Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Explore “Everyday” Passion, Even During These Pandemic Times

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You might think to yourself, as many do, passion is this huge experience, this mountain-top time of pure, unadulterated delight. 

Today, I am inviting you into everyday, ordinary passion – because this is the space in which life may begin to truly feel vivid and refreshed and ready to be lived again, even in the midst of this negative, life abrupting pandemic time. At the bottom of this blog post, there is even a mini-writing workshop video so you may try the prompt right here and now, “almost live”.

It happened again to me this morning. I was feeling very committed to staying grouchy. I was resentful of the oppressive heat rolling through California which kept me from walking around outside to keep up my daily walking practice. I discovered I was self-triggering when I walk inside because in the past I only walked like that when I was excessively agitated.

I did it anyway. I walked around the house – up and down the hallway, into the dining room, a swing through the kitchen and back again. Up down and around. Up down and around. Up down and around.

As I was walking I thought about an art challenge and my ideas for today’s prompt. Surprisingly I didn’t think how bad my idea was in relationship to others I had seen so far. I walked my loop a few more times before plopping myself into a chair at my project table and simply starting to make a tiny work of art.

I didn’t think about what I was doing, I simply did it.

My thoughts left, my inner grumbling silenced, my first mistake was tossed aside and then I was finished almost as quickly as it took to get started.

Now I had a smile on my face. 

Now I wasn’t grumpy.

Now I was ready to get the other tasks done on my to-do list.

Now I was looking forward to the rest of my day.

This, my friends, is ordinary passion.

This, my friends, is how something so plain and minor and insignificant can become a method to making the best from a challenging time.

Mary Oliver said, “Let the world have its way with you, luminous as it is – with mystery and pain,  graced as it is with the ordinary.”

Instead of stopping your natural rhythm and flow by staying committed to the blahs and blocks which may have been holding you back, now is your time to grace your life with your ordinary passion – and before you know it, the everyday stuff of life will shine. The everyday, mundane, not-even-energizing-enough-to-be-annoying will become a gift. 

You may choose to grow from your pain.  You may choose to breathe life into the ordinary.

Imagine it: mundane moments, becoming fertile ground for passion. Extraordinary-ordinary passion is in your everyday life.

Let’s write about it,together.

Think about the “little things” you really enjoy.

Walking past the rosemary bush with its hauntingly inviting scent.

That moment when you step into the shower after a long day at work or at the beach (or the moment you step out of the shower.)

Your first sip of cold water after a run.

That moment when you finish a puzzle or a project or a game that makes you smile so wide you’re glad you have ears so your smile won’t wrap around your head.

This is the world, having its luminous way with you.

Let’s write it:

My recent moment of everyday passion was when _______. What made me feel so happy was…… (and now, you write, starting with writing for five minutes reliving that experience of everyday passion. Write the details, keeping them as engaging as possible.)

We’re ending your blahs and blocks that so many are experiencing right now by using inspiring, mind-and-heart opening prompts that will help you gain clarity about what is the most important right now.

If you want to continue exploring and feeling better instead of worse, join us for our #5for5BrainDump experience. Writing for just 5 minutes a day for 5 consecutive days with curated prompts for exploration.

Would you like to participate? Two ways to do so. One is by receiving an email every day when #5for5BrainDumps are in session. The other is by joining our Word-Love Facebook Community.

Both options are available right here:

To receive an email with a private video message and writing tips, please subscribe to our #5for5BrainDump Email List:

To participate in conversation with other participants, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

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. 

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Rumi, A Walk in the Park & You

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The front door to my heart rang this morning. When I opened the door, I heard a subtle invitation:

“Would you like to spend your haiku time today at the

Panorama Vista Preserve?”

I thought for a moment as I got into my car, “Oh, I might indeed want to go to the Panorama Vista preserve this morning. Hey – that’s a cool idea, I was considering where to aim myself to write my haiku- I might just take you up on that idea.”

The knock on my heart wasn’t totally unlike the concept of someone saying “May I buy you a drink?” or “Would you like to go to the movies?”

Once there, my senses and my heart opened fully to whatever it was my host aimed for me to see. 

My being human is a guest house, I thought. Divinity swings by sometimes with assignments I may choose to take or not take. I have the option of writing and storytelling and sharing or not sharing. No matter what happens – even nothing – there is learning and growing as a result. 

Today as I tromped along the dusty, recently horse travelened path, I was astonished about the new things I saw: two no-longer-alive trees called to me as they stood, towering over the smaller, well cared for bushes and plants planted by the Kern River Conservancy folks.

I found a bench farther along the path than I have ever found before – because I had never walked that far. This morning I didn’t set out to see new things or walk farther than I had before, it just happened because I opened the door to receive the invitation and responded.

I allowed myself to be further romanced by dead trees at sunrise and because of that, I moved forward farther and with more strength and sure-footed than I was the last time I visited.

This time, I saw more bunnies hopping around there than I had ever seen. They made it into my haiku. I heard a different sort of bird than I am used to hearing. I posted a video on my daily haiku sharing and have started a conversation to find out what sort of bird I was hearing.

I was able to fully embrace the dusty, burnt plants air and admire the work of the Kern River Conservancy in their outdoor green-house. When I first visited here a good ten years ago there were lots of those dead-looking trees, not an abundance of native plants under cultivation.  

I sat on the new-to-me bench to write and it was because of my quiet that more animals grew to trust me and made themselves known.

This being human IS a guest house. My guests include you – and the animals I saw – the egret, the bunnies, the insects, the birds-I-can’t-quite-name-yet. 

Each aspect of this experience was and is sacred. Each aspect is profound enough for me to remember so that tomorrow, I will open my heart so that more guest house visitors will be welcomed in.

I forgot to mention the ending of this story.

I walked back to the parking lot and a car that had been idling for at least twenty minutes started moving, doing donuts and making huge circles of dust in an out-of-control way. I hurried to get seated and get the ignition on so that I might be able to write this. I stumbled and was flustered and before I could even begin to move, the other car was driving away. 

One moment, my heart was pounding and full of fear and the next, I felt safe. I allowed the momentum of the love and joy and witness of the sacred in the ordinary guide both my writing and my experience. Yes, the wacky-scary donut driving car experience also happened, but the one negative didn’t overshadow the beauty because I knew “I am being a guest house, not a house of horrors.”

I look forward to going back and walking further than the two dead-looking trees and the second bench. I will continue to follow the flow along the current of the sacred where I know every morning there is a new arrival waiting for me.

I wrote this post in less than 5 minutes using the same methods we use in the #5for5BrainDump experience: we write from a prompt for 5 Minutes for 5 consecutive days and as a result, some pretty magical insights take place… and new pieces of content are born. This five minutes will, I know, be used in social media posts beyond this blog post – and reliving this morning’s experience in words makes it even that much more sweet.

Simply use the prompts from the image above to begin your renewed writing experience. All it takes is 5 minutes.

It’s all waiting for you to simply say yes. Thank you for reading.

To receive an email with a private video message and writing tips, please subscribe to our #5for5BrainDump Email List:

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To participate in conversation with other participants, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

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. 

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

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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.

To receive an email with a private video message and writing tips, please subscribe to our #5for5BrainDump Email List:

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To participate in conversation with other participants, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

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. 

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For the Love of Intention: Acting with Flow for Your Best “What’s Next”

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You are worthy of positive results: set your intention and create a path, always. Person walking through tall grasses, blazing a trail.

Do you know that person? The one who is always stopping you when you’re on a roll, talking about something you’re setting forth, a hope a dream a plan and then that voice pipes up, “What’s your intention here?”

That person speaking up is more than likely me, if we’re together.

Here’s the secret underneath that chronic question: When we start with with intention we are claiming and activating something similar to when we pull back the bow and release the arrow. We are engaging ourselves to take energetic steps on this same spiritual road the arrow takes toward a destination. Do you follow?

Intention is the road, it is the journey, it is the path.

Intention may initially feel like full steam ahead in a linear sprint but here’s the beauty: the road isn’t usually straight and I don’t believe arrows are actually perfectly straight, either.

How about we just let go of the idea that straight one-way-only push push push is the only way to approach life or business or love or anything that matters?

We’re stepping into intention because it matters to have an idea of where your heart most wants you to end up. Like my friend Henry David Thoreau was talking about when he 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.’

When I throw anything the air is a part of the journey, even if the destination includes a mud puddle.

Basket of possibilities: a beige basket with towels and flowers, an image of self care

Let’s pick up our basket of possibilities and have the courage to consider taking aim. There’s no wrongs possible here. You’re good and you’re surrounded by good.

What’s your intention here?

==@ ==> ==@

The Joy of Writing for Magnetic Attraction: Title in a Circle to Set Your Words Free + cursive writing

We’re opening our hearts and our notebooks for our next Writing Adventure Challenge: Writing for Magnetic Attraction: the series to amp up your writing. For exclusive content via email, sign up for the list below. To participate in the writing community join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community. You may also find us outside the group (if groups aren’t your thing) on Facebook at Writing Camp with JJS, pn my YouTube channel and on Periscope (so if you are on twitter, you will see it there at the same time).

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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 promps from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, be inspired and re-start your 2020 even if you have been hopelessly stuck in the “everything sucks” space. The Bridge to the New Year Space is welcoming, it includes weekly goals and intentions AND it is free to be a part of it – simply invest your energy in the community and it’s all good!

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Connect: Keep the Channel Open – to Your Past Self & Your Present Wisdom

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A dancer, along with the words "Keep the Channel Open" a nugget of wisdom offered by Martha Graham and continued in this blog post by Julie JordanScott

This is the story of how Facebook Memories reminded me of something and may remind you of something you said or did or made that is still relevant and rather than just let it pass by, you decide to reach into that memory knowing the message is meant for someone right now.

Are you the someone waiting to hear this message?

Flashback to a moment in time from four years ago, complete with a video LiveStream with a lot of excellent content toward the bottom of the page.

Mixed media art of a girl climbing a tree with the Martha Graham quote, There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."

I wrote for five minutes (yes, a #5for5Brain Dump!) on the topic of “Keep the Channel Open” which is the foundation, the grounding and the divine inspiration behind this quote.

I primed myself by repeating in my mind “Keep the Channel Open….Five minute write….”

As I often do, I took a deep breath before beginning to write.

“Keep the channel open, Julie… keep the channel open.”

This quote has meant so much to me, to remind me why it is important that I do my work – that I engage with the people who might be served by my work and to just keep doing it, even when kerfuddled or bewildered, like I feel today.

Keep the channel open when bewildered or kerfuffled, which I don’t even know whether it’s a word or not.

Keep the channel open even when tired, because sometimes keeping the channel open means going to sleep. Sometimes it means laughing out loud at something ridiculous, like Cameron’s cartoon character version of answering the phone today.

Keep the channel open may mean reaching out to friends and saying, “I’m not feeling well,” and instead of believing somehow they will hate you for the rest of your life, they will receive your words with grace, thinking “How may I come alongside Julie so that she may feel better and more capable tomorrow?

Keep the channel open may mean looking at someone with a wide open heart, even if that person has hurt you repeatedly.

Keep the channel open so that you will be the patron saint of “alive and well and present and warm. And feeling loved, even and especially while fast asleep.”

Keep the channel open so that you may be superbly human and transparent, fiercely super powered so you may take on any challenge with panache. And…

There is applause coming from inside my computer from my timer saying “your writing time is up!” which makes me laugh. Remembering this will keep my channel open!

After I wrote this, the “channel stayed open” and this livestream was created.

Click on the link that starts with pscp.tv to watch the video from this exact date in 2016.

I watched this video and felt so deeply connected to so much of what I said. Last week I was back at Hart Park in the middle of the day because I was stuck in what felt like a hopeless block. I saw this same spot where I broadcast. It is almost as if the past me was waving to me, inviting me to come close to the memory. To remember about keeping the channel open, again and again and again.

More writing prompts from this memory are open as I continue to keep this channel open today – and in next week’s #5for5BrainDump session. To participate, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

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. 

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Stop the Writer’s (or any) Block Before It Stops You

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Block – the brick wall – it shows up for the best of us.

If people insist they don’t know what it feels like to be stuck or blocked or feel resistance, I would question their authenticity.

Maybe I am judging my imperfection or maybe I recognize nature ebbs and flows and as we are a part of nature, block is bound to happen. What matters is what we do as individuals when blocks appear.

Randy Pausch shared this quote which I return to whenever the block starts to feel too big:

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”

A brick wall with plants on the side including a quote from Julie Jordan Scott "Blocks appear in order to reconnect us with our desires." and the prompt: "When I started this, what was my intention?" BONUS: Restart your writing with a sentence (or more) of gratitude.

1.  Leave “the problem” of block where it lives. Walk away and restrict your thought about the block itself, especially if those thoughts are coated in negative self-talk.

2.  Do mundane, meaningless activities, especially if they will be of service to others.

3.  If you are compelled, research another area of passion in your life.

4.  Stay away from the “problem” until you are at peace with “it” and, in fact, are able to not consider it problematic anymore.

5.  Remember, it isn’t “the problem” that is the problem, it is your opinion about the problem that creates the lack of movement and the sticky malaise. If you say “Writing block sucks!” it will suck. If you say “This block is giving my opportunity for growth – and in the future I will warmly embrace growth without the block!”

I took my own advice when I was blocked yesterday – and once again my writing flows, proving sometimes the best medicine for what ails you is to step away and focus anywhere except “the block” or “the problem” or “my ridiculous inabilities.”

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, 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. Join us now in mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. 

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Refresh Your Beliefs: the 2020 Version

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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.

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

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. 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!

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Saturday, In the Park: Better than the 4th of July

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For writers there is no.... and a writer is using a purple pen on her open notebook to capture thoughts as she waits for a friend to call and go on a walk with her.

This week my friend Kelly and I started walking together even though we live hundreds of miles apart. She calls me and off we go, walking. This morning I felt even more ambitious than usual. I was in a new space for my haiku sunrise photo, so I started the day with an early walking start. The moonblossoms that called out to be photographed in the sunrise were in the distance.

I thought briefly I might call Kelly and say “Never mind, I walked today!” Then I thought, “I’ll go to that other park down the street and write while I am waiting for Kelly’s call.”

Mornings are literally the only cool-ish time in Bakersfield in the Summer. I enjoyed the mid-seventies sunshine and scribbled in my notebook. I was having so much fun in this “waiting” time so I wrote, “When you are a writer there is no….” and I thought “what a great writing prompt!” but my purple pen did not want to stop so i wrote “there is no waiting time. There is observing, listening, sniffing, reflection and awareness. There are toe dips into patience and scratching against buried treasure of thoughts. There is the occasional deep sinking dive bomb of awareness, there are tiny yellow flowers others don’t see. There are animals who get used to you and your stillness so they get closer and funnier so much so you almost hope whatever it is you are waiting for won’t show up after all.

And then the phone rang and it was Kelly. Time for my second walk of the day. I included stairs and hills and wider smiles along with the huffing and puffing.

Another rich, rewarding start to my day!

How has your day been so far?

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

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. 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!

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How to Use Moments of Gratitude to Improve Your Life (and the lives of others)

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Gratitude is both tender, like a tiny shoot of a plant rising up, and fierce, like that same shoot that managed to push its way up through densely packed, dark and heavy soil. 

Gratitude has been one of my faithful friends when other friends went silent, tunneled underground so I wasn’t able to reach them. Or maybe it was I who went underground and it was gratitude who lowered a ladder for me to climb up on.

Gratitude is one of the highest forms of energy available to us.

For these and many other reasons, today we began our time together in #Refresh2020 using gratitude and gratefulness as the focus of our first prompt.

It is a solid, deep and wide foundation for us to build upon as we move forward in 2020 with purpose and passion. 

When we make that determined decision to “do 2020” differently, we aim to do it better. We can learn from experiences of gratitude. We can grow from holding space for grateful moments to continue.

What we know now that we might not have known in January 2020 is this:

  • Aspects of the world are chaotic. They may get even more chaotic, they may stay the same. We can’t say they will get better or worse or anything. We just know that around us, there is a whole lot of chaos and dissension.
  • We don’t know when the pandemic will be over. We don’t know when a vaccine will be available. We don’t know when it will be safer for people like me – with health issues – to function similarly to how we did in the past. This is similar to war-time. People have survived in times of not-knowing-when for generation after generation. We can do it now, too.
  • We don’t know how many more (metaphorical) shoes will drop. For now, I am considering it to be a centipede of many colors. I can admire the colors or I can go into my hole and complain about it or go into my hole and write a lot of stories about a centipede-free world. I would rather be out among the people, helping it to be a better world whether or not there are centipedes.

Our intention is to experience the rest of the year differently.

We are adding to our expanding knowledge about how to use gratitude as a tool. When we recognize the power of simply sharing and remembering experiences of gratitude causes us to be elevated to a higher level of consciousness.

When we continue to step into this awareness by taking aligned action, our personal satisfaction and rewards will be many. We will laugh more, get more tasks done with more ease – and we will lead a happier life.

Application: Take your list of five experiences you are grateful for and use them as creativity and conversation prompts.

Creativity Prompts

Video: Take 5 minutes and make a video telling the story of that moment of gratitude.

Writing: Take 5 minutes and write the story of that grateful experience. BONUS: Hand write the story in letter form and mail it to the people you were with who became “characters” in your gratitude story. Add individual thanks for each person. Here is an example from my list.

Conversation Prompt Tips: When you see a friend or family member begin to rant about how terrible living in this time of chaos is, let them wind down and start a new conversation about what experiences they are grateful for from 2020.

Warning: some will say “Nothing! There is nothing to be grateful for in 2020.”

In those situations you may turn and walk away (without a retort is best). Take a second breath and share one of your experiences. It’s an extra bonus if your gratitude experience includes them.

Intention + Passionate Action = Purposeful rewards

When was the last time you had a conversation with someone about being grateful, especially in 2020? How might you start that conversation?

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

Julie JordanScott is The Creative Life Midwife and 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 find out more and register to receive emails.

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Let’s Share the Good of 2020: Visiting Family #Refresh2020

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Last year I repeatedly said I was going to visit my parents in Flagstaff. I was going to go to Flagstaff alone and it was going to be wonderful. 

In April 2019, I was so burned out from care-taking and worrying and self-imposed pressure I decided I would go right after Samuel’s high school graduation. But then my volunteer activism continued to be heated and then the budget dried up and then…

There were a couple trips to Las Vegas to get Samuel to orientation and then to move him to school. His needs came first. 

And then I almost died in October. No traveling then. 

I considered somehow squishing it in post Thanksgiving but I really wasn’t feeling well enough for that much driving. And then there was the family adventure to the East Coast for Christmas which was excellent but completely stretched my post-illness abilities and budget restraints again.

In 2019, I never went to visit my parents in Flagstaff.

On our last night visiting with Katherine, my daughter, and Donald, her husband in December, we played a game which focuses on resolutions and goals, mission and vision (sounds like my ideal game, doesn’t it) where vulnerability and sharing stories are a given. 

I stated again, “This year, I am going to visit my parents. Around my birthday, I am going to visit my parents. I can’t keep putting it off.”

My birthday is at the end of January.

January came and my birthday left and in February, something that felt like a miracle occurred. Emma and I drove to Flagstaff. She originally wasn’t going to come with me, but I decided it would be good for her to visit with my parents, too, so off we went.

Two older people and their twenty-year-old granddaughter visit at the kitchen table, happy to see each other.

It was truly a fantastic experience. Having Emma with me helped me in numerous ways, but I especially loved hearing my Dad talk to her with his usual enthusiasm. No other grandkids there to compete, just her.

We didn’t rush around like we usually do, we simply visited and talked, talked and visited. Emma and I had a motel room and explored downtown Flagstaff with its vibe so aligned to us. We woke up one morning to snow and thoroughly enjoyed the Lowell observatory, just like we had when Emma was a little girl.

We made plans for our next visit, which we planned to make after picking up Samuel after Spring semester at UNLV but that didn’t happen because of Covid19. My mother was hospitalized in the Spring and there was no way I would put my parents at risk by visiting them as much as I would feel reassured if I saw them.

I am so grateful I finally took the road trip, that I took it with Emma, and that no matter what I will hold this memory close to my heart. For that, I am so grateful.

What is one (or more) experiences you are grateful for so far in 2020? Bonus: after you create a list, write about at least one of them for five minutes or more, like I wrote about one of my experiences of gratitude in this blog post.

Our #Refresh2020 prompt on July 7 requests we make a list of 5 experiences in 2020

This blog post was inspired by a prompt from #Refresh2020 – a 3 week initiative during July 2020 to intentionally explore our experiences of 2020 so that we may continue the year with purpose and passion, even and especially if chaotic circumstances continue to erupt around us.

We will be holding space for the unknowing and aiming for our best, even if we don’t know what that best is. If that compels you, consider spending the next month or so with us. Click the image below to connect or ask me any questions yo

Refresh 2020 is a Three Week Pop Up experience to address experiencing 2020 from a fresh perspective. Flowers are the frame, showing optimism amidst the primary unpleasantness that has been indicative of much of 2020.

Join the conversation in our private  Bridge to the New Year Facebook Group

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