Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

How Morning Writing Practice Helps Calm the Nervous System & Lead a More Effective Life

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Many of us yearn for a sense of calm and centeredness, especially those of us who may be grappling with mental health challenges. A simple yet powerful tool that can transform your mornings and your mindset is a daily writing practice. Often referred to as journaling, this practice offers a sanctuary for your thoughts and emotions, providing clarity and peace amidst the chaos.

Is your curiosity piqued? Is any resistance rising up? Please continue to read – and at least consider how starting a morning writing practice – a journaling practice – may help you to create a more joyful daily experience.

Benefit one: Unlocking Creativity

Morning writing allows you to tap into your creative side without the constraints of daily obligations clouding your mind. Here’s a three-step method to cultivate creativity through writing:

  1. Free Write: Start with a free-writing session for 5-10 minutes. Let your thoughts flow without worrying about grammar or structure.
  2. Prompt Exploration: Use creative prompts to spark ideas. Write about a dream, a memory, or a what-if scenario.
  3. Reflect and Expand: Choose one interesting idea from your free write or prompt exploration and spend another 5 minutes expanding on it.

Benefit two: Building Courage

For those facing mental health challenges, courage can sometimes feel elusive. Writing each morning helps build this courage incrementally. Follow these steps to foster bravery through your practice:

  1. Face Your Fears: Write about a fear or challenge you are facing. Acknowledge it on paper.
  2. Affirmation Writing: Create affirmations that counteract those fears. Write them down and repeat them daily.
  3. Action Plan: Write a small, actionable step you can take to confront your fear today. Reflect on your progress regularly.

Benefit three: Achieving Consistent Completion

Consistency can be particularly challenging for individuals with mental health issues. A morning writing routine offers a tangible way to experience the satisfaction of completion. Try this three-step method:

  1. Set a Timer: Commit to writing for just 5 minutes each morning. Gradually increase the time as it becomes a habit.
  2. Daily Log: Keep a simple log of your writing sessions. Note the date, time, and a brief summary of what you wrote about.
  3. Weekly Reflection: At the end of each week, read through your entries. Celebrate your consistency and note any patterns or progress.

Simple method to use: The Power of Experimentation

Understandably, the idea of adding another task to your morning routine might feel overwhelming. However, consider approaching it as an experiment. Follow these steps to ease into the practice:

  1. Start Small: Begin with just 5 minutes of writing. Focus on the process, not the outcome.
  2. Be Flexible: Allow yourself to write about anything—thoughts, feelings, dreams, or even lists. There are no rules.
  3. Review and Adjust: After a week or two, review how you feel about the practice. Adjust the timing, duration, or focus as needed to fit your needs.

Creating a Calmer, Centered Life

Incorporating a morning writing practice into your routine helps create a foundation of calm and centeredness. It provides a safe space to process your thoughts, reducing mental clutter and stress. This ritual may become a grounding force, allowing you to approach each day with greater clarity and intention.

Final Thoughts

If you’re navigating mental health challenges, embracing a morning writing practice might seem like “too much.” Yet, by being open to this experiment, you may discover a powerful tool for fostering creativity, courage, and consistent completion in your life. Start small, stay patient with yourself, and watch how this simple practice transforms your mornings and beyond.

Take the first step today and see how morning writing can become a cherished part of your journey towards a more calm and centered life.

What are you saying YES to in your life today?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in our re-energizing private writing and creative life facebook group.

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Today I am Declaring Independence From….

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I, Julie Jordan Scott, declare independence from my inner mean girl and in fact, I declare independence from and will no longer tolerate the behavior of outer mean girls as well.

Women encouraging, supporting, enriching one another has been my normal experience. I will NOT accept self-loathing, deprecation and meanness wreck my life anymore.

Bu-bye Inner Mean Girl. Consider yourself banished.

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What don’t you see? What experiences are you missing because you don’t look again?

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It is only the third of July and it feels so much later in the month than that, probably because two days ago my right knee had another flare up and that caused me to face plant emotionally. 

The good news is I learned so much in these last two days that would have been buried in my lack of awareness and busy, busy, unrelenting busy schedule and sometimes superhuman expectations I have for myself. 

Today my knee is sore, my hip is slightly sore, and I had the best sleep I have had in ages.

When I arrived at my desk this morning, I was without an agenda except for “to settle into” my day and here I sit, gloriously grounded even if the last week iteration of me would have been frustrated with the pace, the ever-expansive me is taking that last week me and holding her close saying something like “husssshhhhh, husssshhhhhhh, you have plenty of time to do all the things you feel like you must get done…”

Normally during the last week of the preceding month I set up the documents for the next month with my regular spiritual practices and my creative entrepreneurial plans.

It is July 3 and I didn’t set up one of my favorite, grounding, off-the-charts-effective “Mining for Storytelling Gold” daily writing practice.

I looked across the screen to my focus mate partner and said, “In this session, I am going to settle in…” having no idea what that really meant and I wrote “Good Morning, Love,” (my daily message to my facebook followers) and then realized I wasn’t ready to start “Mining for Story Gold” because I hadn’t taken the time to set the document up yet.

I then took the one step that changed everything: I decided to start the August document now.

I scanned last year’s August photo album and found the perfect photo.

What I had never noticed in that photo was glaringly obvious now.

What do you see in this photo?

What have you missed seeing in your everyday life lately?

Please let me know in the comments – 

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Welcome, July – Optimistic, Warm-Hearted, Let’s Celebrate Completion Friend

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Happy New Month! Happy Monday!

It may seem odd the simple joy I get from layered white canvas. Monday is a week’s new canvas, the 1st of a month is a chance to do my best, again – though my best differs from time-to-time.

I am participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge once again. My blog and my website and my business have fallen by the wayside more often than not since… well, for a long time. My biggest July intention includes changing that – I have a plan, I have a method, I have collaborators.

This delights me.

Completion, skating along the infinite loop do loop towards endings and beginnings is a place the blog will document throughout the month. I look forward to meeting new people and spending time with old friends.

There is only one July 2024 and one of my greatest desires is to be able to look back at it and say, “Wow, that was an incredible month of peace, joy, fulfillment and more than I expected.

My biggest completion is I am finishing “Haiku Saved My Life: How the Healing Properties of Courage, Creativity & Consistency Changed Everything.”

I refuse to say “finally” because the entire process was important. 

So much of my life over these last years has been about falling down and getting up that the pace of this project is not setting a pattern for books that take forever – after all, this one took half the time of the last one which I ended up shelving so this is actually progress!

“Haiku Saved My Life” is a braided memoir sharing the tales of 377 haiku writing from the end of 2019 into the beginning of 2021. The reader will be taken on an adventure which opened the door to creating several inspiring bodies of work one small step at a time.

It has elements of inspiration, instruction, poetry and themes of mortality are woven in as well.

By mid-month the plan is to send the final draft off the the book designer – and go from there.

Here’s to a festive, celebratory, project completion extravaganza in July!

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creativity coach and creative entrepreneur. She enjoys drinking coffee at her desk as she expands her entrepreneurial circle.

Julie Jordan Scott is a Writer, Creative Life Coach and Creative Entrepreneur who looks forward to a July that expands her work as a writer, speaker, teacher, facilitator and traveler.

She is grateful to be spending parts of July with her.

Watch her reels and images on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/juliejordanscott/

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Gut Kicks & Delayed Returning Day 31/31 of (Self) Belonging:

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I have been wading around the shallow waters of (self) belonging for the last few days due to – not surprisingly – due to what felt like a piercing of my shield (maybe better seen as a cushion, safe space, another word) of my sacred internal safe space.

I don’t feel the need to write the specifics here, but I was thrown by what happened and had the privilege of expressing my emotions with depth and had support to restore myself.

Another metaphor, from the poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, “the soft animal of my body” needed to go back into my cave and gently, quietly lick my wounds in a familiar, anonymous setting.

A bit of a setback and a bigger space of deeper healing because I allowed myself to feel what needed to be felt, to speak what needed to be spoken and perhaps most important, I allowed myself to receive the gift of belonging from my sister – even when the message I was pushing back on and stumbling along the way was translated through past experiences and the tapes that have played in my mind for years that rang out  “you are wrong, you ruined everything, you are unworthy, you are a problem, you don’t belong” which historically brought me to my dank, dungeon exile, empty of the nurturing tools of love and reassurance.

I can still hear my sister’s light laughter when I recognized she reached out to protect me, to be with me in what had become my danger zone.

I’m not accustomed to being protected. I am grateful she did as it helped me stay in the cave longer and use tools that before would vaporize after an attack rather than become completely numb and unable to access my self-nurturing tools at all.

I realize as I continue to process – my acceptance of protection and taking my time before jumping back into the public sharing is also an example of (self) belonging.

During these last 61 days of 2023, I am getting closer to understanding how to express and live from a space of (self) belonging. What a heart felt victory!

How do you connect with the concepts I’m sharing here in this rough, raw draft?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group

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Belonging In The Body, Part 2: Day 24/31 of (Self) Belonging

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With a week to go in October, I am starting my monthly ritual of preparing my documents for November.

I like having physical journals and checklists and files, but I also do a lot of my work here at the keyboard. I always begin with the beginning of the previous month, copy and paste.

On October 1, I was recounting a trip to Middletown, New York to look for new shoes. 

New shoes have been a big deal since childhood AND believe it or not, the experience has been primarily unpleasant since around 2019.

A-ha just now – as that coincides with when I first had Valley Fever and Sepsis and spent 13 days in the hospital recovering from my body shutting itself off.  I haven’t been comfortable wearing heels since then. I haven’t worn “cute shoes” since 2019 and have mostly lived in a succession of nearly identical wide width running shoes – wide to make room for the tailor bunions on my left foot – 

On October 1, I purchased three pairs of shoes. Two bootie style, one with a heel (!) and a pair of Mary Janes – perfect for casual dresses. 

On Sunday, I wore the Mary Janes all day – and I was on my feet a lot, and my body did not hurt afterwards.

My body did not hurt.

MY BODY DID NOT HURT!

This morning I woke up and noticed my knees weren’t complaining.

On one of my walks from the kitchen to my desk, I did a exercise I have been trying to incorporate into my routine. It looks easier on the Instagram Reels than it is for me – and once again noticed the stability in my feet and although tired, my body simply felt good. Grounded. Like I belonged within it, like my body and I are joyful companions, not two disparate beings with conflicting agendas.

Huge.

And it all began with belonging.

Allow that to sink in. 

My body simply felt good. Grounded. Like I belonged within it, like my body and I are joyful companions, not two disparate beings with conflicting agendas.

It all began with belonging.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group

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Day 8: Healing More Deeply: 31 Days of (Self) Belonging

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“The place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really hard to get there, but you can do it.”

Cheryl Strayed

It was only after I published on my blog yesterday and on instagram that I realized something in the story I told about being invisible in the hallway at work/school.

I chose to focus on the student who didn’t see me instead of the student who most definitely saw me and called out his pal for not paying better attention.

Yesterday morning as I wrote, I discovered a blog post from 2019 about healing – and it tied what I had experienced on Friday with what I am experiencing as a process now – a process back to honoring both my own uniqueness and yours through this study of belonging.

There are people who see us in all our vivid uniqueness, your walking invitation to be valued by you and welcomed into your world AND there are people who are busy with whatever they are busy with as they do their daily version of being their best.

I am not sure if I mentioned it here before, but I am sharing my daily findings of being a believing mirror to myself using Instagram Stories which also show up on my Writing Camp with JJS page.

I am getting excellent feedback on this series which you may read here on the blog as well as in a shorter version on Instagram and on the Writing Camp page.

Finally, my friend, we have 84 days left in 2023. How will you invest your days to bring 2023 to a satisfying end?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group

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Read Until You Arrive at the PS

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This is how deadlines work: we draw a line in the mud, or in the sand or on our foreheads.

We put our heads down and move toward that line.

On the day I wrote this haiku it was possibly the last thing I wanted to do. I have a lot going on in my spirit, I had a lot of responsibilities of leadership and my energy was sapped due to grieving and sadness and not feeling “up to it.”

Instead of avoiding it, I did my best.

I allowed myself to be where I was, without judgment.

I moved forward, with love.

While in process, it looked like the blurry screen, the not quite there words. When I called it finished -well,

here’s how it turned out:

Haiku 13/37

They’re still dancing

Taming from yesterday’s storm

blossoms still open

I may morph this into a tanka. It may take a variety of forms. For right now, right here, this is just right.

Plantain lilies in the church/manse yard, gentle yet harsh teachers.

Coming upon the intimate scene, I chose to honor them and didn’t get as close as I might have usually gotten. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not.

This haiku included study, contemplation, research and presence.

I will remember these lilies, as they were and as they are. Yes. Will return tomorrow.

Is anything about this haiku or what I wrote particularly earth shattering?

No. It is none of those things. 

AND it is earth shattering in that I stayed the course. I shared my progress. I was authentically, whole-heart-and-soul present.

It is so easy to walk away.

The next time you have the thought “Why bother” in one of its many variations, I hope you will remember this moment of time: showing up, in that moment’s best. Not worrying about comparing that moment’s best to anyone else’s best.

PS: This is also why I use the word “Guidelines” instead of “Deadlines.” Guidelines are full of life and possibilities. Deadlines remind us of the losses that loom. I would rather focus on possibilities, even within loss. Guidelines do that for me.

A blurry computer screen and a blurry notebook: sometimes getting to clarity is a journey from deadlines to guidelines and beyond.

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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The Day’s A-Wastin’ (Or Is It?)

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This is what happens when you start your day reading an emotionally rich, well written, best selling novel: in this case it was “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano

Haiku 17/37

Entire head stuffy

Each and every feeling –

Stories connect us

I don’t think that final line is the right one. I’m being impatient because I want to get on with my day. It’s 7:18 am the days a’wastin’!

I have no idea where I picked up that phrase, but being the daughter of an early riser and having given birth to early risers may be a part of it.

I read more than 150 pages this morning, I’ve been reading since 5 am and refused to move until the last words in the book. This doesn’t feel like wasted time, it feels like enrichment.

I would have loved “Hello Beautiful” even if it didn’t pay homage to Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” but with many twists and turns along the way. William isn’t Laurie – or is he? I always thought of Laurie as Thorea-like, but William is… much more like a blend of my son and me. The book opens and closes with words of him and words spoken by him.

“But if you’ll allow me, I’d like to help.” Spoken by William, who was a newborn in the first line of the book, “For the first six days of William Water’s life, he was not an only child.”

That first sentence from the book is almost like a koan, one of haiku’s cousins.

I have more to say and that last line of the haiku to rewrite, but a red cardinal is outside telling me to get on with the day. Last night perhaps it was the same cardinal who flew quickly toward the porch and then darted away before it sat down close to me, seeming to be shocked by my presence.

It is time to go downstairs and begin my day. The clogged head from tears cried and tears held back has lessened.

What is favorite book you have read in 2023?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Shopping Cart Haiku + Assemblage Art

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Haiku 346/377 

ship wreck stuck in time

on a deserted island

where is the captain?

My first photo of a shopping cart was in 2013. Many people think this is a downright bizarre fascination. Abandoned shopping carts, photographed in “the wild”. My one rule is I cannot take photos in a grocery or big box store parking lot.

Each shopping cart photo tells a story. The one for this haiku was on a center island on Ming Avenue near New Stine in Bakersfield. I almost passed it by on the way to “something better” but after I saw a second abandoned shopping cart I knew I had to go back and honor the unheard storyteller who left his or her shopping-cart- home behind.

When I looked at the photos and realized none of them clearly illustrated how this cart was on a median, in the middle of a busy street, distinctively on an island…. this haiku fell onto the “page” here on my phone in an instant.

I’m reminded of the movie “The Dead Poet’s Society” when the boys climb on their desks and say, one by one “oh captain, my captain” as their beloved teacher Mr. Keating leaves the classroom. Administrators meant his dismissal to be in shame and for his students, it wasn’t shame they felt at all, it was honor and love and compassion and understanding.

Your task today if you choose to take it is when you come upon someone you haven’t taken the time to see lately, pause and see them, wholly and holy.

*This is an excerpt from Julie’s soon to be published book, Living the Haiku Life*

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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