Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

How to Use Journaling to Become Clear on Your Weekly Goals – and Beyond

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Because I am an artist, I have a lot of friends and coaching clients who are also artists – and many of my creative friends have an aversion to setting goals. While I know this is true in other fields, I must confess in my informal research from years of working with people on reaching their goals and fulfilling their hopes and dreams, we turn away from naming and claiming our goals for several reasons:

  1. We are afraid to speak our goals because if we speak them and we don’t achieve them, we convince ourselves this will mean we failed. It doesn’t mean we failed at all. If our goals don’t work out exactly as we planned means your results were different than expected. You got feedback. You experimented. You won!
  2. We are embarrassed about where we are or by what we want. People won’t understand us, won’t want to spend time with us anymore and worst, will judge us, abandon us and no longer associate with us. I can tell you, some of my wacky goals have helped me immeasurably in the “I don’t want to get tangled up in other people’s opinions” categories, so if I want to set and work toward a goal of leaving 100 pennies in random places for people to find, pick up and feel happier because of it – you and others may think I am incorrigibly silly. And that’s ok.
  3. We don’t believe we can achieve the goal anyway so… while the heart-call is there, the energy isn’t so we ignore it. Ignoring or denial is among the most dangerous actions to take. This is where block begins to build. When we resist the desire and pile up lots of over-thinking, underappreciative energy on top of the overthinking, the mindclutter can translate into life clutter. Even taking micro-actions will keep energy flowing and will help you gain evidence that you CAN begin and you CAN move forward.

Even if it is just for this week, try this exercise as an experiment.

If you feel doubt seeping into your thoughts, consider this wisdom from Eckhart Tolle, best selling author and thought leader who wrote, “When the basis for your actions is inner alignment with the present moment, your actions become empowered by the intelligence of life itself.”

We gain clarity when we write without editing, judgment or forethought. Our inner wisdom is given room to roam. We can explore what we truly want without letting other people or our own negative thoughts get in the way of becoming energized and empowered to move forward.

Write using a stream-of-consciousness or free flow,journaling style for five minutes following the framework in the prompt:

First free flow write or journal for up to five minutes using the prompt:

This week I want – and consider what you want to feel, what you want to achieve, who you want to connect with, what you want to let go.

Build on what you want by creating a connection with 

This week I intend: and base your intentions on what you discovered from writing about what you want. 

How often are our intentions the same thing we have automatically been speaking for weeks, months or a season but not related to our heart’s call? 

Using journaling as a tool of clarification will help you align your desire with your intention and then tie back together with what actions you will choose to take in the final prompt:

This week I will choose….which is where our goals, intentions, and vision takes form. You can want something for years or decades but if you do not set intentions and goals and move forward with love through action, you will more than likely find yourself ten years in the future in a very similar place now to where you were when you started.

Julie JordanScott is a multipassionate creative who delights in inviting others into their own fullhearted, artistic experience via her creativity coaching individually or in groups, courses and workshops. To receive inspiring content and videos weekly and find out more about Coaching, Courses, Challenges and what’s going on in the Creative Life Midwife world? Subscribe here:

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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August Please: Intentions/Goals/Vision & July Recap

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July was a busy, busy, busy month.

July 2021 Highlights Recap:

I did 29 straight days of Three Good Things. This is a miracle because I have wanted to do an evening practice for a long time. Now, I look forward to keeping it up.

You may look at my JJS Writing Camp Facebook Page to see those:

I spent time in Flagstaff – about two weeks, actually, and I also spent time in Phoenix.

I started my Fall in Love with Livestreaming Adventure, Exploration, Experiment challenge – one week down and one week to go – so yes, a July and August combination. If you are interested, the content is in the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community – Join Us!

August Intentions & Goals for Creativity and Entrepreneurial Practice

In August I plan to —

  1. Participate in the Ultimate Blog Challenge. One of my areas of focus will be repurposing videos from my large YouTube library. I’ve made a lot of videos that will be quite helpful to bloggers and creatives – they’re a resource I sometimes forget!  This is my first blog post for that challenge. Below is my free flow writing YouTube Playlist: be sure to subscribe and follow me on YouTube so you won’t miss a thing!

2. 750 words a day on my top secret writing project.

3. Completion of my Haiku Book. Natalie Goldberg has a Haiku book out, published in 2020 and in the past that would have discouraged me but now – I am seeing it as an inspiration. Question: Ought I write a tree hug book? It is really gaining momentum since I created a blog post after I reached the 200 Tree Hugs milestone.

Content Creation for The Creative Life Midwife Courses and Coaching Groups and Individuals

  1. Decide what to do with the content I am creating in the Fall in Love with Livestreaming Challenge – is it a book wanting to be born? It might be! 

2. Hold my first Writing Camp Intensive of 2021. 

3. Schedule the Short Form Writing Course. 

4. Open up membership for my new Writing Home – in at least one small groupWriting Circle (or 2 or 3) Stand by in August and September to hear more about that. 

A Healthy Challenge: and I’m all in to make the world a better place.

For my entire life I have been able to achieve more in less time than many people. I am kicking everything up a notch now – and I am excited to bring these words and programs to life in a bigger way this Fall.

Thanks for reading – and supporting me as I continue to move forward, with love, as I reach my goals and create the intentions that will have a positive impact on many.

Julie JordanScott is a multipassionate creative who delights in inviting others into their own fullhearted. artistic experience via her creativity coaching individually or in groups, courses and workshops. To receive inspiring content and videos weekly and find out more about Coaching, Courses, Challenges and what’s going on in the Creative Life Midwife world? Subscribe here:

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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First take: a window into process that includes falling (getting up). Veering more than slightly off course.

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This is not a blank page. This is a cure to the blank page. This is saying no to block, this is a singing declaration of “I have your back creative process and we are moving and grooving.”

Yes, this is a start.

I wrote this partially to write a brain dump, partially to get in touch with my friend Virginia and partially to tune into my past narrative. I keep telling myself, this is a start.

Next: I am going to make a list of times…. I avoided life in attempts to keep the peace.

My guess is some seemed to succeed (and may still be a bit of the glue holding feeling mediocre together), some failed and some are untried.

Here is the first take: a window into process that includes falling (and getting up) and veering more than slightly off course.

Enjoy – and stay with me – because the world is waiting for your words.

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

Virginia Woolf

This week I have felt consistently out of peace because I was doing things that made me uncomfortable. Who wants to do that?

We want to go where we are praised and adored!

We don’t want to have to say unsettling things and make people unhappy with us! Well, most of us anyway.

Even as I type this and take a sip of delectably bitter coffee I realize I have actually made it a spiritual practice to make myself uncomfortable. I regularly chat with people others toss aside, like today I conversed amicably with a homeless woman: I engaged her in conversation like I would anyone else.

I actually put myself in a place most people would never think of going and yes, I found peace there.

I think that is a big part of it: being willing to go where others won’t, being willing to recognize there is tension there and then just moving forward anyway. Repeatedly.

(And then I reached for a poem and my chair toppled over and I went with it. I think I can officially call that a take two needed?)

I found myself on the floor, reaching for my book of poetry for 2018 I carefully picked out in December. I wanted to read “January in Paris” because I felt a message from Billy Collins words:

“I followed a few private rules…” and that steers me back to what I meant to be saying the entire time.

What I have been discovering in my journey into the uncomfortable is this: when we are aiming to stay aligned with our personal values, we will bump into barriers that seem larger than life itself.

We may risk losing friendships.

I’m sad to say I have lost friendships because they were no longer in alignment with me. I’m proud to say I have been strong enough to do so.

Our barriers may be huge organizations we’ve supported our entire lives. This also happened to me in December and January. It took 29 days of consistent follow up to get a single returned phone call and some restoration, though I still wonder if they are actually doing as they should be.

When we choose to pursue peace even when it leads to falling on the ground with our hands scuffed up or finds us alone on yet another Friday night or finds us with a cloth over our mouths because we choose to not speak even in our frustration because we think the friends we have left will desert us when they hear our story, we are also able to know it is in these very experiences that we come to know ourselves and our life more intimately.

We connect more authentically, in a sacred joy, in a holy connection – which for me is a combination of soft socks and knowing laughter.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Transformational Conversation Session at 661.444.2735. Please note she is in California in the USA in the Pacific Time Zone.

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There are Many of Us with Writing Wounds: Let’s Heal Together Now

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Fifth grade was a rough year for me. I had my first taste of mean girls when my long term girl gang dumped me in one of those horrid pre-pubescent moments when the other girls decided I didn’t measure up to their checklist of cool-ness, my family was being tossed and turned by transitions and shifts, and I started middle school.

In those first weeks – perhaps the very first week of middle school – I got pulled aside in my English class with a group of 6 or 7 other students who hadn’t done well on our first writing assignment.

(The wound still hurts, I discover, so I will shift into third person for a moment).

Little Julie, who always excelled in writing, was set aside as someone who writes badly.

She who had been scribing before she was literate – dictated to her Mommy, sat in the back seat of the turquoise country squire because  and wrote cursive e’s in row after row after row because she knew she had something important to say  and she wasn’t going to let the fact that  she didn’t know how to read or write stop her.

She knew she had to write.

(Now that Little Julie had her moment, back to Now Julie).

By the time Mrs. Wilson got to me to review my bad writing, I started to cry and couldn’t stop. Here was the one thing I knew I was good at being marked the equivalent of a “D” with all the requisite red marks across my carefully planned words.

David and Perry were there and only one other girl. I was singled out with the low achievers and only one other girl who I didn’t know and I further embarrassed myself by crying as I explained, “But I always write well….”

I can step back outside myself and witness this as an adult and I see Mrs. Wilson’s horrified at herself face for “making this little girl cry” (perhaps sparking her own memory) and before the end of that session, my paper had been remarked “Excellent” and I went on to have a great year in that particular classroom.

It even became a refuge for me amidst other not-so-great stuff which may be why the call to write and broadcast about writing woundedness is so strong.

On my periscope broadcast today one of my beloveds spoke of her writing wounds and how writing with us in #5for5BrainDump changed things for her. So I cried again today, live, and now recorded, for anyone in the world to see. And now I am not even embarrassed. Tears of joy, tears of sorrow, tears of authenticity – no apologies.

I’ve been trying to find something written about the woundedness many feel around writing – perhaps the biggest cause of writer’s block and I can’t find a thing about it.

Strange, because this is oftentimes the reason people show up in my programs, classes and livestreams: they’ve gotten the word I create a safe environment for people who want to write: a place where we write together, allowing our pencils and pens to flow freely without worry of judgment or a big thick red pen marking out our most of the time carefully chosen words.

Harsh criticism – delivered without considering the person whose hand brought those words to the page – is something that has long troubled me. I have many examples from my past I’ve managed to write around which is somewhat surprising given my sensitive nature.

People have stories to tell, YOU have stories tell that the world is waiting to hear – a specific audience member, a distinctive listener or reader waiting for you to become brave enough to move your pencil across the page and say what needs to be said, what is waiting to be said as only you can say it.

With you.

The world is waiting for your words.

Let’s bring them to the page now.

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Goal Playing: Let’s Make Reaching Our Goals More Fun (and Productive!)

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There is a tendency to forget we have the capacity to make nearly anything and everything fun. Note to self: remember to make this fun and share that giddy, goofy, get-it-done energy with others.

I realized somewhere along my journey of today that I create and reach towards goals much like a child bounces a ball against
the school yard pavement or a child-artist moves her paintbrush freely on a canvas.

I create goals and step into goals because I find it to be great fun.

In my life coaching work I have often suggested to my clients, “Ahh, just throw some spaghetti against the wall. Go ahead, try that out – it isn’t going to hurt anything! And besides, the process itself can be darn funny. Try it… shush, stop your hesitating and just
throw spaghetti!”

This has been so much a part of me that I didn’t even see the uniqueness in my approach.

I like setting wacky goals alongside my serious, world changing goals. You know. just for fun, not for anything else but the sheer joy of creating them and then inviting other “kids” to play along.

I can easily get into the zone when I am being childlike.

Am I possessed or obsessed? No, I am playful.

I am being the otter, sliding around the water, barking and clapping my hands.

I am the monkey, swinging from the branches, hopping over to my friend and running my hands through her fur coat, inviting her to swing with me.

I am the preschooler, carrying toy kitchen accessories around the room, delegating roles, “I am the Mommy, you are the daddy, you are the sister, the brother, the other sister, and you are the puppy” and when the other sister would rather be the Aunt Millie, I shrug, and smile and ok and when the puppy gets bored and wants to build with blocks, I smile and wave her away to go have fun doing something else.

No attachment, no worry, no hurt feelings, no drama or added meaning.

To me my goals provide crystal clear, joy-filled play.

Here’s a surprise – for some of you.

Our world changing, deeply serious goals may be brought into reality more quickly and effectively if we play with them first.

Seriously play.

Natalie Angier wrote “along with love and a good joke, playfulness seems like something that should not be explained, a brilliant splash of animated joy so sheerly pleasurable to watch and engage in that it is its own justification.”

To me, goal creation, goal reaching, goal tweaking and goal realization fit those words perfectly.

How about you – want to come along with me? Want to wrap yourself up in a costume of choice as we create something engaging and fun?

Come on, you know you do.

I can see that shy or sly grin crossing your face. See my ball, bouncing its way towards you?

Reach for it – your goal, my goal – unattached, joy-filled, possible, passionate.

So glad you are here, playing, creating, being with me right now.

Listen for a little while longer for the specific steps to make the biggest difference for you.

It would be so easy to stick our fingers in our ears and sing so we wouldn’t “hear” the prompting of goals, to-do’sa. What if we were deaf to the forward movement required to bring to life our intentions, dreams, vision, mission, whatever-title-you-choose-to-name-that-‘thing’-that-pulls-you-forward.

This may be a day when you have several “must-do’s” on your agenda, like my friend Shirley did when other people’s request piled up and fun didn’t feel at all possible.

This is a good chance to invoke the Heart/Mind/Goal Game Drizzle.

Even when Shirley was babysitting her grandson at 9 for a couple hours or so, meeting her friends for a play at 6:30ish depending upon the needs of the rest of her family she could make it fun and productive with minimal effort.

Why? Because none of these tasks interfered with her brain/heart drizzle, a fun companion activity to stir up that day or any day.
One of the grand things about this plan is I don’t have to complete it today and if I somehow slip up, I can return at any time on any day and claim a do-over and simply begin again. I can’t think of anything that soothes me more to know right now.

Here’s how the Drizzle Works:

1. Close your eyes and put your right hand over your heart.

2. Take a couple nice deep breaths, focused on clearing out any traces of negativity you may be feeling.

3. With your eyes closed and your negativity cleared, ask yourself silently, “What would be the best choices for me to make this month in order to reach my goals (be a good mother, make the world a better place, contribute to my community, get into better shape, put whichever fits the best for you here.)?

4. Allow yourself to continue to breathe in silence for even just 15 seconds.

5. Go about your day and when you think of it, repeat the question either silently or aloud.

6. Be aware of any thoughts that come into your awareness throughout the day that relate back to your initial question. To make this step extra fun, I’ve been known to actually shout-out “Thank you!” which made my children laugh when they were little. Now it makes me laugh with me.

7. At night, sit with your notebook or a big sheet of paper and write or doodle whatever comes up without pre-thinking or forcing it, just ask the question again and let yourself go onto the paper.

8. Let the continued questioning and heart opening and playful energy drizzle your loving, playful plan into being without effort, without angst and with heaps of joyful celebration.

9. Repeat these steps for up to three days to create a firm foundation for your goals (or whatever you want to name them) for your next week, month or quarter.

Shirley devised a life changing plan the last time she took on the Heart-Mind-Drizzle Goal Play. Now it’s your turn.

I help people – mostly creative entrepreneurs or those who hope to become creative entrepreuneurs, like Shirley and life you – to end writers blocks and barriers to communication by providing methods and means to allow their words to flow, finally, freely and without judgment.

We then take that they’ve written by using the #5for5BrainDump method I created – writing a mere five minutes a day for five days a week – to become a “something” tangible. It might be an article or blog post or a poem or a chapter of a book or a screenplay or a sales letter. It might be a Ted Talk or a way to start a conversation with a lover or a business partner. It might just be what it is – a stream of consciousness ramble that eventually morphs into a bridge to that place the writer has always dreamed of being but she didn’t know ever existed so she was unable to put it into words until… she did.

We continue to build on this “something” together either with me one-on-one or in a larger community of creative entrepreneurs – and in time, a new Creative Life is born.

The people who work with me, these creative entrepreneurs, discover a place where they fit in and are appreciated. It is so fun to watch the smiles spread across their faces and their words to rain in gusty storms like monsoons and sometimes just a slow, sweet mist… and at times… the sunshine takes over and we rest and bask in it.

Sometimes what we start with is not at all what we eventually create, but this new Creative Life – and the way it feels, remains strong and firm and delectable.

Each one uniquely quirky, each one jagged and smooth, whole hearted and angry – content, happy-sad, morbid and silly.

Light and dark and back and forth again.

All of this written from a prompt from a blog post I wrote in 2007 in a time of deep sadness:

“In order for the moonflower to completely open, it has to bathe in darkness. I am not a big fan of the dark. It scares me. Still. Yet I can not walk by this flower without bowing to it, without putting my face close to its opened-by-the-dark heart.”

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon.

  To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at .

  Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing. 

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End Writer’s Block by Promising Myself Rewards? (Is it working well?)

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Today I am earning a cup of coffee by writing about what I don’t want to write about.

Perhaps this is the little known secret for ending writer’s block: withhold coffee (or chocolate, or sex, or whatever a person likes best) until the first 750 words are written.

What do you think?

I could easily follow this tangent.and.I.won’t.because. I am supposed to be writing:

  • About walking down 19th St with Josh last night about the early days before and after Samuel’s diagnosis.
  • About seeing an educrat last night who long ago insisted it was bad mothering causing Samuel’s behaviors (which were so obviously spectrum anyone with any ounce of knowledge should have known.)
  • Putting myself back in my 2007 shoes – finding the gap of July 31 to October 23 without a blog post. Unheard of in that era. Most eras of my life actually.

My last blog words on July 31, 2007 were “In order for the moonflower to completely open, it has to bathe in darkness. I am not a big fan of the dark. It scares me. Still. Yet I can not walk by this flower without bowing to it, without putting my face close to its opened-by-the-dark heart.”

I must have had the notion the darkness was behind me: my brother had died and I was doing ok with that – only light on the horizon, right?

Blog Silence for all of August. All of September. All of.

Darkness. I bow to it, putting my face closer to the flower that is poison and only opens in the dark.

(My timer goes off. My five minutes are up. I am angry. Now I get to drink my coffee. All will be ok.)

= = =

To review my history in words, visit:

My final blog post before Samuel’s diagnosis:

My nebulous return, including a country western tune for good measure.

 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Writing Prompt inspired by Jack Kerouac: Your Memories + Awe = #5for5BrainDump Magic

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Jack Kerouac said, “Write in recollection and amazement of yourself.” This is a territory ripe for self reflection.

Let’s do this.

First, make a list of 5 times in your life when your actions surprised you.

Scan your list to consider and ultimately choose the one time that is the most appealing for you to write about today. Set your timer for five minutes and write, starting with the prompt, “I remember….”

Note: if that first attempt falls flat and your words don’t flow, try a different memory.

Oftentimes there is something in the way of writing from the first memory and the simple act of completing your writing from another memory will ignite writing flow for both.

Bonus: Share your writing experience with at least one other person today.

NOTE: if you would like to participate in a Writing Community, I would love to invite you to be a part of the Word-Love Writing Community I facilitate on Facebook.

 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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Decide to Make Progress: Tenacity and Abundant Love

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“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can change and control your life; the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

Amelia Earhart

I can’t remember how many times I’ve said to my children, “Here I go… faster than a speeding bullet!” and then I stay immobile. I think it started when I was pregnant with Samuel and felt enormous and weighted down with “oh my goodness how will I do this?” and somehow it has stuck all these years later.

For me it isn’t as much the decision to act, but combining the decision to act with the movement itself. I appreciate what Amelia says here and she is certainly a model for decision making and managing risk – but for me it goes one step further.

Fears are paper tigers, Amelia said. (Note – paper tigers are defined as “a person or thing that appears threatening but is ineffectual.”)

Maybe the gold lives in letting go of “oh my goodness how will I do this?” and settling instead into the forward movement, even when I don’t know how. Moving my pencil when I don’t know what it will point out in me, making the phone call when I don’t want to hear the voice on the other end, tying my shoes, stepping out the door and taking the first, second, third, forty second and beyond step.

“Decide” needs to carry an action with it. What popped into my head just now is the first syllable is picking up the foot and the second syllable is the locomotion, the movement, the forward in the direction that calls.

What if for the next few days (or hours even) I reward myself for the process rather than the result. My process here went like this:

  1. I realized I hadn’t done my #5for5BrainDump session.
  2. I wanted to keep my streak going of writing and publishing daily.
  3. I rationalized, thinking how smug I was about writing my morning pages and getting started on a Top 10 list.
  4. “But that isn’t publishing” my writing angel reminded me. “That isn’t brain dumping into blog post.”
  5. I took all the necessaries to move from deciding into action into finished project.

My timer went off, so I am going to go to my website dashboard and prep a page as efficiently as possible. (I did it! less than ten minutes later, here you are loves! Offered with tenacity, a sprinkling of daring and buckets of love.)

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

This Exact Gratitude: Origin Unknown – Result? Remarkable

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The date of this exact gratitude list that gave birth to this (nearly over) mini-retreat/soulful social media quiet time is unclear. I remember sitting in my car, scribbling the list  it – but exactitude? It won’t matter in the long run. It doesn’t even matter now, a week or so later.

I wrote:

I am grateful for the ability to communicate.

I am grateful for the beauty of words.

I am grateful for the people who read the words I toss, cry and mindfully set down upon blue lined paper.

I am grateful for whatever it is I manage to create today (because I know I will. Eventually anyway.)

I am grateful to know I will not judge quantity or quality or relevance of the words and objects I create today.

I am grateful I am able to move my pen across the page. I am grateful words fall off the tip so effortlessly.

I am grateful there are papers to catch the words I write in cursive (and it looks pretty!) I’m grateful for pencil sharpeners.

I am grateful for crape myrtle trees and finches and mourning doves.

I am grateful for enthusiastic young people (I sound like an old farm-hand) who just got promoted who still have a vision for their lives that includes accepting whatever happens with grace and building upon those circumstances, whichever, with grace.

Today I am grateful for the years I have been writing and sharing consistently. That “old stuff” is so current, so accessible and ready.

It created the plan and execution of that plan. Edit to evolve and the mighty, beneficent yes shines through.

My mission is to daily “gather our word-love community to collaborate and create a ritual, path, method to save/preserve/curate and continue to breathe heart into our collective life work.”

Daily, recognize and claim my place as a singular and sacred expression of life itself and a gift from the divine to the world – meant for taking action with passionate gratitude to join the flow because I know this world is a place of healing, wonder and wholeness where all know each one is welcome.

= = =

Since I re-visited this time of creative process last Wednesday, I have repeated these declarations and oh, have they ever helped me not only in my daily direction, but also in casting my future and present vision.

This exact gratitude list may have unknown origins, but the continued growth and rebirth as a result of gratitude is blanketing my life. It is grounding me and lifting me toward heaven.

It’s been a while since I felt like this.

Today I am remembering and standing on this strength to continue as I declare daily: I recognize and claim my place as a singular, unique and sacred expression of life itself and a gift from the divine to the world – meant for taking action with passionate gratitude to join the flow because I know this world is a place of healing, wonder and wholeness where all know each one is welcome.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links above to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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How to End Writer’s Block with Another Episode of… the 5 Minute Miracle

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I oftentimes make comments like “I don’t believe in blocks” and “blocks are a mindset thing, switch your mind, block evaporates” and yet here I sit, today, troubled and uncomfortable and squirmy and wishing I could be doing anything in the world EXCEPT writing about blocks but the little inner creativity coach who lives in my chest beside my heart says “Write for five minutes, just the magical five and you will feel better when it’s over than you do right now.”

I set my timer and wrote…

I will feel better, I will feel better I will feel better.

A few minutes ago I was in my backyard, sweeping my driveway. Haven’t done that in much longer than I should have. I swept my walk way yesterday and asked the question, “What would it take to make this a daily practice so that I could see it as a creative endeavor, like writing, which I do almost every day without fail because I enjoy it and it helps me feel better and every once in a while people say I am good at it and…”

WRITING INTERRUPTED BY PHONE AND RETURNED, 30 or so minutes later…

I swept my mulberry trees profuse berries from my neighbor’s driveway because my neighbors are bothered by purple splotches on their driveway and perhaps, the residue on their shoes as a result which brings resultant purple blue into their home.

I did it out of care, this time, not anger as I had in the past.

I had a quick and strong impulse to ask forgiveness from my neighbors and not to make an excuse but to open the conversation to some of the struggles I’ve experienced over the past few years.

Would this help in understanding?

So here’s how it went – My phone went off so my five minutes was interrupted quite suddenly, and now, about forty minutes later I am back and thinking how these interruptions are one of the building materials blocks are made up of – the mortar, the stone work, the inner cords of steel and beams framing it all.

I was anxious when I started and now I feel calmer and the idea I have an option to be vulnerable and speak up to my neighbors is a big one. Also, coming with an energy of seeking forgiveness rather than being angry at them is huge.

The magical five minutes of writing, even broken in two, works miracles again.

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