Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Words: Are Healing. Are Light. Consciously Offered, are Love in Form. Use with Care.

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“Every kind of creative work demands solitude, and being alone, constructively alone, is a prerequisite for every phase of the creative process.”

Barbara Powell

I remember when Katherine was in pre-school and we had our first parent-teacher conference. It was her pre-K year and I felt like this was a HUGE thing and ran the risk of discovering what a rotten parent I obviously was.

It was none of that. She was doing great, was reading a bit and such a delight to the entire campus. (Some things don’t change, even more than twenty years later.)

I remember five years ago when I went to my primary care doctor to have a spot on my face tested I was sure was nothing. It was something. A week later I was called by the dermatologist I had been referred to. I was standing in the office at Samuel’s school when the call came. It was melanoma. Katherine was about to return to school at Smith College and wouldn’t be around for the surgery. Samuel had started 6th grade, Emma 10th grade.

I had surgery and received a lovely reminder of my cancer via the scar on my face. I spent time creating art and writing about it. There is a link to a post on my old blog about it I can’t even remember writing but in retrospect had some insightful, caring writing that deserves to be read again.

Five years later I have not had a return to melanoma but I do sport a fancy heart shaped scar on my face, I have had basal cell carcinoma removed from my back and actinic keratosis led to facial lotion chemotherapy and just this morning I learned I need another round of facial lotion chemotherapy.

This time the actinic keratosis had spread more, so she froze the four spots where it had popped up and sent me off with a prescription.

My skin still stings from the freezing process and I am not quite ready to be my cheerful, upbeat, face the world squarely with confidence self. I do feel compelled to meet the world with passion – after I take a moment to reflect and be alone for a few hours.

Probably the moment I will remember the most from this morning was my dermatologist noticing I was not my usual ebullient self. I was having a challenging time not crying – I have been straddling the line between being so-so and falling into a funk again – and she gently asked if I was ok, if I wanted to talk to her about what was going on – if it was something she might help me with.

My responses were head shakes, couldn’t quite speak yet, and I felt cared for by her even on a morning I knew she was extra busy.

That felt nurturing and good.

Maybe I should have asked for a gift certificate to a luxury hotel and a house cleaning service for a month so during the chemo treatments I wouldn’t have to worry about housework? J

The simple act of writing about it is making me feel refreshed a bit. I was able to dress my bitmoji in a cute holiday outfit. I watched some of my live streaming friends do their thing. I am now looking at “how to draw a bridge” instructions.

I am not falling into a black hole, I am stepping into the light at my pace. It is slow but not too slow.

I’m starting to look forward to the stories I will collect and tell about today in the future.

I found a stirring blog post from five years ago I really enjoyed discovering from when I had a diagnoses that included melanoma.

Here it is:

“Words. They can do for the heart what light can for a field.”

Juan de la Cruz

Words have always been my anchor art. I can always return to them. They always wait for me to show up. And the rest of the world? Is waiting for them.

So here I am, offering my words up – sure that for someone out there this is exactly what they needed to hear. For that, I am grateful.

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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Where Has Your Journey Taken You – Artist, Entrepreneur, Human? Let’s Explore Together –

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I tried something different today with my five minute writing free writing/brain dumping time. I took an essay I wrote ten years ago and had a conversation with my past self.

It was the closest thing I can imagine to time travel, witnessing my thoughts in the past and communicating back to myself.

I even quoted myself from ten years ago on twitter and facebook and got responses from dear friends who offered reassurance. So much love abounds: for all versions of me and for all versions of you.

Do you wonder what a conversation like this sounds like?

Here it is – me now in bold italics and me then – not bold and not italics.

Collaboration with ten years ago me:

Sometimes I think I pour too much of myself into my art. I get concerned that somehow the dark corners of my being will “pollute” the art itself.
(Just this morning I worked on a mixed media piece and smeared paint across a segment of the work I thought was “just right”. Even as I type here I think “maybe I should go pull some of that paint up, restore what’s underneath. Admit it, self, it did look cool as was and now, as you so often do, you messed it up.

And then I remember the following whisper into my mind-heart. “Trust the process” it told me. I took a deep breath, set the newly smeared canvas aside and walked away. “Trust the process” – don’t intervene anymore and allow someone or something outside yourself to decide what is just right and what isn’t.)

Then there comes a time when I get to purposefully and intentionally explore my artist’s journey, like
I did when I was asked to prepare an artist’s statement for an upcoming art show.

(Note to self: seek submissions to art shows. Trust that process, too, of rejection to rejuvenation and the steps in between.)

Here is what I wrote (back ten years ago).

My artist’s journey has taken significant twists and turns since the first (burn the witch).

I watched myself dive into wordlessness (through  watercolor paint and photos) and trust that
even without my preferred creative medium – words – art is born. Three words encapsulate this year: Loss.
Sacred. Love.

(I didn’t know it at the time but these words became the foundation for the following decade.)

Loss, through absence and broken perceptions and death – awakened a different form of creative
communication. The Sacred invited others into my world of flow, trust, divine guidance and non-judgment. I discovered love cannot always adequately be communicated with words, it must be felt in breath, in energy, in what is conceived when we collaborate.

(Note to self: this paragraph is worth reading daily, maybe several times a day. Your ten years ago self was wise. And by the way? Don’t go into self critique.  – You temporarily forgot this wisdom.

What were we just saying? “Trust the process” even the sliding backwards. The world is waiting for these words of backslides as well as the words of victorious celebrations of insight after insight after insight.)

It is especially joyful when we join hands to experience (metaphoric) creative tandem bungee jumping. I love feeling the wind whip through my hair and the whooping and hollering in my heart as we careen towards the earth and then get swooped back into the loving arms of the Divine.

(Note to self: I was writing about Soul Poetry. It is time to write this again.)

This year that deep, profound, sacred love looped back into loss which bred even more art. This year I picked up a camera, I wrote another play, I allowed myself to step into the darkness and draw the door
closed behind me so that I could learn from this year’s gift.

(This decade-long gift)

Feel the loop now: Sacred. Love. Loss. Art. Love. Sacred. Art.

(Feel the loop now: Sacred. Love. Loss. Art. Love. Sacred. Art.)

Where has your artist’s journey taken you this year?

(Where has your artist’s journey taken you this decade? This life?)

(Where do you want to go next?)

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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When Prompts Don’t Quite Do The Trick, Here’s What I Do

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See the prompt to leftt?

It didn’t work this morning for me. I tried it – and nothing.

It is from the poem I am focusing on this month, “In Praise of My Destroyer” by Diane Ackerman  and it just wasn’t working.

I needed to do a couple things.

  • Search for related quotes. One I focused upon is from my dear friend and always inspirational Ralph Waldo Emerson. I aimed the patience he suggested directedly at myself.

“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Choose key words out of the prompt or reading and focus on them as singular entities rather than a part of a whole. This really helps ignite the writing process. “Humble Guardian Nature” allowed me to play with each individually and provided me freedom.
  • Create art, letting go of the need for language. here’s what I came up with:

And finally I got down to the business of the Brain Dump… moved my fingers and trusted….

Sometimes I have a challenge with the prompts I write, the prompts others write… prompts in general. I sit at my keyboard or at my desk, my fingers mute. No movement – and I wonder, “Am I concerned somehow with getting this right even though I am the only one here, writing? I’m not in a class and then it comes to me.

Consumable. Audience. Worried about the consumable product I am trying to create.
It would be more apt to say I am a worried creator of hoped for value but never trusting it will really work out so if I sit with my fingers immoveable close to the keyboardd nothing bad will happen until we discover 15 years have passed and nothing of note or merit or meaning has happened.

And I am to blame.

And not moving and ignoring the blame (which I know kvetching without action to change is really foolish) and so I chase my tail.

I say I don’t want to chase my tail and I won’t chase my tail so I find myself a guardian to my stagnation, choosing to lie down atop my gifts and talents, a rather forlorn lump of purple plaster of paris, cracked and crumbly who has given up on seeking water to replenish her.

(My thought now? Geesh, I’m being melodramatic again, no wonder people don’t like me.”)

It is close to dawn.

I look out my living room window as I type, taking my hands away from the keyboard long enough to hold my coffee mug to my lips and gaze at the mulberry tree standing watch over the bay window.

Her chin is lifted now (her being the tree, not me suddenly speaking in third person) her branches up and not quite weeping.

My gardener doesn’t like her sweeping branches, kissing the ground.

I love them like it when the branches kiss the soil. Next Spring, I need to speak clearly to my gardener to let the branches sweep the lawn with their grace.

I notice Emma did some tidying up while I wasn’t looking and am slightly surprised and primarily pleased.

My intention for today is to feel better.

Yesterday was another ball of contentment: a blend of work-life, taking care of loved ones and basking in the afterglow of long-ago creative process that is such a part of acting in a film. We do our thing, put our images on film and the artists who come afterwards continue the process while we go back to the rest of our lives and almost forget that initial process.
I am a humble guardian of my days, wanting not to send myself into a pattern of destruction. I want to live.

I would like to be a humble guardian of my gifts – one who takes my gifts and mixes with whatever turns up and move forward with better and better life experiences.

The timer goes off again.

I say good enough for now and know the keyboard and the letters will still be where I left them when the time comes to write again.

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What will you choose to show love to today? Prompt for Contemplation & Writing

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“I will not dishonor my soul with hatred.” Diane Ackerman

(From the poem “I Praise My Destroyer” by Diane Ackerman)

Prompt for Contemplation, Creativity and Action:

What will you choose to show love to today? Who will you choose to show love to today?

This is your call to actively be loving to the world. It is a call to be a mirror, a reflection, a candle in the darkness (as cliché as I know that sounds) these words are asking you to go beyond meditating, beyond thinking, beyond looking at hatred and tsk, tsk, tsking in your coffee circles and step into actively choosing to show love.

Who will you be when people look at you and say, “You shine, you radiate, when you _____ my day is brightened.”

I remember watching a Designing Women episode years ago and Charlene and the woman played by Annie Potts were just being who they were and Suzanne Sugarbaker (played by Delta Burke) said with tears in her eyes, “I want someone’s eyes to light up just because I walk through the door.”

When we actively choose to show love, that is one of the natural results.

Perhaps you actively choose to show love by expressing gratitude. Not just thinking “everything is great” but specifically telling someone “The way you carefully put those papers away (shielded your child from a bully, took care of that elderly person’s need in the grocery store, tied your child’s shoe for her, made me feel better when I opened my heart to you) made a difference today and I am so grateful I was able to witness you being you in the process.”

There are a lot of things to not feel actively love for in this planet, and when you seek, instead of dishonoring your soul with hatred, but actively opening to love and communicating this love through action, the veils will come down and you will feel your hope being restored.

I want more of this in my life, don’t you?

What will you choose to show love to today?

Contemplate. Write. Bring it to life.

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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Seeking Simplicity: Transforming To-Do’s into Delightful Discoveries

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Sundays are a special time for me on twitter because of the weekly #SpiritChat hosted by Kumud Ajmani. Lately I have not been able to participate there so instead I am choosing to interact on my own throughout the week.

What popped up during my writing time this morning may be helpful for you, too, so here it is –

.Q1. Sit with the phrase “returning to simplicity”. What does it speak to you in your current environment? #SpiritChat

Here is the result from writing for five minutes, stream of consciousness style. Note – I changed the opening sentence after editing a photo to go with the words.

Return to simplicity: starts when I return to home, every time.

I hesitated before getting out of my car after my morning errands/Samuel school drop off run.

This has become a habit of mine: sit in my car when I arrive home. Sometimes I pull out my phone and get lost in responding to tweets or texting or seeing my facebook notifications.

I told my neighbor recently when she commented how I seem to sometimes rest in the driveway, “I sometimes wait to go in because I don’t want to deal with what’s inside.”

Somehow crossing the threshold of my house has turned into stepping into a lengthy to-do list rather than stepping into a nurturing space of sweet surrender, of holding, nurturing and a leap of too passionate growth.

When did this happen?

How did this happen?

Even as I write I realize neither of those questions matter, what is significant is I noticed it in time to make a change that delights and inspires.

I am able to choose to be simply  delighted and inspired rather than annoyed and disjointed.

I sit back in my chair a moment, stop typing, and smile. I allow this option of returning to simplicity to fill me.

My hair is half way curled because I wanted to start and didn’t care about finishing. I made coffee and actually poured myself a cup, and I put Samuel’s laundry away this morning yet not my own.

I’ve made several possibility lists and managed to rejoice about my weekend blessings (there have been many.)

How to create a more simply  loving relationship with my home?

1. More down time here. I don’t need to hurry-scurry all the time.
2. Do more intentional decorating.
3. Fill my space with sensory delights – diffuse essential oils, play my favorite instrumental music and put more art/photos up so that my chin is lifted and my spirit is lifted.

My timer went off with “festive bell” sounds today.

Maybe I need to put up some bells around the house so that I may ring them as a reminder: love, hope and optimism is in the air.

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 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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Writers Talk: Memory as a Strength, A Gift, A Treasure + A Writing Prompt for You

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“You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”
― Anne Carson

I have been accused of remembering too much, holding on too tight, not being willing to forgive.

I’m working on forgiveness, a continual form of spiritual practice it seems.

I’m playing with the harmony of forgiveness and self-protection and advocacy. Where do I need to grow more? Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation, it means recognizing the other’s humanity and giving them the room to feel better, to know they aren’t causing you pain.

After all, the other side of me says – no one is capable of “making” anyone feel anything. It is a choice to feel what we feel, for the most part. When I feel crappy and depressed I feel crappy and depressed. No one makes me – circumstances may be lousy and there are times during deep rottenness I feel driven and optimistic and ready to expand into deep transformation.

(I can say clichés with the best of them.)

Thing is, I remember.

I can’t stop remembering.

I don’t want to stop remembering. (Here, try this prompt with me)

It is like telling an artist to remove certain colors from her palette. “No more purples, Julie. You need to focus solely on green.”

Doesn’t work for me.

I don’t focus only on the bad memories, either, I appreciate a memory concert. Here a memory of being the ultimate silly one, there a memory of a cloudy afternoon in 1983, I can hear the conversation, I can feel Mel’s arms wrapping me in compassion, I can feel the incredulity rising up in my chest.

I hadn’t remembered that in a couple decades but it comes to life and pours itself onto the page exactly when I need it most.

Why would I want to stop remembering? It is my ultimate super power – translating memory into words and reaching out with them to you and to you and to you.

My timer went off and I watched my neighbor slouching toward her SUV. I cant remember the last time we exchanged niceties. Perhaps, now, the memories will float up.

I think it was most likely about the tulip magnolia tree her husband planted and I was so excited I set aside her cat hating, sneering demeanor and loved her for a moment instead.

Perhaps, yes, right now, I will choose to love her in my thoughts, prayers and actions more often. If I hadn’t elected to remember, watch and continue to write from memory, I would only see the slouch and the sneer.

I will not give up my memories to you. Or him. Or her. Or them.

I will use the grace of the memories as transformational tools to work for the greatest good of all.
That feels so…. perfect. Just right, here and now.

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The Joy of Being Awkward “Or How I Wore the Wrong Outfit but Decided to Bust a Move, Anyway”

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My own method of free flow writing #5for5BrainDump was born from three distinctive related places.

First, My writing workshops of almost two decades: we use free flow writing as a warm up and then as a main part of the writing process.

Second,  5 Minute Stream of Consciousness Exercises across a number of online circles, one of which was called 5 Minute Friday. I don’t know if it still exists, but five years ago on Thursday nights it used to be the thing for a group of Mom Bloggers I knew. The writing you see below is an example of what I wrote back when I was creating in those circles.

Third, The PeriGirls: a group of women live streamers who helped me discover the power of live streaming. One day in a workshop BrainDumping and 5 minutes and free flow writing and the power of doing something for 5 consecutive days collided in a lovely spree which then give birth to #5for5BrainDump.

I didn’t expect #5for5BrainDump to become a major part of my life (and it has). Life writing in many forms including as a component of business writing is my sweet spot.

Life Writing + Free Flow writing: When these two are added together I fall into another version of paradise. Add poetry and…. I could be infinitely happy for a long, long time.

I want to share a couple quick, five minute writings I did in the past that still sing with transparency today.  Later this evening I will share with you about my brand new offering.  And now, drum roll please…

“Or How I Wore the Wrong Outfit but Decided to Bust a Move, Anyway”

I decided I wanted to try something new this week, so when I saw this last Friday I knew this Friday would be magical: On Fridays a group of folk meet for a free writing exercise. Just 5 minutes. On the prompt that’s posted here just after midnight early Friday morning. Want to join our favorite free writing exercise of the week? It’s easy peasy:

  1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt: “Dance” with no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
    2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
    3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on: (added by me — and here is where I got confused)

STORY

What? Is this real? I read somewhere the prompt was DANCE so I wrote five minutes on DANCE and now, after being confused, I see that I am wearing exactly the wrong word outfit.

I am not going back. I am simply adding.

The prompt this week, my first week at this Five Minute Friday is… STORY.

Story. I’ve wasted a minute writing about not getting things right and feeling embarrassed about dressing totally wrong for this party.

I could write about my championships at two Story Slam events here in Bakersfield but still harboring fear about going to “The Show” – the major leagues of Story Slamming in a big city where exceptional story tellers live.

I could write about sitting around the campfire with my Dad telling stories. He was such a word weaver. He even had me convinced (and proudly telling people) I was an ancestor of the great mystical poet and artist, William Blake.

That filled in the missing pieces of my story “Where in my bloodstream-ancestry was Writing Bug flowing?”

Until about five years ago, I would’ve sworn it was from my fabulous ancestor, William Blake. Apparently my grandmother thought this was a funny joke to tell because according to actual historical records we are related to a farmer from Iowa also named William Blake.

Here’s another real story.

I get angry when “story” gets a bad name. Some people use “story” like an epithet. That gets me fired up. Like poet Muriel Rukeyser (who I am pretty sure I am not related to at all) said, “The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.”

Today’s story: So I wrote on the wrong topic today. Big deal. The world will not spontaneously combust and these writers seem as if they will enjoy hearing my voice, anyway.

With that said, here are my first five minutes:

I am an actor who loves doing Musical Theater and I rarely get the chance. There just aren’t many roles out there for overweight, middle aged, decent but not Disney-esque singers who don’t dance very well. Well, the dancing chapter of the story is more like: who works really hard and when she gets it she gets it but until she gets it, she is the saddest dancing story you have ever seen.”

Yes, it is something like that.

The last time I appeared in a musical, I had a fantastic time working on a show most of the rest of the cast abhorred. I was so thrilled I practically levitated after each rehearsal.

I worried about dance rehearsals but I have adored our choreographer for years. He is the one person on the planet who believes in my dancing enough to smile patiently at me and simply ask me to try again, which I do. I videotaped the dances so I could rehearse at home. I was serious about this task at hand.

Like in all performance, I wanted to do well.

I didn’t want to be just passable or, without enough rehearsal, an embarrassment.

I wanted to dance along with my three other stage sisters who were at least twenty five or more years younger than me, did I mention that?

I took a Zumba class a while back and had so much fun I cried. I didn’t realize it, though, until the ending when we did cool down. Zumba itself exhausted me. I somehow kept up, sort of, but at the end when we did stretching and soft, gentle movements, a message came from somewhere deep in my heart, “I want to dance, oh, how I want to dance.”

True tears popped out from my eyes, unexpectedly. Now I was covered in salt water: ridiculous volumes of sweat and tears, involuntarily flowing from my face.

I even have the joy right now of being the Emcee for a local burlesque troupe. I tell silly jokes and stories when they get changed or prepare for their next number. I didn’t realize how much fun it could be. It also made me want to be out there, dancing.

Maybe next year.

Maybe if I do more zumba classes – which, by the way, use actual dance moves.

Maybe if I can gather confidence from the soles of my feet to the top of my head and then back to the depths of my heart where courage to do crazy things like this lives – in fact rules – choice making.

I think I’ll do it. I’ll put it on my “to do before August 2013” and I will start aiming toward it.

Me, dancing. Again. With Confidence.

What a phenomenal thought!

 5 Minutes UP! 

PS – As I prepared to post this blog entry, I saw LAST week’s topic was Dance. Ah, well. 

Julie Jordan Scott 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 Spring, 2015 and beyond.

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.

Please stay in touch!

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Intuitive Art Leads to A Remarkable Weekly Plan: Productivity the Heart Centered Way

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An interesting thing happens when we allow intuition blended with our heart and mind to discover where to go next with our work and in managing our time.

I rediscovered this on Saturday when I sat with my mixed media materials and hopped on Periscope for my weekly #artblock broadcast. I took an art-card I thought was perfectly fine as it was and took it a tiny bit deeper: I created a three word writing prompt by circling three random words I found on the card (books, soul, claim).

I wanted to demonstrate how using random found words worked as a writing prompt: I wasn’t meaning to have a life-work changing a-ha moment.

The thing is, intuition works like that most of the time. When we’re in the flow doing whatever it is we do that brings us contentment and our heart is open rather than restricted by shoulds, musts, have-to’s and a relentless string of needs, magic happens.

I said, in a moment of excitement, “Let’s create a haiku so you may see how this works.”

Live, on my broadcast, I wrote this haiku which described my life work, one of my primary philosophies or beliefs about life and writing, and a call to action for anyone who reads the haiku.

We aspire to love: how often do I use the phrase “love” in my business? Well, I facilitate the Word-Love Writing Community Group on Facebook. I am launching Word-Love Wednesday this week on facebook live where participants may listen and share their writings on camera because I have seen and I know how powerful it is to share our writings aloud, freshly written. Last week I wrote and shared a potent affirmation on a livestream and am working on a video that reminds us all “I am love personified.” (You are love personified, we are love personified.”

Claim each time a special time. I believe in the beauty of the ordinary moment: the mountaintop experience in the flat land of day-to-day some might call dreary. I write of everyday, in the routine-bliss of life rather than the expensive, once-in-a-lifetime because in actuality, every moment is once in a lifetime, right?

Book soul moments here: transformational coaching conversations flow through my life blood. I started my coaching practice in 1999 and many, many lives have been permanently changed for the better via our coaching moments – otherwise known as “soul moments” either one-on-one or in group settings such as the Writing Intensive that starts today and the #5for5BrainDump experience last week and especially the Transformational Conversation sessions I will begin offering this week.

That moment in mixed media play turned into an affirmative to-do list I don’t know I could have created if I sat down brusque and business like to “figure out my week.” It takes both the heart to create and the mind to translate.

It isn’t either this or that – it is this AND that (another primary tenet in the Creative Life Midwife Guidebook to a Better Life.)

 

I mapped out my week so far this way:

  1. Create content that is based in love. Share across social media platforms and include links to programs. services that stress love first. Daily.
  2. Weave the message of how an increased experience of well-being and love floats up and into and through all the work we do, including in the free Word-Love Writing Community and via live broadcasts.
  3. Remember to honor the every day in content in the Writing Intensive program. Honor “What is” and illustrate how “What is” fits into the writer’s best (and most impactful) work.
  4. Write sale page for transformational coaching conversations.
  5. Self Care Daily.

Again, I ask you –

Finally, this haiku may also be applicable to your life.

Tell me how any and all of these lines translate into your life and or/work experience.

We aspire to love – claim each time a special time – book soul moments here

If you would like to explore these topics further, I am always available to you – simply send a text to me 661.444.2735. Just identify yourself if you text first so I will know with whom I am “speaking.”

= = = =

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.  To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

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Listen to Me: You are Exactly What the World Needs Right Now

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One day more than six years ago I sat to write for five minutes on a Sunday morning. I wrote of this belief I had then which I still have now: my writing was created  stream of consciousness style.

I used a prompt based on something from Ralph Waldo Emerson which I translated to this:

You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.

I wrote for five minutes and when I was done, I sought approval, I needed approval, I was hungry for it.

One difference between the me then and the me now is the me now no longer expects approval. I assume no one will approve or even notice I wrote. This does not mean I don’t want approval. In fact, I have been known to opt out of experiences if I don’t feel included. I’ll just pick up my metaphorical marbles and go home and find someone else who seems to appreciate me.

Both of these facts: the not expecting response and the retreating from experience when I have felt slighted, illustrate my floundering trust in the now much less in the future.

I wonder if that is true for you, too, which is why it bears repeating… and repeating… and repeating….You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.

I have somehow left my optimism elsewhere and am instead freshly coated with a fresh dose of cynicism. It’s gotten worse this year than I ever thought it would. It seems like our whole society has caught the “snarky” malaise, the angry bickering competitive ugly-ness I have always veered away from and until now have never looked back.

This malaise is detrimental to my health.

Yet here I sit in my dark and quiet living room feeling pangs of hope again.

I love my six-years-ago self. She had so much hope, was so naive even though she had so much pain in her not-so-distant past. Enough of her still reigns in me that I feel another slight tug of optimism.

I won’t assume you will want to read, but it isn’t horrible: i’m not embarrassed about what I wrote. It might even invite a thought my current me wouldn’t think to ask anymore. Maybe it is time for me to intentionally step back into those shoes and slightly less frown-face assumptions. So 2017 readers, meet 2011 Julie.

Note: I wrote one version of this and then my computer ate it. Frustrated anyone? Early on a Sunday morning when my son is hovering like a hawk, waiting for me to take him to one of the city pools which doesn’t open for another ninety minutes when I would much rather be plunked on the porch with my laptop, writing my heart on the page?
So – using my prompt… “You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.” the 5 minutes may begin…

I wrote this very sincerely and I believe it earnestly yet somehow in between all that rah-rah believe me when I say this thought and love coated eye contact with word-love I heard Billy Joel crooning away, “I love you just the way you are” and my college friends snickering, “So, Billy doesn’t want his woman to improve… would rather keep her in her place so no one else will be attracted to her ever-getting-better nature.”

Now these were the days when Christie Brinkley was either married to Billy Joel or at least involved with him, so I remember raising my eyebrows thinking, “Most men would love Christie Brinkley just the way she is, too… absolutely gorgeous and perfect physically.” but I digress yet stay right on course.

The challenge to women (and perhaps men as well) today is we don’t think “as we are” is just right.

Instead, we buy into the cultural, societal notion that we are never good enough. We are always ten pounds from love or this orthat degree away from that job and one or twenty friends short of popular and if we did this or took that course or prescribed to this wonder pill, all would begin to brighten when in reality – if we changed our perspective and our thinking we would realize we ARE exactly what someone needs right now.

Our stories, our experiences, our listening ear, our chocolate chip cookies or hands to help a friend declutter or hold a crying-almost-complete-stranger – you are exactly what someone in this world is waiting for at this precise moment.

Not the next job you.

Not the next house or apartment you.

Not the skinnier or bigger breasted or more educated you.

This exact here and now you.

You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.

I am writing this while sitting on my sofa in my messy living room. I haven’t taken a shower yet and my hair needs to be touched up. Badly. Yet I sit and write for five minutes (and then this second five after the computer ate my words) because I firmly believe…

I am exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as I am, right now.

Say it now, with me...I am exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as I am, right now.

And the timer went off and I said, very excitedly in my 2011 version me….. There! Ta-Da!

Let me know, please… anything you are thinking after reading these words hot off the tips of my fingers with no editing allowed.

I think the 2011 version of me was onto something very, very good.

I am exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as I am, right now.

You are exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as you are, right now.

We are exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as we are, right now.

= = = = =

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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