Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Overnight Discoveries: from Choking on Fear to Long Awaited Insights. Yes, Easy Does It

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It had gone unnoticed.

It has probably been there for several days, this actual glob (for lack of a better term) of not wanting to give voice to anything for the past few days, since the nightmares started. Three nights in a row of troublesome dreams that don’t seem to want to let go.

Processing in the morning with Pegi, my long-time, ever patient friend during the unexpectedly eye opening app known as Snap Chat.

I heard it while I had a teddy bear face, I believe, and a squeaky voice. A slight almost unconscious clearing of my throat. A choking back, a holding on of something or nothing or I don’t know I just know it was there and while I am working through the depth of this

It is at that point where I think I will just go back to where and what I was no matter how badly it sucked maybe feeling better isn’t worth feeling the choking sensation I felt.

My deep awareness of choking came not from a past life, but from a question asked by my therapist and I believe a memory – a place I visited when I went to Katherine’s wedding. A space where I almost choked to death as a child on a gum ball.

The exact space where my mother worked diligently to save my life was now the entry way to a Starbucks, the Grand Union now long gone.

 

i sit with my hands folded, waiting, tired, the tired not being real but being a block – a not wanting to go here and the choking in my throat my shadow side – whatever name you want to put on it that the strong intentional me knows is a barricade over the door marked “Transformation! This way to feeling so much better! This cloggy thing is temporary like how you have learned to use a plunger to get rid of blocks in drains when you used to helplessly call someone because you couldn’t do it and now you can!”

I realize then I never set my timer. Naturally. This was supposed to be a five minute writing in a carefully created container so I would be able to stop without falling apart.

(I set this writing aside and came back to it the next morning.)

7:15 am the next day. That choking sensation is a reminder from my most animal self, “This is what it feels like when you were dying. Beware. You don’t want to come close to death again.”

So no matter how irrational my adult brain is, no matter what I know as a smart, in step, working consistently on self-growth version of me, this protective animal brain pops in and chokes me to remind me, “You came close once, don’t risk it again.”

The thing is, when I don’t risk – when I don’t confront my darkness and bring it into the light so I may come to know it in a way that stirs and builds and constructs and translates and somehow makes good – I risk even more.

When I sit on the edge of choking, I live in fear of it.

When I instead say to my visceral animal self, “I know this is scary and I know we can and will survive and it will be so much more dynamic than we could ever imagine just please trust  and  be invigorated and become whole with me again so that we may have the impact we were meant to have all along…”

This is how the process of re-orientation begins. This is when we may get back into step with all aspects of ourselves – the afraid choking side of ourself who longs for reassurance and the bold, brash one who speaks without thinking and sometimes destroys bridges before you’ve crossed them.

I remember my acting teacher coaching me, when I was literally petrified in my performance. I felt outclassed and stupid in my first musical and he said, “What are you so afraid of? Every person here wants you to succeed.”

Every part of you wants you to succeed and many of us here, on the outside, do, too.

I rest my hands off the keyboard again. Another writing time of five minutes (plus a few extra) and I went from choking and being afraid and not wanting to go further to having an enormous, long needed insight.

by the way, if you wondered what happened with the bad dreams: I didn’t have any nightmares last night. I dreamed of sharing a meal around a table with friends. I dreamed about having a positive experience at Samuel’s school. I dreamed of talking to a friend I’ve been missing lately. I dreamed of expanding the circle because what we originally thought was just right was too small.

I dreamed I wasn’t afraid and I didn’t have to choke.

I can write, reflect and meditate. Wake up and write again and feel better.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

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

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Spiraling Up, Higher: An Unexpected and Glorious Reward from Putting Words on the Page

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Yesterday I wrote this:

So I sit back in my chair and listen to my body.

I remember being so swept up in how lovely the attention felt, especially directed at what I was enjoying as a part of this adventure we took together. This was magical, I thought, this was intellectual and spiritual and nature oriented and heart expanding.

Today, I sat back to write more, to write again. A lot happens in life OFF the page when we allow our words to flow through us onto the page, freely.

This morning as I was driving home I had a distinctive feeling in my body the letting go process had been effective.

I thought about the circumstances that yesterday had been perplexing and still edged with freckles of discomforted and sadness. This morning, it was as if the frayed parts and the scabs had healed or if not healed, there was no pain associated anymore.

This isn’t unlike the melanoma cancer scar on my face which I don’t think about much anymore beyond it just being there and occasionally warranting an explanation when brave people just meeting me ask about it.

In sitting with my experience this week and being brave enough to write it and speak it – not in great detail but naming it with boldness and anger and energy other than romanticized notions of lost love I was able to move through it in ways I wanted to in the past and somehow never was able to get there.

I would get close – so close – and then put my hands down by my sides again. I would reach toward resolution and integration, and that would frighten me so I would stop.

Here is a biggie: I would stop so that I wouldn’t forget the good. I would stop critiquing or standing up to say “Hey, this was bad” because the sweet was such a gift I didn’t want to forget how that great stuff felt.

Ironically, if that not-so-big-bad wolf was having a conversation with me right now, he would claim what he was here to teach me was to only remember the good because that is what is important.

I haven’t forgotten the pain.

I haven’t forgotten the forcefulness claimed as play or the rules based never according to what was mutually decided _ I have simply taken away the power they once held.

Why is this a significant victory?

Because in integrating the power of these circumstances back into my intentional life narrative, I reclaim what was taken from me not consentually, but by a destructive force claiming itself as healing.

Monday I sat at this very same desk with so much anger I very easily could have broken things – or people’s spirits – from spite and the ruthful destructiveness of abhorrence on fire.

Less than 48 hours later, I am able to reclaim my power over the aspects of me I had given over and continue this process with confidence.

I’m not quite able to translate into words the peace this has created in me, but it’s coming. It’s coming soon.

Stay tuned.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

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

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Flashback: Turn – Look Back – Flash Forward Again, Better

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Please pardon my lack of polish in this writing.

It was written primarily in a five minute brain dump with some editing for (hopefully) clarity as I continue to work through the process of rewriting (rethinking, recrafting, resculpting) my life narrative.

In making this commitment to rewrite my narrative – to let go of any aspects of it that cause me harm or keep me from being a complete expression of myself – I am sailing way out of any semblance of safe harbor with this one.

I am wholeheartedly devoted to bring this to light, to stop the memory of having even the tiniest splinter of control over who I am now and what I bring to the world via my life work. Doing this publicly keeps me on course. It is helpful to know people may find some form of cathartic experience through the words I present here.

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
Alice Walker

It was one of those “things” those incidences I talk about that happened ten years ago that contributed to the wall I built stone by stone, thought by thought that became more and more difficult to deconstruct.

To be called a best friend and then stop communicating when most needed? What friend or even kind stranger does that?

This is not a friend. This is an abuser.

This is a long coated grey wolf growling and spewing while blanketing himself in the soft, downy fur of a gentle sheep’s clothing.

This is someone espousing spiritual principals who doesn’t intimately know any of basics beyond self-importance.

I suppose for some self-importance is a spiritual principal, but for the wide-eyed lover of humanity I tend to be, I couldn’t see the fangs of ego, the disturbing breath of self-centeredness when I was up close.

I saw the curly softness, the close attention to who I was, the curiosity and what felt like connection which was actually not unlike the hunting methods of a wolf. I couldn’t see these qualities, I just knew the profound ache the hunter left in its wake.

I gave myself five minutes to write this and my hands sit, in front of the keyboard, unwilling to move anymore.

They don’t want to go where it would be best to go in order to leave this poison behind because the risk of poking around in the depth of that pain feels like too much to attempt without a sherpa.

The timer goes off, very few words written.

I will return to complete this cycle.

I will be so grateful to scrape the last scrap off my plate.

Any power this brutish beast has held will be finished. It will be exhilarating. It will be enlivening. It will be freeing beyond my current understanding of what freedom means.

 

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Like a Beloved Fairy Tale, I Banish You: Scary Darkness & Welcome Light-Dark-Love

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“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”

August Wilson

I’ve had some huge breakthroughs for the, well, the last week has been exceptional but really since the new year started.

I have been practicing taking a stand for myself in ways I never would before and now…. it really is like that old affirmation I would say (and not believe) says “Every day in every way, better and better and better” in the past I would have said “except for me”.

The same spirits who encouraged me to pursue theater just nudged me to say “especially me.” I normally would not have confessed this post script. It sounds pitiful and sophomoric.

Who am I to decide pitiful and sophomoric are destructive (negative, bad)?

Yesterday was February 9. The first day I was aware of every moment and was content, every moment. I was reflective and contemplative and not excrutiatingly sad.

This almost feels too good to be true.

This almost feels impossible.

And it is possible. And it is good. I ate chocolate cake with Emma as a stand in birthday cake and when the coffee was too hot to enjoy with my cake, I left a full cup there without blinking.

This feeling of contentment is quite a contrast to the more familiar sensations when I have felt sad and broken and unworthy.

I was sad and broken and I would have argued and offered evidence as to my unworthiness, offered proof given to me repeatedly by those in the know of what it means to be devalued, unwanted. For me the worst feeling of all was unblessed, passed over, one the others have given up on or left behind.

Marlena didn’t die because I deserved to be punished, she just died. The facts are the umbilical cord which was designed to bring her life at some point got tangled up and stopped offering her life.

I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t deserve to be flogged or diminished. There was nothing I could do to change this and even though I could say this in the early aftermath, in the years later I myself got tangled into the web of “Well, if it wasn’t me than why did it have to happen to me?”

Sometime between January 1 and now I have been able to surrender my perceived punishment as well as this idea of Marlena’s death happening “to me.”

It happened. It is tragic. It is epic. It has influenced nearly everything in my life in some way since then. I have been successful at some tasks and projects since then and I’ve had some failures. Other people right here in this world have the same track record with completely different circumstances.

Yesterday, my daughter who never lived outside my womb was able to release her blessing to me because I finally opened my arms fully to receive it.

Her life, even lived only in my womb, was and is and will continue to be significant.

I have been so angry with myself, so unwilling to forgive myself for something I couldn’t impact. It was like feeling the need to take responsibility for my blue eyes or responsibility for my nose being the shape it is.

I wasn’t able to speak the anger for a variety of reasons – being afraid of anger, not knowing how to be constructive with anger, distrusting anger, not knowing the language of anger – and more.

The thing is – in working to rewrite my narrative and reframe my life experiences not into positives but into meaning that goes beyond good and bad or positive and negative – my life feels better. More aligned, more awake and alive – better than it was before “this crash” or “that crisis” or “that great celebration” or what any labels call it forth.

This transformation is in that “it is” category and it is more than that. More. It is more like “it is love.”

This is why I am going to devote myself to the daily spiritual practice of writing and “reporting in” because I know there is great value in that, both for me and for those of you seeking to rewrite your narratives, too, and fall back in love with your lives.

One paragraph, one photo-taken, one sketch, one poem read, one play experienced, one conversation, one new place discovered at a time we fall back in love with our lives.

I’m so grateful you are here.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

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

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5 Simple Ways to Use Affirmations To Fuel Your Best Writing:

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Affirmations are a simple and helpful technique to switch your mind from getting stuck in loops of destructive messages and tune into creative, constructive thought patterns instead. If you are unfamiliar with affirmations at all, go to google and search for “Introduction to Affirmations.”

If you are familiar with how to use affirmations and would like to see how to use them as a tool for writing, stick around – this will be helpful!

  1. Combine Affirmations with deep breathing. Say your affirmations aloud as your day begins and then throughout the day. A good rule of thumb for timing is before standard meal times and right before sleep.
  2. Use Affirmations as a free flow writing warm up. If you use a relatively short affirmation (seven words or less) simply write the affirmation on your page repeatedly for a minute and then see where your pencil, pen or fingers on the keyboard wants to go. Follow the flow of the energy after you have affirmed yourself as a writer and usually the difference in what you write is nothing short of astonishing.
  3. Do the classic mirror work: look into the mirror and speak your affirmations aloud to your reflection. Smile at yourself as you would smile at your best friend. While this technique gets a lot of flack, try it at least 5 times to see if it makes a difference for you. If it doesn’t fine, move along and say you tried.
  4. Use several short writing affirmations in a row, like an affirmation chorus. There are days when general affirmations work or other days when affirmations about starting, completion, editing or revision work best.
  5. Start and continue. When you fall down, get back up and start and continue again. The world is waiting for your words. Today, play with writing your affirmation and then flow into free flow/brain dump writing for five minutes like I did below.

Let me know how it goes! Now: here are my words, fresh off my paper – #5for5BrainDump style which means no editing, no forethought, just allowing my energy to move the words ontot he page.

I am blessed with sweet satisfaction when I complete my writing projects.

I am blessed with joy and fulfillment every time I sit to write for five minutes and allow the words to move through me rather than control each letter, each vowel, each consonant. Funny, isn’t it, how when I let go of the control, not only does the flow feel better but most of the time the meaning, rhythm and sound gets better, too.

I am blessed with exhilaration when people read my work and appreciate it and tell me.

I am blessed with smiles of connection when people read my work and feel themselves in it: they not only know who I am (this is less important) they know more of who they are.

I am thrilled to dive deeper with rewriting my narrative: looking at the facts from a space of love amps up my awareness of the sacred in everyday. Some people call this magic, some miracles, some are too deep in their to-do lists to even notice AND it feels so good to share the stories.

I am blessed with friends who listen, who do lift my chin, who cherish what I am up to and reflect back to me the goodness and beauty in what I create. I feel valued and not leeched upon. I feel precious because I am precious.

I am overflowing with ideas to bring what I am remembering into concrete, working forms to serve the world and make it a more welcoming, more growth, more constructive and creative place.

I am blessed with sweet satisfaction when I make progress.

I am happy – so happy – in seeing this single page fill up. I am grateful to hear my son’s footsteps outside my room and not rush in to see what he needs but give him the gift of self awareness and personal responsibility knowing HE can take care of it.

I am grateful for timers that ring – and realize in just five minutes I learn and grow in unfathomably wondrous ways.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

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

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Hello, February! A Free Flow Greeting + A Writing Prompt for You

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Hello, February!

In all your beautiful winter-y-ness which seems to be flying over this February, hello.

I’m ready for you. My heart is filled with optimism and my plate is filled with healthy yumminess and plentiful projects that stir my spirit and make me smile. I’m coming alongside Radical Grace and Abundance as I continue with Freedom.

I’m like a little girl again, taking each by the hand as we walk down the sidewalk with your name overhead. “It’s February, Freedom – Radical Grace and Abundance! It’s February!”

I’ve noticed the Tulip Magnolia blossoms are beginning to appear on Robert and Stephanie’s baby tree and I literally shouted in delight yesterday as January came to an end.

I’m remembering an affirmation I created a few years ago – maybe as many as ten years ago – when I borrowed the essence of Anais Nin and wrote, “My business blossoms when I am bold.”

My writing blossoms when I embrace the essence of radical grace and abundance and allow flow her due course.

I’m remembering the loving surrender of childhood – holding hands and looking up into the faces of those you trust.

I am learning more about trust with you, February. I lost my verve around trust. Repeated hurts sometimes push trust out of view and I know, yes – I know, it is time to allow the healing power of grace in exponential, infinite ways to not erase the hurt, but to allow trust to be strengthened because of the hurt.

I pause as I write because that feels so paradoxical.

I smile because I remember now how much I love skating in the infinite-loop-de-loop of abundance.

Let’s woo each other, dear February. I’m up for some old-fashioned self-love, word-love and overall life-love. We’ve got this….

With Passionate Gratitude and Radical Grace in Abundance,
Julie

Writing Prompt: This post was written by simply setting my timer to 5 minutes and free flow writing. I didn’t overthink or even really think at all, I simply wrote. Before I hit “publish” I briefly eye balled the text but that’s it. What is more important than the outcome is the process and the revisiting, daily, as we settle into February.

Tip: Write your own  “Hello, February” greeting. Let’s make this month phenomenal. You deserve it!

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. 

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

 

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First take: a window into process that includes falling (getting up). Veering more than slightly off course.

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This is not a blank page. This is a cure to the blank page. This is saying no to block, this is a singing declaration of “I have your back creative process and we are moving and grooving.”

Yes, this is a start.

I wrote this partially to write a brain dump, partially to get in touch with my friend Virginia and partially to tune into my past narrative. I keep telling myself, this is a start.

Next: I am going to make a list of times…. I avoided life in attempts to keep the peace.

My guess is some seemed to succeed (and may still be a bit of the glue holding feeling mediocre together), some failed and some are untried.

Here is the first take: a window into process that includes falling (and getting up) and veering more than slightly off course.

Enjoy – and stay with me – because the world is waiting for your words.

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

Virginia Woolf

This week I have felt consistently out of peace because I was doing things that made me uncomfortable. Who wants to do that?

We want to go where we are praised and adored!

We don’t want to have to say unsettling things and make people unhappy with us! Well, most of us anyway.

Even as I type this and take a sip of delectably bitter coffee I realize I have actually made it a spiritual practice to make myself uncomfortable. I regularly chat with people others toss aside, like today I conversed amicably with a homeless woman: I engaged her in conversation like I would anyone else.

I actually put myself in a place most people would never think of going and yes, I found peace there.

I think that is a big part of it: being willing to go where others won’t, being willing to recognize there is tension there and then just moving forward anyway. Repeatedly.

(And then I reached for a poem and my chair toppled over and I went with it. I think I can officially call that a take two needed?)

I found myself on the floor, reaching for my book of poetry for 2018 I carefully picked out in December. I wanted to read “January in Paris” because I felt a message from Billy Collins words:

“I followed a few private rules…” and that steers me back to what I meant to be saying the entire time.

What I have been discovering in my journey into the uncomfortable is this: when we are aiming to stay aligned with our personal values, we will bump into barriers that seem larger than life itself.

We may risk losing friendships.

I’m sad to say I have lost friendships because they were no longer in alignment with me. I’m proud to say I have been strong enough to do so.

Our barriers may be huge organizations we’ve supported our entire lives. This also happened to me in December and January. It took 29 days of consistent follow up to get a single returned phone call and some restoration, though I still wonder if they are actually doing as they should be.

When we choose to pursue peace even when it leads to falling on the ground with our hands scuffed up or finds us alone on yet another Friday night or finds us with a cloth over our mouths because we choose to not speak even in our frustration because we think the friends we have left will desert us when they hear our story, we are also able to know it is in these very experiences that we come to know ourselves and our life more intimately.

We connect more authentically, in a sacred joy, in a holy connection – which for me is a combination of soft socks and knowing laughter.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

Contact Julie now to schedule a Writing or Transformational Conversation Session at 661.444.2735. Please note she is in California in the USA in the Pacific Time Zone.

 

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The Song You Have Been Singing May Not Be the Best For You: Rewriting Your Narrative

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I’m about to share an actual thought I had two days ago. I haven’t shared this yet due to mortification and hoping if I procrastinate long ago it will just go away and the true confessions of Julie narrative might be an episodic program that gets canceled right after the pilot.

Unfortunately or fortunately I also know the most productive action I can take is… writing and hitting publish. Rewriting in my new snazzy pleather journal I bought specifically so I could categorize my old and new narrative and find a new way because quite frankly that old one was clearly not serving the world or me very well.

I received a facebook messenger post from a playwright I met probably eight or nine years ago. I was in the play he wrote and my friend directed. I never felt like he was happy with my portrayal of his character and never really felt like he even liked me at all.

Fast forward and more confession, I don’t feel like the man who directed that production likes me anymore either, not that I would be brave enough to actually sit down with him and say, “What’s up?”… yet, anyway.

“Why did you send this to me?” as I read the post. I started singing inside, too, like a catchy commercial jungle: “You know you hate me, you know you do.” Over and over and over my mind sang this ditty until the conscious Julie swooped in and said, “What the Hell, Self? This man has NEVER told you he hated you just STOP STOP STOP and rethink and rewrite NOW!”

I obviously rethought but you know the rest of the story: I’ve been sitting on the avoidance of writing this for three days.

The facts are, I don’t know if this particular individual has even thought of me once since we worked together.

<< I left the keyboard again, this time for about 36 hours, to digest and move forward.>>

The truth is this:

I have bruises from long ago and I have current bruises that become tender when I am tired or feel alone or left out or unsure.

I am triggered by the thought that people don’t like me and I risk being alone in the majority of my life.

The overlying truth is I have the choice to make insignificant actions mean whatever I choose to make them mean. This message may have gone to every single facebook friend this person happens to have and I happen to be one of them.

I also have the choice to be gentle with myself when I say things that are hurtful towards myself. I have a lot of years to heal. From moment to moment I pledge to treat myself with as much love and respect I am capable of in that moment.

Finally, I can embrace the truth that most people enjoy my company after they meet and get to know me. Some people even like me right away. What really matters is whether or not I like me, whether or not I am enjoying my company. Whether or not I create a community and live in a community of people who care about me, my feelings, my growth and what I create.

I have the choice to make insignificant actions mean whatever I choose to make them mean.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

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

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Writing the New Narrative: Life and exhilaration and pain and love and injustice and apathy happen.

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Have you ever made a commitment to yourself and yourself alone and then found yourself saying it out loud and then realized the people you said it aloud with would hold you accountable even if your knees were knocking and you did and really didn’t want to do what you just committed to do?

(Please tell me I am not alone in this.)

I did exactly that this week – I stood in front of a group of friends and said, “I am going to work on rewriting my life narrative every single day until my birthday. I said back in November I was going to do this and I got scared. It is time to write it and write it publicly, anyway.”

So here we go. Here I am, publicly sharing my process. It is not an exaggeration to say I am feeling slightly nuts for doing this. So be it. After all, I am slightly nuts.

One of the most common theme songs running underneath my daily life is familiar to many. “You are wrong” is one song. “You are not (good, smart, pretty, athletic, young, fit, defiant, brave) enough so why bother?” and the ever popular “No one will ever want you.”

Long ago to comfort myself I declared God must have really wanted me to be born because he made sure I came into existence. After all, my parents were using birth control effectively and I was conceived, anyway.

Something occurred to me today I had never thought of before.

What would happen if I let go of being a product of birth control failure?

That actually felt pretty good until the related thought appeared.

Would I then be required to let go of “God must have really wanted me” too?

Until today I had never consciously thought of that possibility for holding onto the “other end” of the story.

Here’s the thing: I love the verse Psalm 139 and I hold fast to that declaration of God Wanting me alongside “You are fearfully and wonderfully made in that secret place inside your mother” almost as much as I’ve held onto people I don’t want to lose.

In Theology According to Julie it is the perfect bible verse for Island of Misfit Toys people like me who wonder why we’re here?

Why are we here if we aren’t or weren’t wanted in the first place?

Basically, in the Julie JS translation Psalm 139 goes like this:

God – you know me up close and personal. Let’s be realistic: you know me more than I know me and you knew me – all of me – before I was even conceived. You know (what I see as) my flaws and you call this all of me “wonderful.” Help me live up to this, God. May I be bold enough to ask to collaborate with you in this, my life, and in this your world? Help me to keep doing right, please. I know I mess up, and I so want to do right by you in this, your world you so generously share with me and all these other glorious people.

When Marlena was stillborn, I got a bit of what may be a slightly warped idea that I went through that horror because I could take it better than other people. And then a co-worker experienced stillbirth, too. I was flabberghasted. How did that happen? I experienced the pain so other people I loved wouldn’t have to experience it. God wanted me here for a reason and a part of it must be to take on pain and loss because I clearly do it so well.

My old narrative said “God must have really wanted me because he pushed my conception through even though my parents didn’t want me. This means I must live up to painful experiences in order to make my existence ok to the rest of the world.”

What I now know to be true is this:

Life and injustice and love and apathy and bliss and pain and exhilaration and boredom happen. I have the privilege to choose, every day, how to approach each aspect of life. God does, in fact, invite me to collaborate each and every day in each and every experience with each and every person in my path. We are – each of us – wonderfully made and a unique distinctive gift to one another. Now, go love richly and live fully.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

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

 

 

 

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Gifts of Forgiveness + Haiku, Breath, Questions & Moving Your Pencil Across the Page

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In revisiting my life narrative, I am revisiting all experiences without weighing in on judgment in the process. I found this from 2011 when seeking writing tips to share via social media. 

Instead, I found this gift to pass along to you, now.

I woke up this morning feeling fear rumbling in the middle of my chest. My heart was racing just enough to tell me “I am afraid. I should be afraid, I should be worried, I should – I should- I should.”

I rolled over to look out the window at the soft morning light.

There was nothing in that light telling me to be afraid.

I got up and poured myself some ice water, some vitamins and stood, quietly, breathing
in the silence as I shusssshhhhed my heart internally.

There was nothing in the coolness of the water telling me to be afraid, to be worried.

I felt my feet as I walked back to lie down for a few more moments before beginning my day.

I allowed the pillows to support my neck and head. I completely felt the sheets against my skin, the soft breeze of the fan offering up refreshment at the beginning of what will be another more than warm day.

This is what forgiveness feels like: support,cool air, hushes like a gentle mommy as she taps our back as we try to sleep, fitfully. She breathes with us, reminding us everything is fine, truly, everything including us is just fine.

I am an expert at forgiving others.

I tend to let go and forgive long before the other person has even thought to ask for it. Sometimes I think I forgive too easily, before I have given the true meaning of grace its due.

The one person I am the least likely to forgive is myself.

This morning, I started understanding self-forgiveness on a deeper level.

My primary teacher/life coach/personal development guru for today’s integration lesson was Louisa
May Alcott. Many of us only know Louisa May Alcott as the author of the classic tale, “Little Women”.
She wrote and lived so much more than this one book that made her a household name.
She wrote, “We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”
in her short story, “Transcendentalist Wild Oats”

She knew and lived forgiveness more than a hundred years ago. Reading one short story of hers gave me more insights than any personal development book written in this century or the last has given me.

I thought I had nothing to write today.

I started with haiku:

waiting for coffee ~
book opened to page ninety ~
eye glasses on desk

Re-read an essay I wrote in January and gleaned this sentence to tweet:

“Today I will continue to give space for my heart’s wisdom to rise above the tyranny of the “must do now” list.”

From there I tiptoed to this quote from Miss Alcott I had carefully copied yesterday and remembered my earliest moments from today. I decided they were share-worthy.

“We all make mistakes. It takes many experiences to shape a life. Try again.”

What forgiveness are you waiting to offer yourself?

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

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

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