Creative Life Coaching – Page 23 – Creative Life Midwife

See Light & Love and Self Compassion Now (plus bonus writing prompts)

January 2, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“If the house of the world is dark, love will find a way to create windows.”

Rumi

This afternoon I found myself with some free time so I decided to visit a local bookstore. I was listening to Brene Brown’s “Dare to Lead” in audiobook form and decided I wanted to read certain sections in addition to the audio. Her books have so much deep material so close together, I was concerned I might get overwhelmed with material unless I paused to take notes.

I decided I wanted to visit the poetry section of the bookstore. My heart wanted me to thumb through a poetry book as well because I knew “Dare to Lead” was intense. Poetry might give me space to integrate what Brene Brown had to teach amidst all the note taking and all the new-to-me-thoughts and lingo.

I saw a Coleman Barks translation of Rumi, the mystical sufi poet I have long loved, and I said. “Oh, a new Rumi compilation?”

I was shocked to see the publication was 2014. Six years ago.

“I have not sought after Rumi in six years?” I stood in the bookstore shaking my head, scoffing at myself for this gap in time. “Where has my heart been?”

My theme for January is “Window” (primarily the metaphor) and the first quote/prompt I am exploring is from Rumi – which is certainly not an accident. Windows invite light into the room. Windows allow us to see outside our space of “protection”. Windows allow us to plan and hold a vision and see possibilities we couldn’t see without them.

Throughout January, I will be exploring a variety of themes about “windows”. For the next few days, the prompts I will be use include:

How do I (and/or will I) create windows in my life, community and family?

What am I willing to do to keep windows wide open to my goals, vision and opportunities as we start this new year?

I am devoted to be compassionate towards myself – and trust this will open windows of love and more opportunities to read Rumi throughout the days to come. The key is to remember what you love – and don’t let circumstances or other people come between you. Ever.

My next quotes and prompts will include wisdom from Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Christina Rosetti and Marcus Aurelius. I hope you will gain value from the discoveries you make here.

How will you bring light and love into your vision and goals this year?

4 Simple Ways to Start and Nurture a Daily Personal Growth Practice.

January 1, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau

2020 is arriving in several hours and here I sit, after declaring I would write this HOURS ago.

It is still 2019, I still have latitude between declaration and execution, right?

My lack of remembering was valid: there was the clogged toilet incident I was solving. After that, I was assisting my long term friend who fixed my roof right before I left for my cross country trip and prevented havoc during wild weather while I was gone. Who knew four hours to help trimming dog’s nails and getting pictures developed was going to turn into accompanying him to the dentist office and securing meds? I knew if I didn’t push the pharmacy pick up it might not happen until tomorrow afternoon and being the responsible, deliberate person I… realized how unintentionally I almost forgot Thoreau.

My actions today reflected my forgetting.

I was not living deliberately. I was living reactively, as has become my habit.

Being reactive rather than responsive is one of those unconscious habits I aim to shift as this new year and season and decade of my life begins.

The cost of this habit brought about a rather unremarkable life ruled primarily by fear with spurts of passionate living. The person I was I was twelve years or so ago, lived a very passionate life with only occasional spurts of fear.

As 2019 came to a close, clarity spoke to my heart and my mind loud and clear.

I aim to live deliberately – with passion, purpose and intention, every day.

This doesn’t mean building a small cabin in the forest like Thoreau did, this means I don’t miss the individual trees. This means I submit to delicious daily practices to feed my overall intentions.

I started this by asking, “Back when I was at my happiest and most productive, what consistent practices was I engaging in to help me feel so good?”

I was writing daily haiku and taking photos of everyday activities and actions, every single day without missing a day. If I did miss a day, I offered myself grace.

I want more of that, again.

Eleven days ago I started writing a morning haiku (though any form of short poetry or micro-poetry will do.)

I snap an accompanying photo and post on one of my social media accounts where I once had a regular audience cheering on my short poetry.

How do I feel, eleven days in?

Accomplished, satisfied, and delighted to have something daily an audience is waiting to read.

Choose a practice that won’t take too much time or effort so success will come easily to you.
Scan your past successes and use those as a compass for what is likely to work now.
Share your intention with others who are supportive of you rather than the naysayers in your life who stare down their noses at your ideas.
Start your practice and if it helps you to continue, share publically and ask people to respond.

Here is what you don’t know yet.

Three months ago, I came face-to-face with death. I stood on the edge and decided I had life yet to live, there were connections left for me to make.

When I come to those crossroads again, I want to be able to recognize that from now on I am choosing deliberately to create a life that reflects my beliefs and my vision, my passion and purpose.

What choice will you make the next time you arrive at a significant crossroad in your life?

Let’s talk about this in the comments.

If you would benefit from going deeper, let’s have a conversation. Here is a link to request a transformational coaching conversation session, please visit here.. My gift to you.

Healing: Take the Time to Become Better and Better and Better

July 30, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“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

Dear Reader,

This is not the best I have ever written, but I know if I don’t post it, it may sit unsaid for too long a time. I know I am supposed to continue to post these because there are people waiting to read them. So here we are, again.

Written with minimal, editing, almost stream-of-consciousness.

Here is another “telling on myself”: today I couldn’t remember if I had published this flailing on the page. It is a newly minted Sunday afternoon and I have decided to do some light editing as this day progresses.

It is a mystery: why have I steadfastly avoided talking, writing, even thinking about healing? It has easily been for the better part of – I’m guessing for years now. I don’t even know how long.

Maybe it was because a place I used to go regularly incorporated “healing” in its name and when it became a more destructive place to me rather than constructive place to be?

Maybe it is because I equated healing with the unpleasantness of my own experiences with cancer?

Perhaps the mystery is my relentless running or turning away from pain: one heals from pain. Healing is a result of pain. Perhaps my subconscious mind believes I have had too much pain and healing is braided into pain and haven’t I had enough of that already?

Somehow in negating the healing, I also managed to negate the beauty of healing, the beauty of process and oftentimes the beauty discovered as a direct result of pain.

There was a time when I seriously avoided pain above all, yet ironically I also embraced natural childbirth with a vengeance.

I avoided confrontations yet I also thought it was fun to get up on stage at my advanced age and highly imperfect appearance.

I advocated, consistently and constantly like a weeble that won’t fall down, I got battered and bruised not physically but emotionally and spiritually and I volunteered for this.

As I said, none of it makes much sense but as Cheryl Strayed said in our opening quote, healing is a place of monstrous beauty, endless dark AND light. I love the paradox she states.

I also am not sure about how hard we have to work at healing. Perhaps it is an argument over words or my deflection of pain again. Here’s the thing: there is healing even in opening up the conversation here.

Nonetheless, from this perspective we simply rise from wherever we are to be brave enough to open our arms and accept what falls into them, without turning away or deeming it “too” anything.

I am re-embracing healing on a variety of levels.

In keeping my heart, mind and soul open to what is calling me I acknowledge healing is refreshing, invigorating, dare I even say pleasant?

Ironically enough, if you had asked me a month ago about healing, I would have given you a very shallow answer. Now that I’ve opened my arms, the gifts – and challenges – have been tumbling toward me and I have been laughing and crying and moaning and nodding my head all the way along.

What are your experiences with healing?

Talk to me in the comments, or if you would benefit from going deeper, let’s have a conversation. Here is a link to request a transformational coaching conversation session, please visit here.. My gift to you.

Stop Rushing, Continue Growing

July 22, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Healing comes with time and space: This mixed media artwork is an illustration of the healing process Sometimes it feels like I am always rushing. Today I created a time buffer and I was still racing around due to a misplaced debit card I hadn’t discovered was misplaced until I was at the ATM halfway to my destination and I fumbled in my wallet for the absent card.

I managed to rush home and race back to the ATM and slide into place with ten minutes to spare, but in the midst of the rushing back and forth I was giving myself a quiet, calm pep talk.

“The old Julie would give up, the new Julie knows it is more important she show up and participate however that looks.”

“The old Julie would be critiquing her forgetfulness, yelling at her inability to be organized and with foresight to realize her shortcoming before it happened. The new Julie recognizes her own humanity and mirror compassion back at herself.”

“The old Julie would sentence herself to solitary confinement until some magical day when she started to ‘do better’ which is difficult to ‘do” when she has no measurement of social improvement in self-imposed exile. The new Julie is grateful she has a friend who invited her out, who she could safely confide in her dilemma, and who trusted her in every step she made along the way.”

My friend saved my seat: all was well. I filled myself with deep breaths. I made space to restore calm prior to the “main event” – absorbing new knowledge from the meeting I was attending, connecting with new people and old friends, deciding what applications to take with me afterwards.

When I was spit out from that womb of safety two hours later I was right back into the race, this time on mom-delivery duty.

Somewhere in those precious two hours my friend saw something in me that prompted her to text me saying “I keep learning new things about you. You amaze me!”

I texted back, “I wish I would amaze myself more!”

She gave me a smart suggestion I often overlook, “”Look at yourself from the perspective of other people.”

I sent a smile emoji and wrote, “I’m working on it….”

I’ve had a long practiced unconscious habit of not valuing myself.

I ask myself: How much praise from myself will it take for me to believe it?

It isn’t the amount of praise that matters, it is me believing these things about myself are valuable that matters.

What will it take for me to change these perspectives and transform them into beliefs? In the past I would harp on myself to create more evidence in order to manifest greater levels of belief in myself.

Maybe that is what I am doing without even knowing it.

Lately I have been spending more time in meditation. I have been purposefully feeding my spirit with a healthy dose of kudos from others. I have been pampering myself with loving self-reflection and spending time with people who like me not because of what I do, but because I exist.

These people remind me the world really is better because I am here in all my quirky, silly, unique-viewed, word-loving self.

I recognize healing like this doesn’t come overnight and it doesn’t come in one mountain top a-ha. It is a process it is a (choose your favorite journey, path, etc metaphor.) It doesn’t end, it integrates. It resurfaces for a variety of reasons none of which say “You are less than” or “you are not worthy” or “you are not enough.”

Healing comes in repetition, like the sunrise repeats itself every day.

Feeling better comes from multiple directions from multiple sources: different people at different times and different circumstances. Practice saying “This is all good” because it is, all good.

Julie JordanScott looks to heaven as she takes a pause in her writing. Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. She spent a year working as a leader of an Instagram Group and is now leveraging that experience to create a learning workshop/playshop experience about instagram based on having fun called Summer Lovin’ with Instagram. Click this link to find out more. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

How to Immerse Yourself in Joyful Action = Productivity that Feels So Good!

July 16, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Little boy taking joyful action at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles

I am setting my aim for getting the stuff done that I don’t feel like getting done and will make me feel better after I actually do it.

When I think of my ideal life, I think of uncluttered, unfettered, less stuff more positive, constructive experience yet I don’t have daily clearing practice.

To my credit, I have started a morning meditation and an evening yoga nidra practice which is working on my mental side, but my physical surroundings, not much has changed. So here’s the deal:

I am going to start today, as soon as I get finished typing, to clear space for five minutes – just five minutes.

Then I will come back and type how I feel. I will upload this and go back to life-as-usual. I will repeat until next Tuesday.

I will report back.

Easy peasy lemon squeasy (or however that saying goes.)

It will “only” be 35 minutes of clearing and yet, my belief is it will be seven consecutive days of doing things differently. It will be seven days of believing I can and proving it. It will be seven days of setting the timer and saying, “Ready, Set, GO GO GO GO GO!” much like we happily do as children.

I am now going to stop typing. I’ll “talk” to you in 5!

(Imagine me running around the house – and I stopped to scrub my bathtub even! Can you believe it?! And I laughed while I did it! Who laughs with giddy joy while scrubbing the bathroom? I did! I did!)

This is what aligned accountability looks like. This is what makes Ta-Da Tuesday so fun. Co-working virtually with like minded and like hearted entrepreneurs, creatives, artists, healers who “get” me and this process.

I came back and reported both here on the blog and the others, assembled on the Zoom Conference Room – a video meeting with people in both hemispheres today. People working at the beach, in their homes and wherever they found themselves.

That was great! I got a bag of stuff out to the trash and moved. My floor is picked up, my energy is lifted and I am ready to make a real shift.

Who else is in?

Comment what you are ready to get rid of, even if you aren’t in for the full seven days.

Every little bit helps. And Every little bit of fun and joy adds up!

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. She spent a year working as a leader of an Instagram Group and is now leveraging that experience to create a learning workshop/playshop experience about instagram based on having fun called Summer Lovin’ with Instagram. Click this link to find out more. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here. Be sure to follow her on Social Media platforms so you may participate in one of her upcoming events. You won’t want to miss a thing – your future self will thank you!

100 Day Project: Focused… and Continuing

July 15, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

100 Days Ago I officially started the 100 Day Project. My aim was to work on Passionate Prosperity with my aim being to run another 42 Days of Passionate Prosperity.

During the 100 Days I would offer prompts and insights and graphics as I revisited the lessons I wrote back in 2003.

Hands making a heart shape and the prompt "Your heart is calling you to share her message. What is she calling you to write, to speak, to make?"

What I found was I have evolved a lot and found so much more richness that the old lessons weren’t always aligned with what I know today so…. I kept going but let go of the need to run a full six week program.

I did run a #5for5BrainDump “beta” program and have another planned for next week.

I do plan to have another Prosperity Program but it will look quite a bit different than the long-ago one.

Looking back to the first prompt of the sequence this time:

Today, I am open to receive….

(and I wrote in response)
all over the emotional map. Finally, a moment of grounding. A tête-à-tête with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
.
An agreement to step into vulnerability and a deepening dance with trust.
.
I wonder what else the future me will have to say when she looks back upon this day?

It is only 100 Days in the future and I have noticed some remarkable shifts.

One is I have definitely deepened my relationship with trust. My reaction to scarcity, fear and lack has almost evaporated completely. I have been quite a bit more vulnerable – honest and true – and today, I started another adventure in healing to go deeper than ever before so…..

What a wild and wonderful ride.

The next step (completions and/or significant progress before the end of July)

1. Reviewing my first six months of 2019 with an open mind and heart. Make adjustments as necessary.

2. Follow through with a visit to my parents.

3. Accept help.

4. Continue with projects that are in-the-works. Set aside plentiful time for content development.

5. Continue to work with Beta groups to test our material and insure the work resonates.

6. Start a list of what my ideal wish list would be for September 2019 and January 2020 so that the full engagement manifesting practice may kick in.

7. Celebrate daily for the remarkable shifts that have happened and will continue happening.

There is a world out there that is waiting. Still. What a blessing to serve.

Let’s Grow Together: Vulnerability & Courage

July 14, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

How do you want to grow in vulnerability and courage?

Last Fall I was in the midst of a creativity flow that felt so divine, so exciting I stopped worrying about containing it and I started to be increasingly vulnerable.

It felt surprisingly great. I loved learning about the sign language for vulnerability.

I made this video which I trust will inspire you:

As quickly as it came, it left.

I got caught up in the Thanksgiving holidays and immediately after that, I was traveling again due to my aunt’s death and after that, I was preparing for Christmas and more travel and more family and here it is July and I am ready, again, to flex the courage and vulnerability muscle again.

I don’t want you to lose time in personal development. I don’t want you to wake up six month from now asking, “Why am I still in this same place I was when Julie JordanScott asked me the life coaching question… about courage and vulnerability?”

Have you watched the video yet?

I have started my vulnerability growth over on Medium, where I am writing almost daily about healing from a lifetime of feeling unloved and unwanted.

Click here to read the first essay in that series.

Have you watched the video yet?

It conveys how devoted I am to our collective growth in courage and vulnerability.

Please comment below – and if this and the video resonate with you, be sure to subscribe here and on YouTube so you won’t miss a thing.

Healing Stories of Scarcity & Lack to Move Forward, With Love

July 12, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Woman sitting underneath a magnolia tree, writing. Also a prompt: "Take your time with healing. Stay with it. Move forward with love. Love is abundance, afterall."

What are the best methods to heal your stories of scarcity and lack?

It is a balance: one ought not dwell on scarcity and lack AND if we do not acknowledge, address, and integrate our past scarcity and lack, it will continue to cycle through us until we listen. Consciously addressing what was before – before we decided to heal our scarcity thinking, for example – will build a stronger foundation based in our true experiences of abundance and prosperity.

I would love for you to take your time with this, to allow your insights to flow. On the other hand, do not give it more power than it is due. Do not wallow in it, allow your scarcity story to become a part of your past.

Let it go, let it go, let it go!

om from a house in Los Angeles. A slanted light is entering the space.

Prompt: let's aim to heal your wounds from scarcity and lack. Begin with taking note. Continue to practice letting go The Passionate Prosperity Collective.

Tips:

1. Don’t rush to get your healing in “the done pile” because when we do that, actually move further away from completion.

Do journal: use your art journal or your photo journal or your morning pages notebook. Devote a specific space and time to your healing work.

2. Take your time. Small chunks of time over several days are sometimes the best strategy to begin.

3. Don’t be shallow. Skating on the surface just makes us itchy later. Maybe have lunch of a do take time for coffee with friends where you practice sharing some of this “itchy” and together, you may help each other gain comfort.

4. At first, going deep feels scary. It is risky! Praise yourself for this!

Your writing prompt:

The wound is the place light enters you. Your heart-directed actions are what multiplies the light.

Make a list of the times you have felt wounded in the last month.

Start a list of when you felt wounded or hurt throughout your day. The next morning, wake up and write about one of those incidents, with an aim of possible solutions to the cycle of wounding .

Brain storm possible actions to take to reverse the wound and continue or start the healing process.

Please reach out to me using the contact form below if you would find personal, transformational coaching valuable.

Two questions to answer in the comments:

1) Would you value or enjoy or appreciate a Zoom Session to do a Healing Scarcity Ritual in community??

2) Write into the comments ONE scarcity thought you are ready to let go of now –

Julie JordanScott looks to heaven as she takes a pause in her writing.

Self-Care Sunday is Not Always What You Think!

July 7, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I am doing something radical today: I am celebrating the entire day as Self-Love Sunday.

Maybe it is because the earthquakes got me rattled and everyone else seems to be running around buying supplies, but I need a day to focus on what makes me feel better.

So what I have been doing?

Well, I started with a chore I don’t like to do necessarily but the end result I love. Then I did some writing: a blog post and I finished writing a sales page I’ve been procrastinating about for far too long. That felt great – and this feeling of satisfaction is marvelous.

Next I washed and put away dishes, did some more writing and organization and then I made lunch.

There is no massage or pedicure or nap that feels as good as seeing the grateful smile on Samuel’s face as I bring him a yummy lunch made with all his favorite components.

Now here is where I got really crazy. I sat down with my lunch – a bowl of special K and a cup of coffee – and watched my favorite classic TV show. It was filmed in 1964 and was already old when I watched it!

I decided to make a bit of it into an Instagram Story and this alone made me laugh harder than I’ve laughed in days. Yes, even social media posts can be a form of self-care!

Next up is journaling and art-journaling and perhaps some attention to my content calendar for the week. You may think, “How is any of this self-care?”

All of it is self-care. Self-care isn’t a “one size fits all.” On some days, I may decide to get a facial and go out to an overblown lunch with a gaggle of girlfriends. Today, the inside-take-care-of-business feels great. Self-care, my dear ones, is about self, not others.

woman journaling to relieve stress and show self care

I can’t think of a better way to spend my Sunday. I can’t think of anything that could be more refreshing!

How about you? What are you doing on this Self-Care Sunday?

If you want a chuckle, head over to my Instagram and check out my Instagram Story. Fill in the blank… I’m sure you are a creative, too, like me!

Thanks for the visit! I’m grateful you were here!

Julie JordanScott is a Life and Creativity Coach who is thrilled to have an almost-empty-nest, a long-time creative practice, and has just launched her most recent program, “Summer Loving Instagram! Demystifying Social Media for Creative Entrepreneurs, Writers and Artists: She is proud to say she has won awards for storytelling, acting and activism. You may follow her on Instagram, YouTube and join her free Facebook Groups, “Word-Love Writing Community” and (along with Paula Puffer) Bridge to the New Year.

And Time Marches On…. and This Mom Continues Learning, too.

July 2, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I heard a weird scratching at the door which I thought might be the cat, though I didn’t see her get out. I watched as the door opened and Samuel stepped through, smiling.

“What are you doing home so early?” It was only 9:30 and his Japanese class at Bakersfield College lasts until 11:10 and then he usually is home a half hour after that, at least.

“Today is mid-terms,” he said, with a wider small than I am used to seeing across his eighteen-year-old usually-bored-with-his-old-mother face.
“How did it go?” I asked.

“Well,” he said. Since he was smiling even more widely, I continued the conversation.

“When will you find out how you did?”

“Tomorrow I think, probably,” he answered. He \share more, his face still bright, the shortened week thanks to the Fourth of July. He took himself and his soda and Takis chips which he bought on the way home, into his Man Cave before texting me.

“I need to rent “The Last Samarai” with Tom Cruise in it for a worksheet for class. I need to get it done soon.”

We went back and forth via text even though we were about twenty steps apart before I gave him my Amazon log-in so he could watch it on Prime.
I think he was excited to use his new debit card for a thirty-day prime trial, but he could wait and use his shiny newly-minted-adult-no-parents-allowed-goodies for another time.

This all feels wonderfully surreal.

Wasn’t I just showing up when he was in kindergarten, barracuda mom, when the vice-principal insisted my parenting skills were obviously awful or my child wouldn’t be behaving like this?
Wasn’t I just battling it out with educrats about whether or not he could be mainstreamed into more general ed classes?
Didn’t he just call and convene his own IEP meeting in writing his Freshman year to make a change in his education plan?

His time at Bakersfield College for Summer School has been nothing short of remarkable, where I was able to stand as an anonymous witness. I have been a student and an employee there. I can blend in and watch him manage the administrative tasks at one time the educators “in charge” never imagined he would do successfully.

The next few months will be interesting. Now that it’s July, we are on the sixth month count-down to a brand new decade. Whoa. I hadn’t connected the dots like that until just this moment.

What are you looking forward to over the rest of this year?

Julie JordanScott is the author of the upcoming book, Dear Autism Mom, a collection of encouraging, instructing and inspiring letters to parents of children who are on the autism spectrum. Her son, Samuel, recently graduated high school and will be attending University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Fall 2019. She is a Life and Creativity Coach, a Writer, Retreat Leader and Social Media Expert who loves inspiring others into their greatness.