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Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

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

December 13, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“Turmoil stimulates” Thomas Leonard

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

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

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

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

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

Life, honey, life happened to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Filed Under: Bridge to the New Year, Creative Adventures, Creative Life Coaching, Rewriting the Narrative Tagged With: #5amwritersclub, Freedom, Toleration Elimination

Bridge to the New Year: One Word #OLW 2018 – 2019?

December 2, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Here is one of the ways I find images for the content I create: I go to my flickr account – the one I have had for more than ten years and holds a huge repository of photos.

I do a quick search and up pop usually related possibilities. Today I searched FREE and a garden I used to visit as a child popped up.

I may have literally asked, “Why are these showing up as “free” when it hit me.

I only felt happiness here at Freeman Gardens.

It was an oasis, I remember walkign along the path in the back corner that felt like a wilderness, carrying my hand-me-down brownie camera taking photos.

On my walk to school in the Spring, I tasted honeysuckles growing on her fences.

I “bridged up” in an early ritual of growing toward being a woman. Each earnest little girl walked over a rickety bridge we only knew to trust.

Katherine and I visited after she graduated from Smith in May, 2014 and she is who you see in the photo above.

I felt freedom and love when I visited Katherine again, in May 2018. At this point she was married, had graduated from seminary, and was being ordained. My freedom seems slightly ironic because I was without a car but I read two novels, saw many friends from long ago and friends from livestreaming I had never met face-to-face and I regretted not planning better but in retrospect I was grateful for the freedom of no expectations.

My one word, one little word, Theme Word, whatever it might be described for 2018 was “Freedom” usually declared with a smug look on my face. Well, that smug was wiped away within the first three weeks of the year when I lost final shreds of friendships and the trajectory toward a lot of uncomfortable disengagement flooded my reality.

As little as six weeks ago I was ready to declare 2018 another in what felt like a long line of disappointing failures until… I gained clarity, like when I found this photo and realized this park – called “Freeman Gardens” which is probably why it showed up in the search – was a place I only knew happiness. While I had a fairly normal childhood, there was a lot of sadness, a lot of not-so-great episodes amidst the outward semblance of Father Knows Best and the Donna Reed Show.

2018 did show me freedom, also, simply in surprising ways.

I experienced freedom to let go of people and circumstances that caused more pain than promise, the freedom to say no or “I am not sure” or “not this time.”

I gave myself the freedom to be bad at things and I even gave myself the permission to ask people to participate in activities because I didn’t feel comfortable to do them alone and people even said yes on more occasions than not.

Turns out freedom wasn’t such a bad word for the year afterall.

Next year: right now for some reason Declaration and Proclamation are both attempting to get my attention. As usual, I am giving them space while still leaving the door open to other suitors.

Tell me about your One Word, #OLW or whatever you call it for 2018 and if you are not sure right now for 2019 that is completely fine, too.

This post is a part of Bridge to the New Year, a collaborative project/initiative between Creative Life Midwife and JuicyJournaling.com  Each day during December we will be offering prompts to guide participants through the process of reviewing and reflecting the year and setting a framework (roadmap, intention) for the New Year. There is also a facebook group with discussion, videos and more.

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Filed Under: 2018, Bridge to the New Year, Creative Process Tagged With: #OLW, Creative healer, Creative Life Coach, Freedom, Freeman Gardens, Julie JordanScott, memoir writing, One Word, Personal Development, Writing Coach

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