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Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Mindset Shift: From “I’m a Bother” to “I’m a Blessing” + Writing Prompt

May 21, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife 2 Comments

Today’s 5 minute writing came to me in a more circular way than my norm. I am on a retreat this week: I am still at home, but my focus is on curation and completion of content that has been hanging about, unfinished, in my “unpolished gems” files.

I started to write this after I had finished a couple unfinished videos and rewritten several poems from my upcoming collection. I opened my copy of “I Praise My Destroyer” by Diane Ackerman, re-read the opening stanza of her poem, “You will think this a dream” and within five minutes, another big breakthrough came to be. You may see yourself reflected in the process. Below is what I wrote:

From the Poem “You Will Think This a Dream” by Diane Ackerman in her collection, I Praise My Destroyer.”
“Hypnotized, it leaps through coiled metal
to drive cauldrons wild
in a parenthesis of flame – “

Prompts: 
      Question – What doesn’t surprise me… that would if I shifted perspective?
Phrases to inspire:
     A parenthesis of flame
    Cauldrons wild
    Hypnotized, it leaps (also vary pronouns – she, he, they, you, we)
Sentence starter:
     I remember the time it felt like I was hypnotized so clearly, it was….

It took me longer to get started than I am used to it taking.

I was settling in, diligently checking things off my massive to-do list, not wanting to be bothered with.. and here in the midst of my rather mindless writing that parenthesis of flame from my inner narrative rings out, loud and clear.

I don’t want to be a bother, so I…

Don’t ask for what I want.

Don’t allow the person I don’t ask to show me how much he or she or they actually care and want to actually do whatever it is I am not bothering to ask them.

Not so ironically, this is another of my deeply buried and believed to the soles of my feet and the soul of my heart, “My existence is a bother and certainly the pressure of my request or interruption in someone’s life is just that unbearable so instead… I just don’t.. I won’t… I can’t.” and that has become that has become that.

Concrete barriers that actually do have the capacity to crush me like the incredible shrinking walls scene about annually on most daytime soap operas.

I’ve only been writing for four minutes? This is completely unpleasant.

What if I wasn’t a bother?

My eye is now twitching. Why am I doing this again?

Oh yes, to shift in my belief.

The timer goes off and I give myself another minute.

If I didn’t believe my existence was a bother, I might not be so fearful when asking for help. My existence is a blessing.

My existence is a blessing.

My existence is a blessing.

When I believe my existence is a blessing, like I was just told this morning, making requests becomes a gift. Following through becomes restorative for all of us, and peace becomes a river that has found a way.

This instantly shifted from completely unpleasant to becoming a soft blanket and pillow, a reassuring smile and a thoughtful hug.
A five minute miracle that is allowing me to use the new mantra:
“My existence is a blessing,” and I may begin to use it more than the old, unconscious, destructive thought.

I am not a bother, my existence is a blessing.

My aim today with this writing was to inspire you to #1) Explore the power of reframing your personal narrative in order to simply feel better in general and to lead a more satisfying and productive life.

 Please, join me now, as I take it on 5 minutes at a time for the next 30 days.  This morning I was being challenged – so I started with a quote I found by an unknown-to-me woman. I googled “inspiring quotes for women and this is what I got. I set my timer for 5 minutes and started to write.

===

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 or to request she speak at your next event, call or text her at 661.444.2735

 

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Filed Under: #5for5BrainDump, Rewriting the Narrative, Storytelling, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Prompt Tagged With: Poetic inspiration, Poetry, Poetry and Writing Prompts, poetry quotes

Inspired by Equinox: Poetry and Writing Prompts Lives Again

September 22, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife 1 Comment

My original livestream periscope show, writing and poetry prompts in the park is being revived. It may not always be in parks AND it will always be poetry, curated by me, and offered to you with prompts to guide your creative process.

Our first broadcast will have a series of Autumn Themed Poems – this prompt came from the poem “Equimox” by Elizabeth Alexander. You may find it on the Poetry Foundation Website here: Equinox by Elizabeth Alexander:

The Broadcast may be enjoyed below with my written response to the prompt below it:

New! Poetry & Writing Prompts: Autumn Equinox & You! 3 Poems 3 Prompts! #Inspire#Art #Teach https://t.co/aZ4C8quIG7

— Julie Jordan Scott (@juliejordanscot) September 22, 2017

Now is the time of year when I feel free to settle into my recliner and write, ignoring everything else. We cocoon and it’s cool. We cover up with scarves and softness. We have permission.

I have permission. I cocoon and it’s cool. I can hide in my Virginia Woolf room and leave the loudness of shouts about football and politics to others. Bring me in a plate of warm cookies and mocha and I’m happy for hours.

This is the time of year when I’ve had repeated illness and periods of letting go, usually together like companions in stopping the thread of what ceases to serve when this time of year rolls around.

This is the time of year I got married long ago and Katherine is getting married soon.

This is the time of year I got back up on stage, the time of year I watched a General Assembly general session, grieved more than one election, never had a child. Interesting: this is the season of “No Birth” and “No Death” just illness and letting go. Interesting.
Now is the time of year for putting on costumes and taking off metaphorical masks.

See the words with pluses? These are all words I could use for “pulling apart” in my mother’s sewing (actually preparing to sew) her least favorite part of the process.

Now is the time of year for blank paper and canvas, research rituals and learning anew. Stepping back into the classroom, delighting in connections found there, forgetting things and being forgiven for the forgetting.

Usually.

And letting go of those who don’t understand grace. And that’s ok, too – because that’s what grace is, right?

This feels like the longest five minutes on record and my timer says… “Recollection is over!”

= = =

Sometimes it feels like our brain dump goes on too long but when I keep writing I discover the juicy stuff is right there…. on the otherside of my opinion!

= = –

#5for5BrainDump has a new challenge starting next week if you’re up for it check it out now at our companion website:

#5for5BrainDump – YAY!

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 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, Writing Challenges & Play Tagged With: Equinox, Poetry, Poetry and Writing Prompts, writing prompt

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

May 16, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

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

Poetry: Love it, Hate it, Bored by It? Let’s play a free association game now —

April 21, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife Leave a Comment

When you see or hear “poetry”: what springs to your mind first? Read this essay to relate to poetry in a useful, reflective way.

I subscribe to a variety of writing websites, read writing instructional books regularly and attempt, always, to be at the forefront of thought around writing so that I may serve my students and workshop participants and coaching clients as well as I possibly can.

I also make it no secret that I am a poet and an actor.

Today I was reading one of my subscriptions, saw this and literally gasped aloud:

“Reading poetry often bothers people. Sometimes poetry feels lofty and pretentious and seems to say, “I know something you don’t know,” which is obnoxious, like an older sister taunting us.”

I was mortified.

“Reading poetry BOTHERS people? How can that be?!” I found myself taking this assertion personally. “How dare they think such a thing! They are missing the fabulousness that is poetry and anyone knows…” and then I thought back to the years when I wrote poetry and neglected to read poetry.

It is sort of like being a selfish-all-about-me person who enjoys other people’s company as long as the focus is solely on what they like and what they want and the conversation revolves around them.

Poetry isn’t like that. At. All. If poetry is a one way “I just write poetry” or “I abstain from all poetry” you are missing out on a huge area of growth as not only a writer or creative, you are shutting yourself off from the sheer pleasure of word play that comes with it.

What if a poem was an invitation?

My father was one of those who didn’t like poetry because he couldn’t “figure it out” and then I wrote a sonnet about hearing my grandather’s voice in a train whistle.

Suddenly poetry – according to my father especially poetry written by me – was enjoyable and easy to understand.

Let’s take a moment to free associatie – I will share three lines of poetry, one at a time.

When you read a line, jot notes of how you connect with those words.

“We have the town we call home wakening for dawn which isn’t here yet but is promised.”

Philip Levine

Make associations – what words do you connect with here? What do you see in your mind’s eye from this one line of poetry?

“The grass never sleeps”

Mary Oliver

Associations, please.

“I saw you in a dream last night –

Quiet and pale, but still my handsome cousin.”

Dana Gioia

Associate (Do you have a handsome cousin?)

“Time for gardening again; for poetry”

Margaret Atwood

More associations – play!

I just pulled random collections of poetry from my shelves, opened them, and wrote the first lines I saw. I didn’t have to hunt for inviting word sections or the easier to understand lines or the ‘dumbed down” versions.

See, what I love about poetry is the simplicity I find there, the purity and the relationship between me and the words and by association the poet. Three of  the poets I chose are currently living, breathing this same air I breathe, standing on the same ground I stand upon albeit in different spaces. Phillip Levine died in 2015 in Fresno, California not far from where I live in Bakersfield. Have you been to Fresno? The most unpretentious people you have ever met live there.

Dana Gioia and I had a conversation in December but I doubt he remembers me. I became a fourteen-year-old girl holding a copy of a fan magazine when I spoke to him. Giddy, with rapid speech, nervous about my choice of outfit and wishing I had taken more time with my appearance when we spoke. He is the current poety laureate of the state of California and the word craft in his poetry makes me swoon.

There is a new television show starting based on one of Margaret Atwood’s books.

Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Philip Levine is also a Pultizer Prize Winner who chose to focus on the working class in his poetry and the place of his birth, Detroit, was one of his central inspirations.

I went back to the article that started this train of thought and discovered a shift there, as well.

“If we keep reading, poetry often moves us in ways a paragraph can’t. It requires a compression of language and meaning, tucked inside precise words that create concrete images. Poets, with a wink and a wry smile, trust us to read well.” Joe Bunting, TheWritePractice.com

Share in the comments what words you free associate with POETRY. Whatever you think or feel, let it drip onto the comments here. This is going to be fun. Let’s read your thoughts 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 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 in the margins 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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Filed Under: Creative Adventures, Creative Process, Poetry Tagged With: . Julie Jordan Scott, creative process, Poetry, Poets, Reflection, Writing

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