“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
August Wilson
I’ve had some huge breakthroughs for the, well, the last week has been exceptional but really since the new year started.
I have been practicing taking a stand for myself in ways I never would before and now…. it really is like that old affirmation I would say (and not believe) says “Every day in every way, better and better and better” in the past I would have said “except for me”.
The same spirits who encouraged me to pursue theater just nudged me to say “especially me.” I normally would 
not have confessed this post script. It sounds pitiful and sophomoric.
Who am I to decide pitiful and sophomoric are destructive (negative, bad)?
Yesterday was February 9. The first day I was aware of every moment and was content, every moment. I was reflective and contemplative and not excrutiatingly sad.
This almost feels too good to be true.
This almost feels impossible.
And it is possible. And it is good. I ate chocolate cake with Emma as a stand in birthday cake and when the coffee was too hot to enjoy with my cake, I left a full cup there without blinking.
This feeling of contentment is quite a contrast to the more familiar sensations when I have felt sad and broken and unworthy.
I was sad and broken and I would have argued and offered evidence as to my unworthiness, offered proof given to me repeatedly by those in the know of what it means to be devalued, unwanted. For me the worst feeling of all was unblessed, passed over, one the others have given up on or left behind.
Marlena didn’t die because I deserved to be punished, she just died. The facts are the umbilical cord which was designed to bring her life at some point got tangled up and stopped offering her life.
I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t deserve to be flogged or diminished. There was nothing I could do to change this and even though I could say this in the early aftermath, in the years later I myself got tangled into the web of “Well, if it wasn’t me than why did it have to happen to me?”
Sometime between January 1 and now I have been able to surrender my perceived punishment as well as this idea of Marlena’s death happening “to me.”
It happened. It is tragic. It is epic. It has influenced nearly everything in my life in some way since then. I have been successful at some tasks and projects since then and I’ve had some failures. Other people right here in this world have the same track record with completely different circumstances.
Yesterday, my daughter who never lived outside my womb was able to release her blessing to me because I finally opened my arms fully to receive it.
Her life, even lived only in my womb, was and is and will continue to be significant.
I have been so angry with myself, so unwilling to forgive myself for something I couldn’t impact. It was like feeling the need to take responsibility for my blue eyes or responsibility for my nose being the shape it is.
I wasn’t able to speak the anger for a variety of reasons – being afraid of anger, not knowing how to be constructive with anger, distrusting anger, not knowing the language of anger – and more.
The thing is – in working to rewrite my narrative and reframe my life experiences not into positives but into meaning that goes beyond good and bad or positive and negative – my life feels better. More aligned, more awake and alive – better than it was before “this crash” or “that crisis” or “that great celebration” or what any labels call it forth.
This transformation is in that “it is” category and it is more than that. More. It is more like “it is love.”
This is why I am going to devote myself to the daily spiritual practice of writing and “reporting in” because I know there is great value in that, both for me and for those of you seeking to rewrite your narratives, too, and fall back in love with your lives.
One paragraph, one photo-taken, one sketch, one poem read, one play experienced, one conversation, one new place discovered at a time we fall back in love with our lives.
I’m so grateful you are here.
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 Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
I started this series to document the shifts that happen as I seek to rewrite the narrative that shapes my life, especially in relationship to a domino sequence of events from nearly ten years ago that created a wall of sorts I haven’t been able to move through. Revisiting the meaning I add to each vignette empowers me to claim my life experiences and create a door through the wall so that I may come to integrate the bricks into a new mosaic, perhaps into a path back into the light where I used to be most at home. Ironically I’ve been inconsistent with it. My aim now is to raise my level of consistency and share stories and progress (at least) daily.
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!
I would rather feel a lot than be numb.
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!
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!
Hello, February!
Writing Prompt: This post was written by simply setting my timer to 5 minutes and free flow writing. I didn’t overthink or even really think at all, I simply wrote. Before I hit “publish” I briefly eye balled the text but that’s it. What is more important than the outcome is the process and the revisiting, daily, as we settle into February.
The woman sat across from me, smiling – eyes wide and happy. I thought it was miraculous: she looked excited to see me – this she who is my therapist, one who enjoys the Myers-Briggs assessment tool. She was talking about how I show up in the world, personality wise. She was talking about how I am free spirited, don’t like to plan, don’t like the middle or endings of things so I work under pressure… and I remembered, so clearly…
So when did I stop behaving like this and when did I start stuff and then (more often than I will care to admit) fall apart before crossing the finish line?
Then there is the job I had that seemed like such a good fit which ended when my life was threatened twice in two months and then my associates and co-workers all deserted me.
My son’s school called when I was away from my phone. I saw I had just missed it so the voice mail hadn’t yet arrived. I stood there and felt my heart race, a sudden unexpected flashback.
