Storytelling – Creative Life Midwife

How to Build Your Castle (and Live Your Truth)

May 18, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 4 Comments

Build Your Castle. Live Your Truth! A sky at sunset with clouds in the air echo sentiments from Henry David Thoreau. This title graphic also suggests a fun introduction of living with vision through knowing your beliefs and gracefully taking aligned action as a result.

This week I am doing something radical, or at least feels radical.

I am taking a week off to regroup: to rekindle my love affair with the work I do (creative life coaching, facilitating groups on topics ranging from soul development to writing masterminds to social media how-to’s, speaking and writing). As I habitually do, I rose to the occasion when the pandemic came and people needed support – and I had what was needed – a zoom room, creative thinking and a deep desire to make a difference.

I created context and off we ran, meeting seven days a week at first. Then six days a week.

I was running out of sizzle and self-care so with my son’s return from college a perfect segue, I opted out of work-related activity for this week so that I may put my vision in place, like Henry David Thoreau said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

This week is about building the foundations for my castles.

I suppose things don’t “officially” kick off until tomorrow, but I have been deep cleaning, setting up systems and digging deep into my memories as I write, reflect, write and reflect. Tonight I am on laundry detail. I have been using my timer to keep track of “clean now, create next. Create now, clean next” and so far, I am seeing results.

My personal dreams have been on-hold for a long time. For me the quarantine and stay-at-home orders didn’t feel all that unfamiliar: I was used to not being able to do what I want to do. I would do whatever it took for my children to collect successes while I cheered them on, but my place was to step aside making sacrifices and rearranging my plans repeatedly.

Even though we are still staying-in-place, my heart is flying even now because I have gained so much clarity about what my gifts are, what my beliefs are and what my fears, blocks and barriers are that I am more excited than a child awaiting her birthday might feel.

The life shifting conversations started last week and became this video:

What “name” would you like to claim for yourself, like I claimed philanthropist and visionary and others proclaimed oracle, artist, creative and more?

What do you need to believe about yourself in order to fulfill on proclaiming that truth about yourself, loud and proud and sure… and how will you act in alignment with your truth and beliefs?

These are not small questions to answer, so please take your time – and if you would like to talk to me more about these subjects (or others) please don’t hesitate to send me an email or text or call me.

This graphic shares contact information in order to discuss the questions asked in the video and in the article itself. To call or text it is 661.444.2735. EMail is juliejordanscott@gmail.com

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. Next week’s theme of Aware of Abundance #5for5BrainDump program will focus on using writing as meditation to focus and release blocks or an upcoming writing circle or writing for social media programs.

What We Can Do: Grief in this Present Moment

April 19, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 3 Comments

Woman sitting on a high pole, contemplating the ocean in front of her. Questions: Shall we name this unnameable presence? Who is brave enough to speak, write and be with it?

“Grief seems to create losses within us that reach beyond our awareness–we feel as if we’re missing something that was invisible and unknown to us while we had it, but now painfully gone.”

Brene Brown

Have you had this feeling lately?

You aren’t quite able to name what is wrong, what is missing, what is causing you to feel wobbly energetically, but you know there is something you can’t quite name there.

We can’t quite put our finger on what it is and in not being able to name it, this feeling, this missing substance and form hovers invisibly yet obviously causing emotional bleeding inside. It was only several weeks ago experts recognized grief as a factor for most of us: grieving the “small” losses of convenience, everyday expectations, “normal” life as well as the larger experiential losses. Students reaching toward graduation unable to participate in ceremonies and celebrations. Separation from family and friends, the pain of not being able to ease another’s suffering with physical presence.

PROMPT FOR CONVERSATION, CONTEMPLATION AND CREATIVITY

Water color image with a prompt based on Brene Brown quote and the Elizabeth Bishop Poem, "One Art" The Prompt says "Consider a moment in time when you didn't have a name for something that is now familiar. Write about coming to know the name. Begin getting to know your currently nameable. Write more.

I notice now as I paused to write and name the unnameable I haven’t even mentioned death. The constant, the numbers of deaths on the rise due to Covid19 some feel more comfortable ignoring – even as the reality is the virus we are fighting is highly contagious. Like cancer, it isn’t always lethal yet its lethal nature is a possibility continues to exist.

We are living in a grief and loss container of unknown depth and length. We have no time-line and we are all inexperienced at living in and through a pandemic.

There are no currently living experts who have “been through this before” to show us the way.

Maybe our first grief to practice is simply letting go of the need to define, to have or create a definitive timeline, to be able to set exactly the goal you would most like to set that has any variable outside your home.

PROMPT FOR CONVERSATION, CONTEMPLATION AND CREATIVITY:

Water color image with a Prompt to start a list of "Small losses" you have experienced during the last few weeks. Free writing about three of them, specifically to ease the pain.

There is no container for us to pour our grief into, no knowing exactly when this will end or what the new normal will look like.

The only slightly similar experience I have had personally is the cycle I experienced in earlier adulthood of longing for pregnancy, experiencing pregnancy only to experience death and then longing even more for pregnancy, waiting during pregnancy with a finite yet unknowable experiential path – and willingly putting myself through this cycle four more times.

My “after stillbirth” pregnancy was with Katherine. I remember holding the pregnancy test – absolutely positive – with a slight moment of inexplicable joy followed by ferocious anger and terror as I threw the test against the bathroom wall.

“What have I done?” I shouted to the emptiness.

My only personal experience with pregnancy prior to this was death and more pain than I knew was possible. There was no happy ending to smile into, to point to, no evidence that “everything would be ok.”

Today there are similarities.

There is no red bow to tie this story up with, no package or moral to this story. The closest to a gift I may offer you is this:

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Move forward with love. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Move forward with love. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Move forward with Love.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. She inspires people to live their life as an artform and take action towards their best results. 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. Join the conversation by registering for free by clicking this link.

Lessons from the Psych Unit

April 19, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 7 Comments

A hospital hallway, in a psychiatric unit, is especially stark and dreary. It can be mysterious for people who have never been there.

I can still feel it, the cold on my bottom, the slight pain from sitting on the linoleum floor at the psych unit at our county hospital. I was visiting a client, a conservatee, someone who had been deemed by the court “gravely disabled”. Gravely disabled is a legal term which meant they were granted me as a Deputy Conservator after a court process that repeatedly proven the individual needs substantial help for their care and treatment and they were unable to voluntarily accept help. The legal mandate may have changed int he last two decades, but then – when I sat on that linoleum floor – I was the person who was delegated to make choices regarding where certain people with mental illness would live, what medications they would have to take, what doctors they would see and what case managers would be responsible for their mental health treatment.

In this situation, the woman I was visiting was a favorite woman of mine – one I felt a certain kinship with even though she often had select mutism and didn’t do much talking. Sometimes she also refused to eat the food that was offered her, which was why she found herself lying in a hospital bed with me silently sitting on the floor beside her.

Maybe I could understand this because sometimes I had a difficult time responding when people asked me questions I didn’t want to answer. Maybe having a brother who was for the most part non-verbal had something to do with it. I wasn’t sure, but I knew there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be on that afternoon.

It might sound completely contrary: sitting cross-legged on the floor next to her bed in a locked psychiatric unit is not a particularly happy place to be, especially with nothing being said.

She knew I was there. I knew she knew and still we sat, silently.

I thought if I just sat without nagging her incessantly she might open up to me.

Which is exactly what she did.

She brought forward numerous stories about numerous people in her history. I agreed with all of it because who was I not to? I didn’t know what happened in Little Italy in 1960. I wasn’t born yet.

We bonded that afternoon like no one else who worked for the county ever had. Thenext time I went to a meeting about her care, I told a case manager and a supervisor if they didn’t stop their bickering about my client’s care and treatment I would find someone else who would do the job instead.

No one had heard a Deputy Conservator talk that way before. I was over the pettiness and I wanted better for this woman and together, we did get better.

Why?

Because I sat on the floor next to her bed and didn’t expect anything from her. I just sat there, my willingness to listen reflected in my cold bottom and my extreme, quiet tenacity.

Ever since that day I have longed for someone to do the same for me.

Who do I know who will sit on their ass on a linoleum floor without nagging me, just being with me?

I realize as I re-read this that I wrote yesterday, my time in the hospital showed me people who would sit with me. They oftentimes talked more than I thought necessary but that’s because most people who show up at a hospital are there out of kindness and want to make things better.

Most people think better includes talking. To me, better means being present without talking.

I also found other people who would sit with me after I got out of the hospital.

All people who visited me and sat with me are treasured.

I share gratitude for them all, even those who wanted to visit and couldn’t due to schedules or discomfort or many other factors.

When my brother John was in the process of dying, I would visit him in the hospital for hours at a time. He literally could not speak because he was intubated. He was not very verbal ever in his life so we had a very quiet, reflective relationship.

I loved sitting beside him silently. It was more than enough to be there, honoring him.

It is more than enough to bravely tell people we don’t know what to say or what to do and we want to be present for them, to listen without advice, to silently be there – presence being the ultimate purpose.

I saw my client’s obituary in the local newspaper several years after I stopped working at the county. I cried as I read it. As I finished writing this article, I listened to my memory to remember her name. I knew her first name and could easily bring up other women with her same first name, even one client who I worked with nearly forty years ago.

My brain brought her surname to life and I spoke her name aloud, a smile and a laugh following. She is still alive in my memory for the lessons she taught me and so much more. Some of the secret stories she shared I have never spoken to anyone else.

They will always be safe with me, my friend. I waited until you were ready and then I heard you.

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

Transforming the Sting of Shame to “Hey, I’ve Got This and Better!”

April 11, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 7 Comments

This morning someone I didn’t know did her best job to publicly shame me and now, about ninety minutes since the initial sting, my thought it, “Wow. I’ve been publicly shamed! That hasn’t happened for a while.”

I could have done what I once did which was fall to my knees in mourning as I pluck each of my marbles from the ground and skulked off, whether or not what the shamer was saying about me was true or not.

You might be lost in your wondering, “What did the shamer do to try to shame you?” I don’t want to give it undue attention and I know about curious wandering minds so here it is, in a nutshell.

I offered to create micro-communities on Instagram for a challenge I am in, small communities of artists and makers to support each other during the challenge.

Mixed media work in progress. The image includes a photo transfer of Botanist Alice Eastwood and acrylic paint on canvas - the beginnings of abstract flowers.

I had quite a few people agree being in a micro-community would be fun so for much of yesterday and a bit of the day before I put people into groups and contacted each person who said they wanted to be a part of this letting them know they were in and how to access the instructions.

One woman said she wanted to be in a micro-community and wrote a long reply, stating she had looked at my feed and deemed it not full of enough art so I must be a fraud, out to cause harm or worse yet, bring attention only to myself.

I took a breath and replied, sharing about my video project – and saying I had spent the last day and a half putting people into small groups and while I was at it, complimented her project.

Maybe to her I do look like a fake, possibly because my Instagram feed doesn’t look like hers. It looks like an eclectic blend of images – two of which on the first row were video screen shots and another was a poetry prompt and quote, the theme of my videos.

In a mixed media collage, a woman is holding a bouquet of tulips covering her face. She is atop a copy of a musical score and painted light blue textbook paper.

In her article, “Shame on you! Do you use shame to control others?” in Psychology Today, Melissa Kirk writes, “The reason shame works so well is because we’re wired to connect to and seek acceptance from others. Shame effectively withdraws that acceptance and connection.”

Ouch. She is describing what I have often called “Using shame as a verb.”

Today, I did something I didn’t used to be able to do.

I brushed the shame dust off my clothes by journaling, writing this essay, reading poetry and yes, I worked on the mixed media art piece I started earlier this week.

The biggest a-ha from the situation is this: the more I put myself out there, the more vulnerable I will be to people who are likely to want to use shame as a weapon against others who are not like them or who do not fit into their carefully delineated mode.

My job, instead of fighting back and creating more of an uproar, is simply to continue creating, to keep making, and to explore any niggling themes that are bothering me about the episode.

These may also be useful as future writing and journaling prompts when episodes like this happen again or if they may happen to you.

Is there truth in anything she said?
Is there something in my behavior I might modify?
What bothers me the most about what was said to me?
Is my motivation coming from the greater good?
Am I willing to have this uncomfortable feeling of shaming in order to make a difference in the world?

During my visit to Poetry Foundation website today, looking for poetry for my live-streams next week, I synchronistically found this quote:

“Poets aren’t just makers, they are doers,” says Don Share, editor of Poetry

I am a doer who also does her best to make the world a better place.

Sometimes my actions – my doings – may be misunderstood. I am strong enough to accept the “shaming-as-a-verb” that comes my way as a result because the work I do and the people the work impacts is more valuable to the world than this other person’s assessment.

Julie Jordan Scott sits on her porch drinking coffee from a Lowell Observatory mug

Laughter, Tears, Anger: All In a Days Work/Play

April 6, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 9 Comments

Young girl running around a park as the sun starts to set. She is feeling the freedom of transformation, even during troubling times and letting herself feel transformation in every step she takes.

Yesterday I laughed myself silly while I walked around a local park in a rather strange outfit posing for my camera that was propped up on a tripod sitting on top of an unoccupied park bench. At first I wondered why people were looking at me so funny. What was unusual about… and then I remembered. It isn’t every day a normal middle aged woman is walking around a park carrying a “magic wand” as if it was a saber, wrapped up in a scarf-as-close-to-Katniss as I could manage with a basket full of goodies including collagen powder, “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek and not one but two journals.

Woman dressed in a costume for some playfulness during quarantine. Part Katniss Everdeen, part Easter-Fairy, part weird aunt the artist, all in good fun.

I am blessed by creative friends who come up with multiple ways to express themselves creatively and invite others along for the fun of it. Most recently my friend Jessica created a Quarantine Scavenger Hunt.

Right now I am a free agent player: I didn’t want the pressure of being on a team because of my lifelong worry of letting my teammates down, failing them with my inability to achieve perfect gameplay.

My “perfect gameplay” is cavorting in public places being silly so this I could do.

It didn’t even matter that I was alone in this, I laughed and played and left “being normal” somewhere on the other side of town. What happened next fascinated me though.

Magic wand as a saber, a middle aged woman does some improvisational cosplay in a part while exercising during quarantine.

I had so much fun with my soul play that I came home and wrote. I didn’t just write, I dove into my words and my meanings and felt as if I was tumbling into the magical, mystical, unexplainable mysterious realm and that is not necessarily a place one wants to go without a companion or at least a flashlight.

I wanted all the noise in my mind to stop and I knew the best way to calm it and myself was to continue writing and continue fishing up images from my history so I could make sense of them, even if it felt dangerous.

Even if it felt unwieldy and even if I tore my clothes, opened up my scars and had to ugly cry alone through it all I knew I would get through it.

And then I got angry. Angrier than I have been in months, maybe in years. I was so angry, so over the top out of control angry I felt like I would burst. All of this happened silently.

.It’s true – it was all via text and in my notebook the rage fumed and it felt so good. I haven’t allowed myself much anger in small spurts so when it arrives it is a torrential downpour. I don’t believe in tarnishing other people’s experiences so my daughter who was in the same room may have had hints from my breath patterns, but she didn’t say anything.

Over text message, my friend Heather gave me a text blessing to let it all out and let it all go so I did exactly that I let it all out and I tuned into a youtube meditation about letting go which helped me get to sleep.

I woke up transformed.

I am not angry this morning, I am content. I am moving forward. I am grateful I was able to be as angry as I was and not pollute other people’s experiences. Maybe this is one of those positives of quarantine life, I am able to experience extreme anger but not show it on the outside and not let it destroy me on the inside which used to be an unconscious habit.

Now I am able to process creatively through conversation and making so that I engage my friend and they know what is happening with me (rather than retreating) and my art becomes even more layered and interesting.

I finished two poems yesterday I never would have had the courage to write if I hadn’t allowed myself the luxury of consciously expressed anger.

I am not suggesting knee-jerk, unconscious anger – I am offering an alternative to people pleasing, stepping aside, “I’ve got this under control” covered up anger and “blurting” anger with conscious, constructive, transformative anger.

Since we started experiencing limitations due to the pandemic reaching into the lives of Californians, I have suggested we give ourselves permission to feel whatever we need to feel.

That may mean soul play and hours later, transformative soul creativity and then transformative soul anger and back again.

This is a messy, confusing, first time for all of us experience.

While we may not enjoy every step of it, I urge you to stay with it keeping your eyes wide open. As best as you can, keep your sense of humor intact.

My fun moments of soul play unleashed the anger that needed to be expressed. Today, I am ready to dive in, unglued, again.

Thank you for visiting. Please tell me in the comments how things are going for you.

Feelings: Over Around and Upside Down Getting Through the Covid19 Pandemic

March 31, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 4 Comments

Weekends for me tend to be busier than weekdays and during these days of quarantine, it is not different. I stay where I am and I have the meetings I would have had out and about. I leave my home to write haiku and I come home and I have more meetings.

Earlier today I was so tired I really wanted to opt out of my later-in-the-day meeting but I didn’t. I was actually energized afterwards. Yay me for showing up anyway?

I did some decluttering and purposeful television watching (Little Fires Everywhere) and now, I give myself the gift of a touch of writing before I either make a video or do some decluttering or both.

I look back up and see the graphic I made earlier in the week,a quote. “A word after a word after a word is power,” and I think “She’s right. Margaret Atwood is right.”

What I was feeling before I sat down to write was anger.

I saw a writing prompt and it made me mad.

But I pushed that mad away and pretended it hadn’t existed and allowed the distraction to take center court and then again, “A word after a word after a word is power” so here I am.

I am angry. This unknown is stretching out in front of us with no end in sight is starting to get on my nerves. I can pretend it doesn’t bother me and get all into spiritual mode, but I am afraid to go into grocery stores and I am out of cranberry juice and that makes me feel angry, which highlights my privilege and makes me feel ashamed for getting upset about something like not having cranberry juice when lives are being lost.

Someone is texting me as I write and my phone buzzes. I more than likely don’t want to talk to them (or text with them.) Right now I would like chocolate. I am angry that my default is still chocolate. I am angry I have had a chocolate addiction for almost my entire.

My spiritual better half is whispering in my ear to practice self-forgiveness but my mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore side is escalating. Clackety clackety clackety up the roller coaster mountain my anger goes…no relief in sight. No relief in sight.

I put my head against the back of the chair and watched videos of my trip to the river this morning. I allowed myself to feel whatever was gurgling up. I stopped feeling angry and remembered I am in control of what I do with my anger.

There may not be the relief I would like to have and there is relief in knowing I have tools like writing, meditation, daily virtual Coffee Date Conversations, music, 27 fling boogies, art journaling, all of it will get me closer to feeling better even if these circumstances continue longer than I might want or like.

“A Word after a word after a word is power,” says Margaret Atwood.

My words, “I have the ability to process. I gain strength daily. I have the resources I need to get through this just like I’ve gotten through many other setbacks along the way.”

Grace flows because my heart knows – a word after a word after a word is power.

AFFIRMATION TO USE:

“Grace flows because my heart knows “A word after a word after a word is power.”

Writing prompt:

Right now I feel…… (write without editing or judgement. End your writing with 5 gratitudes and the affirmation, “Grace flows because my heart knows – a word after a word after a word is power.”

Women holding mugs of coffee, tea, mocha to represent a "virtual coffee date" held virtually during the 2020 pandemic. — Join us for our Virtual Coffee Date on Zoom, every day at 1:30 PDT. Click this link to register for free. Yes, even on weekends!

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.

Hold Onto Your Vision & Your Ideals – Even & Especially During This Pandemic

March 27, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

This afternoon I felt like a deflated balloon.

One minute I was smiling and energized and when I switched the off button if I didn’t have a body I might as well have just fizzled flat and evaporated instantly.

If I wasn’t myself and I was one of my closest friends I would have walked me to a comfy bed and tucked me in. “You need a break, Julie. You have clearly been pushing yourself… and doing a good job, too, by the way.”

Instead I stumbled into the fresh air on my front porch and called Jennie, my friend who once lived around the corner in her “zen house” where I used to go to get filled up when I felt like an emptied balloon.

I didn’t vocalize all of what was bothering me, but later I spent time writing and old storylines poured off the end of my pen.

So many worries about not being good enough, not succeeding in what felt like a true sense, not making a difference…. and even as I write these words I have the compulsion to add a caveat, “I am not writing this so you will either reassure me or tell me I am being ridiculous, I am writing these words because at this moment, at this time, it was what I felt.”

Having high ideals and wildly wonderful dreams is challenging enough when the world feels familiar, but in this surreal time when we feel like nothing works like it did just weeks ago, it feels impossible.

Here’s the thing: even though it feels impossible, moving forward anyway – allowing ourselves to recharge and get back into our purpose and our vision and try again – is my most important work right now.

There’s no saying “wait until tomorrow” with this.

Today is tomorrow.

I rested my head against the back of my chair. That makes no sense, today is tomorrow. Except in reality, I started this yesterday and am editing today – so yes: today is tomorrow.

I also know that sometimes when things don’t make sense they make the most sense of all.

Hold onto your high ideals and your vision. Allow your purpose to sustain you. Open your arms, your eyes and your pen to catch your “what’s next” even if you don’t quite succeed.

It’s our time to stay in the game.

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.

Mugs of coffee and comforting drinks connect us during this time of the 2020 Pandemic.

Permission to Feel & Love Grey (or Not) #covid19support

March 25, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife 6 Comments

A tree in the grey fog on a cold looking morning gives us permission to feel whatever we feel, thank goodness.

It is a grey day here in Bakersfield. I realized after being awake for about an hour I was feeling grey as well. Not dark, not light, just grey. Just grey simply grey and I didn’t and don’t have any fierce predilection to change.

I don’t even know if “predilection” fits there but I like how it sounds, so I am keeping it.

I overslept so I opted out of bed yoga and pre-rise meditation because I wanted to be on-time for my poetry livestreams.

It was cold on my porch, but I livestreamed anyway.

It is drizzling so I didn’t walk though I did take a photo of a sunshiney house in my neighborhood on a street I have always loved and wished I had the vision to push to buy the house on that cul de sac those thirty years ago when I was buying a home.

I decided to light candles and write because it is something I could do, right or wrong, I could simply opt into doing something.

My coffee is brewing and the smell is rising which brings me comfort.

The garbage was collected as always and that gives me an expansive feeling. Am I the only one who enjoys filling my trash can to be picked up? Because I house sit I have two trash cans to fill and I am doing it with such joy I think I must be more than odd and I accept that.

I give myself permission to be how I am and to feel what I feel and cherish this all whether I like it or not. I am holding my grey feelings close and loving them, not trying to change them or “make them better.” I am reminded my wedding china was “Glories on grey” by Lennox, partially because I truly love grey and partially because I deeply cherish the neighbor of my childhood, Mrs. Elder, who had a carefully curated Lenox collection. She took her time in choosing her china and the little me loved her for it.

These days of separate togetherness will look different from day-to-day and our feelings will vacillate – may we grant those around us permission to feel how they are feeling as we continue to grow in compassionate understanding to live and love what is.

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To register via Zoom, please visit here. We also have a Facebook Event where people within the conversation will see recaps of the Coffee Conversations and resources mentioned there. To mark yourself as Interested or Attending and to see what we’ve been up to, please visit here.

Stories are Waiting to Be Heard: Are You Listening?

March 9, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

What makes us better story tellers?

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved listening to stories. As I grew older, I fell in love with telling stories, both written and spoken. There is something sacred especially in telling about a moment in time in your life when something happened – something clicked and you knew… something you hadn’t known a moment before. It is in that knowing something new, that a-ha or epiphany moment that compels us to share whatever it was because we know, we just know, this may be a contribution to someone else.

It isn’t always easy to find a place to share our stories: with grown children there isn’t shared mealtime anymore and my friends are often busy with their own thing so when we are together we are sitting in a dark movie theater or seeing a play or talking about minutia rather than what matters.

As I wrote these words, I realized there is an a-ha within this situation itself. On those occasions when my stories are heard by others who value what I am saying, I feel my most alive. I feel valued, I feel worthy, I feel grateful to have people taking me and my message seriously.

I am a member of toastmasters so I have a regular, formal outlet for sharing curated stories which are then evaluated and assessed by my peers. This is helpful and heart opening and it isn’t necessarily the same as sitting around a circle for hours, speaking and listening with laughter and sometimes tears punctuating the vulnerable connections made because we are listening and speaking with our hearts.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we spent more time listening and speaking for no reason except for the joy of it?

Prompt for Writing, Creating, Conversation or Contemplation:

“When people listen to my stories, I feel…”

“When I listen to other people’s stories, I feel….”

5 Minute Writing Prompt: I remember the time last Fall when…. write about anything at all for five minutes without stopping, using shopping, Thanksgiving, Halloween or an unexpected surprise as your topic.

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

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. A writer, speaker, life coach and multi-creative who “walks her talk” she provides the world fuel for creativity, intentional connection and purposeful passion in order to eradicate loneliness and the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

astonished: an everyday guide to a more satisfying life

March 2, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Astonishment:to strike with sudden and usually great wonder or surprise.

I didn’t get to make a list of moments of astonishment like I suggested in the writing prompt for day 1 of the women’s history month writing prompt series because a perfect moment of astonishment seemed to be brought to life simply because I noted the need to be astonished.

Here is what happened: at the same time as I was busily making a graphic for the prompt, my friend Faith sent me a message saying she had a book she wanted to give me. “The Bone People” by Keri Hume. It was published in 1986 when I was an optimistic newlywed and never believed my life would become overly bothersome or filled with grief.

My friend said she had intended to read the book, described on Amazon as “a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where indigenous and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge.” As she held it in her hands, though, she had an unexplainable urge to give it to me.

When Faith arrived shortly later with not only “The Bone People” in her hands but several others tied with a purple and white ribbon, I assured her of my gratitude and my understanding that sometimes intuition rises fiercely and we are, at all times, to listen closely and follow it’s call as odd as it may seem to others.

I am one who doesn’t expect gifts.

Having her deliver an absolutely perfect gift to me was phenomenal, slightly confusing and absolutely wonderful. I am finishing my next fiction book and then, I will read this one, which she also doesn’t want back. “Use it to make black out poetry, or whatever you want with it. It is yours, not mine,” Faith said.

What would the world be like if it wasn’t so astonishing to receive an unexpected gift that was a perfect reflection of who you are, even to someone you are not particularly close to?

What would the world be like if this was completely ordinary – not to the point where we feel entitled to surprise gifts from friends, but it was like the expectation of seeing the crossing guard at intersections around an elementary school or the ubiquitous question of whether we would wear a sweater when the weather started to get cold?

This morning I had a humorous interaction that in the past might have upset me. Today, it simply made me laugh.

Not being hurt by someone else brushing me off like a piece of lint was a surprise, even more to retell the story and be compelled to laugh instead of being offended. Yes, this is definitely astonishing.

Over the next several days I will remain open to more astonishment.

I will continue to be grateful for the moments of awe and wonder – even at simple things – and invite surprising synchronicities to greet me as they will.

What has astonished you recently?

I encourage you to check out the prompt and use it to create. If you do, please come back and comment here so I may see what this astonishment inspired in you.

This post is a part of the Women’s History Month Writing Quotes & Prompts series from Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, and her Word-Love Writing Community you may join for free on Facebook. During March, there will be daily discussions on the quotes and prompts we present here, too. Join the conversation and improve your writing at the same time!