Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Planting the Seeds of Love: Overcoming Resistance to Encourage Growth

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Hands touching rich, dark soil and a young seedling showing a nurturing energy

Early in the day, everyday, I start with writing practice. Today, it led to something rather extraordinary.

I was reminded as a theater director and writing teacher, facilitator and coach, how much I value process work. Sometimes that is where the gold is found even more so than the final product.

Today, I am going to be transparent and bold, sharing with you my process of drafting wrestling with my thoughts through words. What you will read is the question I asked at the end of the “Mining for Writing Gold” process I created and use.

I always end with asking a question of myself and then free flow writing for five minutes. This time, it was longer than five minutes because I knew there was more there for me to explore.

My hope is you find value in witnessing the process. I’m also wondering if you ever enter into loving, open-hearted conversations with yourself? Maybe you view your inner conversations differently. I would love to hear more, hopefully after you gain some gold nuggets from my process.

What are the seedlings – the sprouts – to overcome my struggles that seem so inherently cooked into me?  I can’t see or taste or notice them in me and yet they are there, like a virus or allergen that makes me sick at times.

I find myself wanting to go elsewhere. I want to look up quotes or google something. I don’t want to just sit with the imagery and the question I carefully crafted. I will stay. I will ask myself the question again.

What are the seedlings, bravely pushing through the rocky soil of resistance – the invisible destructive force, not the airy, gracious force I also say is there yet I don’t always act as if that is the case. I stay in the unripened state, the inert, filled with great question that sits in the core of the seed, not yet initiated into the seedling stage.

It is the potent question and the belief there is healing medicine within the answering of the question, the living the question where the seedling grows.

Giving space for the answer to rise – the seedling then, is the question + space + light + nourishment + belief – 

I take my hands away from the keyboard. I am onto something.

I am going to pause for a few moments and re-read, allowing the seedling I have just managed to create to bring more to us, right here right now,

The seedling grows when it is surrounded in love: the air it breathes, the water that brings it nourishment, the space around it is drenched in love. 

Once a coaching client asked me, “What does love mean?” and I had no idea what to answer.

From the perspective of the seedling:

Love is staying with me, not turning away frustrated when you don’t understand what I am trying so hard to tell you.

Love is bringing me your innermost secrets, your uniqueness – not holding back. How can you be afraid of me, a little seedling, when all I want to do is make this world a better place – just like you.

Love is witnessing the people we meet not at the surface, but at their core. Love is seeing the uniqueness of each one and the similarities we share. Honoring the uniqueness and delighting in the connections.

Love is being willing to set down the rushing agenda to be with the mindful agenda where we both find value in mutual restoration.

Second part: how to nourish the medicine within the seedlings as they grow and become stronger?

I went longer than five minutes. 

The second part may come up later. We’ll see.

Woman (Julie Jordan Scott Julie JordanScott) seeming to burst through a broken wall on an abandoned home.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Tradition: Every Sunrise a New Beginning

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Morning sunrise photo from Northwest New Jersey

My tradition of watching sunrise on New Year’s Day began twenty years ago today. 

On that day it seemed sort of extreme: Mom of little children, cavorting in the earliest light of the sun. Now my babies have (for the most part) flown the coop and sunrise, on New Year’s day, remains.

This was also my first New Year’s Morning in New Jersey since the 1970’s. 

To say sunrise 2023 was phenomenal is an understatement.

This morning I chose to watch sunrise on an open field two miles from where I live in. The field is just east of the intersection of Possum Glen Road and Unionville Avenue in Wantage, NJ.

Tradition calls me to spend at least 20 minutes with the sunrise, admiring the light and walking around the field. I have spent some sunrises in my car, some out and about – but right now, I knew I wanted to be “with” the sunrise, close to it.

2021 New Year’s Image

Dawn is such a beautiful time and as often happens, I wanted to use the experience to coax both my soulful and my creative spirit into creative play. I didn’t remember to bring a notebook, so I decided to take photos and listen and put what I was experience into memory.

At first I basked in birdsong: birdsong I did not recognize. I listened to a bird duet. One would sing and then the other seemed to sing back. I smiled and looked up at my invisible companions.

Far away, I could hear my geese friends but none were visible.

My geese friends have been known to fly by my bedroom window in the early parts of the day, before the roads get busier and the minor hustle and bustle of rural New Jersey begins.

I enjoyed watching as the dark sky got brighter and the sun crested the mountain in front of me.

Sussex Borough is in high country, so there are lots of hills and different heights for the sun to reach up and over. It was a glorious view. I decided to walk to see what I could of the cemetery. At first I didn’t notice there was a path that would lead me there – but once I did, those of you who know me well knew I had to get a closer look. This is not a currently-in-use cemetery, it is a falling apart cemetery I love, deeply.

I walked back toward the field and I noticed tall grasses/flowers past their prime and decided to take a quick video, but at first it was blurry, which lead to more questions.

I wondered how to make the video more clear which lead to a simple experiment.

I poked the screen and immediately there was a clear screen. I laughed and thought about the ephemeral nature of hopes and wishes. Unspoken, I thought, without our breath and intention, clarity stays out of focus. 

I kept hearing the geese but there were none nearby. I wished I could take a video of them, flying but, oh well. I decided I wanted to type what I had noticed into my phone while I stayed in the field with the sun and the weeds and the small invisible birds. 

Naturally as I was halfway through the second sentence of writing into my phone I heard the geese, very close and they kindly gave me enough time to notice and even get my video camera ready to take the video.

I started filming before I could even see them.

Oh, my heart – my heart was beyond words thrilled. I didn’t bubble over in laughter because I was so in shock at the wonder of the view.

“Happy New Year, Goose Friends!” my heart said as they flew in a circle, playfully, no “eeyore thanks for noticing” energy, instead purposeful, connected, “Happy New Year” flock of geese laughter energy. To see the moment, a link to my Instagram Reel:

What a phenomenal New Year’s Morning. So much better than staying in bed, late.

This eccentric tradition directed me to start the morning and the year on my feet, outdoors, blissful, aware, appreciation overflowing. Looking back I wonder if this sunrise love on New Years Day inadvertently spilled into watching so many more sunrises – and even inspired the beginning of my 377 Projects.

Back at the keyboard now, later in the day, my hands are literally buzzing in excitement of the several hours old memory.

Two questions for you to respond in the comments: do you have any unusual traditions?

How did you begin 2023?

May your year be blessed, abundantly.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Creative Life Midwife with Julie Jordan Scott Weekly Highlights October 8, 2022

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I have not made it through a month of blogging for several years, so while I was trying again there was a part of me that wondered how far I would get.

Success = Affirming My Abilities after time in a dark tunnel of “not so much.”

I am pleased to say that today is the first day I am doubling up and that is only because yesterday got away with me while I was busily working on other aspects of my business: course creation and networking, primarily. 

My daughter was due early in the evening for an event and she came earlier than expected so…. I missed. This morning, one of my first tasks was completing the missing day and here I am with my Saturday recap, just as I expected to do each week.

Favorite 3 Posts this Week (with Links)

Highlights for me this week include learning how incredible Beatrix Potter is and weaving her story into two blog posts. The Beatrix Potter post about repurposing is a new favorite.

I was also pleasantly surprised by Thursday’s inspirational post. It wrote itself during a daily morning writing practice and has been getting favorable reviews from many readers.

Next Week’s Content Plan

Question for Creativity and Contemplation: How will doing something slightly scary change your life this week? Image is of a door opening behind the question.

The plan for next week includes stepping into a multi-passionate approach because I have discovered over time how helpful it has been to me to explore life through a variety of callings rather than “niche down, niche down, niche down” which I know fits for most people. I have finally concluded staying focused on passion itself is the best for me.

I also plan to write at least two posts that require courage from me. I added this journaling prompt in yesterday’s blog post. It is one I will visit personally. I invite you to do the same if you are having challenges with staying the course over the upcoming days and weeks ahead.

What is your plan for content next week?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Pause to Consider: How Willing Are You to Be….

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In my years of life and creativity coaching, I’ve witnessed one of the biggest barriers to achievement comes when a person confesses they want to do something but don’t know how to do it, are nervous about asking for help and might not even know who to ask or how to ask how to do whatever that “thing” is.

The second barrier is often… an unwillingness to be a beginner or get a part of what they want to do wrong. The results become IT rather than the experience.

The natural question to ask oneself then, on a scale of one to ten, how willing are you to be bad at something you have a strong desire to try? Can you be passionate and detached at the same time?

When I was in middle school, there was a required gymnastics portion of our gym class. I was excited to try the parallel bars but I knew it might be something I couldn’t do very well. I waited until the very end of class and my patient and probably insightful PE teacher offered to help me when all the other girls went into the locker room.

I wasn’t good on that first attempt.

I never tried again.

Pulitzer Prize winning author of “Understanding Creativity – A Journey Through Art, Science and the Soul” Matt Richtel writes of a shift that happens starting in the fourth grade when we internalize rule following and peer pressure that doesn’t allow us to try new things, to experiment. It is like setting aside our creative muscle like I set aside my gymnastic muscle for fear of looking even less athletic in front of my peers than I already did.

I wasn’t willing to be bad or worse than I already was at any aspect of gymnastics. This from a kid who two years earlier had spent an entire Saturday mastering the monkey bars at the neighborhood park. Between those two years, I stopped being willing to be bad and work through being bad to be better. Not great, but better.

How willing are you to be bad at something you really want to “get right”?

How willing are you to be bad at something publicly?

This week, take some time to consider what you are willing to do badly in order to get better. 

What small experiments might you try to begin to flex that needlepoint, cardio, writing, painting, dancing, French speaking self? What passion is your heart calling you to bring to life with passion and yes, detached from the outcome.

This first step isn’t making a declaration of what passion you want to explore, it is about considering, reflecting and opening up the treasure chest you haven’t been willing to explore… yet.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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How to Wake Up Everyday With Content You are Proud to Publish

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This simple 5 step or less technique may become your best way to create consistently good content you are proud to publish.

Start an evening or end-of-the-work-day writing practice. It is a simple and meaningful formula that will fill your content with helpful, interesting stories/information/transformations.

  1. Write a question, by hand, in a small notebook. This question may be something you are struggling with and/or what your clients/subscribers struggle with, too.
  2. After you write the question, note three to five gratitudes, in writing, in the same small notebook. Experiment with re-writing the question in a slightly different way after writing your gratitudes.
  3. Within an hour of waking or arrival in your workspace, pull out the notebook and write for five minutes in response to the question. If you get stuck or writing stalls – which is rare because your subconscious mind has literally doing your creative work all night long for you – write about your gratitudes as a back up plan.
  4. Bonus: Add your question to a closing thought of the work day or conversation before you sleep. Post the question on social media before the end of the day or before bedtime. If you have a partner, ask them what they think about the question. Fall asleep with a healthy curiosity.
  5. Wake up with content ready to go. When you tap “publish” you will be proud.

Try this as an experiment for at least three to five consecutive days. Please come back and let me know how it goes for you.

If you already have a writing practice, see how this might augment what you are doing now. Tell me about it in the comments.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Trust: How Practices and Imperfection Lead to So Many Insightful Gifts

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This morning I sat at my desk intending to write in the same, highly practiced way as I do on most mornings. I met with my focus mate partner – for those who don’t know, Focusmate is a co-working environment online that helps people transform their to-do’s into ta-da’s while supporting another person doing the same in either 25 minute or 50 minute containers. 

“I am going to complete my morning writing practice,” I told my new friend’s smiling face and she reported her tasks back to me. We wished each other well and I started writing.

What I wasn’t expecting was to be visited by memories, Kahlil Gibran, Daniel Pink and experience divine healing in the midst of it.

I knew Dan Pink would be present because I had been meditating on his sentence since I read it yesterday in his new best seller, “The Power of Regret.”

The sentence was “Some beliefs operate quietly, like existential background music.”  

The overall theme of the writing was to be trust, a word that has been known to invoke a churning feeling in my gut. My friend Laurie Smith’s 28 Days of Flow Challenge had thrown down the word gauntlet and feeling brave, I stepped into the circle to wrestle with it.

Here is what I wrote:

Trust:  some days, most days to be honest, I don’t trust much of anything or anyone, much less myself. There was something Brene Brown says in “Atlas of the Heart”  about living disappointed instead of risking disappointment. Over the years, I have lived more disappointed than I have  risked disappointment.

When I visit my patterns of trust, I realize the bruises of opting out of trust started very early. I don’t want to sound like I am blaming because I am not claiming victimhood, I am exploring what happened. I am examining what the facts are without reconstructing a false narrative based on my opinions.

I think about what was happening in my young parents’ lives when I was a little one and I think “I don’t know how they did as well as they did. A cross country move with four children under the age of 7 with Mom pregnant setting up in a new location with a newish company. All the expectations for success…. once John was born with Down’s syndrome… the guilt and the grief and the fourteen month (fifteen sixteen month) me battled the lack of trust with refusing to learn to walk. 

If I didn’t walk, they would have to carry me. They would have to pay attention and lift me up to the places I couldn’t crawl, right? 

I didn’t trust for my safety and perhaps because I couldn’t trust I would receive the love I yearned for and practical love through action which I needed in order to continue my little life.  

Before language set in fully, I determined being the ultimate protector and caretaker was what I needed to be in order to survive.

This was  imprinted upon my innermost psyche:  If I take care of others well, we will all stay safe. 

This might have been my unspoken but definitely believed mantra – the existential background music, so now that my two younger brothers are dead, I have been proven lacking.

I have been proven lacking again. And Again. And again.

The adult, intellectual me says how flawed this belief is as we are all finite creatures. The spiritual side disagrees, saying “our souls are infinite, my brothers have gone nowhere”. The petulant side claps back with “oh yeah, if they’re here why can’t I shake and scold them for leaving me, for not fighting harder, what did I do wrong so that they didn’t fight longer or better?”

Kahlil Gibran ambles in and says a version of his lesson on Children:

“Your brothers were not your children any more than your children are your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.”

I realize in a flash or a glimmer of a flash I can trust life’s longing, the divine heartbeat, because each circumstance I have lived so far has proven itself to be a guide as much as I hated some of those situations and circumstances, as much as I wanted to vomit the moments from my existence – eventually the gratitude for them turned over in the soil as mulch, to be fragrant and helpful to my personal ecosphere.

I am sitting with that. 

Hands off keyboard.

This morning I danced. I said I would dance so I danced in front of the mirror to Nat King Cole’s L-O-V-E twice. I trusted and acted.

I did my lymph exercises in the room of the manse I designated for dance and exercise. I trusted myself to do this, too. It isn’t a habit or a practice yet, it is an intention I am doing my best to fulfill.

Before I sat to write I moved. And I laughed as I danced and I breathed deeply as I moved my lymph system purposefully and it all felt so good, something I wanted to do yesterday but hadn’t built my self-trust ladder sturdy enough yet and now, apparently I have. 

Today at this moment I have trusted and acted on purpose.  Today at this moment my trust is enriched as even white bread may be enriched with nutrients. 

Self-trust is an ultimate nutrient.

The little me can go back and trust her parents who she knows were doing the best they could do.  They didn’t need my assistance, I offered my  assistance with love, even as a toddler. Perhaps part of my assistance was a prayer for love, but it was birthed in love nonetheless as was I.

I was birthed in love, even if my birth wasn’t planned or convenient or even if my parents actively attempted to prevent my conception. I am a gift from life’s longing for itself. I can reference more sacred texts and embrace this.

After dancing and exercising and trusting myself to walk toward feeling better,  I simply engaged with trust at the urging of my friend Laurie Smith and Kahlil Gibran showed up to offer healing.

I can’t think of anything to be much cooler than that.

What has been your favorite moment so far this morning?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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The Joy of Morning Routines

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“Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.”

Twyla Tharp

This is going to sound strange, perhaps, but I am a fan of both morning routines and the joy of consistent experimenting with variations of my morning routine.

This morning, my routine was interrupted from what I have been doing – a rather long, lush time of waking up with meditation, writing, reading, stretching, hygiene regimen with a self care flavor  – to “oh my gawsh, I am behind schedule so what can I pack into this short amount to wake up, get up and still have a good day?”

A writing notebook atop a pink bedspread to show the joy of writing in the early morning in bed. This is part of #rolloverandwrite

I chose to do my #rolloverandwrite practice, read a short-bit and do my hygiene regimen but with less of the equivalent of making googly eyes at myself and more streamlined efficiency, instead.

The irony is I did this because I had an 8 am focus mate session I scheduled to be sure I was being productive nice and early. Another irony is that as I write this I am actually in a focus mate session where my partner is awake on the west coast using her 25 minute session to do what I might have done with my morning routine if I had only thought about things in a slightly different variation.

Here’s the thing: we make our rules about the routines we adopt or those we never even try. Instead of giving up writing every day which I did for quite a while because I got tired of a too long practice, I re-imagined what daily writing might mean to me.

If I hadn’t been open to variations and if I hadn’t had the desire to incorporate a night time routine into my daily schedule, I would not have devised my own morning writing practice I call #rolloverandwrite.

What I have discovered is too often people study different ways of doing morning routines (or starting a blog or creating and teaching a course or starting a YouTube channel, etc.) They invest in classes and courses.  Books and blog posts and twitter streams are read. Many conversations are started and continued. Sadly, the important concept of experimenting and being willing to try something doesn’t happen amidst all the “someday I want to….” activity.

It might be scary and I have found I have to be willing to try and fail more than I am willing to stack up my learning without experimenting. 

My best discovery is there doesn’t need to be an either/or. I can continue to experiment and continue to check in with other people, read articles and books, and make variations to what I am doing with that” still fresh gleam in my eye” even if I am still in bed while I am doing yoga, writing, meditating and reading.

I have had so much freedom and joy when I realized I could do these things while still in bed! If it hadn’t been for a willingness to try and fail, I would still be pushing myself to “get your lazy butt out of bed” and building my resistance wall higher and higher and higher.

While I mostly sleep alone these days, I have also used these routines when I have had a sleeping partner. Experiment with quiet routines if this is your situation. If you have children, train them to respect your practices. My children used to pad into the kitchen in their pajamas and sit at the table with me until my notebook was closed. 

Choosing to do your best rather than worrying about getting your routines done perfectly will wake up an entirely new energy for you so that routines will become a profound pleasure and a playground rich with laughter.

Sometimes you will find something incredible and sometimes you will fail miserably and both are equally wonderful. 

What are your morning routines?

Is it time to experiment and tweak a bit or are you perfectly content with what you are doing?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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The Joy, Struggles and Satisfaction of 698 (and Counting) Days of Daily Consistency

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Last year I realized how important consistent creativity was to both my healing and my growing confidence. I also learned if I created a particularly ambitious goal I didn’t think I could complete, I was more likely to abandon it – like leaping across a divide that was too wide for me to accomplish.

Learning to “not quite” reach a goal while also absolutely shining on another goal created success & self-compassion practice.

Because I was continuing to be successful with my daily haiku writing, my hiking goal “fail” was more easy to accept.

Seth Godin, one of the models of creative consistency, wrote in his book “The Practice” “Learn to juggle. Draw an owl. Make things better. Without regard for whether it’s going to work this time.” Sometimes we hit our goals and sometimes we don’t.

We may hear that showing up consistently is where the reward eventually comes, but in the early days of consistency the distance to our intended result may make it challenging to continue. The detachment from outcome and optimistic spirit is fuel for the ongoing effort even when you may not feel like moving forward on a less-than-stellar day.

Permission to Try Again:

I recently decided I am going to attempt the hiking goal again in 2022 AND I am going to continue my tree hugging I doggedly introduced at the end of 2020 and continued in 2021, even as it has proven more challenging than consistent haiku writing I started in December 2019 and continued for 377 consecutive days.

In 2022, I also plan to return to some form of daily poetry.

In the recent days my make-shift writing practice experiment of #rolloverandwrite has expanded into much more prose – from a scribbled and hurried maybe paragraph note to self to a note to my highest self and observations in the night before sleep and a waking written meditation. I am also laughing to myself because this morning’s #rolloverandwrite was the most terse I have written lately.

The most surprising discovery from consistent daily activity:

One of the most important lessons of 698 days (so far!) of intentional, consistent daily action of some form is I feel more centered, more content and more accomplished now than I did before I started this experiment in 2019.

 From having a self-created goal simply for the sake of having a reason to show up – which continued during the pandemic and an ever-widening divide in my country – the process of knowing every day I would take a specific action gave me something to look forward to, always. Even after the death of my father, a murder of a friend and many more subtle and not-so-subtle losses – having a space to share my consistent practice that morphed from haiku writing and became tree hugging at the end of 2020 and will continue into early 2022 –  with friends and strangers on my personal facebook page – has become a space of strength and healing.

Most people who are my facebook friends don’t know I consider them important accountability partners, but they are accountability partners to me! Especially since I moved across the country and doubt myself at least every other day, knowing people are curious about what sort of tree I discovered to hug on any given day helps me move forward with the project even when I don’t feel like it.

The reward is evident in both personal resilience and trust in the body of work as well as in my growing knowledge base and practice of speaking up with my discoveries.

Is all this tree hugging and poetry writing and hiking adding to my wealth?

Is it making me famous?

Not yet to either financial abundance or recognition, but I’m not counting it out yet. My writing improves with everything I write and my awareness and knowledge of trees has surprised me.

Have you ever tried a quirky, outrageous goal in daily consistency? What happened?


Julie JordanScott is a multipassionate creative who delights in inviting others into their own fullhearted, artistic experience via her creativity coaching individually or in groups, courses and workshops. To receive inspiring content and videos weekly and find out more about Coaching, Courses, Challenges and what’s going on in the Creative Life Midwife world? Subscribe here:

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Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Stopping the Slide Into Feeling Worse

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Yesterday I felt the familiar slide into the blues – and I am using that term loosely. I don’t want to say I felt the well worn path toward a downward depressive spiral though that would be accurate, too. 

I don’t want to give depression that power.

I asked myself a personal power question:

“What can I do tomorrow morning to keep myself moving toward feeling-better-than-right-now?”

I didn’t mean take on something huge like walk five miles at a top speed or similar physical feat, I simply knew myself well enough that the tilting down of the weight of the blues  could land me flat on my face in mud or dust or worse.  I knew I single-handedly possess the ability to take an action in the direction of better.

I have the capacity to choose to move forward, with love – or lurch toward the ground in despair.

This isn’t always true – I was on the edge of a breaking point.

Mental health has plagued me over the years. My optimism tends to confuse people who don’t understand how this goofy, happy go-lucky whistling, happy song-singing, tree-hugging poet can shut herself off from others for no obvious reason.

This morning as I started a focus-mate session, I was surprised by the flat affect that still hovered within me. I am grateful I witnessed it – as the short-fix feel better medicine of taking action: walking on the nearby wood-duck trail and hugging an old oak tree is the beginning of feeling better, not the finish line to feeling better.

When the focus mate session was over, I mentioned to my partner I couldn’t find my spotify off button and was concerned my “Cozy Christmas Instrumental” playlist might be a bit much. On the contrary, my focus mate partner loved it. We both ended the session smiling. I know I was smiling.

Human connection, acceptance and cozy instrumentals all make me feel better.

Have you ever taken the time to notice what lifts you up when you feel the blues sweeping into the room?

Do you or does anyone you love experience dark days (or longer days that stretch to weeks, months or more?)

It is important we normalize these moments of sadness and don’t shame ourselves or others or pretend them away. 

You could choose to start a conversation by asking about it: “What might make you feel better?” and be prepared for “Nothing” or “I don’t know.”

Besides tree hugging and walking by myself or writing, having other people simply be with me is a big help. Talking isn’t necessary, but presence feels really good. Listening to or watching TV, reading books side-by-side. Silently sipping tea and looking out the window, all are better with someone beside me – also quiet without pushing me to feel better so that they may feel better, too.

James Clear wrote, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” While I agree with the energy and meaning of this quote, I look at it more like every action I choose to take builds self-trust and provides evidence I am worthy of continuing to move forward, with love and do the creative work I was put here to do.

Today, I am feeling better. I am not dancing on the rooftops gleefully and I am mindfully present to my circumstances. There is no hyperbole, no numbing out and no racing throughts.

It could have so easily slid into much worse.

Julie JordanScott is a multipassionate creative who delights in inviting others into their own fullhearted, artistic experience via her creativity coaching individually or in groups, courses and workshops. To receive inspiring content and videos weekly and find out more about Coaching, Courses, Challenges and what’s going on in the Creative Life Midwife world? Subscribe here:

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Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Sunrise at the Manse: An Invitation to Deep Healing & Creativity

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Earlier was a morning like most other mornings: leaning against my pillows after writing brief notes in my journal and experiencing a morning meditation, I felt peaceful and calm.

Soul Practices Open Windows in Many Ways

I was looking with a soft gaze that caught the sun as she peeked over the horizon and shone her rays of light into the window across from my bed. It was as if the sun was a young child, waving as she reaches up from under the covers, “I am here, let’s play again….” accompanied by the soft exhale with the slightest projection of the intention “this is going to be a good day.”

Tears fill my eye in the memory of earlier this morning and for so many sunrise mornings across my years.

My life is so different than it was a year ago yet also in many ways the same.

I am across the country from where I was, in the mornings I face east as is my favored direction.

Clear Desire: Spoken and Repeated

I am not sure how many years ago I boldly proclaimed, “If I ever move, I must have a house with an east facing porch and a bonus would be having a bedroom that faces east.” I know I said so, repeatedly – without expecation or attachment.

In my house in Bakersfield, the living room faces east. The kitchen faces east. These are the spaces I was often in as the day began. Many mornings of writing when my children were little started at the kitchen table in the dark. They would file in and sit beside me – knowing simply by silent association this was important Mommy time. When my three pages were done I would look up and address whatever it was they might desire.

Now my children are grown and I am living for a time in a manse beside the church where my daughter works.

By a miracle of divine appointment, the house has an eastern facing porch and the sun makes her appearance every day through the window of the bedroom I chose when Katherine asked which room I would like as my bedroom I asked, “Which one has the best morning light?”

An Unexpected Invitation to Healing

I am experiencing a season of deep healing I didn’t realize I needed as badly as I do.

There is a part of me that struggles to explain what it feels like to realize these blessings are safe to receive. There is a bigger part of me that is self-trolling or gaslighting, urging me not to be crazy enough to share such vulnerabilities as I am in writing and sharing this moment with you.

How can I not share how dreams come true in ways unexpected and beautiful?

How can I not share the rewards of healing after so many years is still possible, sacred and holy?

I will continue to hold these moments close AND share them wildly and as widely as the invitation calls. Maybe this resonates with you on some level – synchronicity happens – and perhaps this invitation is for you as well as for me. Speak up (if you would like) or pause, wait and reach out to me later. These blogs will continue appearing – invitation, issued, repeatedly.

Julie JordanScott is a multipassionate creative who delights in inviting others into their own fullhearted, artistic experience via her creativity coaching individually or in groups, courses and workshops. To receive inspiring content and videos weekly and find out more about Coaching, Courses, Challenges and what’s going on in the Creative Life Midwife world? Subscribe here:

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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