Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

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

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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. 

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The Surprising Success Question Most Entrepreneurs Forget To Ask

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I shouldn’t have been surprised by the report neuroscientists gave to researchers at the Business Insider. This report illustrates the most important question entrepreneurs should ask themselves when they are feeling defeated or “less than” in relationship to their businesses but I was surprised.

Are you ready?

The next time you are feeling lousy about your business, defeated about sales or frustration with the results of your latest social media campaign ask yourself “What am I grateful for?”

It is easy to pop into “I am grateful for the air conditioning.” Well, that’s what I said as I look out the ever present sunshiney day outside which I know has a heat of 110 degrees.

But what I am grateful for right now is discovering this study.

I am grateful to know I have flipped the switch and may use it and stop hitting myself over the head with my frailties and failings of the recent past and remember the successes of the not-so-recent past, back when spirituality and my personal workspace were indelibly combined – and somehow I had forgotten.

Somehow, I had forgotten.

And I am grateful I remembered to stop punishing myself. I am grateful I have memories of successes I facilitated or stood beside. I am grateful for the smiles of satisfied workshop participants and I am grateful for those who published my work early on. I am grateful for those who read and found value in my first book. I am grateful I talked about my first book again recently, something I literally can’t remember doing it has been so long. I am grateful I remembered.

I am grateful I labeled it and grateful I may now share this gratitude with you and invite you into your own gratitude spree so we may collectively shift into gratitude.

What are you grateful for with your business, your cause, your vision for the world?

I am grateful I took five minutes to begin exploring this and am grateful to know my subconscious mind will continue to open the door to more as I go about living my life today.

This is just the beginning. Just the beginning of more adventures I look forward to taking with you.

Now, take five minutes to explore gratitude in relationship to your work.

Remember to report back here, on this blog post – to let me know how things are progressing for you. The world is waiting for your words and your life work – to make a difference now.

Let’s create a gratitude spree – like a shopping spree only better because it is for all of us and we’re investing time and positive energy to create abundance for all. Deep breaths of joy. I feel better already.

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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Writing Prompt inspired by Jack Kerouac: Your Memories + Awe = #5for5BrainDump Magic

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Jack Kerouac said, “Write in recollection and amazement of yourself.” This is a territory ripe for self reflection.

Let’s do this.

First, make a list of 5 times in your life when your actions surprised you.

Scan your list to consider and ultimately choose the one time that is the most appealing for you to write about today. Set your timer for five minutes and write, starting with the prompt, “I remember….”

Note: if that first attempt falls flat and your words don’t flow, try a different memory.

Oftentimes there is something in the way of writing from the first memory and the simple act of completing your writing from another memory will ignite writing flow for both.

Bonus: Share your writing experience with at least one other person today.

NOTE: if you would like to participate in a Writing Community, I would love to invite you to be a part of the Word-Love Writing Community I facilitate on Facebook.

 

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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Empowered List Making: How the #5for5BrainDump Process Will Ignite Your Entrepreneurial Success

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I can close my eyes and be right back there in the moment: Mark Victor Hansen onstage at the Bakersfield Convention Center telling an audience filled with women including me, then a county bureaucrat, the importance of creating a life goals list. A 101 life goals list. He suggested we buddy up with a co-worker to share our lists and then work/play/or allow our subconscious minds to craft methods to bring these goals into fruition.

I went home that night and wrote my 101 goals. I didn’t do it all at once, I made my initial goals quickly without much thought and then I walked away and continued to come back and pop more items onto the list throughout the evening, but I was so excited to share my list with my secretary I was bursting at my ever-passionate, oh-so-not-typical-bureaucrat self.

My secretary apparently hadn’t given it another thought. She said her 101 Goals were to get up every day and go to work and go home. For 101 days.

I wonder how quickly my face fell, how quickly the pallor of resignation fell across my forehead, my shoulders.

Ironic in retrospect: several months later I went on a stress leave after two of my clients threatened my life in two months. In the interim I discovered life coaching and the rest became history including reaching many of those 101 Goals.

My secretary left the county a decade after I did also due to a workman’s comp claim. She met all of her 101 Goals – and went on to create a life of… well. I am not going to judge her life. I am sure it was predictable and filled with love. She was and is a fabulous person.

(Applause says 5 minutes are up!)

Lists are gold for entrepreneurs and creatives and humans in general for many reasons, especially when made stream of consciousness style as we do via #5for5BrainDump and we allow the beauty of what is buried in our subconscious mind to come out of hiding. It is as scientist and best-selling author of Brain Briefs Art Markham said in relationship to listmaking:  “It helps you clean out the weeds you couldn’t see.”

When you write LONG lists, the subconscious and the ridiculous partner up because of the sheer volume of the list. It makes it magical and it makes it a practice in making what might seem like drudgery fun.

Here’s the deal: start with a 5 Minute Brain Dump and start your numbered list. Then go about your life and add to your list as ideas pop – which they will because you have ignited your subconscious mind, called it into duty. It WANTS to give you more of what you’ve asked for everytime.

After a couple hours set your timer for another 5 minute writing session. Repeat as necessary. Delight in the results.

Tell us in the comments one to three of your goals from either your first five minutes session or beyond. Would love to hear what this generates AND support your process.

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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Prompt & Explore – Top 5 Ways to Spend a “Free” Saturday Afternoon

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Excuse me, loves, while I share something slightly different here today.

Instead of writing for five minutes, I challenged myself to share my first five responses to this question:

What do I love doing with my free time?

  1. I love seeking out literary spots – historical, current, libraries, cemeteries, pubs, homes…

    Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print for more than 100 years.

    you name it – I am there – in any city, neighborhood, state.

2. I love deep discussions with passionate people. I am expert at “ten minute relationships” that restore my faith in humankind.

3. I love collecting vintage items so I scour antique stores, estate sales, thrift stores – and I often repurpose… especially….

4. I love making art with books. Book pages are my most common medium of choice. Splendid times are spent with dyed paper, vintage illustrations….

5. Hiking, sunsets, sunrises, sky-gazing…. Laughing until I cry and crying until I laugh and so.much.more.

Writing Prompt for you – TOP 5 – What do you love (or would you love doing more of) with your “free” time? Yes, I know “free” time is relative.

One of my favorite conversation starter questions is this: “If you had a Saturday afternoon and nothing scheduled, how would you most happily spend your time?”

Set your timer for five minutes and WRITE! In this case, start with a list. As a bonus, consider this a starter list and do your best to get twenty of more ideas to play with to determine how your heart is truly calling you to spend more time.

Often we go with whatever pops first and that isn’t always the most authentic and true.

Another thought? Write for five minutes and then set your idea generation aside. As ideas pop in your head throughout the day (because they are bound to do so) either jot them down or intentionally set them aside for a later-in-the-day brain dump session.

Left – Writing at Walden Pond, like Thoreau. Middle – Adventuring at the Kern River – Right – Writing at the Pacific Ocean in Dana Point

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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Decide to Make Progress: Tenacity and Abundant Love

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“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can change and control your life; the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

Amelia Earhart

I can’t remember how many times I’ve said to my children, “Here I go… faster than a speeding bullet!” and then I stay immobile. I think it started when I was pregnant with Samuel and felt enormous and weighted down with “oh my goodness how will I do this?” and somehow it has stuck all these years later.

For me it isn’t as much the decision to act, but combining the decision to act with the movement itself. I appreciate what Amelia says here and she is certainly a model for decision making and managing risk – but for me it goes one step further.

Fears are paper tigers, Amelia said. (Note – paper tigers are defined as “a person or thing that appears threatening but is ineffectual.”)

Maybe the gold lives in letting go of “oh my goodness how will I do this?” and settling instead into the forward movement, even when I don’t know how. Moving my pencil when I don’t know what it will point out in me, making the phone call when I don’t want to hear the voice on the other end, tying my shoes, stepping out the door and taking the first, second, third, forty second and beyond step.

“Decide” needs to carry an action with it. What popped into my head just now is the first syllable is picking up the foot and the second syllable is the locomotion, the movement, the forward in the direction that calls.

What if for the next few days (or hours even) I reward myself for the process rather than the result. My process here went like this:

  1. I realized I hadn’t done my #5for5BrainDump session.
  2. I wanted to keep my streak going of writing and publishing daily.
  3. I rationalized, thinking how smug I was about writing my morning pages and getting started on a Top 10 list.
  4. “But that isn’t publishing” my writing angel reminded me. “That isn’t brain dumping into blog post.”
  5. I took all the necessaries to move from deciding into action into finished project.

My timer went off, so I am going to go to my website dashboard and prep a page as efficiently as possible. (I did it! less than ten minutes later, here you are loves! Offered with tenacity, a sprinkling of daring and buckets of love.)

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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Time Management Tip: The Easiest Way to Make the Most of Tiny Bits of “Leftover” Time

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Start with a question: ask as heartfully as possible in that precise moment. I like to close my eyes and put my hand over my heart, breathe in and ask “What is the most useful way for me to invest this next ___ minutes?”

Just before I started to write for this five minutes, I asked the same question.

My intention was to come to my keyboard and speed write. After all, I need to take Samuel to school in ten minutes so I felt squeezed to begin with but my heart told me differently, “Meditate for five minutes on the question, then write for five minutes.”

Our hearts are constantly ready for us to take note and listen.

We tend to scurry about with our to-do lists ringing in our ears, slightly off kilter or else so lock-step in focus we drown out those longings of our powerful hearts.

So today, I took five to meditate and then this five to write.

My eyes look up and I see a neighbor walking her dog, one I rarely talk to but instead we exchange eye contact, do a half-nod and smile. She takes time every day to walk her dog. She doesn’t walk quickly, but she walks. Picks a foot up and puts it down.

In five minutes I can do a quick sweep of my kitchen, a time of cleaning my counter tops. I can straighten my drawers, clean my bathroom counter, I can put together a sandwich, I can write a thank you note, a blog post, I can schedule social media. I can pick up my phone and write a note to use later, I can edit an image, I can write a few simple “I’m thinking of you texts.” I can scan headlines.

I can mindfully invest five minutes to make the world better because of my devotion to intention.

My timer applause ends, signaling to me this five minute investment is now over.

I took a chunk of time that seemed “unusable” between folding laundry and waiting to take my son that could have gotten lost scrolling my facebook feed or something like that. Instead, I meditated and wrote a blog post that will most surely make a positive difference in someone else’s life: perhaps in yours.

The world is waiting for your words: take five minutes and get them on the page.

 

 

 

Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print for more than 100 years.

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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Does it Matter What Causes Your Block or Simply Get Over It? #5for5BrainDump

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For months – or over a year, rather, my neighbors have gotten in the way of my writing on my porch. It is a favored space for me to sit and write in the morning or broadcast or drink coffee and find peace while rocking in the oversized red rocking chair. The new neighbors with their questionable “friends” and other “accessories” have kept me inside, until lately.

For months – since May, I haven’t slept in my Virginia Woolf room I started creating well over a year ago. When Emma came home, I gave it to her as a temporary space until we juggled bedrooms and I took up residence on the couch. Yesterday, I slept beside the window and walk up this morning in the grey light, happy to find myself under the breeze from the gentle ceiling fan and the carefully picked out art showing me Virginia’s room.

It felt so good until my mind started scattering marbles all over the floor and I lost the deep peace – for a moment or twelve.

“One step at a time, one thing at a time, one solution at a time” are some of my favorite watch words lately to bring me back into presence.

They are soothing, another word which has become a frequent visitor in my lexicon.

The applause says time is up, which I’ll accept.

I did also want to honor my age old tradition of writing haiku on Friday. I sat on my porch this morning and wrote, even with my less than optimal neighbors bent over cars and having folks in and out before 7 am.

Haiku writing is healing: a simple poetry form, a sacred prayer form as well, here is a song suite from this morning that was born when I invited myself to say what needed and wanted to be written.

We heal one haiku at a time

 What I want to say

Yogurt calms rumbles

Ativan calms inner howls

Wait: tide will go out….

fake it til you make it

Sunrise through elm tree

Red rocking chair and coffee

Alta Vista peace

Worst strategy:

Please don’t nag at me

Each contact leaves a blister

Longer time to heal – 

Best strategy

I’m thinking of you –

Let’s create this together

Your work helps the world 

 

Prompt: Haiku is simply a seventeen syllable poem, a short work of art.

Some say it is like an inhalation and an exhalation.

I often start my haiku with what is in front of me, which can be seen in “fake it til you make it” above.

The worst strategy and best strategy are microcosm statements of what works well – and doesn’t work well – in communication with me. I realize it is helpful to be able to express these thoughts to people, especially when I am experiencing depression.

So start with something in front of you and write it in this micropoem container.

______/ ________ / ________/ ______/______

______/ ________ / ________/ ______/______/_____/______

______/ ________ / ________/ ______/______

Next, if you are an entrepreneur, see how you might fit your business story in a tiny haiku. For the artful entrepreneur, combining headline writing and copywriting with haiku adds another layer of creative play.

Set your timer for five minutes – and write as many haiku as you’re able!

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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Trust the Page to Hold Your Heart, Always

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It is never a bad time to write.

Nearly everywhere you find yourself, in every situation, it is a good time to write.

Sometimes I write in my head, the inner narrative keeping me company when I’m alone. I may be observing the street scene in front of me or the memory behind me, yet I know this quiet contemplative “writing” soothes me, whether the leaves on the mulberry mask the sunshine or the fog covers my lawn with such density I can’t see the cars drive down the street, writing is my companion.

Its always been that way.

For some people it is a dog, a pet, a lover, a best friend, a workout, a walk, a drive, a shopping trip.

For me, it is words, strung together on a page or a document or even just in my mind.

Word-love – sometimes lust – attuned to the greatest good – it is never a bad time to write.

I’ve trained myself to focus and upon the light as I end my writing rather than any destructive elements that appear when we open our mind and heart onto the page. We process pain, grief and the elements of life some categorize as “less than” which I know to be, at times, filled with sacred bliss when one allows them space to move within.

Writing has helped me consistently to engage such experiences and heal, grow and morph through a partnership with love and gratitude amidst their experience rather than deny their experience.

It is never a bad time 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, 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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Building Momentum This Monday: Questions to Guide Your Writing & Life Experience

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Momentum is based on movement which is difficult to conceptualize when one feels stuck. Movement – stuck. Stuck – movement. Two entirely different and also totally oppositional experiences.

Eleanor Roosevelt reminds me “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”

Today all bets have changed. My lack of movement yesterday (or many assembled yesterdays) may have become a practiced experience and yet they don’t need to define me. I am sitting here at my table, preparing for the week ahead.

That is movement. That is momentum.

Each word I stitch together is momentum.

Each time I take five minutes and declare my butt in chair and then move my fingers on the keyboard is an abundance of momentum. The crank is turning, the pencil is sharpening, the project getting closer to completion.

Writing prompts for Sunday Evening and Monday Morning:

What do I want to build momentum toward this week?

When Friday arrives, what will help me feel the most abundance around my accomplishments?

What momentum inducing practices/actions/allegiances will most likely get me from where I am right now to where I want to be on Friday?

What are the first three actions I will take?

 

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 header comments or 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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