End Writer’s Block – Creative Life Midwife

Top 7 Writing Micro-Goals for Creative Entrepreneurs

September 18, 2021 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

I’ve seen this happen with more of my coaching, healing arts and creative entrepreneur clients than I can count – and I have even done it myself. We plunk down at our desks at our designated writing times and absolutely nothing happens.

Here’s the thing: creating a small, micro-goal specifically aimed to help you with consistent content creation is deceptively simple. Try one of these on for a week. If it doesn’t appeal, try a different one for seven days. Repeat as necessary.

My secret success is from having one solid “writing not for content but for exercising the writing muscle” practice, for me it is a daily stream of conscious journaling in the morning, and then have a second micro goal I mix up and serve differently, like a writing buffet.

Watch the video here and read below for more details for each tip.

My newest accidental micro-goal is a daily #RollOverandWrite. That’s it. Wake up, roll over and pick up the notebook you placed at your bedside before you went to sleep and write a few sentences.

Write an affirmative intention daily in the morning. “I am capable of writing effective blog posts.” “People enjoy what I write.” “My sales letter is both effective and engaging.”

Exercise for 20 minutes and write immediately after. Set up your writing space before you go for your walk, job or attend your zumba class. If you work out someplace besides your home, bring a notebook with you and write in your car or at the gym or at a picnic table in the park. Your subconscious is watching to see how important your writing is to you by the consistent time you give it.

Journal/free write for a set amount of time or set number of words/pages each day. You may write as few as 250 words (approximately one page) or for three minutes. The amount of writing matters less than simply flowing with your writing rather than attempting to mold it or edit as you go along. That comes later – and believe me, if you can get the words on the page to begin with, editing will come easily.

To practice writing concisely and with the most writing “bang for your buck” write a daily haiku, six word story or American Sentence poem. Any of this “very micro writing” will help you be use your best words. It will help you write compelling copy and/or characters with a more curated conversational style than you may usually write. It will teach you to cut out unnecessary words that often bog down our readers.

Write a 5 item gratitude list before you go to sleep. You may also make a list of “What went well today” or “5 Good Things that happened today” list. Thesetrain your brain to focus on what is constructive and helpful in your life. A bonus is the subject of each item on the list may easily become a blog post, a social media post or a chapter in a book or poem.

Use a timer to write 5 minutes a day for 5 consecutive days, #5for5BrainDump style. You may try unprompted or prompted writing. In the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community we have prompts and videos to guide you as you practice this – plus it is free to join the group which also has a thriving community, lots of tips, video teachings and daily discussion for creative entrepreneurs.

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.

Writers: How You May Use Fear of Failure to Fuel Your Success in Going Live

August 10, 2021 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Think about your response to this question before you continue reading:

How often have you given up before you had any real evidence that you might not succeed at whatever your most recent sense of close-to-failure might be?

How many of us look forward to making mistakes and worse than that, how many of us look forward to failure?

Keep reading: this is important.

Successful Power House Sara Blakely Aims for Failure

Sara Blakely, founder and creator of Spanx Shapewear, credits her tenacity amidst failure to her father’s attitude.

She wrote, “We’d sit around the dinner table and he’d ask, ‘What did you guys fail at this week?’ If we had nothing to tell him, he’d be disappointed,” she said. “He knew that many people become paralyzed by the fear of failure. My father wanted us to try everything and feel free to push the envelope. His attitude taught me to define failure as not trying something I want to do instead of not achieving the right outcome.”

I teach writers how to successfully go live (live-streaming) the easiest ways possible. I love going live myself, so this is a natural extension of that love and then I discovered many have challenges because they are afraid to make mistakes.

What would happen if you made making mistakes fun?

I even made a video about it for you – watch the video here.

Sarah Blakely has continued her quest of mistakes, failure and embarrassment. You may read of her latest conquest here.

Now it’s your turn: More on Success & Making Mistakes

How do you feel about making mistakes?

How might you use fear of making mistakes to fuel your future successes?

Comment below to continue the conversation!

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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.

How to Use Simple Writing Warm Ups: 5 Easy Ideas to Try Now

May 28, 2021 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Musicians and athletes understand what some writers don’t understand. Before musicians do their primary work – singing that intense musical piece or performing before an audience or before an athlete runs (or swims or bikes or walks) the race, one must warm up one’s “instrument” the voice or the body.

The same is true with writing.

It is a rare case when the first words we write are the best of what we write.

Why should a writer use writing warm ups?

Consider the writing warm-up as an “on-ramp” to the rest of your writing. We have to get onto the on-ramp in order to build up speed for driving on the highway and getting to our next destination.

Writing Warm Ups Allow Us To…

Reconnect with previous writing
Get focused on the task, mission or purpose of each particular writing session.
Provide a “Starting Point” that is better or more clear than the confusion when the writing session begins.
Stretch our “writing muscles”. Playing with words that we aren’t attached to being good or right or perfect helps our later words improve.
Experiment: make your warm up into a game you may use to try new and unexpected things. You may find these experiments turn into some of your best ideas of all. If you didn’t do warm ups, you would have no space for such frivolity.

Writer Lindsay Price said, “I use warm ups especially when I don’t feel like writing. Instead of walking away from my desk, I do an exercise. Nine times out of ten by the time I’m done my warm up, I’ve changed my tune.”

How do writing warm ups work?

As I started writing this, for example, I was reminded of a test taking strategy that always resulted in a better grade: I would read the entire exam before I made a single mark on it.

Why?

If I knew the answers to the questions, there would be no problem in quickly checking those off, but for the questions that were tricky, it gave my subconscious mind a chance to “find the answer for me”. By the time I had zipped through the easy questions I knew I had right, my brain had warmed up to take on the more difficult questions.

In case you are not sure about how a writing warm-up may help you, I invite you to do a writing experiment using warm up exercises.

Challenge: Experiment and play to see how writing warm ups work best for you

Here are five warm-up exercises to try. The rules of writing engagement are:

Do not warm up for longer than 5 minutes. 3 to 5 minutes is ideal.
If you try one technique and it doesn’t work, choose a different technique. One not working doesn’t mean writing warm ups aren’t good, it means that particular writing warm up didn’t work
Have a plan or purpose for your writing after the warm up. For example: “I will write 1000 words of my novel” or “I will work on my sales campaign for the next hour.”

Writing Warm Up 1: Free Flow, Stream of Consciousness or Automatic Writing: these are synonymous. Simply write without editing, judgement or forethought. Let your pencil float across the page or your fingers tap on the keyboard or scan the screen. This is my personal favorite warm up.

Writing Warm Up 2: Use prompted writing – the best single prompts include “I remember”, “Yesterday I….”, “If things were perfect, I would…”, “What would be wisest to do next is…” and the sensory prompts – “I see, I hear, I smell, I taste, I touch, and the sixth sense – I feel (intuitively or emotionally.)

Writing Warm Up 3: Take 60 seconds to write a complete description of an ordinary object that can fit in your hand. Experience the object fully – feel it in your hand but lift it to your face, feel it against your cheek, smell it, compare it to similar sized objects. Write everything down, take note of the tiniest details. Warning: this may change your relationship with the things you own. 🙂

Writing Warm Up 4: Explore where a quote takes you. If you don’t collect quotes, google “Quotes about (insert your favorite subject of the day.) Choose a quote, copy it into your notebook or document and add, “This makes me think” and/or “this makes me feel” and see where the thoughts and feelings take you. You may find it takes your main character someplace, too!

Writing Warm Up 5: Write about your favorites… whatever. You can even make a jar with papers listing “movies, teacher, sci fi films, poems, athlete, musician, book, genre of book, comedian, city to visit” or whatever your likely favorites may be. If you spend a week or ten days focusing on your favorites, you will likely have a week to ten days of more pleasant writing experiences.

Which writing warm up will you use first?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, Writer, Speaker and Mom extraordinaire who loves working with creative entrepreneurs, artists and healers to get their words written on the page, spoken in their videos and shared across social media platforms with confidence.

Meditative Writing from the Senses: Witness Your Life with Writing to Feel More Empowered and Courageous

May 3, 2021 by jjscreativelifemidwife 8 Comments

We write for many reasons. No matter what your reason is – or whatever form of content you plan to create – the best way to get to the heart of your message is to begin writing in a free-flow, meditative or stream of consciousness style.

Use Meditative Writing to Discover What You Think, Know and Understand

When I write either a first draft or a bit of timed meditative writing, what I discover often surprises me. It is like what novelist Flannery O’Connor said, ““I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” If you want to write a blog post or a video script or a sales page, the same skill set works. The same practices work. Today, we are focusing on witnessing your life via the senses – clearly and simply.

How to start writing from the senses

Instead of writing “It looks good” or “I think it is pretty” look carefully at the subject of your writing either in your minds eye or physically. From this experience, write something like this:

“The bright purple irises fill the glass vase with the twine tied in a bow.”

“There was a hint of vanilla in the chocolate chip cookies” or

“He was over six feet tall, which made my five foot four inch frame feel tiny.”

Yes, there is some opinion in that final sentence, but do you see how it is supported in fact?

PRACTICE: What would you write about this picture? Colors? Textures? (from items like this you have in your home)? What sounds do books make?

Feel free to share in the comments and we can dialogue there or send me a message to practice more.

A writing prompt image with a picture of books, a coffee cup and plants to inspire writers by using their senses for meditative writing.

Write with sensory details- write from what is specific and concrete.

Be with what sensory – be with specific and concrete details.

Once you hold the sensory experience – what you see, hear, touch, smell, feel – then you may delve into the sixth sense – what your intuition tells you and eventually what meaning you make from life experience and witnessing your life experience.

PRACTICE: USE THE PHOTO PROMPT ABOVE AND CONNECT THE DESCRIPTION WITH AN EXPERIENCE FROM YOUR LIFE. YOU MIGHT WRITE ABOUT THE LAST TIME YOU SHARED A CUP OF COFFEE OR TEA WITH A FRIEND OR A BOOK CLUB EXPERIENCE OR YOUR FRIEND WHO ENJOYS AND COLLECTS SUCCULENTS.

Throughout this week, we will be sharing strategies to help you write more freely using techniques that will help you write better – whatever genre you have chosen to write within. Come back to discover more about how to improve your writing!

Julie JordanScott has been writing since before she was literate by dictating her thoughts to her mother and then copying in thick crayons onto construction paper. She was a pioneer in epublishing and continues to reach readers through her blog, bestselling books, greeting cards and her essays and poems in anthologies. Join her for one of her upcoming #5for5BrainDump programs or an upcoming writing circle or writing for social media programs.

Writers & Procrastination: 3 Ways to Be More Productive Now

October 11, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 5 Comments

Photo of a woman, looking out a window while holding onto a cushion. She is a writer, procrastinating. She needs to write, but won't. Erica Jong believes it is fear of judgement that stops her.

“All I want to do today is get some writing done!” I said excitedly this morning. It was as if I was giving myself a personalize Writer’s Pep Talk! I was smiling, I was earnest, I almost had a plan and a schedule!

Why then was I sitting in my driveway checking twitter at 4 pm after I dropped my daughter off at her film shoot?

I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to waste, so why was I on twitter, checking out the tweets using the hashtag #amwriting? I might not have noticed this was strange until I saw myself typing into my phone “I’m doing so well at procrastinating I checked who used #amwriting so I can “network” as a writing warm up?”

I rushed into my house and decided to google “writers and procrastination”.

Interesting to see how an academic institution differs from a professional website, I thought, before I realized, “I am still not writing.”

How often does this sort of thing happen to you?

During the pandemic I have reinvested in my interest in hiking. I started walking regularly for my health and hiking is another extension of that. I could do all the right prep work: research the best trails for beginners, , buy hiking boots, talk about hiking, drive to the trail and arrive at the trailhead early in the day, but if I didn’t actually get out of my car and put my feet on the trail, I wouldn’t really be a hiker.

Something changes when we actually follow through on what we say we want to do.

There are moments when we have to be our own writing coach check in with ourselves as we tweet and realize “I am writing a tweet to connect with other writers maybe because I am lonely, but why don’t I use ‘networking with other writers” as a reward once I actually write.

Here are three easy ways to settle your racing, procrastinating mind and sit at your keyboard and write something useful and productive instead of tweeting, ordering the next “how to write” book on Amazon or sending a direct message to your writing buddy to check in about how much you want to (yet aren’t) writing.

Set up a reward system for your writing time. If you say you are going to write at a specific time, WRITE – and have a plan to reward yourself. Say, “I will work on Chapter 3 of my novel at 11:00 am until 11:30 am. I will reward myself with 10 minutes on twitter. Set your timer and USE it. Repeat with different times and rewards. Find the time allotments that work best by experimenting and playing with your schedule.
Give yourself the gift of a writing warm up. If you have a particular subject or assignment, before you begin working specifically on that subject, give yourself 5 minutes (again, use a timer) to do a free write, stream of consciousness writing warm up. CAVEAT: when five minutes are up, write 5 sentences that include affirming your intention, your abilities and gratitude. Those five sentences may sound like this: “I am so grateful I have this opportunity to write today. Russell values my writing work and praised my blog post about refugee camps in times of Covid19. I feel confident this new work about influencing grandparents to actively engage their gamer grandchildren will make a difference in the world. When I am done, I will walk around the block and then come back and prepare for another writing session. I am a capable writer.”
Let go of the need to have anything precisely the same every time you write. “I can’t write because I don’t have my lucky blue mug to keep me company.” News flash: it isn’t your blue mug that is lucky, it is your butt in your writing seat, consistently getting words on the page that makes you lucky.

Did you notice what happened? Earlier today I said, “All I want to do today is get some writing done!” and now I have. I managed to stay away from twitter, I managed to not worry that I am separated from my coffee maker and I even didn’t throw my shoe at the loud noisemaking box someone else in my Covid19 too crowded space insists on keeping on constantly.

How did your writing go?

I have a lot of new ideas about ending writer’s procrastination and there may be more articles on this topic being published soon! Be sure to follow me on social media (links are above) and/or join the private Word-Love Writing Community on Facebook where we not only talk strategies and insights, we also regularly host writing sprints and community brain dumps and more, just for you.

How to Create a Simple Intention that Will Change Your Life for the Better Even During these Uncertain Times

August 17, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

I confessed to you in yesterday’s blog post I had one of the largest blocks of my lifetime last Fall after having a near-death experience. It wasn’t only the almost dying that shut down my creative will to make things, it was the unsupported recovery.

In the perfect world, I would have had numerous caretakers hovering nearby ready and able to be at my beck and call but in reality it was Emma and me… and since I never trained Emma to “adult” – my mom never trained me, I just became an adult from about age eleven and increasing as I grew older – so there I sat in my corner recliner doing nothing except walking to the restroom back to my chair and walking to the kitchen and making myself not to terribly healthy meals and back to my chairs and at the end of the day, I would either sleep in the chair or wander to my bedroom.

I had friends swing by and take me places, doing the best they could, but no one really knew what my life was like inside my house.

I wasn’t about to tell them because that would make me a creative failure, a wannabe, a nothing. After almost dying, I felt so lackluster that being “a-nothing” was where I hovered the most.

I would look at the computer, but wouldn’t use it. I wouldn’t go on the internet and scroll, I would look at the turned-off screen, not interacting with the keys or watching videos or anything.

I would hold my notebook in my lap, but I wouldn’t move my pencils or pens or crayons.

In retrospect, there were two necessities that were far from my experience. I needed an intention and I needed someone to give me a bit of a believing push.

I needed someone to say “I believe in you. Your work is important to the world! It’s time to love and live an inspiring question because you love the people in this world and sister, they love you, too.”

I existed through November and early December, normally exciting times for me. I slowly started feeling better.

It wasn’t until a December sunrise shortly before I went to visit my daughter Katherine and her husband, Donald, that my creative will started to move through me with any sort of consistency.

What made this shift happen? I decided to live and love a question while keeping my heart open to the forward flow of intention:

“What is it that I used to do that made me feel better that might make me feel better now?

Some possibilities that rose up were good, but I couldn’t do them without the help of others. I love karaoke, but my lungs and voice didn’t feel ready. I knew my recovery would take at least six months. I would adore being on stage again, but same challenge – PLUS I would need to have a director who really wanted to cast me. I couldn’t imagine that happening anytime soon.

I chose writing haiku which combined writing – which I have always loved – with haiku – which was a very short poem and therefore, an easy idea to put into motion.

I also knew if I failed, it wouldn’t be heartbreaking because… it is only a short poem once a day. Besides, no one would be paying very close attention. I made it even easier because I said “Must complete in the morning,” which meant I didn’t have a long time to think about how much I really didn’t WANT to write a haiku.

I didn’t have time to think about how much I didn’t want to do anything but sit alone in a corner.

After a week which included quite a bit of family travel which is wonderful and stressful and tense, I realized my question, “What will help me feel better?” changed everything when I loved the question, was patient with myself in allowing the response to find its way to me, and I took a very small baby step every day.

Interesting to note it was that same week when I insisted I was going to visit my parents in Flagstaff sometime around my birthday, an idea and an intention I had been holding for over a year but other people’s needs and my own lack of planning continued to interfere with the actual implementation of my plan.

I will forever be grateful I visited my parents in the middle of February. It was only a few weeks later a simple visit with them would be impossible due to Covid-19.

A simple question: “What would make me feel better?” and a contemplation of which activities were do-able yet also a bit of an inspiring stretch, has changed my life in ways I never expected.

It is important to make considerations as to what you are willing to…. do or be or accept or let go of in order to feel better or do better or be better. You may have to let go of your perfectionism or be willing to get up earlier or be willing to drink more water or take something out of your schedule or you might have to be willing to make people angry.

In the long run, none of those small annoyances – or what may feel wildly uncomfortable now – will compare to how great you will feel by consistently aiming for what it is that will make you feel better. You have the wisdom within you right now to determine what that is.

I believe in you. I look forward to seeing your “what’s next” with a little extra nudge of intention added to your experience.

Even with the challenges of 2020, I am more alive and more connected and more compelled to make a difference than I have been in years. Often during my visioning work, I imagine 5 or 10 or 500 or 25,000 people feeling better, too. I imagine the impact that would have on our planet.

Do you have five minutes to write in response to this prompt and others like it? It’s all waiting for you to simply say yes. Thank you for reading.

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Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

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.

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary prompst from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020.

I don’t want to, but I do it anyway. Everyday.

July 24, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 4 Comments

Most mornings I wake up and think I ought to just sleep in. I can skip a day: just this time no one will notice. It’s a pandemic, no one is paying attention, no one really cares.

Then something lifts me up and out of bed and says “Get up, get out, create.” or as I said a long time ago, “Show up. Look up. Translate.”

When I codified my plan to do something daily that made me feel better – created guidelines for my personal creative practice – since I stuck with what I codified my life experienced has changed radically for the better.

Today I realized how my seeing has become so much more alert since I started my daily morning haiku practice. I think even more so since I chose to write sunrise haiku.

This slight change in schedule – on purpose – has allowed me into each day as it begins. It feels like an initiation into a society who are all in on a secret the people who are asleep all around us don’t have a chance to get.

Just as the sunrises at Lake Ming in Bakersfield. Ducks in the lake swim as the sky brightens.

Seriously: today I sat at a table at Lake Ming and had my phone in its tripod and the rays of sunrise made visible through the camera reached to me as I watched and wrote, as if it was saying thank you.

People get caught up – I get caught up – in anger and frustration and a sense of incredulity when I witness even the slightest taste of the horrors swirling around us as of late.

The sunrise reaching out to me – in gratitude – and my “new seeing” is a feeling of communion I haven’t felt since holding my newborns or when I was a little girl in the back seat of our turquoise country squire watching in awe as I believed the stars were actually following me, specifically. That’s what it felt like on that magical evening so long ago.

This simple act of writing haiku every day has helped me to reconnect with everyday miracles and wonder. It wasn’t an instant awareness with the first few haiku, but now – a day doesn’t go by without a surprise.

Julie JordanScott typing a love poem on the edge of a foothill of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Join us now in 2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. Click the graphic below to join the Private Facebook Group to join the conversation!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Revised-Refresh-general-flyer-1.png

Refresh Your Beliefs: the 2020 Version

July 22, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 4 Comments

A teal tabletop flatlay with a coffee cup, paperclips and pencils. A new Way to Work with Beliefs While Living Your 2020 Pandemic Life

One of the most helpful writing prompts I have used with my students, coaching clients and with myself is “I believe.”

Lately as we have become more fractured and unfortunately too often stuck in the underlying fog of “us versus them” and “If you are one of them” (someone not like me) than I can’t talk (work, play. Collaborate, talk) with you.

This is why in the pop up #refresh2020 group that when I asked people about what they believe I qualified it like this:

Before you hit reply and respond with a lot of what you have said before please spend a few moments (or longer, perhaps write in your journal or go for a walk or listen to music or watch a TV show you love or have a conversation with this question hovering n the background of your mind.)

What do you believe – about what has been going on in your life right now?

What do you believe when you see situations that upset you, that you can’t control or influence?

What do you believe when you have been at the top of your game and the world and the people you love are praising you for no other reason than you showed up in the same space they are in?

What do you believe when you are lying under a canopy of stars or you were just in a car accident or are sitting in a hospital or close to death or just witnessed the birth of a child?

What do you believe when you can’t live like you always have before?

What do you believe when you are sitting in the rubble or are face to face with your greatest fear?

Finally, add any scenarios that will help you to move beyond what you might have written or thought before… allow it to simmer… and when you come back to the questioning space here – share examples from your direct experience about what it is that brings you to that belief.

Feeling back into what we believe is crucial to creating and living out our vision as we finish out this rocky, tumultuous, unexpected, confusing, beautiful, unwanted year of 2020.

Whenever I am invited to share my beliefs, a song by Blessid Union of Souls starts playing in my mind. Today, I would like to share a bit of that song with you. If you would like, watch the video.

Here is a change I made in my beliefs in 2020, a modification that is in alignment for my long standing belief that love is the answer, the quetion and the action plan.

Today I am thinking and feeling I believe in haiku. I believe in the power of daily creative practice and sharing that practice with a receptive audience. This makes me laugh – but my daily haiku practice….has shifted so much for me… and it was started BECAUSE…

(lyrics from the Blessid Union of Souls single “I Believe…”

Open up your mind and then open up your heart

You will see that you and me aren’t very far apart

Cause I believe love is the answer

I believe love will find a way

Before you leave this blog, I would enjoy hearing your first thoughts – not your final thoughts on this way of looking at what you believe in general, but choose one of the scenarios and make up a first draft response. Clarity, feeling better and healing are right at the end of your keyboard.

How Seeing the Everyday, Ordinary Stuff That Surrounds You Differently Suddenly Become Magical

April 21, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 7 Comments

One of the earliest exercises I created for people in my writing programs is to pick up an ordinary object in their space and take a mere sixty seconds to experience it and describe the object. Once the object is noted, we check in regarding the experience.

pink balls of yarn are the basis for this quote from "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon. "Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come." This is Inspiration for National Poetry Month (and beyond) from Creative Life Midwife Julie Jordan Scott

Ordinary objects like waste baskets and water bottles come alive with close inspection. When a person takes time to notice differently, the associations, the appreciations and gratitude rises up oftentimes in surprising ways.

To read the poem “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon, click the link here to read it in its entirety.

To “let evening come” (or morning or midafternoon) in your own life, take a moment now to do follow the prompt and see what words flow as a result.

Pink yarn balls are above the writing in this image, encouraging people to write of this: "Write what you notice around your home, your yard, your street. Allow the ordinariness of objects and events in your ordinary life stir your words. Don't describe these objects and experiences as you always have. Let the overlooked details surprise you." by the Creative Life Midwife Julie JordanScott

To rephrase the prompt “Write what you notice around your home, your yard, your street. Allow the ordinariness of objects and events in your ordinary life stir your words. Don’t describe these objects and experiences as you always have. Let the overlooked details surprise you.

Take 5 minutes at a time and write, just write. Allow your pencil or pen or fingers on the keyboard float across your page.

In the comments, share one or two or three ordinary objects you might enjoy getting to know more clearly. Even this one simple action will enrich and deepen your appreciation for the everyday right now.

Julie JordanScott creates content to inspire creative people to lead more satisfying lives even during this pandemic. Walking and sitting at the Panorama Bluffs helps her feel centered.

Julie JordanScott has been writing since before she was literate by dictating her thoughts to her mother and then copying in thick crayons onto construction paper. She was a pioneer in epublishing and continues to reach readers through her blog, best selling books, greeting cards and her essays and poems in anthologies. Join her for one of her upcoming #5for5BrainDump programs or an upcoming writing circle or writing for social media programs.

How to Use Creativity to End Shame’s Power Over Your Choices

April 3, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 18 Comments

More than twenty years ago I sat in a therapist’s office and she asked me to make a list of “Family Rules” which I went home and dutifully wrote. I returned with my list with lots of blue ink across a yellow legal pad. My cursive lettering detailed unspoken codes of conduct such as “Don’t cry in public” and “Do not do things that might embarrass the family.”

There is space in the world for such guidelines.

I don’t agree with any prohibition on crying – perhaps because I am one who cries at movie previews, coffee commercials and baptisms of babies I don’t even know. It isn’t the rules themselves that causes the problems all these years later, it is in the denial of what happened because of these unspoken codes.

What I believe in is taking back our personal power through creative process and growth. It isn’t about blaming others or fault finding or pointing fingers – it is about acknowledging our own strength and truth.

Today, I look back at things that happened and I say, “I am not rewriting history, I am recognizing we are all human and everyone was doing the best they could at the time.”

With that said, it doesn’t subtract or nullify the pain that was experienced or the grief that occasionally rears its head, especially during trying times like we are in right now.

Denial, for example, is something we are seeing across social media, in zoom calls I am on, in conversations with friends and family. Somehow we think if we don’t watch the news, COVID-19 will go away. We think if we share “Positivity Only!” on Instagram, sometimes we hope and pray reality will happen only to other people.

Quote & Prompt for Creativity and Conversation

A row of beautiful pink roses in flat lay style frame the words of Brene Brown and a writing prompt that suggest we ought to speak to shame directly. Speak on behalf of our shame instead of covering it up. — If poetry is not your thing, use journaling or free flow writing instead. Some of my best poetry started as a line in one of my many notebooks.

I found shame abhorrent for a long time. I read John Bradshaw’s work of the early 1990’s and I was “all shamed out.” I wouldn’t read any of Brene Brown’s works.

Less than a year ago I was declaring my distaste for anyone who “worshipped shame” until I realized she isn’t about the worship of shame, her work is about working through shame. Not denying it, not burying it, not climbing on top of it to look at the view below… instead, her work stands for working through shame and all shame destroys along the way.

Making that list of rules all those years ago allowed me to begin to disassemble them to see and label what was worth saving and what was fool’s gold or just not right for me.

Prompt for Creativity, Contemplation and Conversation

I aimed to consistently be open with my children, ready to talk about issues others turned from or stifled. In my view, it was easier to talk about things rather than hide them yet one of my daughters will disagree with this notion. She will insist we didn’t address important details.

Sometimes certain topics: death, grief, job loss, financial trauma and sexuality are just the beginnings of topics we may have varying levels of discomfort discussing around the dinner table. My family gathered during the holidays and played a conversation game about goals and visions for the new year and one of our family members would not address any of the questions.

My guess is there was quite a bit of shame attached.

The rest of us gave permission for the questions to not be answered. My hope is the unspoken questions will continue to percolate. Journaling or free writing in a notebook or into your phone is often a good way to process through untalkaboutables. I prefer the least expensive notebooks possible. It is a splurge when I buy a “Decomposition Book” – a composition book made from recycled materials whose paper feels fantastic underneath my hand.

If I had said something like this as a child – “whose paper feels fantastic underneath my hand” I would have been shamed for it – someone undoubtedly would have scoffed and said “Julie, you’re so weird. Who notices what paper feels like?” just like when I said I wanted a curling iron I was shamed for being so vain.

I don’t let either of those things bother me anymore: to this day I have numerous tools to curl, straighten, double curl and curl my hair in different sizes. Who labeled wanting to look nice a bad thing?

Here’s what I know: our time is now to move beyond whatever is holding us back. Chances are if you are living there are some shame experiences to review and set aside and in some cases, finally bring out into the open so light may hit them.

I’m laughing because I love choosing the just right curling iron for whatever hairstyling task I am up for at the time and thank goodness I didn’t let sibling shame stop me. There are other times when I have allowed other people throwing shame in my direction stop me from using my gifts and talents for the greater good of all.

Finally, there may be a poem or a blog post or an instagram caption or a journal page you haven’t written yet. Linda McCarriston sees poetry as the art of language. Let’s throw some possibilities around today.

Prompt for Creativity and Conversation

PROMPT: What possibilities does artful language – like poetry – or visual language – such as painting, sculpture or photography – open up for you?

Our time is now. Your time is now. Take back the power shame has taken from you. Release the guilt or anger attached to what happened once-upon-a-time so that you may now live a life of peace and joy instead.

If you happen to write something, nothing would make me happier than seeing what you come up with as a result of this blog post.

Also, if you are feeling lonely and isolated as you work through reclaiming your power over shame, I host a daily Intentional Connective Conversation – you may think of it as a sort of Virtual Coffee Date – where we meet to give one another support, listen to each other’s stories, and just “be” together. You may find information about that in our

You may find information on our Facebook Event or directly on Zoom – the link is either here <— or at the bottom of this blog post.

Julie JordanScott writing personalized love poetry.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. She inspires people to live their life as an artform and then take action towards their best results. Her specialty is writing – her easiest way to express what she does is this: She Coaches. You Write. Your Readers Win! During the 2020 Pandemic she is also leading daily Virtual Coffee Dates, Facilitating Intentional Conversation so people will feel less isolated during this time of social and physical distancing.