Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Tell Your Stories: The World is Waiting…..

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This was originally written as a #5for5BrainDump style piece of writing. As often happens when we allow free flow to have its way, some powerful words flooded through. I did not edit so please excuse grammatical and spelling errors. Around here we stand by “process is the new perfection.” (polishing comes, later).

I was feeling nervous and overwhelmed by the process of re-orientation after a whirlwind out-of-town trip. Writing centered me.

Timer set and…. the writing begins.

I could so easily get overwhelmed and I am not going to. I am staying present. I am writing. I am remembering. I am writing as I am remembering and staying present.

This is where I find the gold dust and the stories that are most important to be told find their way to the forefront and because I am taking a mere five minutes to write, the words find their way through my fingers onto the page and I grow in trust.

Right here, right now and you are witnessing it.

The world is waiting for your stories. Right now in Paducah, Poughkeepsie and Paris there are women sitting at their computers feeling slightly asleep and your exact story is the light they have been looking for even though neither of you know it.

Last week my new friend Belen said to me, “Whenever I talk to a person who is down I think, ‘I need to introduce this person to Julie. Julie would make this person feel better…. Because every time I am with you I feel better.”

This was like a symphony playing in my ears personally for me. Belen was just speaking from her heart and she gave me such a gift in reflecting back to me what my stories have created for her. Feeling better. Me, showing up, telling my stories via a writing workshop and paving the way for her to tell her stories first on the page and then… beyond – makes her feel better, makes her world better and echoes out… everywhere she goes because….

I took the time out to tell my story. I got vulnerable and offered myself via a writing workshop. Why? Because I knew someone out there was calling me. In that case, it was someone named Belen. Next, it may be someone named… YOU who is writing or speaking or livestreaming or blogging… for someone specific to you that you don’t even know yet.

The world is waiting for you. Take action. 5 minutes. That’s all it takes. 5 minutes + you = miracles.

And the timer goes off and I sign off….

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via #5for5BrainDump, livestream broadcasts, creativity 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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Open the Gift of Your Future in Your Present Moment, Today

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This week I want to be aware of those moments that may seem to be wrapped in insignificance and yet when the gift of the moment is unwrapped, we discover a nugget of gold that continues to radiate and shine long into the future.

This awareness started with a question, “What if that conversation didn’t happen?”

I was reading a note I started to write yesterday. A note I never completed. A note that just sat here in my unpolished gem file – waiting for me to take action (or not) with it.

I wrote once again about the most important conversation I had in 2017.

It was a completely random conversation with a stranger. It clearly didn’t happen within a context of deep personal history and connection. It happened because I was being fully myself in a moment of time when an unsuspecting stranger didn’t realize he needed exactly the medicine my “fully-myself-ness” offered.

His words and actions allowed me to see myself differently.

“I want to hear what you’re saying,” he said, and turned off the radio so he wouldn’t be distracted.

I’m accustomed to going about my day, taking care of my kids, showing up for my friends as best as I can, making contributions as best I can and my perception of myself is often one of invisibility.

That one conversation has lifted me up countless times since that day and provides me the exact medicine I need when I am feeling discouraged.

Thankfully the conversation happened and I continue to receive its afterglow of grace and self-love.

Instead of worrying about “what if it didn’t happen” I am choosing to shift my focus to receiving the continuing gifts from the fact it did happen. Every conversation, every connection is a gift.

Every conversation is a gift.

Every connection is a gift.

Now, receive the gift.

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.

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Take Time to Reflect: Mindful Action = Amplified Results

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I alternated this morning between angry, sad and anxious.

Hardly a productive combination of ways of being: more like a recipe for turbulence and possible destructive action – which tends to create more emotional carnage and rarely anything with an ongoing positive flavor, at least not in my life.

So far this morning I have cried and fretted. I have cleaned and sulked. I have edited some images and now, finally, I am writing,

I managed to have small moments of reflection primarily because I know reflection will (eventually) yield results though sometimes – in the process – reflection feels pretty lousy.

I wrote a micro-poem in a moment of anger this morning. I like it but I probably won’t rush out to post it all over social media because then my reflection turns into someone else’s pain. I don’t want to cause pain. Ever.

  1. Reflect in short bites. If it feels lousy at first, let it feel lousy with one caveat: attempt to keep your lousy in your own realm.
  2. Write, art or exercise out your reflections as a means of digesting whatever appears. Sometimes one, two or all three (and repeat) is necessary.
  3. Add an element of forgiveness into your process. Like in #5for5BrainDump when we focus on gratitude at the end of our five minutes, focus on forgiveness of yourself and others when you are completing your reflective time. Punctuate with gratitude and intention as feels right.

Interesting to note: in simply writing these words (total time investment about 7 minutes) I feel better. I feel less cranky, less anxious, less fretful.

Week ahead: I am coming your way. We are going to be great together!

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.

 

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Free Yourself From Banishment: Express. Strengthen. Heal. Awaken.

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“Each time I express myself with writing, I get stronger. I heal more. I awaken to what is true.”

I wrote today’s affirmation, in cursive, on an art background book page and what I heard was, “look at how pretty those cursive r’s are. You made them. They’re lovely.”

This awareness negates one of my early outer critic stories that in the past has prevailed and kept me from writing. Miss Pizarro said, “You will never make your “R’s” right. What is wrong with you?”

Miss Pizarro, if she is still alive, would probably be very disturbed about the lack of cursive writing instruction in schools.

As for me, I love the feeling of writing in cursive, how it feels to create the loops – and I love that as I am growing in healing through my personal narrative writing, I am releasing these long-time curses – these long time periods of banishment.

Here’s what happens with the whole banishing scenario:

I am the one who has locked myself into my cell of separation. No one else did that. Other people may have said the words, they may have been the ones who ignited the hurt feelings AND it is I who walked through the door marked “Go away, worthless one” not them.

Some might say I am victim blaming myself.

Keep listening and hear me out, please.

Just as I am the one who locked myself out of the world and into banishment, I am the one who is now setting myself free. I am the one who is choosing an active trust and then actually taking the steps rather than talking about taking the steps.

I am the one who is putting the pieces in place like stepping one stepping stone to the next, one big boulder in the river after another. I am the one lifting my foot and propelling my weight forward. I may seek help and a hand and more than a moment or two of solo prayer or quiet and ultimately just like I was the one who locked myself in, I am the one who is setting myself free.

There are people who reflect my wonder back at me who are helpful beyond words: many of whom have been beside me – even at a distance – for close to twenty years.

I recall their words of affirmation and as I step out from banishment, I hear them even more clearly. I tune into the truth within the love in their commentary. Rather than Miss Pizarro with her, “You’ll never…. Be right. What’s wrong with you?” I hear “Julie’s work  is better than (huge personal growth guru)” and “It is because of Julie I am a writer,” and “Your work changed my life.” And “It is because of who Julie is” and “Follow Julie, your future self will thank you.”

This is an exploration of self via free flowing personal narrative. I’m using the “5for5BrainDump” model which grants a person the gift of 5 minutes of timed writing to dump whatever comes onto the page without editing, forethought or judgment. What appears on the page and out of the rambling mind is remarkable.

These thoughts are posted unedited and will occasionally include an extra session or two to get to the depth the person feels necessary. Sometimes, the person (in many cases myself) backs away from the writing because… it is uncomfortable, she feels like something is about to crack open or she becomes bored and drifts away momentarily.

It is important to give license to stop and continue, stumble and continue, rant and scream and cry… and continue. This continuing is where the transformation happens.

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.

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Finding Comfort in the Facts: Rewriting My Narrative

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 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.

I woke up this morning in a panic.

It wasn’t immediate, actually – I notice even though I’ve been awake for just over an hour, my mind is already revising the facts and the details.

I was awake early which was slightly weird – at just after 4 am – but not completely out of the ordinary. I had my phone in my hand when an acquaintance who was once a neighbor sent me a video chat request.

That sent me into a tailspin.

I declined the video chat and almost immediately when I felt unmistakeable fear swept across my body, radiating from my heart to my arms and legs and up and rushing around and looking for tasks to do and listening for anything scary to jump from the walls of the house.

What scared me?

How does it happen that fear just flies into the room like a stealth bomber and takes hold?

The video chat request may have been an accident but my animal brain caused fear to ricochet, “It wasn’t an accident. Watch out, the coast is not clear. Trouble, danger, back away from it now.”

An early morning video chat request meant someone knew I was awake so I couldn’t pretend I had the ability to safely be awake in silence. The request pierced my silent peace.

See, self, it isn’t an irrational fear. Something happened to alert your… my fingers stopped typing and I closed my eyes.

I don’t think I was ready to wake up.

The radiating fear may very clearly have come from the space nightmares come from: the depths of sleep, where the unspeakable darkness within us occasionally makes itself known.

The timer for my 5 minute writing period sounds and I may now complete this writing.

I want to have a capstone at the end.

I took my hands away from the keyboard and took several breaths, deep resonant breaths.

Old narrative: When fear sweeps in, panic is the next emotion in the train called “You and those you love are in danger. Dive into ground and burrow under the soil.”

New narrative: When fear sweeps in, take time to notice what is factual. Find comfort in the facts.

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.

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5 Simple Ways to Use Affirmations To Fuel Your Best Writing:

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Affirmations are a simple and helpful technique to switch your mind from getting stuck in loops of destructive messages and tune into creative, constructive thought patterns instead. If you are unfamiliar with affirmations at all, go to google and search for “Introduction to Affirmations.”

If you are familiar with how to use affirmations and would like to see how to use them as a tool for writing, stick around – this will be helpful!

  1. Combine Affirmations with deep breathing. Say your affirmations aloud as your day begins and then throughout the day. A good rule of thumb for timing is before standard meal times and right before sleep.
  2. Use Affirmations as a free flow writing warm up. If you use a relatively short affirmation (seven words or less) simply write the affirmation on your page repeatedly for a minute and then see where your pencil, pen or fingers on the keyboard wants to go. Follow the flow of the energy after you have affirmed yourself as a writer and usually the difference in what you write is nothing short of astonishing.
  3. Do the classic mirror work: look into the mirror and speak your affirmations aloud to your reflection. Smile at yourself as you would smile at your best friend. While this technique gets a lot of flack, try it at least 5 times to see if it makes a difference for you. If it doesn’t fine, move along and say you tried.
  4. Use several short writing affirmations in a row, like an affirmation chorus. There are days when general affirmations work or other days when affirmations about starting, completion, editing or revision work best.
  5. Start and continue. When you fall down, get back up and start and continue again. The world is waiting for your words. Today, play with writing your affirmation and then flow into free flow/brain dump writing for five minutes like I did below.

Let me know how it goes! Now: here are my words, fresh off my paper – #5for5BrainDump style which means no editing, no forethought, just allowing my energy to move the words ontot he page.

I am blessed with sweet satisfaction when I complete my writing projects.

I am blessed with joy and fulfillment every time I sit to write for five minutes and allow the words to move through me rather than control each letter, each vowel, each consonant. Funny, isn’t it, how when I let go of the control, not only does the flow feel better but most of the time the meaning, rhythm and sound gets better, too.

I am blessed with exhilaration when people read my work and appreciate it and tell me.

I am blessed with smiles of connection when people read my work and feel themselves in it: they not only know who I am (this is less important) they know more of who they are.

I am thrilled to dive deeper with rewriting my narrative: looking at the facts from a space of love amps up my awareness of the sacred in everyday. Some people call this magic, some miracles, some are too deep in their to-do lists to even notice AND it feels so good to share the stories.

I am blessed with friends who listen, who do lift my chin, who cherish what I am up to and reflect back to me the goodness and beauty in what I create. I feel valued and not leeched upon. I feel precious because I am precious.

I am overflowing with ideas to bring what I am remembering into concrete, working forms to serve the world and make it a more welcoming, more growth, more constructive and creative place.

I am blessed with sweet satisfaction when I make progress.

I am happy – so happy – in seeing this single page fill up. I am grateful to hear my son’s footsteps outside my room and not rush in to see what he needs but give him the gift of self awareness and personal responsibility knowing HE can take care of it.

I am grateful for timers that ring – and realize in just five minutes I learn and grow in unfathomably wondrous ways.

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.

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The Most Important Writing Tip of All

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Are you ready for the single most important writing tip there is? The one that will change your writing game forever?

I can feel some of you cringing and some of you perking up.

One side says, “There are no single most important writing tips.”

You excited ones are literally thrilled that I have THE answer. I have THE secret that will help you to become a best seller!

Here is the most important tip:

Keep your butt in the seat and write. Don’t think about anything else, just move your fingers on the keyboard or your pen moving across the page and write.

You may be in a coffee shop, you may be on your treadmill with your voice activation tool writing AND the intention is to WRITE: so you aren’t reading about writing, talking about writing, sharing your writing goals or watching livestreams about writing or taking a class about writing you are actually doing it. Writing.

You might be ready to throw something at me at this point. Please don’t. Please stay here and I’ll give you the secondary part of this tip which is HOW TO keep writing.

#1) Write anything. Good bad or indifferent, write anything even if all you write is “Look at me, I am writing!” over and over on the page.

Sometimes I have been known to write “I love writing” and after seven or eight times writing “I love writing” more starts to flow. It is like turning the writing key into the ignition. Suddenly, with a little bit of gas and movement of the necessary elements (words and motion) you find yourself going somewhere with your words.

You could try:

“Yes, Julie told me to write, so I am writing!”

“To write is to live to live is to love I love to write.”

“I love writing.”

“I love writing tweets” or “I love writing blog posts” or “I love being the content queen!”

“Look at Julie (insert your name) write. Write, (Your Name), Write!”

You may join our Word-Love Writing Community on Facebook and/or participate in our #5for5BrainDump writing sessions offered via Periscope/Twitter and Facebook Live. 

The most important writing tip ever?

Keep your body planted and move your pen, pencil or fingers on the keyboard to say what it is you want to say.

Your voice is so important. The world is waiting for you to write. Your audience is lining up… perhaps impatient or more likely than not they’re just making due until YOU arrive!

So let’s go, let’s write. Today is the only today you have. Write in it!

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.

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Now Begin Again: How to Find Success Through Rewriting Your Life Narrative

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One of my weaknesses is borne from one of my strengths.

I create so vigorously and so often I forget what I write – and in so doing I lose a lot of the depth that seeks to be birthed.

A little less than a month ago I decided I wanted to work on rewriting my life narrative. I wanted to intentionally rework some of the messages I believed from my past in order to create a present and future that is more aligned with who I am, more aligned with my core beliefs.

Ultimately, I sought to merge my core beliefs with my unique gifts and talents to create a body of work – in this case a life and a sustainable income – that matters to myself and to others in the world as well.

While flowing in some areas, I felt hopelessly blocked in others. Reworking my narrative vigorously and openly seemed to be the best path.

I started along the journey and almost quickly as I started I stopped.

It wasn’t a big. dramatic stop with brake marks from my tires left on the road, it was just quietly not continuing because… perhaps the coffee finished brewing or a child made a request or I got a notification from Instagram or who knows what but I got distracted.

Note: this is a common practice, too, right on the verge of breakthrough I have a tendency to veer off course. I know this about myself. It doesn’t mean I always act accordingly in response.

The rest of this brief chapter I’m writing will right that practice. It is interesting to note in re-reading what I just started to edit and mold less than five days ago  I can’t recognize when it is is the seven-years-ago me “speaking” and when it is the just several days ago me “speaking”.

Today, I realize that isn’t the part of the story that matters.

I also realize this preface is taking on a life of its own which isn’t necessarily fruitful, another way block shows up. Let’s get to it.

Let’s explore the originating story now.

On this path to rewriting a damaging narrative, I have been reviewing content from the past and fusing those stories with the light of what I now know to be true.

This morning I read a seven-year-old blog post wherein I wished about having and themes of grace (a topic of exploration scheduled this week) and the be-do-have coaching formula which popped into my head and thoughts last night as I drove. I had no recollection of the relationship of “I wish” with “Be-do-have” – the seven-years-ago me is once again reminding me how smart I was and am.

The final synchronicity was in the opening paragraph. It overflowed with woundedness – both writing wounds and be-ing wounds: when people who matter to you reflect your being is somehow not good enough or is otherwise ugly or unwanted. Read now from 2010:

 “As I prepare to write my Wishcasting entry, I can’t help but hear a chorus of voices from my past, intoning slight variations along the theme of “You just can’t do anything in a small way, can you?”

In my mind’s eye  the “small way” tended to include either a facial or a vocal jeer or both and I always ended up feeling somehow less than even if I had accomplished something unique, visionary or just more out there than most people are comfortable with, but the jeers left a lasting scar on my psyche. That scarred kid doesn’t want to post my wish, doesn’t want to admit the lengthy process I took to getting to my wish because other people who made wishes  simply dove right sharing their wishes without risking life, limb or burning down your homes.

My end-of-2017 self reappears writing:

I wish to have a sense of peace that comes from abundance, from prosperity of the tangible kind – like my wish to have cash flow in and out, out and in, from multiple sources. My specific wish for a long, long time has been $25,000 dollars in and out, out and in, coming in from purchases of my products and services, flowing out to invest in making the world a better place and continually, infinitely repeating this joyful, deliberate practice.

I smile into that thought, feeling my fingers as they continue to tap even after I almost stopped – my limiting beliefs were about to hijack my fingers so instead I will intone.

I wish, I wish, I wish and I willfully intentionally lovingly agree to take action toward this image of actively manifesting and taking steps toward this wish coming to fruition. Further, I will continually, infinitely repeat this joyful, deliberate practice.

I will trust this process.

I wish to have the sense of peace that arrives on the wings of plenty and extends beyond one’s heart. I wish to move beyond an illusion and concept into reality. The birds begin to sing out my window. My heart smiles as my fingers continue to type.

I will wish in a big way because I am a big, larger than life persona. This isn’t a bad thing to be hidden, this is a fun, festive reality. Nowhere did “offensively large and loud” pop into this writing. Those people who jeer when they spoke to me of disdain were actually reflecting their own jeers at themselves, not at me or my hopes and dreams and plans. Whoever these people were – they live only in my past and may not harm or influence me now.

I wish to feel satisfied and content with the progress I make as I take action willfully toward this wish coming to fruition. This hunger I feel in my belly is the delightful recognition of alignment.

And today, Sunday, December 17, 2017 I will devote myself to repeating the key points of this chapter of my life narrative:

I trust abundance flows in the space where value is received from taking aligned, intentional loving action using my unique gifts and talents. My scars and wounds are part of the curvy road map to my most satisfying here, now and future. I trust my process, I trust in my resilience, I trust in the collaborative process of restoration and in rewriting this narrative I reclaim and rebirth my Self.

(And I can even laugh at the desire to say “This is a draft and I claim the right to continue to draft as necessary.)

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 661.444.2735.

 

 

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Playful Attraction for Your Motivation Pick Me Up, Guaranteed

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This may be exactly what you are looking for when your motivation lags.

When my motivation takes a hike farther and farther away from where it is most productive,  here’s a game I play:

I take my lack centric statement and change it to the most positive, law of attraction drenched statement possible. Whether or not you believe in the law of attraction or not, switching up a cranky, needy, life sucks statement into something positive and still factual becomes a laugh inducer and a mood-shifter– at least for me.

Isn’t it worth a try?

Here is my most recent example – I would love to hear yours, too, whenever you are ready to tell me.

This morning I was considering my opportunity to drive random people around Bakersfield in exchange for green energy. I was trying not to feel bothered by the thought. I was simultaneously faced with the reality it is school vacation, both my children are home and may being a variety of people into my home when the #moreofthatplease I am seeking is a quiet bubble in a solitary space with – ideally – a beloved person delivering sustenance while I peacefully churn out words, contemplative art – that sort of thing.
I didn’t want to say “I need to drive to make some cash today right away, I’m feeling financially nervous today… “ or something to that effect.

So instead I texted Christine and said, “Why is this glorious reality of money manifestation a continual practice?”

I actually didn’t say practice in my text, I just added it now and BINGO! I’m onto something.

Practice, a la a spiritual practice – a step above a habit and alongside ritual or maybe slightly liturgical. That’s what I’m looking for, that’s what my heart seeks, that’s the playground where my soul climbs on the swing and feels her legs stretch and her hair fly behind her in the sky, separate from her body yet also attached and ever beautiful and wondrous when she is allowed to be.

It only took a few moments to retrieve what might have been hours of lament, frowning, kvetching and more than likely a bit of bickering as sauce poured over everything in a gooey mess.

To tease out the process into a how-to or recipe card file it might look like this:

  1. Take a moment and  write it like I did, as you truthfully feel in all your gooey, mucky glory.
  2. Take a few deep breaths and rewrite a part of it. Be ready to feel like what you are writing is ridiculous. It may be.
  3. Share with a friend who understands your process. If you don’t have anyone who fits this, comment your rewrite here, on this blog post. I promise I will get you –  I will understand. It’s no accident you are here, reading these words. Trust!
  4. Look at both phases of your writing. Be prepared to laugh and poke fun of yourself. Take a deep breath.
  5. Look again, this time for what is really true. Allow what is really true to find you, underneath the clutter-thought-rubble of worry, beyond the shards of broken promises and missteps into dreams that haven’t come true yet.
  6. Insert deep breaths where they fit (and even where it feels snug at first).
  7. Write again. No opinions this time, no rant or drama or hyperbole. Enjoy, no matter the outcome.

    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.

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Blue Lined Conversations: Writing from This/That… Ten Years Later.

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Over the many years I have used writing practice as a way of life I have found sometimes I need different methods to get deeper, to tune into that soul-voice asking me to listen more carefully.

Today I found this writing from more than ten years ago. I wanted to share with you about the “Infinite Loop de Loop” so I searched my old blog for content and this is one of the pieces I found.

it is a suggestion from Natalie Goldberg, where we write back and forth from two sides of a the same statement.

In our #5for5BrainDump we will write, “I give…. ” and “I don’t give” as well as, “I receive… I don’t receive.”

On this day in February 2007 I wrote from “I am…” and “I am not…” The process took two separate writing sessions and the result was an ongoing deluge of a-ha’s, bubbling up everywhere I look.

The Julie of 2017 had forgotten every moment and now scooped up even more insights.

Here is where it began:

I am hopeful. Well, _begrudgingly_.

I am pondering conditionalism – is that a word? What I mean is I am contemplating my own experience of loving with conditions attached.

I am not so pleased with the discomfort I feel when I surround myself with past happenings of “If you ________, then I will show you love. If you don’t _________ , I will withhold love.”

This is so contrary to my being – and I am open to the discoveries the divine is requesting I make.

I am different.

I am not ordinary. Convention? Pah. I am glad the Dixie Chicks won a lot of awards last night. I am not used to having people be mad at me, so the last few days of people seeming to be mad at me has made me WAYYYY uncomfortable… and again, there are discoveries to be made and growth to happen, all of which is just right.

I am frustrated as I witness stupid stuff causing my nerves to fray (as I am allowing it to do, not that stupid stuff ‘causes it, it is my opinion that causes it so sayeth Epictetus… nothing like ancient Greeks showing up in my 43 things meanderings) I am letting it go now.

I am not prone to tantrums but maybe just maybe if I gave myself space to have one… oh, I don’t know.

I am willing to grow.

I am not amused by meanness and sarcasm. No wonder I don’t fit in with a lot of people.

I am tuned into Sam today. I am so glad, because he seems to be feeling so much better – relief.

I am not concerned about tomorrow.

I am Julie.

I am not anyone else.

I am.

Who are you?

(Something was waiting in the conclusion of the writing earlier today… that something asked…)

Who are you? So I answered my writing –

I am a fledgling collector of crystal doorknobs – these objects of fear, of wonder, of curiosity, of bewilderment.

I close my eyes to feel with, with the palm of my hand and my fingers. An iced over pond, with a new dusting of snow that stands clear of footprints until I walk across it.

The doorknob has eight perfectly symmetrical indentations – eight, the infinite, standing up. The doorknob – held, turned, let go. Grabbed, tugged on, pushed on, always so momentary.

The doorknob that is never really held,

So I hold the doorknob and sob, feeling like we have this in common.

My fingers wrap around its slick exterior and my palm grips it fully. My cheek rests against it. I wonder for a moment if the little Julie’s cheek ever grazed the old bedroom crystal doorknob, the one that seemed to mock my middle-of-the-night, eight-year-old spiritual musings we assume eight-year-olds don’t muse.

Constance-the-Cat doesn’t quite know what to do. She grazes me until she senses I am ok. The wind chime sings its approval of the moment to which it is witness.

I kiss the doorknob and nuzzle it from the other side.

My smallest finger notices an imperfection inside, a place where a tool pushed too hard and scarred the doorknob. Its scarring makes me delight in the doorknob even more.

Why?

Connection.

We are all scarred. Doorknobs, cats named Constance, outdoor-living-so-weathered-wooden-desks, women named Julie. You. We can choose to bear scars – with dignity, grace and wonder. We can choose to bare scars with vulnerability, unfamiliar to most, yet desired – in truth – by all.

I traced the scar on the doorknob and traced my own scars with a sacred hush… alighting gently from my fingertips directly into my heart.

I look deeply into the soul of the doorknob and see the core, the artistic beginnings, the casings and the laser-like narrowing into oneness as the doorknob offers itself into a lifetime of service only to be passed off as salvage until….

Until one conversation lead to one spark which lead to one man walking through another door to pick the just-right crystal doorknob that is now nestled in my hand in its own, unmoving stand… placed on the outdoor desk of this wildly passionate writer, relentlessly following her divine call and allowing the observations to flow….

And the loop of infinity swoops up and down and back and around, once again….

Who are you?

 

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