Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Writers Talk: Memory as a Strength, A Gift, A Treasure + A Writing Prompt for You

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“You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”
― Anne Carson

I have been accused of remembering too much, holding on too tight, not being willing to forgive.

I’m working on forgiveness, a continual form of spiritual practice it seems.

I’m playing with the harmony of forgiveness and self-protection and advocacy. Where do I need to grow more? Forgiveness doesn’t mean reconciliation, it means recognizing the other’s humanity and giving them the room to feel better, to know they aren’t causing you pain.

After all, the other side of me says – no one is capable of “making” anyone feel anything. It is a choice to feel what we feel, for the most part. When I feel crappy and depressed I feel crappy and depressed. No one makes me – circumstances may be lousy and there are times during deep rottenness I feel driven and optimistic and ready to expand into deep transformation.

(I can say clichés with the best of them.)

Thing is, I remember.

I can’t stop remembering.

I don’t want to stop remembering. (Here, try this prompt with me)

It is like telling an artist to remove certain colors from her palette. “No more purples, Julie. You need to focus solely on green.”

Doesn’t work for me.

I don’t focus only on the bad memories, either, I appreciate a memory concert. Here a memory of being the ultimate silly one, there a memory of a cloudy afternoon in 1983, I can hear the conversation, I can feel Mel’s arms wrapping me in compassion, I can feel the incredulity rising up in my chest.

I hadn’t remembered that in a couple decades but it comes to life and pours itself onto the page exactly when I need it most.

Why would I want to stop remembering? It is my ultimate super power – translating memory into words and reaching out with them to you and to you and to you.

My timer went off and I watched my neighbor slouching toward her SUV. I cant remember the last time we exchanged niceties. Perhaps, now, the memories will float up.

I think it was most likely about the tulip magnolia tree her husband planted and I was so excited I set aside her cat hating, sneering demeanor and loved her for a moment instead.

Perhaps, yes, right now, I will choose to love her in my thoughts, prayers and actions more often. If I hadn’t elected to remember, watch and continue to write from memory, I would only see the slouch and the sneer.

I will not give up my memories to you. Or him. Or her. Or them.

I will use the grace of the memories as transformational tools to work for the greatest good of all.
That feels so…. perfect. Just right, here and now.

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The Joy of Being Awkward “Or How I Wore the Wrong Outfit but Decided to Bust a Move, Anyway”

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My own method of free flow writing #5for5BrainDump was born from three distinctive related places.

First, My writing workshops of almost two decades: we use free flow writing as a warm up and then as a main part of the writing process.

Second,  5 Minute Stream of Consciousness Exercises across a number of online circles, one of which was called 5 Minute Friday. I don’t know if it still exists, but five years ago on Thursday nights it used to be the thing for a group of Mom Bloggers I knew. The writing you see below is an example of what I wrote back when I was creating in those circles.

Third, The PeriGirls: a group of women live streamers who helped me discover the power of live streaming. One day in a workshop BrainDumping and 5 minutes and free flow writing and the power of doing something for 5 consecutive days collided in a lovely spree which then give birth to #5for5BrainDump.

I didn’t expect #5for5BrainDump to become a major part of my life (and it has). Life writing in many forms including as a component of business writing is my sweet spot.

Life Writing + Free Flow writing: When these two are added together I fall into another version of paradise. Add poetry and…. I could be infinitely happy for a long, long time.

I want to share a couple quick, five minute writings I did in the past that still sing with transparency today.  Later this evening I will share with you about my brand new offering.  And now, drum roll please…

“Or How I Wore the Wrong Outfit but Decided to Bust a Move, Anyway”

I decided I wanted to try something new this week, so when I saw this last Friday I knew this Friday would be magical: On Fridays a group of folk meet for a free writing exercise. Just 5 minutes. On the prompt that’s posted here just after midnight early Friday morning. Want to join our favorite free writing exercise of the week? It’s easy peasy:

  1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt: “Dance” with no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
    2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
    3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on: (added by me — and here is where I got confused)

STORY

What? Is this real? I read somewhere the prompt was DANCE so I wrote five minutes on DANCE and now, after being confused, I see that I am wearing exactly the wrong word outfit.

I am not going back. I am simply adding.

The prompt this week, my first week at this Five Minute Friday is… STORY.

Story. I’ve wasted a minute writing about not getting things right and feeling embarrassed about dressing totally wrong for this party.

I could write about my championships at two Story Slam events here in Bakersfield but still harboring fear about going to “The Show” – the major leagues of Story Slamming in a big city where exceptional story tellers live.

I could write about sitting around the campfire with my Dad telling stories. He was such a word weaver. He even had me convinced (and proudly telling people) I was an ancestor of the great mystical poet and artist, William Blake.

That filled in the missing pieces of my story “Where in my bloodstream-ancestry was Writing Bug flowing?”

Until about five years ago, I would’ve sworn it was from my fabulous ancestor, William Blake. Apparently my grandmother thought this was a funny joke to tell because according to actual historical records we are related to a farmer from Iowa also named William Blake.

Here’s another real story.

I get angry when “story” gets a bad name. Some people use “story” like an epithet. That gets me fired up. Like poet Muriel Rukeyser (who I am pretty sure I am not related to at all) said, “The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.”

Today’s story: So I wrote on the wrong topic today. Big deal. The world will not spontaneously combust and these writers seem as if they will enjoy hearing my voice, anyway.

With that said, here are my first five minutes:

I am an actor who loves doing Musical Theater and I rarely get the chance. There just aren’t many roles out there for overweight, middle aged, decent but not Disney-esque singers who don’t dance very well. Well, the dancing chapter of the story is more like: who works really hard and when she gets it she gets it but until she gets it, she is the saddest dancing story you have ever seen.”

Yes, it is something like that.

The last time I appeared in a musical, I had a fantastic time working on a show most of the rest of the cast abhorred. I was so thrilled I practically levitated after each rehearsal.

I worried about dance rehearsals but I have adored our choreographer for years. He is the one person on the planet who believes in my dancing enough to smile patiently at me and simply ask me to try again, which I do. I videotaped the dances so I could rehearse at home. I was serious about this task at hand.

Like in all performance, I wanted to do well.

I didn’t want to be just passable or, without enough rehearsal, an embarrassment.

I wanted to dance along with my three other stage sisters who were at least twenty five or more years younger than me, did I mention that?

I took a Zumba class a while back and had so much fun I cried. I didn’t realize it, though, until the ending when we did cool down. Zumba itself exhausted me. I somehow kept up, sort of, but at the end when we did stretching and soft, gentle movements, a message came from somewhere deep in my heart, “I want to dance, oh, how I want to dance.”

True tears popped out from my eyes, unexpectedly. Now I was covered in salt water: ridiculous volumes of sweat and tears, involuntarily flowing from my face.

I even have the joy right now of being the Emcee for a local burlesque troupe. I tell silly jokes and stories when they get changed or prepare for their next number. I didn’t realize how much fun it could be. It also made me want to be out there, dancing.

Maybe next year.

Maybe if I do more zumba classes – which, by the way, use actual dance moves.

Maybe if I can gather confidence from the soles of my feet to the top of my head and then back to the depths of my heart where courage to do crazy things like this lives – in fact rules – choice making.

I think I’ll do it. I’ll put it on my “to do before August 2013” and I will start aiming toward it.

Me, dancing. Again. With Confidence.

What a phenomenal thought!

 5 Minutes UP! 

PS – As I prepared to post this blog entry, I saw LAST week’s topic was Dance. Ah, well. 

Julie Jordan Scott 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 Spring, 2015 and beyond.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch!

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Intuitive Art Leads to A Remarkable Weekly Plan: Productivity the Heart Centered Way

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An interesting thing happens when we allow intuition blended with our heart and mind to discover where to go next with our work and in managing our time.

I rediscovered this on Saturday when I sat with my mixed media materials and hopped on Periscope for my weekly #artblock broadcast. I took an art-card I thought was perfectly fine as it was and took it a tiny bit deeper: I created a three word writing prompt by circling three random words I found on the card (books, soul, claim).

I wanted to demonstrate how using random found words worked as a writing prompt: I wasn’t meaning to have a life-work changing a-ha moment.

The thing is, intuition works like that most of the time. When we’re in the flow doing whatever it is we do that brings us contentment and our heart is open rather than restricted by shoulds, musts, have-to’s and a relentless string of needs, magic happens.

I said, in a moment of excitement, “Let’s create a haiku so you may see how this works.”

Live, on my broadcast, I wrote this haiku which described my life work, one of my primary philosophies or beliefs about life and writing, and a call to action for anyone who reads the haiku.

We aspire to love: how often do I use the phrase “love” in my business? Well, I facilitate the Word-Love Writing Community Group on Facebook. I am launching Word-Love Wednesday this week on facebook live where participants may listen and share their writings on camera because I have seen and I know how powerful it is to share our writings aloud, freshly written. Last week I wrote and shared a potent affirmation on a livestream and am working on a video that reminds us all “I am love personified.” (You are love personified, we are love personified.”

Claim each time a special time. I believe in the beauty of the ordinary moment: the mountaintop experience in the flat land of day-to-day some might call dreary. I write of everyday, in the routine-bliss of life rather than the expensive, once-in-a-lifetime because in actuality, every moment is once in a lifetime, right?

Book soul moments here: transformational coaching conversations flow through my life blood. I started my coaching practice in 1999 and many, many lives have been permanently changed for the better via our coaching moments – otherwise known as “soul moments” either one-on-one or in group settings such as the Writing Intensive that starts today and the #5for5BrainDump experience last week and especially the Transformational Conversation sessions I will begin offering this week.

That moment in mixed media play turned into an affirmative to-do list I don’t know I could have created if I sat down brusque and business like to “figure out my week.” It takes both the heart to create and the mind to translate.

It isn’t either this or that – it is this AND that (another primary tenet in the Creative Life Midwife Guidebook to a Better Life.)

 

I mapped out my week so far this way:

  1. Create content that is based in love. Share across social media platforms and include links to programs. services that stress love first. Daily.
  2. Weave the message of how an increased experience of well-being and love floats up and into and through all the work we do, including in the free Word-Love Writing Community and via live broadcasts.
  3. Remember to honor the every day in content in the Writing Intensive program. Honor “What is” and illustrate how “What is” fits into the writer’s best (and most impactful) work.
  4. Write sale page for transformational coaching conversations.
  5. Self Care Daily.

Again, I ask you –

Finally, this haiku may also be applicable to your life.

Tell me how any and all of these lines translate into your life and or/work experience.

We aspire to love – claim each time a special time – book soul moments here

If you would like to explore these topics further, I am always available to you – simply send a text to me 661.444.2735. Just identify yourself if you text first so I will know with whom I am “speaking.”

= = = =

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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Listen to Me: You are Exactly What the World Needs Right Now

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One day more than six years ago I sat to write for five minutes on a Sunday morning. I wrote of this belief I had then which I still have now: my writing was created  stream of consciousness style.

I used a prompt based on something from Ralph Waldo Emerson which I translated to this:

You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.

I wrote for five minutes and when I was done, I sought approval, I needed approval, I was hungry for it.

One difference between the me then and the me now is the me now no longer expects approval. I assume no one will approve or even notice I wrote. This does not mean I don’t want approval. In fact, I have been known to opt out of experiences if I don’t feel included. I’ll just pick up my metaphorical marbles and go home and find someone else who seems to appreciate me.

Both of these facts: the not expecting response and the retreating from experience when I have felt slighted, illustrate my floundering trust in the now much less in the future.

I wonder if that is true for you, too, which is why it bears repeating… and repeating… and repeating….You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.

I have somehow left my optimism elsewhere and am instead freshly coated with a fresh dose of cynicism. It’s gotten worse this year than I ever thought it would. It seems like our whole society has caught the “snarky” malaise, the angry bickering competitive ugly-ness I have always veered away from and until now have never looked back.

This malaise is detrimental to my health.

Yet here I sit in my dark and quiet living room feeling pangs of hope again.

I love my six-years-ago self. She had so much hope, was so naive even though she had so much pain in her not-so-distant past. Enough of her still reigns in me that I feel another slight tug of optimism.

I won’t assume you will want to read, but it isn’t horrible: i’m not embarrassed about what I wrote. It might even invite a thought my current me wouldn’t think to ask anymore. Maybe it is time for me to intentionally step back into those shoes and slightly less frown-face assumptions. So 2017 readers, meet 2011 Julie.

Note: I wrote one version of this and then my computer ate it. Frustrated anyone? Early on a Sunday morning when my son is hovering like a hawk, waiting for me to take him to one of the city pools which doesn’t open for another ninety minutes when I would much rather be plunked on the porch with my laptop, writing my heart on the page?
So – using my prompt… “You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.” the 5 minutes may begin…

I wrote this very sincerely and I believe it earnestly yet somehow in between all that rah-rah believe me when I say this thought and love coated eye contact with word-love I heard Billy Joel crooning away, “I love you just the way you are” and my college friends snickering, “So, Billy doesn’t want his woman to improve… would rather keep her in her place so no one else will be attracted to her ever-getting-better nature.”

Now these were the days when Christie Brinkley was either married to Billy Joel or at least involved with him, so I remember raising my eyebrows thinking, “Most men would love Christie Brinkley just the way she is, too… absolutely gorgeous and perfect physically.” but I digress yet stay right on course.

The challenge to women (and perhaps men as well) today is we don’t think “as we are” is just right.

Instead, we buy into the cultural, societal notion that we are never good enough. We are always ten pounds from love or this orthat degree away from that job and one or twenty friends short of popular and if we did this or took that course or prescribed to this wonder pill, all would begin to brighten when in reality – if we changed our perspective and our thinking we would realize we ARE exactly what someone needs right now.

Our stories, our experiences, our listening ear, our chocolate chip cookies or hands to help a friend declutter or hold a crying-almost-complete-stranger – you are exactly what someone in this world is waiting for at this precise moment.

Not the next job you.

Not the next house or apartment you.

Not the skinnier or bigger breasted or more educated you.

This exact here and now you.

You are exactly what the world needs right now: exactly as you are right now.

I am writing this while sitting on my sofa in my messy living room. I haven’t taken a shower yet and my hair needs to be touched up. Badly. Yet I sit and write for five minutes (and then this second five after the computer ate my words) because I firmly believe…

I am exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as I am, right now.

Say it now, with me...I am exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as I am, right now.

And the timer went off and I said, very excitedly in my 2011 version me….. There! Ta-Da!

Let me know, please… anything you are thinking after reading these words hot off the tips of my fingers with no editing allowed.

I think the 2011 version of me was onto something very, very good.

I am exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as I am, right now.

You are exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as you are, right now.

We are exactly what the world needs right now, exactly as we are, right now.

= = = = =

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

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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The Why it Happened or the Reason Isn’t What Matters, Responding Now is What Matters: Write What You Need to Say

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I realized something today, something somewhat simple – well, absolutely simple actually. I’m sort of embarrassed to even say it AND I realize in saying it there is power so here goes.

I have spent far too much time looking at who I was “before” rather than being present with who I am right now – and how the who I am right now is far more valuable to the world right now than who I was then.

Ten years ago I had a domino effect of horrible, lifetime movie inspiring themes take place within a matter of months and they effectively shattered me. I was crushed, defeated and fell to my knees with my face hitting the ground in one of those slo-mo fight scene sort of ways.

I attempted to get up and didn’t. And repeat. And repeat. And probably repeated again in that I got distracted and then I got scared and then I got scared of the distraction and while I could still talk a good game and though I kept writing, I didn’t keep taking action that made my work profitable – certainly not at a sustainable level and not as it was ten years prior.

I felt hopelessly stuck.

I talked about it in therapy and got lost in more fear, more breakthroughs but still not forward progress toward sustainable work.

This year my life took another hit and if I didn’t make changes I couldn’t feed my kids kind of crisis I knew something had to give and I fell into yet deeper depression, this worse (if there is such a thing) than I did ten years ago.

Perhaps worst of all is I managed to slowly drip away all sheds of optimism I once carried, so I couldn’t look to light anymore because I couldn’t see light anymore.

About two months ago I called the mental health crisis hotline a couple times, just needing to have the comforting feeling that someone cared about me because I had found my way back into the space where I didn’t want to trouble people in my immediate circles with the depths of my depression and I doubted they cared or if they did care, I doubted they had the resources or the patience to deal with me.

Last Thursday my new therapist asked “What caused you the most pain in the last ten years?” or something like that and I was “struck dumb” as the saying goes in that I couldn’t speak.

It was like a noose was around my neck, pulling tighter and tighter and the pain from my throat became increasingly unbearable with the gravity of the question and my inability to point to one thing immediately just that the question hurt too much to respond to and I didn’t want to start talking because I might start crying and not be able to stop and I am just. so. tired. of. crying.

Odd thing is I’ve been slowly feeling better.

I can’t point to a why or an a-ha moment or a medicine or a new diet or exercise routine. I have been broadcasting daily, I have been communicating with people and leading #5for5BrainDump and I even have a schedule and some pay-to-play programs scheduled which people are interested in taking with me.

I’ve been writing for about ten minutes now. Haven’t edited but my timer went off and I kept going. I know it is best if I stop and come back so I think I will do that, after I re-read and come up with some “moral to this story.”

I’ll just wrap back around to where I started.

I realized today I need to stop looking back at that ten-years-ago story. It is a chapter, it isn’t the whole story. What I am doing now is finally getting up, finally shaking the mud off my face and realizing the mud has kept me safe to a certain extent.

I could talk about my cancer or other such chatter and I won’t, except for what I just said.

Now, and the actions I take in it, are what matters. Being charming, silly, passionate, pull-out-the-soapbox-whenever-the-right-mood-strikes-me JJS is what matters.

Some people will think this writing is self- indulgent and silly. I believe it is helpful to whomever has read to the end. It isn’t for me to judge, it is just for me to hit publish. Which I’m doing now.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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Writing Prompt inspired by Jack Kerouac: Your Memories + Awe = #5for5BrainDump Magic

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Jack Kerouac said, “Write in recollection and amazement of yourself.” This is a territory ripe for self reflection.

Let’s do this.

First, make a list of 5 times in your life when your actions surprised you.

Scan your list to consider and ultimately choose the one time that is the most appealing for you to write about today. Set your timer for five minutes and write, starting with the prompt, “I remember….”

Note: if that first attempt falls flat and your words don’t flow, try a different memory.

Oftentimes there is something in the way of writing from the first memory and the simple act of completing your writing from another memory will ignite writing flow for both.

Bonus: Share your writing experience with at least one other person today.

NOTE: if you would like to participate in a Writing Community, I would love to invite you to be a part of the Word-Love Writing Community I facilitate on Facebook.

 

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

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

 

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Empowered List Making: How the #5for5BrainDump Process Will Ignite Your Entrepreneurial Success

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I can close my eyes and be right back there in the moment: Mark Victor Hansen onstage at the Bakersfield Convention Center telling an audience filled with women including me, then a county bureaucrat, the importance of creating a life goals list. A 101 life goals list. He suggested we buddy up with a co-worker to share our lists and then work/play/or allow our subconscious minds to craft methods to bring these goals into fruition.

I went home that night and wrote my 101 goals. I didn’t do it all at once, I made my initial goals quickly without much thought and then I walked away and continued to come back and pop more items onto the list throughout the evening, but I was so excited to share my list with my secretary I was bursting at my ever-passionate, oh-so-not-typical-bureaucrat self.

My secretary apparently hadn’t given it another thought. She said her 101 Goals were to get up every day and go to work and go home. For 101 days.

I wonder how quickly my face fell, how quickly the pallor of resignation fell across my forehead, my shoulders.

Ironic in retrospect: several months later I went on a stress leave after two of my clients threatened my life in two months. In the interim I discovered life coaching and the rest became history including reaching many of those 101 Goals.

My secretary left the county a decade after I did also due to a workman’s comp claim. She met all of her 101 Goals – and went on to create a life of… well. I am not going to judge her life. I am sure it was predictable and filled with love. She was and is a fabulous person.

(Applause says 5 minutes are up!)

Lists are gold for entrepreneurs and creatives and humans in general for many reasons, especially when made stream of consciousness style as we do via #5for5BrainDump and we allow the beauty of what is buried in our subconscious mind to come out of hiding. It is as scientist and best-selling author of Brain Briefs Art Markham said in relationship to listmaking:  “It helps you clean out the weeds you couldn’t see.”

When you write LONG lists, the subconscious and the ridiculous partner up because of the sheer volume of the list. It makes it magical and it makes it a practice in making what might seem like drudgery fun.

Here’s the deal: start with a 5 Minute Brain Dump and start your numbered list. Then go about your life and add to your list as ideas pop – which they will because you have ignited your subconscious mind, called it into duty. It WANTS to give you more of what you’ve asked for everytime.

After a couple hours set your timer for another 5 minute writing session. Repeat as necessary. Delight in the results.

Tell us in the comments one to three of your goals from either your first five minutes session or beyond. Would love to hear what this generates AND support your process.

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

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bonus Prompts:

I remember…

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

This week I would love….

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

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

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

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

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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Time Management Tip: The Easiest Way to Make the Most of Tiny Bits of “Leftover” Time

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Start with a question: ask as heartfully as possible in that precise moment. I like to close my eyes and put my hand over my heart, breathe in and ask “What is the most useful way for me to invest this next ___ minutes?”

Just before I started to write for this five minutes, I asked the same question.

My intention was to come to my keyboard and speed write. After all, I need to take Samuel to school in ten minutes so I felt squeezed to begin with but my heart told me differently, “Meditate for five minutes on the question, then write for five minutes.”

Our hearts are constantly ready for us to take note and listen.

We tend to scurry about with our to-do lists ringing in our ears, slightly off kilter or else so lock-step in focus we drown out those longings of our powerful hearts.

So today, I took five to meditate and then this five to write.

My eyes look up and I see a neighbor walking her dog, one I rarely talk to but instead we exchange eye contact, do a half-nod and smile. She takes time every day to walk her dog. She doesn’t walk quickly, but she walks. Picks a foot up and puts it down.

In five minutes I can do a quick sweep of my kitchen, a time of cleaning my counter tops. I can straighten my drawers, clean my bathroom counter, I can put together a sandwich, I can write a thank you note, a blog post, I can schedule social media. I can pick up my phone and write a note to use later, I can edit an image, I can write a few simple “I’m thinking of you texts.” I can scan headlines.

I can mindfully invest five minutes to make the world better because of my devotion to intention.

My timer applause ends, signaling to me this five minute investment is now over.

I took a chunk of time that seemed “unusable” between folding laundry and waiting to take my son that could have gotten lost scrolling my facebook feed or something like that. Instead, I meditated and wrote a blog post that will most surely make a positive difference in someone else’s life: perhaps in yours.

The world is waiting for your words: take five minutes and get them on the page.

 

 

 

Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print for more than 100 years.

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

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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