Rewriting the Narrative – Creative Life Midwife

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!

Healing Stories of Scarcity & Lack to Move Forward, With Love

July 12, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

Woman sitting underneath a magnolia tree, writing. Also a prompt: "Take your time with healing. Stay with it. Move forward with love. Love is abundance, afterall."

What are the best methods to heal your stories of scarcity and lack?

It is a balance: one ought not dwell on scarcity and lack AND if we do not acknowledge, address, and integrate our past scarcity and lack, it will continue to cycle through us until we listen. Consciously addressing what was before – before we decided to heal our scarcity thinking, for example – will build a stronger foundation based in our true experiences of abundance and prosperity.

I would love for you to take your time with this, to allow your insights to flow. On the other hand, do not give it more power than it is due. Do not wallow in it, allow your scarcity story to become a part of your past.

Let it go, let it go, let it go!

om from a house in Los Angeles. A slanted light is entering the space.

Prompt: let's aim to heal your wounds from scarcity and lack. Begin with taking note. Continue to practice letting go The Passionate Prosperity Collective.

Tips:

1. Don’t rush to get your healing in “the done pile” because when we do that, actually move further away from completion.

Do journal: use your art journal or your photo journal or your morning pages notebook. Devote a specific space and time to your healing work.

2. Take your time. Small chunks of time over several days are sometimes the best strategy to begin.

3. Don’t be shallow. Skating on the surface just makes us itchy later. Maybe have lunch of a do take time for coffee with friends where you practice sharing some of this “itchy” and together, you may help each other gain comfort.

4. At first, going deep feels scary. It is risky! Praise yourself for this!

Your writing prompt:

The wound is the place light enters you. Your heart-directed actions are what multiplies the light.

Make a list of the times you have felt wounded in the last month.

Start a list of when you felt wounded or hurt throughout your day. The next morning, wake up and write about one of those incidents, with an aim of possible solutions to the cycle of wounding .

Brain storm possible actions to take to reverse the wound and continue or start the healing process.

Please reach out to me using the contact form below if you would find personal, transformational coaching valuable.

Two questions to answer in the comments:

1) Would you value or enjoy or appreciate a Zoom Session to do a Healing Scarcity Ritual in community??

2) Write into the comments ONE scarcity thought you are ready to let go of now –

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!

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

July 9, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, and a Mother of three. One of her
greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

And Time Marches On…. and This Mom Continues Learning, too.

July 2, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 6 Comments

I heard a weird scratching at the door which I thought might be the cat, though I didn’t see her get out. I watched as the door opened and Samuel stepped through, smiling.

“What are you doing home so early?” It was only 9:30 and his Japanese class at Bakersfield College lasts until 11:10 and then he usually is home a half hour after that, at least.

“Today is mid-terms,” he said, with a wider small than I am used to seeing across his eighteen-year-old usually-bored-with-his-old-mother face.
“How did it go?” I asked.

“Well,” he said. Since he was smiling even more widely, I continued the conversation.

“When will you find out how you did?”

“Tomorrow I think, probably,” he answered. He \share more, his face still bright, the shortened week thanks to the Fourth of July. He took himself and his soda and Takis chips which he bought on the way home, into his Man Cave before texting me.

“I need to rent “The Last Samarai” with Tom Cruise in it for a worksheet for class. I need to get it done soon.”

We went back and forth via text even though we were about twenty steps apart before I gave him my Amazon log-in so he could watch it on Prime.
I think he was excited to use his new debit card for a thirty-day prime trial, but he could wait and use his shiny newly-minted-adult-no-parents-allowed-goodies for another time.

This all feels wonderfully surreal.

Wasn’t I just showing up when he was in kindergarten, barracuda mom, when the vice-principal insisted my parenting skills were obviously awful or my child wouldn’t be behaving like this?
Wasn’t I just battling it out with educrats about whether or not he could be mainstreamed into more general ed classes?
Didn’t he just call and convene his own IEP meeting in writing his Freshman year to make a change in his education plan?

His time at Bakersfield College for Summer School has been nothing short of remarkable, where I was able to stand as an anonymous witness. I have been a student and an employee there. I can blend in and watch him manage the administrative tasks at one time the educators “in charge” never imagined he would do successfully.

The next few months will be interesting. Now that it’s July, we are on the sixth month count-down to a brand new decade. Whoa. I hadn’t connected the dots like that until just this moment.

What are you looking forward to over the rest of this year?

Julie JordanScott is the author of the upcoming book, Dear Autism Mom, a collection of encouraging, instructing and inspiring letters to parents of children who are on the autism spectrum. Her son, Samuel, recently graduated high school and will be attending University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Fall 2019. She is a Life and Creativity Coach, a Writer, Retreat Leader and Social Media Expert who loves inspiring others into their greatness.

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

February 1, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Poem that Started the Series: Written in 1999.

Take away the degrees, titles and accomplishments –

What is discovered at your core?\

What is your unique, special spark?

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

Seeking to please whomever.

Drowning out the pure longings of your heart

Struggling, freezing, suffocating –

Until finally, you choose to start.

Whispers from the spirit.

Soul’s song from deep within.

After dancing, stranger among strangers –

Claim it. Your life. Now Begin –

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

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

End the Downward Self Talk Spiral: From Lament to Self Love

January 25, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Why do I have to go so deep with so many things? Why do I take a submarine dive into a simple prompt?
Why am I compelled to feel so deeply? Why aren’t toe dips in the shallow end enough for me?
Why do I get so passionate about certain subjects that I am a weasel who won’t let go and then wonder why some people turn and walk away, shaking their heads

Do you ever hear yourself in a self-talk spiral that finds faults with lament qualities you would enjoy in someone else?

This week has been overly abundant in self-laments and at times more negativity than necessary or appropriate.

Why do I have to go so deep with so many things? Why do I take a submarine dive into a simple prompt?
Why am I compelled to feel so deeply? Why aren’t toe dips in the shallow end enough for me?
Why do I get so passionate about certain subjects that I am a weasel who won’t let go and then wonder why some people turn and walk away, shaking their heads

I had a simple prompt to write about the antagonist for my work-in-progress that I recently finished copyediting and it took me most of the day to come up with a slightly coherent response. Here is a slice of the Instagram post I wrote:

Permission to lament is granted. Healthy boundaries lead to breakthroughs,

I’ve been struggling with this post today as it isn’t easy to say or admit or deal with and then there is this reality that as a writer I am supposed to be able to write easily.

My antagonist in my WIP (almost done, in final edits) is as much an entity as a human, though in my head there is one scene that replays over and over and over again that involves two fully grown men including a school psychologist basically holding my son in a corner while he was screaming and they were standing there with their arms folded “guarding” a six-year-old-boy who was overwhelmed and unable to process what was happening to him/around him.

The school psychologist who ought to have recognized the behaviors associated with autism spectrum, who under the education code was legally obligated to make a referral to have my son tested – in fact, he ought to have administered the tests – was instead standing over him with his arms folded.

Today I have been imagining what that must have been like for him.

I remember arriving on the scene and breaking through the guard barrier and picking him up and setting him on my lap and rocking him as his crying started tapering off because he was being treated like a human again.

And then the person who has impacted me most in this past year and then into the new year is not a single person, but the shattering of my expectations of what is good and right and expected.

My inner wrangling is a reflection of my unmet longings and an opportunity of confessional. Opening myself in soul confession is something that has bit by bottom most recently though at the best of times, authentic confessions have built constructive relationships.
Focus on that true memory: authentic confessions build constructive relationships, soulful friends, faithful and vibrant companions.

Suddenly a light comes on above my eyebrows:

I am a complex human who loves well, who is active in a variety of spaces and places. I love complexity, unconventionality and deep connection.

My inner wrangling is a reflection of my unmet longings and an opportunity of confessional. Opening myself in soul confession is something that has bit by bottom most recently though at the best of times, authentic confessions have built constructive relationships.

Focus on that true memory: authentic confessions build constructive relationships, soulful friends, faithful and vibrant companions.

It is with people who are not aligned that I have fallen flat.

Here is to laments and the celebrations that come from the light within.

Here is to the antagonists and the inadvertent transformation they spark.

Here is to me, in my wobbly embrace of my narrative, your narrative and her narrative. It feels so good to find my smile after kicking around in this rubble for a day (which I realize now was a well spent day afterall.)

Julie JordanScott is a creative life coach, writer, poet, Mama extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here.

She is so thrilled to announce the next session of the Passionate Women’s Writing Circle is open for registration. Find out more and
Join the upcoming Passionate Women’s Writing Circle which begins again on Friday, February 1. Click for details and to sign up now.

Sacred and Strategic: Welcoming the Return to Heart

December 14, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Last night two exceptional things took place: I chose to light a candle before I sat down for my evening writing time and in doing so I claimed the time as sacred.

Before I went to bed, I blew out the candle and as strange as it may sound, my notebook insisted I take the time to do my evening sacred journal time.

My sacred strategic journaling time, something I have wanted to do consistently but had challenges making into a regular ritual.

I fell asleep later than expected last night and yet I am awake again before 6 am, writing. My life long lover – writing and the creative process – who I have been neglecting and in neglecting my writing practice I’ve also been neglecting myself.

Sacred. Set apart. Loved.

The action of writing, free flow, journaling is sacred. When I recognize and complete the act I recognize the blessings I receive in taking the simple action. It is the opposite of neglecting myself and my intention, it is bathed in spirit and love and it says “You have chosen yourself, you have chosen to invest in your vision, you have come inside it instead of pressing your nose against the window of it.”

Somewhere in the past few years at some time, it doesn’t matter right now exactly when and where, the last lingering shred of my daily practices fell away. I did them less often than I didn’t. I didn’t make excuses, I didn’t talk about it I didn’t even notice enough to put voice to their absence. Unconsciously, I pushed away what kept me the most productive and happy. I didn’t even look up as they exited the room.

A metaphor hovering above my fingers is “your lack of devotion to your practices closed your heart-door” and along with it my mind-brain door. And while I looked pretty ok on the outside, if one looked closely – it was obvious.

Now I’m back, now I am taking action – in the book-ends of sleep and waking. Three days in and a part of me says “You can’t call yourself back yet,” but I do and I am.

Yes, I had been writing – but it wasn’t as much of the free flow style, writing simply to write that quenches the thirst of my spirit, that actually soothes the underbelly of what’s showing up as “wrong” in life and understands clearly it is all simply process.

This was sacred. And I forgot it.

Last night, I picked it back up and held it in the candlelight.

I remembered. Sacred.

Sacred is back and I am, too.

I am sitting in the center of the sacred chambers of my heart, moving my fingers on the keyboard allowing words to find their way whether good or bad or boring – the letters and words are no longer stalled. I’m declaring the end of my prison term, the completion of my punishment and the return of the daily sacred, of experiencing the transcendent joy in the extraordinary ordinary, I am devoting myself a bride to my own worth and return to the safe haven of self-love.

I realize some people will find this entire public written display to be quite odd.

So be it.

This post came from engaging with the 7 Magic Words process from Marisa Goudy. Find out more here.

Gratitude: Ordinary Beautiful & You

December 14, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

What am I grateful for in 2018?

I’m staring across the room, looking at a candle I lit about a half hour ago as I settled in to see who I might connect with: what like hearted people, people with whom I might build a positive relationship in order to make this world a better place through writing and the creative process.

Now I am quiet, attempting a go at naming only three things I am grateful for in 2018.

Only three. I am setting the timer to write for five minutes or else I might get stuck trying to make this perfect, which it will be no matter what, anyway.

I am grateful for tenacity. In early Summer things looked ridiculously bleak. After the year started with such promise, but July, I was despondent. It wasn’t until the last six weeks or so that I felt consistently better about myself and about the year.
I am grateful I started reaching out again to different people thanks in great part because of local groups and people using social media. I found KWESI and my new Cameroonian family and I took that extraordinary day trip to the Tejon Ranch artist in residence day that was so spectacular my mood was bright for weeks afterwards. That was a really big thing I almost missed but I hung in there and did it. So grateful.
I am beyond words grateful to everyone who is participating in Bridge to the New Year. I have cried repeatedly to Paula who started it with me because I have wanted to do something like this for years, literally, and in doing it I feel like I am shedding a lot of excess ugly thoughts and no longer constructive attachments. I am looking forward to more people showing up in the last two weeks of December and am excited to be adding a week of brain dumping into the mix, too. Every day in every way, better and better and better.

I purposefully didn’t add “big things” (except for The Bridge) because I know gratitude best in the small moments, the day to day, the extraordinary ordinary. A lit candle, the voice of my son asking me for something or another, a clean desk. Grateful. For you reading? Thank you, more than you know.

What are you grateful for?

Our group is ready for you, even if all you do is read along with us your presence is valued.

Click here to connect with us and become involved in the group and/or the upcoming livestreams.

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

December 13, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

“Turmoil stimulates” Thomas Leonard

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

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

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

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

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

Life, honey, life happened to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December 1, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Today’s prompt:

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

My first thought was:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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