Writing Prompt – Creative Life Midwife

Let’s Grow Together: Vulnerability & Courage

July 14, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

How do you want to grow in vulnerability and courage?

Last Fall I was in the midst of a creativity flow that felt so divine, so exciting I stopped worrying about containing it and I started to be increasingly vulnerable.

It felt surprisingly great. I loved learning about the sign language for vulnerability.

I made this video which I trust will inspire you:

As quickly as it came, it left.

I got caught up in the Thanksgiving holidays and immediately after that, I was traveling again due to my aunt’s death and after that, I was preparing for Christmas and more travel and more family and here it is July and I am ready, again, to flex the courage and vulnerability muscle again.

I don’t want you to lose time in personal development. I don’t want you to wake up six month from now asking, “Why am I still in this same place I was when Julie JordanScott asked me the life coaching question… about courage and vulnerability?”

Have you watched the video yet?

I have started my vulnerability growth over on Medium, where I am writing almost daily about healing from a lifetime of feeling unloved and unwanted.

Click here to read the first essay in that series.

Have you watched the video yet?

It conveys how devoted I am to our collective growth in courage and vulnerability.

Please comment below – and if this and the video resonate with you, be sure to subscribe here and on YouTube so you won’t miss a thing.

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.

Take 5 Minutes: Reawaken Your Love for the Writing Process

July 5, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 5 Comments

Yesterday I attempted to write. I set my timer for five minutes – giving myself the gift of five minutes – and two quotes as my inspiration.

“When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.”

John O’Donohue

“My sun sets to rise again.”

Robert Browning

I am sharing my writing now as an inspiration to you.

Now, for the journey my writing chugged through….

There are so many distractions as I sit here and attempt to write for five minutes about awakening love for my writing process. I see a broom and want to sweep, I look at the clock and I want to assemble lunch for my children and get out into the money making flow “hurry it up hurry it up hurry it up!” I hear in my inner ear. Oh, Lord I can’t do it all – my anxiety reaches for my throat to shut my voice – my writing voice – down.

Five minutes. That’s all.

My fingers continue to move, on the keyboard focused.

Reawaken love for the process.

Let go of end result. Welcome bad or mediocre or luke warm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esque there must be results. There must be a something in order to continue I can’t just continue for a nothing that makes no sense.

Writing this is not a nothing, like when Cameron says “No one this or that and no one the other and…” he stares straight at me as he says this. “So I am a nothing and a no one, since I…”

Oh, yeah, that.

Process is worth all of the wonder and exhilaration of being on a best seller list or having twenty five people pay a thousand dollars to hear me speak.

Kathleen is pushing me and I am welcoming it.

My community is rising up to greet me and say “Bring your work forward with and for us” it is almost surreal, beloveds, almost surreal.”

If it was a job.

Is it still less than five minutes?

I heard the coffee pot call me, the coffee pot that has been creating really tasty coffee lately.

I think of the squirrel and planning and play. And me. And love. And movement.

And applause. All that in five minutes.

I like this!

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!

The Journey, The Home, The Gratitude

July 5, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 3 Comments

It’s funny how a change in routine threw me off my blogging course. It was after seven o’clock tonight when I remembered I hadn’t posted anything on my blog and I certainly didn’t want to “fail” only four days in to the Ultimate Blog Challenge!

Instead, I scooped up a prompt and an image I wrote several years ago and responded here.

This is the result:

The journey itself is my home.”
Matsuo Basho

Question: Write your personal definition of “home”

Home: such an easy definitions for most, but for me – not so much.

I have been longing for home for as long as I can remember and I don’t know that I’ve ever found it. I’ve owned real estate, I have lived under other people’s roofs and no, home remains nebulous.

The most at home I have ever felt is at places where I have never lived which makes no sense at all. I know Dorothy says “There is no place like home,” and it magically gets her back to the family that loves her – but that is as much of a fairy tale as any of the others be they Anderson’s or the Brothers Grimm or a wide variety whose names I don’t know.

Tonight I watched my next door neighbor get escorted out of her house wearing a shorty bathrobe with an older guy in an SUV that had some sort of “justice” emblem on the back. Where was she going? Was she leaving her home for something better, or the house-that-is-seemingly curse for who the heck knows what but it didn’t look very good.

My dog Beth is under my chair because the fireworks are loud and steady and scary to her. Am I providing a feeling of home for her as I tap the keyboard and she feels solace because I am with her? The doggie door is blocked for her own protection. She is probably frustrated that she can’t find escape but she doesn’t know there is even more noise out there than there is here.

Maybe that’s part of what home is: quiet among all the other noisy spaces. A comfort you can’t describe with words because it doesn’t quite make sense yet.

Perhaps defining home will be a part of my next work as my children are almost done growing up and moving out of this place which has given us shelter all these years in this town I have loved to have no feelings for beyond acceptance or resignation.

I do feel alive and enriched when I am on road trips, so the Basho quote rings a distinctive bell.

This journey: turning my heart toward home.

I hear children screaming from a home lit firework of some sort.

I hear Beth breathing below my feet.

I think, momentarily, “Maybe Gratitude is my journey and my home?” It sounds cliché, so I will let it sit in the center of my chest while I sleep. Perhaps there will be a message for me somewhere in those words tomorrow.

How to Use Your Text & Other “Throwaway Writing” to Make All Your Writing Easier.

July 3, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 5 Comments

The artists among us might say “Let’s Woo Your Muse” Clearly it is time to restore your writing voice now. Time to discover (or rediscover) the words within that are waiting to be written.

Your muse may have become jaded so these promps will restore your faith AND help you get your goodies on paper

Here’s what we’ll do. We will give you an inspiring quote and write a variety of prompts from it so you have a menu of sorts to elevate you to express yourself.

We are starting today with beat poet Allen Ginsburg. He is helping us figure out what to do with leftovers: text messages, emails, half written instagram captions, unfinished essays and novels we left behind in a pile of whatever thought or interruption came along to distract us.

Have you ever found stuff you put aside or buried in scraps and thought later, “This isn’t bad!”

Let’s scoop up the wisdom we’ve started and never finished and see what’s left to create from a new perspective.

Quote:

“Time’s left its remnants and qualities for me to use — my words piled up, my texts, my manuscripts, my loves.”

Allen Ginsberg

A remnant is a leftover bit of fabric like crumbs are leftover on the plate. When I was a little girl, my mom sewed much of my clothing, she would sometimes buy the remnants that were left on the end of a bolt after someone else used the majority of the fabric.

She would use it to make doll clothes or accent pieces on projects or, since she collected fabric like I collect books, sometimes we just put it away to inspire us.

Time’s remnants are leftover bits of that are connected to a specific time, space or experience and in Ginsberg’s quote, tidbits of writing. The texts he is speaking of are not like today’s texts, messages from one cell phone to another. He is talking about books written and not published.

Those tidbits hold the power of story within them: they are the substance of nostalgic “remember when…” conversations that make connect us to one another. Remember there is power in using storytelling in all our content.

I oftentimes suggest to my coaching clients and people in my workshops to glean or pick up bits and pieces of text messages and emails and Instagram posts to inspire or fill-in-the-blanks of other writing. The other place to look is remnants of memory or conversation.

A women is typing in the countryside, another way of looking at a remnant of time and words, launching inspiration into the air.

Questions:

What remnants has time left you? Pick one remnant and describe it as richly and fully as you can with words that relate to t=e senses, not abstractions like “wonderful” or “awesome”.

What remnants have you left in the lives of people you love or co-workers or even frenemies? Write a small tidbit of a story about one of the remnants. Use these as inspiration for characters in fiction or screen plays.

Lists:

Make a list of 5 – 10 remnants of time in your life you would like to make into a quilt. Be fanciful and true.

Make a list of 5 – 10 remnants of time in your life you would NOT like ANYONE to remember. Be honest, be vulnerable.

Traditional writing prompts:

From the lists and the original questions, choose one which resonates and write interchangeably from these prompts.

I remember….

I wish…

I think….

I can’t leave without saying there are no rights and wrongs as to following the prompts here. There is only showing up for your life and your creativity and using what inspires you to fulfill your dreams, passion and purpose.

You may also choose to use these as conversation starters. I imagine there could be many heartful discussions from what we have launched here.

Do me a favor: leave a comment to tell me which prompt you will scoop up first so that I may support you fully in this adventure of creativity.

I love nothing more than supporting your process.

When Flowers Speak about Abundance, Listen!

July 1, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 8 Comments

Join the Conversation. Allow Yourself the Surprising Joy that Arises as a Result.

My love affair with moon blossoms started during an exceptionally happy, satisfied time of my life when I would go to the river bed – an arroyo, a space that would house water if there was any to be housed, but at its best that season it was empty. This allowed me to sit in the center of it all and have great conversations, watch the sunset, howl with the moon and be surprised by the sounds of urban nature.

I fell in love with absence during that time: I understood something didn’t need to be there at all for one to acknowledge and love it anyway.

If the river had been flowing, I might not have noticed the heavenly scent of the moon blossoms, so pungent at night.

Last Friday night, I came upon my first blossoming patch of the season near twilight. None were fully open. They sat alongside a different portion of the flowing river. This summer, a lot of flow due to last winter, lots of rain and snow.

I had to go take a look, to pay homage to who I was and who I am and the presence of the moon blossoms amidst all of it.

Considering the current work I am doing, I made this two-minute video.

Please take a look:

Now, consider the prompt as an invitation to conversation. Bring it up with friends and co-workers. Ask on Twitter and make an Instagram post. “What is prosperity to you? How would you define it? When have you experienced it?”

Now – consider the moon blossoms.

“What is calling you to blossom, in darkness or in the light or anywhere? What is calling you to blossom into abundance and prosperity?”

Let the words flow, either on the page or in conversation.

A couple things before you go:

Take a moment to follow me on social media and on YouTube. If you are a blogger or writer across any genre, I offer valuable methods to keep your words flowing.

Leave a comment here, as a way of pledging your devotion and commitment to keep your writing prosperity, your word abundance flowing. If you would enjoy additional support I am offering to tag people in my daily instagram story time lapse posts as a way of saying “Ta-Da! I did it! I did my daily writing!”

The world is waiting for your words… let’s get them on the page now.

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!

Good Job, Dear Friend

June 23, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife 3 Comments

“I have turned away from myself, ” I thought, this morning.

A trigger, a “oh no not that!” feeling rose from my gut. It wasn’t a running away screaming with my arms flailing, it was a quietly tip toe away so no one notices and climbing into a corner behind a curtain so that no one would take notice of my disappearance and then….
I realized this is what I have habitually done.

Past, present and now with awareness may cross off my “to-do” list or “to be forgiven for when arises in the future” list.

So interesting, this self-witness thing because in the turning away from myself, I am actually turning away from the gifts I bring to this world, it is like shutting off a valve of all that is good and right and pleasing to others as well as myself.

Do you ever find yourself doing this? Please tell me I am not alone in this.

I give myself the gift of five minutes to write and I find myself holding my face in my hands like in “The Scream” by Edvard Munch except my face is lifeless and numb, not outwardly screaming at all but…..

Perhaps this is the quintessential Julie scream. Numb, not even noticing myself pull away until I have sunk into unconscious disconnection.

I look around the room. My messy art table, my floor that needs a once (or several times) over.

Note to self. You are seeing. You are feeling. You are writing. You are alive.

You have now turned back to yourself.

Well done, good and faithful friend.

Coffee as a waker upper today and through July

I’ve been absent from here. My intention is to write a five-minute-blog post daily (or as close as I’m able) starting in July and figured this was as good a time as any to begin. I literally grabbed a random photo as a header… it fit… and am looking forward to writing this week with the #5for5BrainDump I’m running this week. Here’s to taking off the numb and beginning again, again.

Your Writing Life: Write Your Love to the World

January 18, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

Poet Mary Oliver long ago reminded me, “My work is loving the world.” in her poem, “The Messenger.”

This single line in her well-crafted poem has shaped many choices I have made by asking myself, “How am I loving the world in this action I am taking?”

Sometimes I do a slight translation or edit to the original work when I ask “How is my writing loving the world?”

I write for different reasons at different times. Sometimes I write because my words may be of service. I write because I must. I write because I am a better human being when words splash on the page.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love wrote: “I write regularly, but in bursts, if that makes sense. I’ve never been burned by writer’s block, either. Writing is my love and my life, but it’s also a job.”

You may be in a couple spaces: you don’t have enough time to write.

You may be in a space where your writing lives within the “I gotta do it, I gotta do it, I must publish this blog post, but wait, there is laundry and my child’s soccer practice and…. Oh, here’s a writing assignment that will pay me $25! Throw all my personal goals to the side to make $25 so I can call myself a pro!”

I know these well because I have lived each and all of them.

When I do my best and my writing is the best is when I think of it as my “work” not “just another crummy gig.”

Each writing job I choose to take is honorable. I am blessed because my work, my writing, is loving the world.

How do you show love to the world through your writing?

How do you show your love to the world through work?

Consider these questions – and consider adding your comment to this post. I so enjoy connecting with you.

Julie JordanScott is the CreativeLifeMidwife who loves creating life changing content to inspire you into passionate action. She has a writing circle starting on February 1 and several other challenges and programs in the near future where you may participate as well.

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.

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.

Insights into How to Tune into Gratitude: Bridge to a New Year Day 4

December 4, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

#BridgetotheNewYear Day 4 Prompt: Appreciation and Gratitude

Today’s Prompt: What have you grown to appreciate in 2018? .
How do you show your appreciation? .
Is there a way you would like to grow in gratitude practice in 2019?

I started adulthood as a cynical naysayer, sneering down my nose at the “attitude of gratitude” army who I likened to television evangelists with overdone make up and dramatic acts of supposed religiosity. And then, something happened.

I am not sure when or who or how it happened, but I decided to start making a gratitude list every day.
And then I started making a gratitude list in community.
And then I started making a gratitude list in community for 365 days straight.

This isn’t for everyone… and it changed things for me. Oprah was talking about it, gratitude was an every day “thing.”

It still is for me, though I don’t keep a 365 Gratitude list anymore, it is ever present in my consciousness most of the time. (A side note, perhaps it will resurge in 2019).

This year I have grown to appreciate in greater depth something I have believed for years: the majority of the people sharing this rich, ripe globe with me want to do good by one another.

They want to pitch in, they want to help and be of service. People enjoy being asked to provide as they can and get a lot of satisfaction out of lending a helpful hand (or wallet or spare bedroll or bisquit.)

A month ago this came to light in a new, larger and more grand way than I could have foreseen. A woman I have come to call my daughter was in a crisis more than 1,000 miles from me and more than 2,000 miles from her blood family. She was a refugee stranded in a small city in Colorado after enduring more hardship than most Americans I know endure.

When her teary voice said to me, “I don’t know if I can take this, Mum.” I sprang to action and started connecting with people who started connecting with people who started connecting with people and miracles happened for this young woman.

My three youngest children, Samuel< Queenta and Emma. Children of my blood and of my heart. Welcome to the US, Queenta. — My three youngest children, standing by the Palm tree where they have traditionally posed for years. Samuel, Queenta, Emma

The thing is, we had more outward differences than samenesses AND the greatest sameness lived in our heart space, in our love for humanity and in a willingness to go beyond what others may do – but only because they don’t know how yet.

The next day I spoke to my cousin and she said, “Wow, you have an incredible network of people.” And I responded, “They’re your network, too,” just like they are YOUR network, you who are reading this now.
I didn’t know many of the people who helped. I just knew people who knew people who knew people and I asked and I kept asking until my daughter was safe and sound.

I’m still showing appreciation and gratitude to the people I met along the way.

Gratitude is best expressed and practicing in a variety of ways helps. — In 2013 I had a gratitude jar, holding delights, which doubled as a writing prompt jar. Writing of gratitude expands it.

I stepped away from writing and thought, “Sometimes I throw my gratitude out there, littering the world with it when I’m feeling fully connected and vibrant. When I am not, divinity delivers an invitation to notice gratitude and sometimes, the circumstances are so overwhelmingly beautiful in every way, it is like gratitude has rushed in and done a cosmic happy dance and I can’t help but burst over with joy.

Gratitude: sometimes I lean into it, sometimes appreciation takes my hand and shows me the way and sometimes gratitude is a moshpit of laughter so great I can’t even begin to fully understand it.

In 2019 I want to deepen my gratitude practice. As I said above, I believe it is time to share my gratitude in a journal and also publicly. I shared on my facebook page a few days ago I think I will continue to do so.

I also want to use the power of energy to share gratitude, via the people I meet randomly – really looking into their hearts, their being – and expressing gratitude not only with words but via the beating of my heart. I don’t think that makes sense in language form, but I do know my heart just warmed up as I wrote those words.

Woo woo. I can hear some of you. And then I remember what I used to think about those “fakes” and “weird attitude of gratitude” people and my temporary embarrassment diminishes.

Now it’s your turn. If you blog, consider blogging on these themes – link up at juicyjournaling.com

Today’s Prompt: What have you grown to appreciate in 2018? .
How do you show your appreciation?

Is there a way you would like to grow in gratitude practice in 2019?

If you Instagram, look for the hashtags #BridgetoTheNewYear or #Bridgeto2019 Follow our prompts there, too.

If you would like to be a part of a Free Facebook Group where these subjects are being discussed, please visit us here and request membership.

Until tomorrow,
Julie JS Your Creative Life Midwife.