Self Care – Creative Life Midwife

Time Out for Yourself

January 9, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

It isn’t even 8 pm this evening and the way I am feeling right now, I could very happily climb under the covers and fall asleep for the night.

It has been a busy couple of days AND I feel like I ought to be focused on “important” things. “Just one more task,” I tell myself. “Just one more action…”

I came home a bit ago and put on sweats and an old comfy hoodie and started to do some of the “important” things when I realized, “I don’t have to do anymore. I have stretched myself and if I want to climb into bed and read a novel for an hour and go to sleep, it doesn’t make me any less of a person.”

If I lie down with a novel and read, I am one who honors what I’ve gotten accomplished and will trust myself to wake up more refreshed and ready to take on tomorrow.

While this doesn’t sound heroic, the precedent I am setting for myself is, I believe, a good one.

I just flashed on myself in the hospital bed in ICU three months ago.

Did I find fault with myself then?

There is no need to find fault with myself now.

May your evening (or morning or afternoon) be blessed. May you give yourself to rest when you feel the desire and need to rest.

See Light & Love and Self Compassion Now (plus bonus writing prompts)

January 2, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“If the house of the world is dark, love will find a way to create windows.”

Rumi

This afternoon I found myself with some free time so I decided to visit a local bookstore. I was listening to Brene Brown’s “Dare to Lead” in audiobook form and decided I wanted to read certain sections in addition to the audio. Her books have so much deep material so close together, I was concerned I might get overwhelmed with material unless I paused to take notes.

I decided I wanted to visit the poetry section of the bookstore. My heart wanted me to thumb through a poetry book as well because I knew “Dare to Lead” was intense. Poetry might give me space to integrate what Brene Brown had to teach amidst all the note taking and all the new-to-me-thoughts and lingo.

I saw a Coleman Barks translation of Rumi, the mystical sufi poet I have long loved, and I said. “Oh, a new Rumi compilation?”

I was shocked to see the publication was 2014. Six years ago.

“I have not sought after Rumi in six years?” I stood in the bookstore shaking my head, scoffing at myself for this gap in time. “Where has my heart been?”

My theme for January is “Window” (primarily the metaphor) and the first quote/prompt I am exploring is from Rumi – which is certainly not an accident. Windows invite light into the room. Windows allow us to see outside our space of “protection”. Windows allow us to plan and hold a vision and see possibilities we couldn’t see without them.

Throughout January, I will be exploring a variety of themes about “windows”. For the next few days, the prompts I will be use include:

How do I (and/or will I) create windows in my life, community and family?

What am I willing to do to keep windows wide open to my goals, vision and opportunities as we start this new year?

I am devoted to be compassionate towards myself – and trust this will open windows of love and more opportunities to read Rumi throughout the days to come. The key is to remember what you love – and don’t let circumstances or other people come between you. Ever.

My next quotes and prompts will include wisdom from Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Christina Rosetti and Marcus Aurelius. I hope you will gain value from the discoveries you make here.

How will you bring light and love into your vision and goals this year?

Healing: Take the Time to Become Better and Better and Better

July 30, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.”

Cheryl Strayed

Dear Reader,

This is not the best I have ever written, but I know if I don’t post it, it may sit unsaid for too long a time. I know I am supposed to continue to post these because there are people waiting to read them. So here we are, again.

Written with minimal, editing, almost stream-of-consciousness.

Here is another “telling on myself”: today I couldn’t remember if I had published this flailing on the page. It is a newly minted Sunday afternoon and I have decided to do some light editing as this day progresses.

It is a mystery: why have I steadfastly avoided talking, writing, even thinking about healing? It has easily been for the better part of – I’m guessing for years now. I don’t even know how long.

Maybe it was because a place I used to go regularly incorporated “healing” in its name and when it became a more destructive place to me rather than constructive place to be?

Maybe it is because I equated healing with the unpleasantness of my own experiences with cancer?

Perhaps the mystery is my relentless running or turning away from pain: one heals from pain. Healing is a result of pain. Perhaps my subconscious mind believes I have had too much pain and healing is braided into pain and haven’t I had enough of that already?

Somehow in negating the healing, I also managed to negate the beauty of healing, the beauty of process and oftentimes the beauty discovered as a direct result of pain.

There was a time when I seriously avoided pain above all, yet ironically I also embraced natural childbirth with a vengeance.

I avoided confrontations yet I also thought it was fun to get up on stage at my advanced age and highly imperfect appearance.

I advocated, consistently and constantly like a weeble that won’t fall down, I got battered and bruised not physically but emotionally and spiritually and I volunteered for this.

As I said, none of it makes much sense but as Cheryl Strayed said in our opening quote, healing is a place of monstrous beauty, endless dark AND light. I love the paradox she states.

I also am not sure about how hard we have to work at healing. Perhaps it is an argument over words or my deflection of pain again. Here’s the thing: there is healing even in opening up the conversation here.

Nonetheless, from this perspective we simply rise from wherever we are to be brave enough to open our arms and accept what falls into them, without turning away or deeming it “too” anything.

I am re-embracing healing on a variety of levels.

In keeping my heart, mind and soul open to what is calling me I acknowledge healing is refreshing, invigorating, dare I even say pleasant?

Ironically enough, if you had asked me a month ago about healing, I would have given you a very shallow answer. Now that I’ve opened my arms, the gifts – and challenges – have been tumbling toward me and I have been laughing and crying and moaning and nodding my head all the way along.

What are your experiences with healing?

Talk to me in the comments, or 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.

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.

Stop Rushing, Continue Growing

July 22, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

Healing comes with time and space: This mixed media artwork is an illustration of the healing process Sometimes it feels like I am always rushing. Today I created a time buffer and I was still racing around due to a misplaced debit card I hadn’t discovered was misplaced until I was at the ATM halfway to my destination and I fumbled in my wallet for the absent card.

I managed to rush home and race back to the ATM and slide into place with ten minutes to spare, but in the midst of the rushing back and forth I was giving myself a quiet, calm pep talk.

“The old Julie would give up, the new Julie knows it is more important she show up and participate however that looks.”

“The old Julie would be critiquing her forgetfulness, yelling at her inability to be organized and with foresight to realize her shortcoming before it happened. The new Julie recognizes her own humanity and mirror compassion back at herself.”

“The old Julie would sentence herself to solitary confinement until some magical day when she started to ‘do better’ which is difficult to ‘do” when she has no measurement of social improvement in self-imposed exile. The new Julie is grateful she has a friend who invited her out, who she could safely confide in her dilemma, and who trusted her in every step she made along the way.”

My friend saved my seat: all was well. I filled myself with deep breaths. I made space to restore calm prior to the “main event” – absorbing new knowledge from the meeting I was attending, connecting with new people and old friends, deciding what applications to take with me afterwards.

When I was spit out from that womb of safety two hours later I was right back into the race, this time on mom-delivery duty.

Somewhere in those precious two hours my friend saw something in me that prompted her to text me saying “I keep learning new things about you. You amaze me!”

I texted back, “I wish I would amaze myself more!”

She gave me a smart suggestion I often overlook, “”Look at yourself from the perspective of other people.”

I sent a smile emoji and wrote, “I’m working on it….”

I’ve had a long practiced unconscious habit of not valuing myself.

I ask myself: How much praise from myself will it take for me to believe it?

It isn’t the amount of praise that matters, it is me believing these things about myself are valuable that matters.

What will it take for me to change these perspectives and transform them into beliefs? In the past I would harp on myself to create more evidence in order to manifest greater levels of belief in myself.

Maybe that is what I am doing without even knowing it.

Lately I have been spending more time in meditation. I have been purposefully feeding my spirit with a healthy dose of kudos from others. I have been pampering myself with loving self-reflection and spending time with people who like me not because of what I do, but because I exist.

These people remind me the world really is better because I am here in all my quirky, silly, unique-viewed, word-loving self.

I recognize healing like this doesn’t come overnight and it doesn’t come in one mountain top a-ha. It is a process it is a (choose your favorite journey, path, etc metaphor.) It doesn’t end, it integrates. It resurfaces for a variety of reasons none of which say “You are less than” or “you are not worthy” or “you are not enough.”

Healing comes in repetition, like the sunrise repeats itself every day.

Feeling better comes from multiple directions from multiple sources: different people at different times and different circumstances. Practice saying “This is all good” because it is, all good.

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, 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!

Self-Care Sunday is Not Always What You Think!

July 7, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 7 Comments

I am doing something radical today: I am celebrating the entire day as Self-Love Sunday.

Maybe it is because the earthquakes got me rattled and everyone else seems to be running around buying supplies, but I need a day to focus on what makes me feel better.

So what I have been doing?

Well, I started with a chore I don’t like to do necessarily but the end result I love. Then I did some writing: a blog post and I finished writing a sales page I’ve been procrastinating about for far too long. That felt great – and this feeling of satisfaction is marvelous.

Next I washed and put away dishes, did some more writing and organization and then I made lunch.

There is no massage or pedicure or nap that feels as good as seeing the grateful smile on Samuel’s face as I bring him a yummy lunch made with all his favorite components.

Now here is where I got really crazy. I sat down with my lunch – a bowl of special K and a cup of coffee – and watched my favorite classic TV show. It was filmed in 1964 and was already old when I watched it!

I decided to make a bit of it into an Instagram Story and this alone made me laugh harder than I’ve laughed in days. Yes, even social media posts can be a form of self-care!

Next up is journaling and art-journaling and perhaps some attention to my content calendar for the week. You may think, “How is any of this self-care?”

All of it is self-care. Self-care isn’t a “one size fits all.” On some days, I may decide to get a facial and go out to an overblown lunch with a gaggle of girlfriends. Today, the inside-take-care-of-business feels great. Self-care, my dear ones, is about self, not others.

woman journaling to relieve stress and show self care

I can’t think of a better way to spend my Sunday. I can’t think of anything that could be more refreshing!

How about you? What are you doing on this Self-Care Sunday?

If you want a chuckle, head over to my Instagram and check out my Instagram Story. Fill in the blank… I’m sure you are a creative, too, like me!

Thanks for the visit! I’m grateful you were here!

Julie JordanScott is a Life and Creativity Coach who is thrilled to have an almost-empty-nest, a long-time creative practice, and has just launched her most recent program, “Summer Loving Instagram! Demystifying Social Media for Creative Entrepreneurs, Writers and Artists: She is proud to say she has won awards for storytelling, acting and activism. You may follow her on Instagram, YouTube and join her free Facebook Groups, “Word-Love Writing Community” and (along with Paula Puffer) Bridge to the New Year.