Creative Life Coaching – Page 24 – Creative Life Midwife

How to Be Open to the Art of Receiving

June 29, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Receiving: it is one of the most important skills on your journey to living a passionate life.

Yes, I said “skill” because so few of us are as adept at it as we could be and if we mastered it, truly, both our abundance and passion would grow exponentially. I’m not alone in this thought, I learned it from other experts. Look at what Alexander McCall Smith says: “Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving. Accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.”

1. Truly receive your next compliment. No matter what your next compliment is, your task is simply to say “Thank you.” You may not rebuff the compliment, for example, say “oh, that’s nothing” because it is something. Receive kudos well and more receiving will come your way.

This video not only shares a valuable writing prompt, it goes more deeply into the concept of accepting compliments as a means of receiving and accepting gifts as a receiving practice.

2. Give without expectation of being “paid back” or “receiving in return” for what you give or what you do. Practicing practical, daily detachment is a heart opening way to invite more receiving into your life. When our motivation is giving-to-receive the greatest point is left behind.

3. Gracious acceptance may mean accepting both what we see as positive and negative. One of the most important skills we can learn, alongside with receiving is also being able to receive criticism and news we don’t want to hear with grace as well as a clear heart and mind.

4. Communicate to others what it is you really want. Oftentimes those around you have no idea what that may be because you haven’t yet communicated with them. One of the techniques I regularly use is asking the question, “Do you know anyone who….?” and then fill in what you want or need. It is like a magic wand to receiving what is wanted or needed.

5. Visualize yourself receiving what you want down to the tiniest detail. Jim Carrey is one of those well-known people who visualized his success long before his success was apparent to others. Athletes consider it “mental rehearsal.” Those who rehearse more often in the mind are also successful in the rest of their lives. Practice this and receive more abundantly.

Before you go, please remember to write to the prompt:

Today I am open to receive….

Below is my unedited response.

I am open to receive surprises. I am open to receive gentle words and refreshing gifts. I am open to receiving the energy to do some of the tasks that aren’t thrilling me. The idea of cleaning my desk, for example, felt so great when I initially planned it as homage to Maria but right now it doesn’t feel so great.

It is almost like she just whispered, “One drawer at a time, Julie,” so I will at least choose to start that project.

I am open to receive financial abundance via my expertise and gifts and talents. I am open to receive new people and connections that will serve as bridges to more abundance in experiences and opportunities.

I am open to receive a splendid sleep and to wake up with plentiful time to hang out with my online friends at 6 am and my new group of spiritual friends at 8 right here in Bakersfield. This, by the way, is so prosperous! Great new friends in Bakersfield!

I am open to receive direction, I am open to receive hugs and praise. I am open to receive new subscribers to my YouTube Channel and social media channels. (This feels almost silly to say but hey, I am open to receive them!)

I am open to receive flowers and chocolate before I die.

I am open to receive shared laughter and deep conversations with surprising people. I am open to receive smiles and acknowledgment and praise. I am open to receive apologies and authentic requests which I pray I am able to fulfill.

Today I am open to receive. I am open to receive.

I am grateful for cooler thn average temperatures. More walking than usual, clean-house-cleaning supplies. I am grateful for pencil sharpeners, good conversations with friends and fluffy pillows.

I am grateful for abundant receiving practice.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, 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. 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!

Paradise Found and Tossed About and Found Again.

June 26, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I tend to feel a slight twinge of guilt when I don’t agree with my favorite writers. Today, I feel sheepish because I disagree with this quote from one of the most revered women’s voices in current literature. Today, I agree to disagree about the other side of paradise with a favorite writer and poet I’ve been reading and quoting for years.

“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there’s no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It’s loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”
― Margaret Atwood

On a warm June afternoon I considered this quote and I don’t want to agree with it.

In fact, I am feeling the excitement of victory above and over the damn thing.

Loss, regret, misery and yearning alone move stories forward?

It can’t be so, this can’t be the reason or the magnet or the finish line or the goal posts rising toward the sunset and champagne and accolades and hugs and happy high fives. No no no no and no.

I respect Margaret Atwood AND no, I don’t believe her assertions here about happiness and paradise. Do you believe what she says?

I’m going to think of today as a microcosm of story.

I had a blast of a morning: so much fun in my virtual co-working experience where we all got more than the norm done. We all moved forward perhaps along a slightly twisted road and I heard nothing about misery.

We had some technical glitches and stuff took a little longer than we had hoped, but loss and regret?

I’ll look at something else from today. Lunch with Emma. Found out a server at a restaurant we go to died in a car accident. Definitely loss. Discovered a gofundme I can share, something I can take action on, which made me feel slightly better.

Next Emma and I went to Kaiser. I felt annoyance due to poor communication but at least we took action. One might argue we were focused on avoidance of misery if a broken toe is misery. Perhaps it could be misery?

I put her car key on a cute key chain I found. I have no idea where the key chain came from, I just know I felt ridiculously happy because I have a horrible habit of misplacing keys and this one simple tool would make it much easier… to avoid loss and or regret?

Perspective, I think as five minutes of writing passes and I start yawning, wanting to avoid more discovery of loss or regret or misery or needless misery.

Happiness is unexpectedly seeing an old friend who values you more than you believe you deserve.

Happiness is forgiving yourself for being afraid and then finally taking action. Happiness is having the action netting authentically pleasing results.

Happiness is framing photos and art after waiting a while, and then hanging that art which makes people smile and then create their own art.

Happiness is going to a meeting where people appreciate you and a meetup with a friend who finds you funny and interesting and surprises you with the memories of you she shares.

I totally forgot the loss and yearning and misery as I recounted happiness which is probably why I feel so strongly about using gratitude as an ending point for free flow writing exercises.

I have experienced a lot of grief in my life. I have lost friends I cherished, I have fallen upon hard times with my face squarely in the mud for a lot longer than was healthy.

What helped me pick myself up and begin again was not the misery or the grief itself, it was the awareness of the sun rising, again, even after a lengthy darkness.

It isn’t an either misery or ecstacy, it is the awareness that even with misery or is currently great loss, there is also room for joyful ecstacy. It isn’t one or the other, there is one and there is the other.

Paradise has stories. For some reason, I am smelling vanilla – rich vanilla, not cheap, mild flavored vanilla – when I think of paradise stories. I see maps and diaries detailing journeys into and out of and over paradise and journeys into and out of and over and into hell: which is the only antonym for paradise (heaven, bliss, cloud nine, utopia, wonderland) and many other synonyms to happily, contentedly and transformatively describe a space many of us aim to inhabit.

Misery might love company, paradise loves permanent residents: especially those who are compassionate and kind to those who live outside. Those who haven’t learned about the joy of experiencing the richness and fullness and sweet losses of life with grace and hope and a future.

I can’t think of the perfect red bow to tie this up and I want to be finished.
Maybe you have a more proper ending? If you do, add it here.

As for me, I am off to today’s next paradise, next regret, next happiness, next loss, next story and next dissatisfaction and next moment of deep belly laughter, and the next story I tell about it all.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife: Her work as a life coach, muse and group facilitator has inspired best selling novels, new careers and knocking knees during speeches, performances and video releases. Right now she is enjoying hosting Ta-Da Tuesdays and preparing for her next Summer and Fall programs.

How to Ask Questions Differently to Create Better Results

March 5, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“If you treat every question as if you’ve never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more.”
Anita Diamont in The Boston Girl

What questions are you asking that might be more effective if you ask them from a different perspective or angle?

What if you used slightly different words – like instead of saying “What do I want?” practice and play with “What are you excited about?” or “What are you looking forward to?” or “What’s next for you?” and then following the flow of the conversation or if I am journaling, following the flow of my energy straight into my pencil or pen.

“What I am excited about tomorrow?” can open up a planning session from a dull creation of a checklist into a jumble of realizations or a suddenly give me choices of actions rather than a dictation of shoulds and “oh geesh, I gotta do this or that” which makes me get sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

Maybe I understand “What do I want” to be slightly edgy or depressing because I played “The Ghost of Christmas Present” and one of the scariest moments in that production is when the children who play “ignorance” and “want” are so tragic. The truth is, I used to utilize “want” all the time with my coaching clients, but now, I favor other questions like the ones I shared with you above.

You may modify to make questions that resonate more strongly with you.

Here’s one that works with me:

“What brave action will I take today?” comes along with “How much better do I want to feel?” which for me comes from stopping the procrastination train in its tracks.

This particular question appeared right at the end of a 5 minute journal writing session – where oftentimes the really good stuff comes, right when you have said “I am committed to creating in short chunks to get more done” like our signature #5for5BrainDump.

Questions also help to end procrastination and help you to take action against it.

My biggest project right now in my household is tackling my living room one section at a time so with that, I am asking myself the question, “How fantastic will it feel when someone knocks at the door and you don’t have to worry whether they can see into that cluttered room?”

Brand new response to the question I am hearing for the first time? “I would feel pretty darned good, self!”

Just asking myself “What do I want?” hasn’t brought me significant results. It forgot the value of positive energy and what happens when we choose to use that energy to create flow.

I’m in it, fully, now, because I am practicing asking better questions.

From what you’ve seen here and noticed in the rest of your life, what questions are most likely to stir you into action and then momentum?

End the Downward Self Talk Spiral: From Lament to Self Love

January 25, 2019 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Why do I have to go so deep with so many things? Why do I take a submarine dive into a simple prompt?
Why am I compelled to feel so deeply? Why aren’t toe dips in the shallow end enough for me?
Why do I get so passionate about certain subjects that I am a weasel who won’t let go and then wonder why some people turn and walk away, shaking their heads

Do you ever hear yourself in a self-talk spiral that finds faults with lament qualities you would enjoy in someone else?

This week has been overly abundant in self-laments and at times more negativity than necessary or appropriate.

Why do I have to go so deep with so many things? Why do I take a submarine dive into a simple prompt?
Why am I compelled to feel so deeply? Why aren’t toe dips in the shallow end enough for me?
Why do I get so passionate about certain subjects that I am a weasel who won’t let go and then wonder why some people turn and walk away, shaking their heads

I had a simple prompt to write about the antagonist for my work-in-progress that I recently finished copyediting and it took me most of the day to come up with a slightly coherent response. Here is a slice of the Instagram post I wrote:

Permission to lament is granted. Healthy boundaries lead to breakthroughs,

I’ve been struggling with this post today as it isn’t easy to say or admit or deal with and then there is this reality that as a writer I am supposed to be able to write easily.

My antagonist in my WIP (almost done, in final edits) is as much an entity as a human, though in my head there is one scene that replays over and over and over again that involves two fully grown men including a school psychologist basically holding my son in a corner while he was screaming and they were standing there with their arms folded “guarding” a six-year-old-boy who was overwhelmed and unable to process what was happening to him/around him.

The school psychologist who ought to have recognized the behaviors associated with autism spectrum, who under the education code was legally obligated to make a referral to have my son tested – in fact, he ought to have administered the tests – was instead standing over him with his arms folded.

Today I have been imagining what that must have been like for him.

I remember arriving on the scene and breaking through the guard barrier and picking him up and setting him on my lap and rocking him as his crying started tapering off because he was being treated like a human again.

And then the person who has impacted me most in this past year and then into the new year is not a single person, but the shattering of my expectations of what is good and right and expected.

My inner wrangling is a reflection of my unmet longings and an opportunity of confessional. Opening myself in soul confession is something that has bit by bottom most recently though at the best of times, authentic confessions have built constructive relationships.
Focus on that true memory: authentic confessions build constructive relationships, soulful friends, faithful and vibrant companions.

Suddenly a light comes on above my eyebrows:

I am a complex human who loves well, who is active in a variety of spaces and places. I love complexity, unconventionality and deep connection.

My inner wrangling is a reflection of my unmet longings and an opportunity of confessional. Opening myself in soul confession is something that has bit by bottom most recently though at the best of times, authentic confessions have built constructive relationships.

Focus on that true memory: authentic confessions build constructive relationships, soulful friends, faithful and vibrant companions.

It is with people who are not aligned that I have fallen flat.

Here is to laments and the celebrations that come from the light within.

Here is to the antagonists and the inadvertent transformation they spark.

Here is to me, in my wobbly embrace of my narrative, your narrative and her narrative. It feels so good to find my smile after kicking around in this rubble for a day (which I realize now was a well spent day afterall.)

Julie JordanScott is a creative life coach, writer, poet, Mama extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. To set up a complimentary exploratory session, please visit here.

She is so thrilled to announce the next session of the Passionate Women’s Writing Circle is open for registration. Find out more and
Join the upcoming Passionate Women’s Writing Circle which begins again on Friday, February 1. Click for details and to sign up now.

Illuminate and Eliminate All That Doesn’t Serve You: The Toleration Liberation Dance

December 13, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

“Turmoil stimulates” Thomas Leonard

It is 5:40 am on a Thursday morning and I am giving myself the gift of “talking” about tolerations. Just here and now, you and me, let’s talk about what we’ve been putting up with in our lives that hasn’t served any purpose except being a niggling annoyance, like when my kitchen cabinets were almost finished for… more than a year.

I got so used to it I didn’t notice until I heard one of the other mothers criticizing me for it.

“Unfinished cupboards? Oh my gawsh, I couldn’t stand living like that. I don’t know how she does” the mom said to someone else about me. Note to self: unfinished cupboards reinforce I am not worthy of friends who finish projects, I am propelled only to sit in the seats beside other friendless people no one else wants to spend time with… and don’t forget it you non-finisher.

This, the role relegated to the one who was known for perpetually getting her enormous college research papers turned in before the deadline?

What happened to me? Where did that early finisher go?

Life, honey, life happened to me.

I can stack volumes of circumstances up next to the best of them but the thing is, life and the need to declutter and finish and keep putting one foot in front of the other continues.

My tolerations list is a direct result of the self-punishment and neglect I have unconsciously levied upon myself.

The positive part is: I am the one in control of this part of my life.

I can turn the soft rumbles of dissatisfaction into a productive sort of turmoil, as Thomas Leonard – the same man who coined the term “tolerations” – meant when he said “Turmoil stimulates.”

A clutter-free home, for example, is not a result of pain as I curiously wondered yesterday –it is a result of constructive voice. Imagine, I will be able to find things without struggle.

It is like granting myself a ticket across the finish line over and over again.

This morning before I started writing I plopped my new lazy susan on my art table and started sorting. Unlike in the past, today I will continue sorting and clearing and gathering my tools in a way that will continue to serve me and my process.

Paula made up a tolerations celebration space in the Bridge to the New Year group. Clearing counters and tables is at the top of the list and I am going to celebrate each counter & each table top I clear AND each time I keep them consistently clear, I will celebrate again.

One last thing: today I was awake early because I wanted to honor my devotion to writing by participating in the (I believe it started in twitter) #5amwritersclub twice a week. Today I may say I completed the #5amwritersclub for the first week ever. Here’s to doing so for the next consecutive 51 weeks.

What are you tolerating? You don’t have to share your list or process with anyone, but if you would benefit from having a supportive group around you to get the work done, consider closing out your year with the peoplein “Bridge to the New Year” – this link will take you to the variety of spaces you may participate.

Insights into How to Tune into Gratitude: Bridge to a New Year Day 4

December 4, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

#BridgetotheNewYear Day 4 Prompt: Appreciation and Gratitude

Today’s Prompt: What have you grown to appreciate in 2018? .
How do you show your appreciation? .
Is there a way you would like to grow in gratitude practice in 2019?

I started adulthood as a cynical naysayer, sneering down my nose at the “attitude of gratitude” army who I likened to television evangelists with overdone make up and dramatic acts of supposed religiosity. And then, something happened.

I am not sure when or who or how it happened, but I decided to start making a gratitude list every day.
And then I started making a gratitude list in community.
And then I started making a gratitude list in community for 365 days straight.

This isn’t for everyone… and it changed things for me. Oprah was talking about it, gratitude was an every day “thing.”

It still is for me, though I don’t keep a 365 Gratitude list anymore, it is ever present in my consciousness most of the time. (A side note, perhaps it will resurge in 2019).

This year I have grown to appreciate in greater depth something I have believed for years: the majority of the people sharing this rich, ripe globe with me want to do good by one another.

They want to pitch in, they want to help and be of service. People enjoy being asked to provide as they can and get a lot of satisfaction out of lending a helpful hand (or wallet or spare bedroll or bisquit.)

A month ago this came to light in a new, larger and more grand way than I could have foreseen. A woman I have come to call my daughter was in a crisis more than 1,000 miles from me and more than 2,000 miles from her blood family. She was a refugee stranded in a small city in Colorado after enduring more hardship than most Americans I know endure.

When her teary voice said to me, “I don’t know if I can take this, Mum.” I sprang to action and started connecting with people who started connecting with people who started connecting with people and miracles happened for this young woman.

My three youngest children, Samuel< Queenta and Emma. Children of my blood and of my heart. Welcome to the US, Queenta. — My three youngest children, standing by the Palm tree where they have traditionally posed for years. Samuel, Queenta, Emma

The thing is, we had more outward differences than samenesses AND the greatest sameness lived in our heart space, in our love for humanity and in a willingness to go beyond what others may do – but only because they don’t know how yet.

The next day I spoke to my cousin and she said, “Wow, you have an incredible network of people.” And I responded, “They’re your network, too,” just like they are YOUR network, you who are reading this now.
I didn’t know many of the people who helped. I just knew people who knew people who knew people and I asked and I kept asking until my daughter was safe and sound.

I’m still showing appreciation and gratitude to the people I met along the way.

Gratitude is best expressed and practicing in a variety of ways helps. — In 2013 I had a gratitude jar, holding delights, which doubled as a writing prompt jar. Writing of gratitude expands it.

I stepped away from writing and thought, “Sometimes I throw my gratitude out there, littering the world with it when I’m feeling fully connected and vibrant. When I am not, divinity delivers an invitation to notice gratitude and sometimes, the circumstances are so overwhelmingly beautiful in every way, it is like gratitude has rushed in and done a cosmic happy dance and I can’t help but burst over with joy.

Gratitude: sometimes I lean into it, sometimes appreciation takes my hand and shows me the way and sometimes gratitude is a moshpit of laughter so great I can’t even begin to fully understand it.

In 2019 I want to deepen my gratitude practice. As I said above, I believe it is time to share my gratitude in a journal and also publicly. I shared on my facebook page a few days ago I think I will continue to do so.

I also want to use the power of energy to share gratitude, via the people I meet randomly – really looking into their hearts, their being – and expressing gratitude not only with words but via the beating of my heart. I don’t think that makes sense in language form, but I do know my heart just warmed up as I wrote those words.

Woo woo. I can hear some of you. And then I remember what I used to think about those “fakes” and “weird attitude of gratitude” people and my temporary embarrassment diminishes.

Now it’s your turn. If you blog, consider blogging on these themes – link up at juicyjournaling.com

Today’s Prompt: What have you grown to appreciate in 2018? .
How do you show your appreciation?

Is there a way you would like to grow in gratitude practice in 2019?

If you Instagram, look for the hashtags #BridgetoTheNewYear or #Bridgeto2019 Follow our prompts there, too.

If you would like to be a part of a Free Facebook Group where these subjects are being discussed, please visit us here and request membership.

Until tomorrow,
Julie JS Your Creative Life Midwife.

You Are Your Own Magic Wand

October 23, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

One of my never used but often thought of ideas for either an article or essay or video or book is “You are your magic wand.” The idea has been floating through my mind for close to twenty years now. Waiting.

I have even used a magic wand in my videos. One of my favorite selfies is me with my magic wand (actually a magic wand pen) in my mouth with a frustrated expression of my face, even though I am wearing a tiara and have beautifully curled hair.

“I am my own magic wand.”

How can I feel frustrated when I am wearing a tiara and I have a magic wand pen ready to scribe for me?

Must be I gave more power to the frown than my blond curls or my sparkly tiara.

John Muir whispers in my ear, reminding me, (when you choose to not create, your gifts and talents are ) “Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”

I remember Emily Dickinson writing about the “slant of light” some call repressive and yet when I see images like this one and remember sitting with the sun as she says her daily hello and goodbye, I feel this ordinary, everyday magic holding me close and I know no matter how much I try to insist I am frustrated….when I stop and look and feel and allow the love in….

The slant of light combined with my words makes the distance between me and the glorious wildness each and every day.

My writing is bigger and grander and more silent and hugely gloriously sacred songs ringing from deep inside me in thunderous claps that somehow others aren’t able to see in the same way I see them.

To some people, this sort of writing won’t make any sense or may even sound like nonsense.

In the past, I might have worried I was doing something wrong because people didn’t understand me or some people even voiced their opinions that I was weird (in a bad way) and I didn’t belong in the more prestigious circles or groups or even neighborhoods or clubs.

Then I realized something significant.

The people who think that way are not my people.\

I let them go back into their cubby holes and their scowling angry temples lined with gold and carefully coiffed front lawns masking the land mines of thought filled with oppressive ugliness they choose to label reality.

I settle back into the nurturing space of awareness and open to the page where John Muir spoke so eloquently to me when he said:

Writing Prompt for today: What gifts and talents am I hiding?

When I express my gifts and talents I feel….

What keeps me from expressing my gifts and talents may be….

Set your timer for five minutes at at time and write at least once to each of these prompts. They will help you gain momentum with your magic wand.

Remember, You are Your Own Magic Wand.

Julie Jordan Scott (the one who wrote this blog post) says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

The people who named me “Creative Life Midwife” found words and paint and laughter and flexed their courage muscles on the way to a deeper satisfaction in their daily lives via new blogs, books, webinars and friendships – just to name a few. Contact me now for your complimentary Transformational coaching conversation. Click here to complete the request form now.

Let’s Start: One Page Marketing Plan for Creatives

October 10, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Yes: we will be creating a one page marketing plan made up of 9 blocks. Each block will contain information about a specific aspect of marketing.

The image that resonates for me is “Quilt Squares” because I love storytelling quilts and yes, both quilting and storytelling are feminine art forms. Marketing for Creatives seems like a perfect fit with this as the framework.

This distinctive one page marketing plan will be called something like “Marketing Story Quilt “ because that feels so much better than “One Page Marketing Plan” which may be the eventual subtitle.

This is how the creative process works for me and perhaps for you, too.

We creatives don’t often go down a straight linear path with our business building and marketing. This is why it is so much easier for us to sit down with a piece of watercolor paper folded into nine rectangles then it is to copy a print out with 9 blocks of straight lines all in a row.

We would rather paint or write on water color paper or doodle on and perhaps eventually collage on and who knows what else we do before we come to some semblance of “oh, yeah – these ideas and this combination feels right”.

We don’t just make a list and call it done, we feel better when we make our marketing plan as unique as we are, like a big party or ritual or celebration.

Now that we recognize a marketing plan/storytelling quilt is a dynamic work-in-progress, stay with me as I tell you the 9 themes are will be sharing during the next two weeks, intermittently with the other content of this 31 Days of Marketing Success for Creatives:

Who are your people? (Target Market, Ideal Client, Reader, Tribe, Community

2. Core Marketing Message & Ongoing Marketing Conversations

3. What Methods Will I Use to Convey My Messages & Have Conversations?

4. How will I document my messages, conversations and key connections?

5. What will I do to further our relationship?

6. Methods for the exchange be made from “friendly” to “trusted customer/client”

7. What are my people’s most desired experience & how shall I deliver this?

8. Collaborative Partnership and Ongoing Relationship Development

9. Perfecting the “Who Do You Know Who?” Throughout the Process

If you missed our other blog posts, here is a listing for you. Before you leave, please take a moment to follow me on social media (links are above) and take advantage of the free resources I’m offering as we go along on this particular adventure.

Day 1: Have Fun While Marketing?

Day 2: The Seeds of Your Marketing Success

Day 3: One Step at a Time

Day 4: The Most Important Question

Day 5: Beginner’s Mind

Day 8: Storytelling and Marketing

Julie Jordan Scott says: This is what I crave for you: soulful creativity, aliveness in your passionate productivity, and a deeper sense of knowing how you belong in the world so that together we will be able to create a context for the rest of your life via your next book or your next workshop or simply your next day, week, month or year.

Start Fresh: Your Mind – Wide Open – at the Marketing Table

October 8, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

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Many times we arrive at a conversation with a strong notion of the direction we believe the conversation ought to take.

This blocks out the chance for magical marketing ideas and future practices to burst forth.

Open your mind, allow space for surprises – and abundance – to take form.
Instead of listening for a break in the conversation so that you may say what you have said many times before, give yourself room to contribute differently.
Acquaint yourself with the power of using Beginner’s Mind: in doing so, you will learn to trust your intuition, become more creative and leave space for the genius who is waiting for the know-it-all within you to step aside.

How to practice this:

When you read something new, like this blog post, read a section and then take five minutes of quiet to allow the message to settle in without allowing your intellect to chase it around, to “understand what it means.”

When you are in a conversation with someone and they say something – especially if it triggers a specific thought in you – simply respond with, “Tell me more about that…”

Playfully experiment with this notion and then come back and let me know how it went. Then think how it may apply to your marketing.

What haven’t you thought of using in your marketing before that you will now?

Get ready because we are about to start done a really fun, fruitful path: storytelling for marketing with your one page marketing plan.

I’m so excited!

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach and multi-creative known for her high energy, inspirational and simple to apply methods for writers and artists to bring more success into their small businesses and creative projects. To request your free transformational creative life coaching session, please make your request here now.

Tired of Riding the Roller Coaster of Other People’s Urgencies?

September 25, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I have had a bit of a roller coaster week, well – to be honest, a tidal wave week, and yesterday – I was what I would have called “slammed” if I worked in a restaurant for most of the day.

I love being busy. I love the feeling I get from having a lot going on and enjoy metaphorical plate spinning more than slow and stead, tortoise like pace.

When I sat at my desk my intention was to do some of “my own work” yet as I settled in just to write for five minutes “for myself” I was immediately ready to sacrifice my measly five minutes to work on someone else’s urgent project. What is up with that?

I started typing these words:

I am important enough to come first. I am important enough to be the top priority. I am important. I have value.

I am more than slightly embarrassed that I still gain benefit from such affirmations. People give me plentiful praise and then my own version of Glinda the Good Witch whispers… “Yes, you get praise dear heart and do you fully receive it?”

I am important enough to come first. I am important enough to be the top priority. I am important. I have value. I am important enough to come first. I am important enough to be the top priority. I am important. I have value.

I am important enough to be praised. I deserve praise, I deserve to feel positive about the efforts I make because they are valuable.

I turn my favorite music on. Close my eyes. The words find me. My shoulders relax.

I take the five minutes for myself amidst the hours of all those other projects that aren’t going anywhere – they’re right here with me and will get their attention as soon as I am complete here.

May these words I write for myself be a mirror for you to look into as well. For you, like me, are important, valuable and deserving.

How do you relate to this story? What is your most effective self love and self care strategy?

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