflects my beliefs and my vision, my passion and purpose.

What choice will you make the next time you arrive at a significant crossroad in your life?

Let’s talk about this in the comments.

If you would benefit from going deeper, let’s have a conversation. Here is a link to request a transformational coaching conversation session, please visit here.. My gift to you.

100 Day Project: Focused… and Continuing

July 15, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

100 Days Ago I officially started the 100 Day Project. My aim was to work on Passionate Prosperity with my aim being to run another 42 Days of Passionate Prosperity.

During the 100 Days I would offer prompts and insights and graphics as I revisited the lessons I wrote back in 2003.

Hands making a heart shape and the prompt "Your heart is calling you to share her message. What is she calling you to write, to speak, to make?"

What I found was I have evolved a lot and found so much more richness that the old lessons weren’t always aligned with what I know today so…. I kept going but let go of the need to run a full six week program.

I did run a #5for5BrainDump “beta” program and have another planned for next week.

I do plan to have another Prosperity Program but it will look quite a bit different than the long-ago one.

Looking back to the first prompt of the sequence this time:

Today, I am open to receive….

(and I wrote in response)
all over the emotional map. Finally, a moment of grounding. A tête-à-tête with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
.
An agreement to step into vulnerability and a deepening dance with trust.
.
I wonder what else the future me will have to say when she looks back upon this day?

It is only 100 Days in the future and I have noticed some remarkable shifts.

One is I have definitely deepened my relationship with trust. My reaction to scarcity, fear and lack has almost evaporated completely. I have been quite a bit more vulnerable – honest and true – and today, I started another adventure in healing to go deeper than ever before so…..

What a wild and wonderful ride.

The next step (completions and/or significant progress before the end of July)

1. Reviewing my first six months of 2019 with an open mind and heart. Make adjustments as necessary.

2. Follow through with a visit to my parents.

3. Accept help.

4. Continue with projects that are in-the-works. Set aside plentiful time for content development.

5. Continue to work with Beta groups to test our material and insure the work resonates.

6. Start a list of what my ideal wish list would be for September 2019 and January 2020 so that the full engagement manifesting practice may kick in.

7. Celebrate daily for the remarkable shifts that have happened and will continue happening.

There is a world out there that is waiting. Still. What a blessing to serve.

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. She spent a year working as a leader of an Instagram Group and is now leveraging that experience to create a learning workshop/playshop experience about instagram based on having fun called Summer Lovin’ with Instagram. Click this link to find out more. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

The View & Your Next Action: What do you do when face to face with a mountain?

July 9, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

“If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options. You can climb it and cross to the other side. You can go around it. You can dig under it. You can fly over it. You can blow it up. You can ignore it and pretend it’s not there. You can turn around and go back the way you came. Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home.”— Vera Nazarian
.

Looking at this image, tears come to my eyes. So recently I stood here in awe of this absolutely gorgeous, heart opening space. It is so close to the casinos of Las Vegas yet I had no idea, no idea until I was there what splendor I had been missing.

Even as I got news of a beloved friend’s death two days before this trip, I anchored my memories and emotions in how she would have enjoyed the purity of the beauty here.

Please, tell me in the comments about a heart opening space or time from your experience.

Julie JordanScott looks to heaven as she takes a pause in her writing.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, 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. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

When Flowers Speak about Abundance, Listen!

July 1, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 8 Comments

Join the Conversation. Allow Yourself the Surprising Joy that Arises as a Result.

My love affair with moon blossoms started during an exceptionally happy, satisfied time of my life when I would go to the river bed – an arroyo, a space that would house water if there was any to be housed, but at its best that season it was empty. This allowed me to sit in the center of it all and have great conversations, watch the sunset, howl with the moon and be surprised by the sounds of urban nature.

I fell in love with absence during that time: I understood something didn’t need to be there at all for one to acknowledge and love it anyway.

If the river had been flowing, I might not have noticed the heavenly scent of the moon blossoms, so pungent at night.

Last Friday night, I came upon my first blossoming patch of the season near twilight. None were fully open. They sat alongside a different portion of the flowing river. This summer, a lot of flow due to last winter, lots of rain and snow.

I had to go take a look, to pay homage to who I was and who I am and the presence of the moon blossoms amidst all of it.

Considering the current work I am doing, I made this two-minute video.

Please take a look:

Now, consider the prompt as an invitation to conversation. Bring it up with friends and co-workers. Ask on Twitter and make an Instagram post. “What is prosperity to you? How would you define it? When have you experienced it?”

Now – consider the moon blossoms.

“What is calling you to blossom, in darkness or in the light or anywhere? What is calling you to blossom into abundance and prosperity?”

Let the words flow, either on the page or in conversation.

A couple things before you go:

Take a moment to follow me on social media and on YouTube. If you are a blogger or writer across any genre, I offer valuable methods to keep your words flowing.

Leave a comment here, as a way of pledging your devotion and commitment to keep your writing prosperity, your word abundance flowing. If you would enjoy additional support I am offering to tag people in my daily instagram story time lapse posts as a way of saying “Ta-Da! I did it! I did my daily writing!”

The world is waiting for your words… let’s get them on the page now.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, 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. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

Paradise Found and Tossed About and Found Again.

June 26, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

I tend to feel a slight twinge of guilt when I don’t agree with my favorite writers. Today, I feel sheepish because I disagree with this quote from one of the most revered women’s voices in current literature. Today, I agree to disagree about the other side of paradise with a favorite writer and poet I’ve been reading and quoting for years.

“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there’s no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”
― Margaret Atwood

On a warm June afternoon I considered this quote and I don’t want to agree with it.

In fact, I am feeling the excitement of victory above and over the damn thing.

Loss, regret, misery and yearning alone move stories forward?

It can’t be so, this can’t be the reason or the magnet or the finish line or the goal posts rising toward the sunset and champagne and accolades and hugs and happy high fives. No no no no and no.

I respect Margaret Atwood AND no, I don’t believe her assertions here about happiness and paradise. Do you believe what she says?

I’m going to think of today as a microcosm of story.

I had a blast of a morning: so much fun in my virtual co-working experience where we all got more than the norm done. We all moved forward perhaps along a slightly twisted road and I heard nothing about misery.

We had some technical glitches and stuff took a little longer than we had hoped, but loss and regret?

I’ll look at something else from today. Lunch with Emma. Found out a server at a restaurant we go to died in a car accident. Definitely loss. Discovered a gofundme I can share, something I can take action on, which made me feel slightly better.

Next Emma and I went to Kaiser. I felt annoyance due to poor communication but at least we took action. One might argue we were focused on avoidance of misery if a broken toe is misery. Perhaps it could be misery?

I put her car key on a cute key chain I found. I have no idea where the key chain came from, I just know I felt ridiculously happy because I have a horrible habit of misplacing keys and this one simple tool would make it much easier… to avoid loss and or regret?

Perspective, I think as five minutes of writing passes and I start yawning, wanting to avoid more discovery of loss or regret or misery or needless misery.

Happiness is unexpectedly seeing an old friend who values you more than you believe you deserve.

Happiness is forgiving yourself for being afraid and then finally taking action. Happiness is having the action netting authentically pleasing results.

Happiness is framing photos and art after waiting a while, and then hanging that art which makes people smile and then create their own art.

Happiness is going to a meeting where people appreciate you and a meetup with a friend who finds you funny and interesting and surprises you with the memories of you she shares.

I totally forgot the loss and yearning and misery as I recounted happiness which is probably why I feel so strongly about using gratitude as an ending point for free flow writing exercises.

I have experienced a lot of grief in my life. I have lost friends I cherished, I have fallen upon hard times with my face squarely in the mud for a lot longer than was healthy.

What helped me pick myself up and begin again was not the misery or the grief itself, it was the awareness of the sun rising, again, even after a lengthy darkness.

It isn’t an either misery or ecstacy, it is the awareness that even with misery or is currently great loss, there is also room for joyful ecstacy. It isn’t one or the other, there is one and there is the other.

Paradise has stories. For some reason, I am smelling vanilla – rich vanilla, not cheap, mild flavored vanilla – when I think of paradise stories. I see maps and diaries detailing journeys into and out of and over paradise and journeys into and out of and over and into hell: which is the only antonym for paradise (heaven, bliss, cloud nine, utopia, wonderland) and many other synonyms to happily, contentedly and transformatively describe a space many of us aim to inhabit.

Misery might love company, paradise loves permanent residents: especially those who are compassionate and kind to those who live outside. Those who haven’t learned about the joy of experiencing the richness and fullness and sweet losses of life with grace and hope and a future.

I can’t think of the perfect red bow to tie this up and I want to be finished.
Maybe you have a more proper ending? If you do, add it here.

As for me, I am off to today’s next paradise, next regret, next happiness, next loss, next story and next dissatisfaction and next moment of deep belly laughter, and the next story I tell about it all.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife: Her work as a life coach, muse and group facilitator has inspired best selling novels, new careers and knocking knees during speeches, performances and video releases. Right now she is enjoying hosting Ta-Da Tuesdays and preparing for her next Summer and Fall programs.

Now Begin: Your Journey Back to Where You Were Always Meant to Be

February 1, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

We’re being called to refresh our lives: to begin again, to realize and become who we were meant to become since even before we were born.

Our life coaching and personal growth series, “Now Begin, Again” will help you as you discover how to open, wake up, stop the negative self-talk and destructive habits and replace them with all that is good, right, sacred and true. .

For the next few weeks I’ll be livestreaming the poem, “Now Begin” – sharing it’s transformative power with you. Along the way we will scoop up writing prompts, some stories and a lot of fresh new insights so that you may lead a better life.

Wake Up: Now Begin Your (Re)Newed Life: #LifeCoach #Love #amwriting https://t.co/LihBreU0SP
— Julie Jordan Scott – Let's free your words…. (@JulieJordanScot) January 28, 2019

I’ll be scattering the goodness on Facebook Live, Periscope and IGLive before I meander over to YouTube with it.

And Now, the Poem and the Introduction as shared on Instagram TV and Twitter:

The Poem that Started the Series: Written in 1999.

Take away the degrees, titles and accomplishments –

What is discovered at your core?\

What is your unique, special spark?

Buried deep, neglected, that you’ve chosen to ignore?

Seeking to please whomever.

Drowning out the pure longings of your heart

Struggling, freezing, suffocating –

Until finally, you choose to start.

Whispers from the spirit.

Soul’s song from deep within.

After dancing, stranger among strangers –

Claim it. Your life. Now Begin –

Take the poem more deeply with these prompts focused on the first line. Throughout the series more prompts will be offered for you to explore more deeply and begin again, better and better and better.

Writing prompts for a efreshed beginning from Julie JordanScott. Gain personal discovery while enjoying poetry from the Creative Life Midwife.

Illuminate and Eliminate All That Doesn’t Serve You: The Toleration Liberation Dance

December 13, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

“Turmoil stimulates” Thomas Leonard

It is 5:40 am on a Thursday morning and I am giving myself the gift of “talking” about tolerations. Just here and now, you and me, let’s talk about what we’ve been putting up with in our lives that hasn’t served any purpose except being a niggling annoyance, like when my kitchen cabinets were almost finished for… more than a year.

I got so used to it I didn’t notice until I heard one of the other mothers criticizing me for it.

“Unfinished cupboards? Oh my gawsh, I couldn’t stand living like that. I don’t know how she does” the mom said to someone else about me. Note to self: unfinished cupboards reinforce I am not worthy of friends who finish projects, I am propelled only to sit in the seats beside other friendless people no one else wants to spend time with… and don’t forget it you non-finisher.

This, the role relegated to the one who was known for perpetually getting her enormous college research papers turned in before the deadline?

What happened to me? Where did that early finisher go?

Life, honey, life happened to me.

I can stack volumes of circumstances up next to the best of them but the thing is, life and the need to declutter and finish and keep putting one foot in front of the other continues.

My tolerations list is a direct result of the self-punishment and neglect I have unconsciously levied upon myself.

The positive part is: I am the one in control of this part of my life.

I can turn the soft rumbles of dissatisfaction into a productive sort of turmoil, as Thomas Leonard – the same man who coined the term “tolerations” – meant when he said “Turmoil stimulates.”

A clutter-free home, for example, is not a result of pain as I curiously wondered yesterday –it is a result of constructive voice. Imagine, I will be able to find things without struggle.

It is like granting myself a ticket across the finish line over and over again.

This morning before I started writing I plopped my new lazy susan on my art table and started sorting. Unlike in the past, today I will continue sorting and clearing and gathering my tools in a way that will continue to serve me and my process.

Paula made up a tolerations celebration space in the Bridge to the New Year group. Clearing counters and tables is at the top of the list and I am going to celebrate each counter & each table top I clear AND each time I keep them consistently clear, I will celebrate again.

One last thing: today I was awake early because I wanted to honor my devotion to writing by participating in the (I believe it started in twitter) #5amwritersclub twice a week. Today I may say I completed the #5amwritersclub for the first week ever. Here’s to doing so for the next consecutive 51 weeks.

What are you tolerating? You don’t have to share your list or process with anyone, but if you would benefit from having a supportive group around you to get the work done, consider closing out your year with the peoplein “Bridge to the New Year” – this link will take you to the variety of spaces you may participate.

Bridge to the New Year Day 1 – Introduction: A Potpourri of Me

December 1, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Today’s prompt:

Use this prompt across social media – link up at JuicyJournaling.comhttp://juicyjournaling.com

My first thought was:

How am I going to get 10 – 30 things about me that are in anyway interesting that won’t bore everyone because we all know, well, some of us have been educated – there is nothing more horrid as an artist than being boring.

So. I took some time to brainstorm some things about me you may not know. I haven’t done much proofing so I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors in advance. Take it as freedom to be imperfect.

1. I have never seen any Harry Potter films nor have I read any Harry Potter books. I know you may be saying “How shocking! That’s appalling! I would LOVE Hermione! How could I not read these fantastic books?! Two parts to that response. 1. I take offense when woman authors don’t proudly stand up and say “I am a woman!” granted, I didn’t know JK Rowlings’ story at the time or I might not have been so strident and 2. When I say something, I usually stick with it.

2. I am a melanoma survivor. I have a large heart scar on my face as a remnant and a reminder. I often cover it with hair styles.

3. I gave up acting for thirty years between the ages of eleven-years-old and forty-one-years-old. Although I am not as active in performance as I once was, I have done more than thirty stage productions, seven films, a documentary and a handful of commercials. Weirdly, I have an IMDB page. How did this happen?

4. Writing and poetry has been in my blood stream since before I was literate. I still love being read aloud to – it is one of my most favorite activities on the planet.

5. One of my highest values is showing up, so if I say I will be somewhere I try really hard to get there and if I am not there, I am either near dead, helping out in a child-emergency, or beating myself up for not planning better or whatever it is that got in my way.

6. I have a brown spot in my left eye. This is one of those boring trivia items just because I tell it all the time and it is no longer interesting.

7. When I was in high school, I entertained my friends during lunch by doing accents. Now I entertain my friends on live stream… doing accents.

8. My uncle Jim used to call me “A dandy baby” primarily because I smiled all the time and was very charming. I used this throughout my childhood and into young adulthood. I remember when we were traveling I would focus on business men with my coquette-ish flirting. I remember receiving at least one gift. In my first job after college at a rental car company, my co-workers were in awe of how many customers brought me gifts.

9. I am an ordained minister, like Joey in Friends. I am also an actual ordained deacon in the Presbyterian Church, USA. I can officiate weddings and funerals and any other sacred ceremonies people might want performed. I have the honor of doing weddings from time-to-time though I really loved facilitating/leading/officiating my brother’s celebration of life after he died and would enjoy doing more of those.

10. I have been blogging since 2003. I had a rather successful website from which I made a sustainable living from 1999 to 2007. I originally blogged to have an “unplugged” place online where I didn’t have to be my “professional persona” all the time. Everything has evolved but I have a block around websites. I have a new one half-assedly in the works and the designer of CreativeLifeMidwife and I never really hit it off in a way that made completion a thing. So. There’s that.

11. I am an art journaler and mixed media artist. (I said that aloud here for some of my artist friends who have been waiting to hear me confess that.) As far as visual arts go, I have mostly sold photos but I have also sold several mixed media pieces. Not a lot, but… perhaps someday.

12. I love to travel and aim to be a digital nomad once my children are up and out of the house. After today, with Emma’s health issues I wonder if that will be any time soon at all, which is a fair thought neither to her nor my vision for the world and the future. These thoughts are exactly why Bridge to 2019 is so important! To work through what happened and gain clarity so that intentions may be set and re-visioning may take place.

13. I have been writing since before I could write. I would dictate to my mother and she would write out what I said and I would copy it in crayon. This is part of my ‘writer’s story” which I feel I overtell.

14. Before I was 45 I lost 5 close friends to various sorts of cancers. I have never explored the impact of this, but I don’t know anyone else who has lost so many close friends. I just connected how close their deaths came to John’s death and the many losses of 2006/7.

15. Speaking of 2007, when John died, I had an out of body experience. How I describe it is this: my soul leaped from the shell that hosts it and chased after John. God (insert whatever word you use here) literally shoved me back into my body and wordlessly told me “No you don’t! Your work isn’t done here.” I might not have believed this really happened except my children who were in the car with me when it happened (yes, the car was parked) saw my body rise up, flop down and miraculously not crash my head against the steering wheel on the descent.

16. I am a PTA Mom. This didn’t happen until Samuel was in High School. I believe in parental involvement, but usually kept my business on the district level. I am grateful my time as a PTA Mom is almost over. My specialty within the group beyond being the secretary is doing all the public speaking and selling stuff.

17. I have been known to say my children are my greatest creative project of all. I believe this to be true. My biggest fear in life is failing my children. I don’t think this fear will ever go away.

Emma, Samuel and I at my childhood home in Glen Ridge, NJ in 2017

18. I believe the world is filled with loving people, primarily wanting to have a positive place in the world. I recently saw this unfold when a totally diverse group of strangers and friends rallied around a young refugee woman from Cameroon I befriended while she was in detention at an ICE facility here in Bakersfield. These people didn’t ask about political parties, religion, socioeconomics, anything. They heard there was a need they could fill and they did, immediately and in the moment. This was one of the most humbling, incredible experiences of my life. I’m sure it will come up during the Bridge.

19. I have four brothers and one sister. I have had one brother die. I basically don’t speak to two of my siblings and sometimes I wonder how they will feel when I die. I think I have grieved the loss of our connection for a long time, so I have no idea how I will grieve. My brother I am in closest touch with texted me tonight and confirmed we will all have Christmas together, something Mom had mentioned but I was afraid to follow up on. This means – during the Bridge, I will have a closer answer.

20. I realize I have many more than 30 I could share actually, but I will stop here. I separated out the birth stories. I have always been fascinated with birth stories (there is a reason I am the creative life midwife!) and Katherine is named after a midwife – who happened to be one of my close friends who died very young – but I figured not everyone is as enamored. Oh, wait. Make it 21.

One of my favorite photos of my daughters and me, circa 2012 ish.

21. I am a relatively open book and will answer most questions I am asked directly without hesitation. Feel free to ask.

Birth Stories:
22. I have been pregnant 5 times. I have three living children and 2 other daughters-of-the-heart who refer to me as Mom or My Mom.
23. When I gave birth to Samuel, I was speechless when I saw I had managed the impossible – giving birth to a boy. (If you are willing to have some TMI, I also had an orgasm when I had Samuel. How strange is that! I will never tell him that though… just too weird.)
24. When I gave birth to Emma, my first loving words to her were, “She has a cone head.”
25. When I gave birth to Katherine, it took me a while to look at her. I was scared. After all, the first thing I said after Marlena was born was, “Our baby is dead.” I think I’ll edit that out. In the end, I chose not to. Edit it out.

Julie JordanScott is The Creative Life Midwife and one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us in reflecting, connecting, intending and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable 2019.

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