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Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Are you Multi-Passionate? Mix your passions to see the resulting growth & expansion

October 8, 2022 by jjscreativelifemidwife

A book and a coffee cup and a woman's hand beneath the words "Writing experiments stir one passion into another and expand each exponentially."  Julie JordanScottt

Three things I love: writing, reading and poetry. Beyond these I also love theater, performance, music, passionate discussions and learning. I love taking what I learn and using it in my writing, in the courses I teach, in my speaking and performance gigs.

One of the ways to integrate the varied things you love into the rest of your life is via experiments. Right now I am in the midst of several – many of which I won’t or don’t choose to talk or write about but this one, oh how sweet this one is.

Last week, I used a poem written by Teresa of Avila in my morning writing practice. 

I scooped up lines from it and used them as part of my daily affirmation, another part of my writing practice and every day living.

This week I am using a poem by Rita Dove, former Poet Laureate of the United States. Her poem, “The First Book,” is the opening or introductory poem in Caroline Kennedy’s collection, “Poems to Learn by Heart.”

The poem starts like this:

“Open it.

Go ahead, it won’t bite.

Well… maybe a little.”

Ahhhh. How illustrative of so many different things! When we are courageous enough to experiment in a tiny bit frightening way, we grow. In the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community on Facebook (join us here), we will also be using this poem and this experiment to encourage our creative impulse to swerve a tiny bit into scary places.

Journaling question for the Let Our Words flow creative community invites us to open the possibility of the transformative power of fear.

Last week I wasn’t expecting to have one poem make such a difference. It was astounding sometimes, it made me laugh at other times and the way the lines from the poem synchronistically answered questions I was asking or solved conundrums I was having was very close to divine.

As I wrote that sentence, my back got straighter, almost like my body was recognizing something my mind wasn’t ready to recognize yet.

Do you ever experiment in your life and work? I would love to hear about it in the comments. If you don’t experiment (yet) what sort of fun might you have with it?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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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Filed Under: Creative Adventures, Creative Life Coaching, Creative Process, Poetry, Writing Prompt Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, Caroline Kennedy, Growth and Expansion, Let Our Words Flow, Multi-Passionate, Personal Growth, Rita Dove, Teresa of Avila, Writing Exercises, Writing Experiment

Lights, Camera, Create Live Content (and have fun doing it!)

January 3, 2022 by jjscreativelifemidwife

A video or film set: livestreaming isn't this fancy and it has the same energy. The text says Light, Camera. Create Content!

Yesterday I started a live-streaming challenge along with several of my friends from the PeriGirls – a group of women who were pioneers in livestreaming who started going live way back in 2015. When our favorite livestreaming app disappeared, many of us lost the vigor to continue.

One of our members decided she wanted to get her groove back and recognized how much more fun it is to do when there are others out there doing it, too so here I am, livestreaming every day in January.

Beyond the Plan there is…. Action (even if afraid)

I have a plan, I know where I am broadcasting when. I am experienced. I have nothing to be frightened of and yet.

I have to tap that darned red button and go live. Every day. Whether I feel like it or not.

What is good about a challenge like this?

  1. If you are doing it with friends, you are more likely to get it done.
  2. You feel less pain as you rip off the mask of perfectionism because some days you are guaranteed to suck. Or be less great than usual. Or at least I am, maybe some of my cohort are always fabulous. Live-streaming is a great way to cure perfectionism, especially if you stick with it after you’ve fallen flat a couple times.
  3. You remember how to do “old things” more than you know. In case you haven’t ridden a bicycle in a long time, your knees may hurt and you may wobble at first, but it does get easier.

In case you are curious, I am live-streaming about writing, blogging, books and poetry… and people who write and read and lead passionately creative lives.

I would love your support when I live-stream

On Wednesdays I plan to interview people on instagram live (if you’re interested in being interviewed let me know in the comments!) I will turn the lives into videos that will stay on Instagram and become evergreen content.

On Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays I will be going live in the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community and the Writing Camp with JJS Page on Facebook. These are streamed concurrently. Today I wasn’t so great. Tuesday will be fun as we are talking about activating our writing magical wands.

Meanwhile I almost didn’t get this blog post written because I was too busy cleaning, fussing and feeling sad. That’s another thing about this kind of challenge: it helps to keep you focused on what makes you feel good – and live-streaming always makes me feel good even if I don’t do all that well because I know I did something.

Taking a daily risk by going live also stretches the courage and vulnerability muscle.

Today I scooped up the lights, the camera and I am took action – just like I am doing with my blog here, today.

Have you ever live-streamed? What are your thoughts about live-streaming? Share in the comments – I love talking about it, too!

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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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Filed Under: Creative Life Coaching, Video and Livestreaming, Writing Challenges & Play Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, Content Creation, Fall in love with livestreaming, Have Fun with Content, Julie JordanScott

How to Ignite Your Journaling or Daily Writing Easily to End Journal Burnout

January 4, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Are you interested in revitalizing your journaling or daily writing practice?

Three months ago I made a change in my writing practice routine and it has made a huge difference for me. Considering I literally lost one of the last three months because I almost died from sepsis, this is even more remarkable.

As the new year begins, I am even more excited to bring the message of reawakening, restoring and being fully alive into the world.

Ready to try it? Watch this simple 4 minute video  and read below to see some of the nitty gritty “how to” in the “What I did yesterday” sequence.

What did I do yesterday?

  1. Tried to go to Open Mic at Dagny’s
  2. Took a shopping cart photo  and wrote my morning haiku
  3. Enjoyed breakfast at Denny’s with Parker.
  4. Drank coffee
  5. Made Samuel his favorite meal
  6. Listened to “Dare to Lead” by Brene Brown as I drove around
  7. Wrote a blog post
  8. Went on an adventure at the river bread (delivered sheer joy and a bunch of content.)
  9. Decided not to do laundry

This is about when I start to lose steam, so I continue my numbering and go back and fill in as things pop into my head. Things can be simple – ridiculously simple like “Wore my black thrifted sweater I love so much.” Or “responded to an email”.

Even if you can’t come up with twenty “things I did” yesterday, simply starting this practice will help you to notice more as you experience life that you may take into your journaling as well as into other types of writing.

You may even make it into a game to think how much fun you are able to create in one day!

Tomorrow I will share 21 easy ways to make your day more “write-about-able”.

Come back to explore with me further as you not only revitalize your journaling, you may find yourself revitalizing your entire life!

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, has found herself revitalized after a near-death experience in October. She is more than ready and able now to take you to a richer, deeper, more passionately alive life experience. Join her free facebook group for writers – the Word Love Writing Community – now to become a better, more consistent writer.

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Filed Under: Creative Process, End Writer's Block, Writing Tips Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, End Journal Burnout, Julie JordanScott

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

December 4, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

#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.

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Filed Under: 2018, Bridge to the New Year, Creative Life Coaching, Creative Process, Writing Prompt Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, gratitude list, Gratitude Practice, Julie JordanScott

Intentional Collaboration: Past, Present & Future You

September 8, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Today in my review of notebooks, I found this statement; “Affirm and act in one fluid motion.”

It rang out for attention when the 2014 version of me sang out with utter confidence, “Affirm and act in one fluid motion.”

There was a paragraph after that which tried too hard and wasn’t true-in-that-moment – which is one of the challenges with successful affirmations.

I replaced those words with these and plan to revisit this writing for the next seven days as I continue to collaborate with “me of the past” with “me of the now” to create an even more empowered “Julie of the Future and Infinitely Ever After.”

In the past, I wasted time concerning myself with trivialities. In the past I made the mistake of consenting to believe it was ok to feel inferior or in less than the grand and glorious creation I was and now, I am aware. Now, I am clear instead that I am gutsy and glorious. 

I am entertaining and engaging. People who matter to me like me.

Today and all of the tomorrows to come I will remember this and am remembering this:

Any people who matter, truly like me for who I am, with my frailties and past moments of missing the mark – they choose then to love this authentic and gutsy and glorious me.

Today I am affirm this and am this. So I am simply being it.

Coming soon:

Downloadable Affirmation Work-Play-Create-Be Coloring Page

Weekend WordLove Fest Opening Event – Let’s Celebrate!
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Filed Under: Affirmations for Writers, Creative Process, Rewriting the Narrative, Writing Prompt Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, affirmation actions, affirmations, Creative life Coaching, Gutsy and Glorious, Julie JordanScott

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

September 15, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

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. Facebooktwitterpinterest

Filed Under: #5for5BrainDump, Business Artistry, Storytelling, Writing Prompt Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, #5for5BrainDump, autism, end writer's block, End Writer's Block with Brain Dumps, feel better, Life balance, Special Needs Mom

What is Calling You to Attention: Write it out to Make Positive Change in Your Life Now

July 31, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Last week I wrote for five minutes using this prompt image I created.

Mondays are my day to “pay attention” oftentimes after weekends which are prone to distraction.

I have only made minor edits to my “in the moment” writing using the #5for5BrainDump method.

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 heaer 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 lukewarm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esque: there must be results.  My inside habits shriek!

There must be a something in order to continue I can’t just continue for a nothing that makes no sense.

*Note to self: the results come from the on-going practice. When I re-read this five minute writing, I discover content possibilities even in this short chunk of writing. I find instantly solutions for people who seek my programs, my coaching, my books and courses.

Oh, yeah, there’s that.

Process is worth all of the wonder and exhilaration of  what other peole call “results” that I have had as a part of writing for five minutes a day – being on a best seller list or having twenty five people pay a thousand dollars to hear me speak.

People are 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 hear 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.

Now it is YOUR turn to write. Ready?

Set your timer for five minutes. I use the online timer under this link here.    

Now look back up at the image and either hand write the prompt or type it into a document. Press go on your timer. No editing, no forethought, just writing. Now.

You’ve got this… What is calling for my attention is…. 

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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Filed Under: #5for5BrainDump, Creative Adventures, Creative Process, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, Anne Lamott, free flow writing, pay attention. writing prompt, Writing

Reawakening Love for The Writing Process Itself

July 28, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

It is one of the most powerful questions you may ask yourself: “What do I really, truly want in this wild and wonderful life I’ve been given?”

As writers, we may ask specifically about our writing, “What do I really, truly want to create with my writing? How do I want my writing process to feel?”

We may ask, “How may I awaken my love for the writing process?”

I wish I  could tell you the answer naturally rushes out in a beautifully crafted message right from my subconscious to my keyboard.

It doesn’t usually happen like that. Instead, a process we come to know as even more delicious than instantly having an answer takes place and instead of just “getting an answer” I give myself room to fall back in love with writing.

Stay with me so you may deepen or fall in love all over again with both your creative process AND your life.  I will share with you what I wrote in five minutes. I am taking that risk, I am allowing you into my own writing perfect imperfections. It is scary for me AND I am willing to go there because it is so important for each of us.

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

John O’Donohue

I started to write:

Think outside of the realm of romantic love now.

If I reawakened to the love in my writing life, I would discover… my words have more merit and meaning than I had originally believed. In fact, I haven’t believed deeply enough in eons. Or at least a long time. Eons, that’s a bit of hyperbole.

Isn’t it funny how a moment in time may feel like eons? It may feel like hyperbole too. Maybe we should write about love AS hyperbole. Maybe we should write about love being someone else drinking the yummilicous coffee I made for myself. Or stealing the chocolate bar (for myself) or… enter your weird quirk here.

“My sun sets to rise again.”

Robert Browning

Settling in, I think about Nutella sandwiches. I think about my slouchery as a mother. I think “What will my babies eat if I don’t map it out?”

= = =

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 lukewarm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esqu: we are trained to insist upon results that are only in our favor. “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. Writing these words is definitely a something.

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.

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.”

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. (My timer applauds when my time is up.) All that in five minutes.

= = =

Now it is your turn to take today’s prompt and write from it. You may write once or you may write several times.

“How may I awaken my love for the writing process?”

Remember to set your timer for five minutes and after your time is up, spend fifteen to thirty seconds writing what you are grateful for either from the writing experience or from your life in general.

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

Be sure to follow me so you may continue to stay close to this sort of writing inspiration to keep your writing flowing and your life moving in the direction your heart seeks.

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.Facebooktwitterpinterest

Filed Under: Creative Adventures, Creative Process, Uncategorized, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, #5for5BrainDump, free writing, john O'Donohue, Julie JordanScott, love for the writing process, writing practice, writing process, Writing quote

Writers & Creatives: Passionate Detachment MAY be Your Best Friend –

July 6, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I started writing this as a five minute brain dump (#5for5BrainDump) and then discovered… I hadn’t started my timer. Nonetheless, I loved the content so here it is – unedited and raw but about ten minutes worth.

I wrote from the quote you see below –

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. ”
― Simone Weil

Passionate Detachment is a theory/term I made up roughly fifteen years ago from a conversation with a painting contractor while we talked about small running backs one hot day in Bakersfield.

I’m sure there are similar concepts but I enjoy the paradox and how it sounds, the variety of vowels and consonants.

Passionate detachment: going for your goal with all you’ve got and not being attached to the results of your efforts. Be entranced, delighted and full throttle, like the five-foot-six-inch high school running back who puts his head down and runs right through the huge defensive linemen and heads toward the end zone without worrying about the two-hundred-pound tackle launched in his direction.

Sports analogies work in the US.

It is the painter who splashes paint for hours on end on her masterpiece, not concerned with commercial endeavors yet knowing if this painting resonates with the right audience and her art dealer gets this painting in front of the right people it will change EVERYTHING and yet she just goes for it – she may have visualized and strategized and held countless meetings but the bottom line is she loves how the paint smells and how it feels to move it on the canvas, how the expression on that face she just created reminds her of her first grade teacher, Miss Foley, when she told her “Happy Mother’s Day” with the sweet purity of a seven-year-old who loves her single-not-a-parent-yet-teacher-who-obviously –loves-children.

Passionate detachment says “I will go after success AND I will do what I love, regardless of how wacky some people may think I am in doing so.”

Passionate detachment says, “Make that slightly offbeat declaration about your plans on Facebook in front of everyone you know (and a few people you met once in passing who friended you) and then, by gosh and by golly, take action in the direction of that wild dream no one thinks you will ever really do.

Passionate detachment says, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I am going to start because I know Plato once said something like ‘The beginning is the most important part of the work’ and if I just talk about beginning but don’t actually start, it is worth nothing. And my vision and I are both worth a  whole lot of something so here… I…. “ and then, the passionately detached person takes that leap.

She moves her pencil on the blank page. He makes that phone call to that investor he met while riding pool on Uber in Los Angeles. They sign that contract to rent that space for the event they have wanted to hold and place the ad and talk to five more people than they’re comfortable speaking to because they are passionate and they are detached. They know they are worth every action and their vision is worth every small and not-so-small risk.

They are passionately detached.

(Sometimes brain dumps are interrupted by phones ringing and sometimes they end with applause.)

How do you create with passionate detachment?

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Filed Under: #5for5BrainDump, Business Artistry, Creative Process, Storytelling, Writing Tips Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, #5for5BrainDump, creativity, Julie JordanScott, Writing

How the Language of Every Day Creates…. Contentment, A-ha Moments & More

May 16, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

What would you say if I told you this post was built upon two five minute writing sessions and a life inspired by challenges and overcoming fear, a long held and unrecognized until recently addiction?

Here’s the thing: I believe in writing in 5 minute chunks. This is well documenting. Allowing words to flow and then massaging them later simply works.

In the next paragraph there is a quote by William Stafford. I read this quote and a poem (tomorrow a video of me reading  it will be at the bottom of this post) and the rest of the words tumbled forth, musical notes accompanied by a five-minute exercise I created called the #5for5BrainDump.

Join me, now, on this word adventure.

“When you make a poem you merely speak or write the language of every day, capturing as many bonuses as possible and economizing on losses; that is, you come aware to what always goes on in language, and you use it to the limit of your ability and your power of attention to the moment.”

William Stafford

I challenged myself to write poetry this time: no institution or celebratory month is guiding me.

It is purely  my desire to practice, my will to dig more deeply, bring to life my idea that poetry creation might help me to figure stuff out a little bit better than… not.

I have a word pool (a collection of words to stir up the process and serve as a sort of paint-on-a-writing-palette and my timer is moving.

Grind groove habit hang up “into” manner matter of course mode observance.

It (fear)  comes upon me it seems without warning, like the breeze suddenly lifting my hair from my shoulders

Flirting with me, making me feel more than slightly feminine and deep inside my core whispers, “You are a girl, this is what it is, sink into that feeling of something else moving your hair, giving you that weightless out of control oh, doesn’t that feel just right” feeling and I stop, my stomach beginning to churn, “no, it isn’t like that it isn’t like that.”

Is it like the way you feel when you are dancing, grooving, moving your body in a way that feels slightly to the left of heaven and full steam ahead into paradise when you catch someone looking with the eyebrow raised just so and the tongue on the tip of the cluck so you skip a beat and stop and slow and sludge becomes the order of the day and you forget you love to dance and you certainly don’t get anything except regret back anytime soon.

It is a matter of course then? An item on the daily to-do?

Feel fear and be paralyzed, all the time?

How to invite fear and expand it horizontally and vertically in 5 simple blood curdling steps?

Take five doses of fear daily and be sure to get nowhere in life except frightened. Repeat doses daily, add another dosage if nothing happens.

I almost stop typing because it is so preposterous and I know the adage of “what we focus on grows” so I remind myself, “This is just a game.”

Passionate Possibilities otherwise known as my week long Daily to-do list:

When I feel fear creep into my space, take note of it. Pre-program responses such as these to say internally and aloud if it helps. . “Fear – I see you for who you are. You are not welcome here. Good bye! Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear creep into my space, I will feel my feet on the ground – every inch of connection noted to the floor, the carpet, the sand, the grass, the concrete and I will express gratitude for the feeling of connection. I will repeat, “Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear mocking my femininity through seduction or flirtation, I will note it and remember the potent heroes and sheroes of the feminine. I will reach my hands out and build a bridge with them. I will affirm myself, “This is a bridge over fear to courage. Today, I choose peace.” (The word after today I choose may change according to what feels the most resonant with that day.)

My five-minute-timer went off about three minutes ago.

I elected to continue writing because the insights were continuing to be born. I knew actively giving them space would net more benefit for me and for you, my readers, so I chose to stay with it because today I am choosing courage, peace, poetry and you and me.

Who will be brave enough to tell me about your fear or better yet, who else is brave enough to begin building that bridge from fear into courage?

Maybe you’ve built it partially before or maybe you just haven’t used the bridge you once built and it requires some slight adjustments.

In any and all of those cases, know I am here to listen, to sit alongside you and together we have the passion and collective power to craft intentionally toward your most vivid, aligned with your vision future.

To request an appointment with me to talk, text or message about my programs and upcoming possibilities, please fill out the contact form on my website.

The world is waiting for your words: you are worth taking the time to gain clarity and get your voice on the page and into the world now.

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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-mediaartist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming through the end of 2017.

 

 

 

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Filed Under: #5for5BrainDump, Creative Adventures, Creative Process, Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, Bakersfield Poet, Creative Life Coach, Creative Life Midwife, Poetry, Poetry Challenge, Turning Fear Into Courage. How to Use Poetry to Turn Fear into Courage

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