Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Writing Prompt: Today I am Choosing….

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Our writing prompt today offers a choice in perspectives. To get your subconscious mind started, consider and respond via comment your initial “gut/heart” response to “Today, I am choosing….. “

As you write for five minutes, allow the opposite or different its space if it enters into your writing. This is a part of “righting” your beliefs and experiences. For “righting” practice, try, “I once chose lack and what I discovered was…..” and as you complete each sentence add, “I now consciously choose abundance.”

Here is what I wrote during my time of 5 minutes of free flow writing we call #5for5BrainDump:

Today I am choosing abundance. I look out my window and I see the early morning slanted light, curling its finger at me, inviting me into a day of lush color and form. I once chose lack and what I discovered was black, white and grey scale. I discovered nit picking and rock throwing and finger poking. I now consciously choose abundance. I don’t choose airy-fairy outside reality abundance, I see abundance in the times of mishaps as well – there is something about the dappled shadow-light I especially love.

I grant myself permission to make mistakes when I choose abundance. In fact, it isn’t even a right or wrong thing when I choose abundance it is a “hmmm. Check this out” kind of thing. In fact, I often feel wobbly when I choose abundance because I am practicing the creation of new more empowering beliefs to build my life upon rather than the oft times destructive nature of lack. Lack architecture has building blocks of “don’t do,” and “can’t do” and “oh my gosh, you’re such an embarrassment.”

Abundance architecture is built upon beams of playful experimentation, hugs of compassion when setback appear, deep eye contact and laughter based in love, not lack’s chosen companion of humiliation.

Today I am choosing abundance. I am choosing to agree with divine favor. I am choosing to be open to what comes and discern as I lift my foot and put it down.

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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Even If “The” Writing Prompt Isn’t Working, Keep Moving Your Pencil (Or Fingers on the Keyboard) Anyway

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Sometimes writing prompts get you nowhere. This is a reality those of us who write prompts oftentimes don’t want to confess. We think if people are stuck and our writing prompts haven’t moved them on, we’ve somehow failed them. We’ve failed at our life work.

As a writer of prompts, I feel very guilty when folks’ words stagnate from my suggestion. I open the word-love valve wider but still nothing happens.

Here’s the thing: I wrote a prompt and avoided it for three days.

When I finally wrote to it in a #5for5BrainDump the first go-around was good, but I knew I had to go deeper. I know I needed more time, more writing moments.

I tried to take on Jack Kerouac’s quote again… and wrote tangentially. I was supposed to be writing about being amazed by myself and here’s what came off the ends of my fingers, tapping on the keyboard in 5 minutes.

We were sitting in a circle together: about eight of us. I didn’t know any of them very well – it was a circle of women who knew each other by face if not by name. We had a common interest though not much else.

I’ll take responsibility for suggesting we all introduce ourselves but I wasn’t expecting each lady to leap into a snippet of her personal story.  The thing is, everyone was entranced.

I was nervous though because people were starting, generally, with their names and their employers their geography. They were sharing quantity of kids and ages of kids and I just for once did not want to bring my kids into the equation for once. I am at the end of their collective childhoods and part of the letting go is to stop using them as a mold for my identity.

I don’t have a normal employer or a normal geography.

We were sitting in a place owned by a specific political party, which I am not a part of.

I was squirming and uncomfortable in my seat because I felt 100% cast off and wrong and wondered for a moment if I could just escape somehow before I had to confess I was so different than everyone else and they might not want to have me around anymore if they knew the truth about me.

I don’t know how I started. I don’t know how I finished. I do know I talked for what I felt was too long and I apologized for rambling.

But no one chased me away. No one seemed to look down their noses at me. I did mention I didn’t really understand intersectionality even though I live it. I did mention I had a deep respect for Palestine and immediately worried I might offend any Jewish people in the room including a woman I hoped would be my friend.

After all was said and done and we were back in our homes, one of the women wrote in the facebook group her favorite part of our meeting that day was the sharing of stories.

Rambling. Over excited. Laughter. Connections. Memories.

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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Remember Yourself with Awe and Amazement: Let’s Write #5for5BrainDump Style Together

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It took me a few days to warm up to this prompt. Seriously, I wanted/didn’t want to write to it and when I finally got down to business with it…. I… well, I’ll let the #5for5BrainDump process tell the story.

Here is a less-than-60 second video of the prompt – some photos are mine and some are from the Lumen5.com very smart process…

And now, written in 5 minutes is my first crack at this prompt. These are, for the most part, stories that are familiar to me. What is more valuable to me is the work beneath these fairly obvious answers.

I want to honor myself and YOU by sharing here. I’m considering this the “Bonus” you’ll see in the prompt itself.

It has taken me three days to even attempt to write on this prompt, not because… well, I am tired of excuses.

When I set my timer just now, salt licked my eyes. Tears – unspent and afraid yet begging me to release them.

So I procrastinate further by drinking coffee and I wonder what I possibly have to be amazed about so I step out of my head and into my heart and will ask myself to begin a list without worrying about how many times I may or may not have been amazed at myself.

  1. I gave birth four times without pain medicine. One time, my first, in a car as it barreled down the freeway. My daughter didn’t survive that birth. She had probably died the day before.
  2. I climbed a 44 foot rock climbing wall at the conclusion of my life coaching training primarily to prove to my trainer that anything was possible. He had told me I couldn’t possibly have 16 life coaching clients so quickly. “But I do,” I told him. His disbelief has messed with my head off and on since but I will always have the victorious climb no one – including myself – thought I could do.
  3. I have couch surfed across the US.
  4. I quit my comfy cushy job and have lived comfortably and uncomfortably ever since.
  5. Somehow when I had melanoma I attracted a surgeon who would give me a heart shaped scar to wear on my face until I die. People have commented, “Only you would actually have a heart shaped scar… which fits you perfectly.”
  6. I returned to acting after a 30 year hiatus. Hi-jinx from that episode include running through Oildale without a shirt on embarrassing my children to no end. What amazed me is…. How focused I was on what the director wanted from me. I love when my acting is so director-actor-collaboration that everything else disappears. I love that. I want more of that. I had a taste of that last Summer when I made a film with Inclusion and a butterfly appeared on set. See #1.
  7. I have won every storytelling competition I’ve joined. I need to join more that I hope not to win so that I may continue to become better. Make that a goal – to be amazed at not winning.
  8.  (is yet to come)

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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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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It starts with intention: What Will You Make Today? What Will You Create This Week?

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I was born the little kid who sees the huge pile of animal poo and is excited because… well, there must be a pony around somewhere, right?

If Maya Angelou didn’t say this quote, I probably would have. “This is a wonderful day. I have never seen this one before.”

I laughed when I read it because it is the sort of thing I have said that I would be teased for and when I was a kid the relentless teasing was horrendous, unrelenting and no one seemed to care enough about me to intervene.
I was taught to take it, to ignore it – and there is value in that AND there is value in a child seeing she is worthy of another’s effort in making her feel safe and valued and loved.

I don’t think the lesson was meant to be one of devaluation though. After all, I came out of it all with a perpetual smile on my face proclaiming the good news of women like Maya Angelou.

I must be onto something because my fingers stopped typing. This is what usually happens when I am on the edge of something uncomfortable. I stop because uncomfortable tends to equal (in my mind anyway) “Not good! Danger! Stay out!”

Today a woman who had slept next to an abandoned building asked to use my phone. I held it in my hand and dialed the number, put it on speaker, and together we called her sister. I wasn’t comfortable in handing her my phone to use.

The three-years-ago Julie would have just given her phone over without thinking.

This Julie says “Protect and be generous. They’re not separate.”

On this one and only day and this one and only week we each have a choice to be afraid and run away from situations that make us uncomfortable or we may take action that is both responsible and generous and we may take action that is reckless and we may prove to ourselves how right we were with saying discomfort equals disaster without taking responsibility for our contribution to that negative outcome.

At first glance, I was judging the now-me who didn’t just hand over her phone to the woman who had slept next to an abandoned building. At repeated glance, I see the generosity toward myself and to the lady with whom I shared my phone.

(My timer went off for my 5 minute brain dump exercise. We’ll continue a bit because I have a prompt for you)

Now it’s your turn to write for five minutes. Below this paragraph I have a prompt and I’ve also included some extra nudges to use if you get stopped while in the process of writing, like I did temporarily. If I hadn’t been stumped, I wouldn’t have created that new awareness proving once again if we continue what we start we will be rewarded always.

This brand new day (and week) is yours to invest, to create, to leave your distinctive mark. What will you make today? This week?

Bonus Prompts:

I remember…

My heart reminds me I have said #moreofthatplease: now it is time to stop talking and start acting in relationship to what I have declared. Right now, I declare….

This week I would love….

At the end of the week, it would delight me to look back and see…..

Bonus Challenge: Comment here one sentence from your five minute writing so that I may support you in your process. You’ve got the chance to make this week more exceptional even than this initial intention. Let’s do it together.

Creative Life Midwife Julie Jordan Scott writes on the road,, when she sits in cafes or in train station. She writes, always.

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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Secret Hint to Making The Most from Your Brain Dump Experience

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Two memorable conversations keep popping into my head as I begin to write:

  1. Never go to bed angry.
  2. Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

I don’t know that I whole heartedly agree (or disagree, actually) with either of them.

I agree, it is better for our overall feelings of positivity and gratitude if we fall asleep in a state of contented curiosity rather than angry lament, but sometimes the energy of anger clears out a lot of gunk – or is that just our habitual way of experiencing the world?

I could talk (write) myself into a corner with this one and perhaps that is part of the point my subconscious and writing practice is making here.

We make it a practice to complete our brain dumps and free flow writing with thirty seconds of gratitude and praise about anything: what you may have discovered and uncovered during writing or anything at all. The point is to finish the writing practice on an emotional upswing.

If we always ended our writing practice feeling like garbage most of us would give up our writing practice. It is natural to want to feel better.

We don’t want to feel like crap, we inherently want to feel well or at least better than when we sat down to write.

Maybe part of your gratitude IS saying you are sorry.

Love and forgiveness go hand-in-hand as do love and gratitude.

Admitting our weaknesses – is a pathway to wholeness and gratitude.

(And the timer tells me five minutes is up – so this concludes today’s entry about one of my favorite secrets to always ending on an upbeat note, thus preserving the practice that is such a grand, sustaining partner in my 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.

 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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Experiments in Brain Dumping: What I Learned May Help You, Too!

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I did an experiment last week with the process I created, the #5for5BrainDump.

I wrote using prompted brain dumps for five minutes a day for five consecutive days, allowing my thoughts to pour onto the page and then I published the unedited writing on my blog.

I wrote these reflections on Friday and I published last week six times on my blog.  This will technically be my first post of the new week or my seventh post from last week.

What did I learn?

It is best to have a blog template ready to go – I made mine on Sunday – so that when it was time to do my five minute writing all I had to do was the five minute writing, copy paste and publish. I know for many the hardest part is pushing that publish button.

I think next week I will have the prompts ready ahead of time so all the images will be uploaded as well so it will be a simple copy, paste and done. I really ran with the Eleanor Roosevelt quote this week and I wasn’t expecting that, so I will allow myself to be open to whatever flows this week.

I want to keep a table of contents each week as I go with highlights of each post. I have found in my enormous body of work there is much that sits, forgotten, that is worth being re-published and shared with the world.

I want to explore how this practice may help with entrepreneurs as well. This will be a part of my focus next week – because I know once people begin to explore these methods, they may experience greater flow in their work world as well.

AND THE APPLAUSE SAYS – 5 minutes is up!

(Yes, this was written #5for5BrainDump style with several small edits on Sunday morning, just a different way of managing the content stream.)

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.

 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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Discovering New Strength, Thoughts and Ooops, That Not-So-Surprising Surprise

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Preface:

It took me far too long to begin to write to this prompt. Multi-fold procrastination which I might describe as block which reminds me: most everything that looks like block is actually fear.

One of the reasons people do not do a writing practice on an ongoing nature is “fear of stirring up more than one may want to stir up.”

Mine is like a book with many chapters: I am afraid of failing, falling short of not living up to… whatever it is I daily don’t live up to and I am afraid of making people angry and I am afraid of finding myself all alone because of everything I have noted up until now.

(It took me a full five minutes to explain my procrastination so please grant me another five to write about today’s prompt:

Starting… now.

My renewed thoughts are….

This morning I looked outside and my heart literally felt like it enlarged in my chest: the garbage collectors had come by my home and taken my trash away. The trash can was no longer overflowing! It was ready to be rolled back to its place beside my house! I didn’t have to worry about it getting knocked over or making a bigger mess. It was gone, gone, gone and although I had a full day ahead with some not-so-pleasant tasks on the list, my heart was happy and in turn, my happiness has continued to expand.

And perhaps be a foundation for the more challenging prompt –

One risk my heart is longing to take….

I want to start over again after Samuel graduates from high school. I see myself being a vagabond, leading tours for people who are either writers or literary junkies or a combination of both.  I want to take people on explorations of self and literature while having a ridiculously good time. I want to help people find their guiding inner writers, their favorite quotes and deeply textured writing fairy god-mothers (and fathers, I would suppose)

I want to risk building bridges with people from “I can’t” to “I will” to productive, heartfelt creativity while adventuring, while exploring new and familiar spaces.

And then… applause is here. We have been heard.

 

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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