Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

How One Moment of Listening (or Being) a Naysayer May Cause Longterm Damage

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Transfrom the words of naysayers: an ear listens and does... what? Heal the negative effects of mean words.

When I started my life coaching practice in 1999 I was amazed when people showed up at discovery calls and were ready to hire me immediately almost without a word of conversation.  Now, with years of experience under my belt, I realize it is because the content I had shared over time forged the relationship ahead of our speaking.

To my long time readers, we weren’t strangers meeting for the first time.  I was someone they respected who they were honored to finally meet. Back then, though, I was simply happily going about my life, not thinking of myself as anything unique or special or worthy of any extra attention beyond my daily existence.

I wondered why it was so hard for other people to find coaching clients. I didn’t arrive at discovery calls from a space of “I am so good at getting clients” because I wasn’t selling at all. I was just showing up and people were signing up for coaching in a way that felt magical.

My coach-trainer didn’t believe me when I told him how many clients I had. He literally scoffed and said, “You can’t have done that!”

How did my well respected coach and trainer’s scoffing and naysaying words do to a new, exuberant, passionate yet insecure coach?

His disbelief caused a block in creating new relationships with more people who were looking to engage with me.

This is what happens when people are naysayers whether it is inadvertent or on purpose.

What if he had said, “You have sixteen clients and you are a brand new coach? That is incredible – you are clearly getting the word out about your work and attracting like hearted people! What’s your secret? I want to know more about your success! My goodness, you are a star pupil, Julie! Do you realize how miraculous you are?

What a gift those questions would have been. Naturally, he would have said questions in his own voice because the above is more what I would have said to me back then – and what I am saying to me, now.

My coach trainer and I didn’t have that conversation though. He went on to critique me even though my success was huge.

My thought after that conversation with my coach trainer went from “getting clients is so easy” to “What is wrong with me? “

I left  the final conversation I had with my trainer – a person in a position of authority who “knew better than me” scalded by his naysaying. It scarred our longterm relationship.

More appropriate to the facts of what I had achieved would have been thinking something like this: “I am an incredible rockstar bursting with hope and optimism.”

Writing about this now more than twenty years later helps me see even more clearly the cumulative damage that happened because of the conversation – the initial naysayer moment – and my continued lack of belief in what he said has marred certain aspects of building my coaching practice.

It mirrors the Dan Pink quote we started with today: “Some beliefs operate quietly, like existential background music.”  

Once we allow that background music to play constantly, we run the risk of allowing it to overtake any success we have had and what we hope to achieve in the future.

Today, that belief has been excavated and may finally be decluttered from the mind and from life experience.

Give yourself time to consider past moments in time that may still be influenced by “background music of beliefs” that may surprise you. These naysaying moments may seem insignificant, but tugging at the thread of them may bring you into a new awareness that will transform your life experience today.

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

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

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

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How Practicing a Ta-Da Focus You Will Live Solidly in Your Truth

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“I would love to have an ocean of love right now. That said, the number-one rule of acting is, ‘Do not seek approval from the audience.’ People don’t realize that. You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.”

Chadwick Boseman

My mind is playing the famous instagram reel and tik tok videos where one is simply some restlessness and then wild applause. The second is soft music and then a voice with a dignified British accent saying, “Ladies and Gentleman, Her” and thunderous applause from an invisible audience.

I will admit, I have used one of these sounds in the past on a tree hugging reel.

The most important applause to receive is your own.

Our hunger for approval is one we need to focus to overcome. To begin creating your specific ocean of love, as Chadick Boseman suggests, you may in addition create your most satisfying outcome yet.

Focusing on your “Ta-Da’s!’ as well as your “To-Do’s” will automatically create a more favorable environment for satisfaction, success and waves of virtual, real and inner applause will become a daily experience.

Remember the end of Chadwick Boseman’s wise words: You have to live in truth. Don’t hunger for approval of others, focus on acting in alignment with your truth.

What is the first step you will take to create waves of applause both from other people and more importantly from yourself?

“You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.”

Your Ta-Da’s – the actions you have taken and the stuff you get done live in your truth.

They don’t have to be thunderous or huge. Your Ta-Da’s may be as simple as “I got out of bed before 7:30 am today!” or “I got out of bed today.” Either is a Ta-Da in your truthful space.

Your truth is not a space to compare to others, your truth is a space of delight – a space of inner applause and a space of infinite ta-da’s.

I can hear the ocean waves of love and admiration reaching your shores, my shores, our collective shores.

The door to the present moment and the future opens.

Ladies and Gentleman, Her!

Julie JordanScott Comeback Crone Creative Life Midwife

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

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

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


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How to Wake Up Everyday With Content You are Proud to Publish

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This simple 5 step or less technique may become your best way to create consistently good content you are proud to publish.

Start an evening or end-of-the-work-day writing practice. It is a simple and meaningful formula that will fill your content with helpful, interesting stories/information/transformations.

  1. Write a question, by hand, in a small notebook. This question may be something you are struggling with and/or what your clients/subscribers struggle with, too.
  2. After you write the question, note three to five gratitudes, in writing, in the same small notebook. Experiment with re-writing the question in a slightly different way after writing your gratitudes.
  3. Within an hour of waking or arrival in your workspace, pull out the notebook and write for five minutes in response to the question. If you get stuck or writing stalls – which is rare because your subconscious mind has literally doing your creative work all night long for you – write about your gratitudes as a back up plan.
  4. Bonus: Add your question to a closing thought of the work day or conversation before you sleep. Post the question on social media before the end of the day or before bedtime. If you have a partner, ask them what they think about the question. Fall asleep with a healthy curiosity.
  5. Wake up with content ready to go. When you tap “publish” you will be proud.

Try this as an experiment for at least three to five consecutive days. Please come back and let me know how it goes for you.

If you already have a writing practice, see how this might augment what you are doing now. Tell me about it in the comments.

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

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

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

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Trust: How Practices and Imperfection Lead to So Many Insightful Gifts

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This morning I sat at my desk intending to write in the same, highly practiced way as I do on most mornings. I met with my focus mate partner – for those who don’t know, Focusmate is a co-working environment online that helps people transform their to-do’s into ta-da’s while supporting another person doing the same in either 25 minute or 50 minute containers. 

“I am going to complete my morning writing practice,” I told my new friend’s smiling face and she reported her tasks back to me. We wished each other well and I started writing.

What I wasn’t expecting was to be visited by memories, Kahlil Gibran, Daniel Pink and experience divine healing in the midst of it.

I knew Dan Pink would be present because I had been meditating on his sentence since I read it yesterday in his new best seller, “The Power of Regret.”

The sentence was “Some beliefs operate quietly, like existential background music.”  

The overall theme of the writing was to be trust, a word that has been known to invoke a churning feeling in my gut. My friend Laurie Smith’s 28 Days of Flow Challenge had thrown down the word gauntlet and feeling brave, I stepped into the circle to wrestle with it.

Here is what I wrote:

Trust:  some days, most days to be honest, I don’t trust much of anything or anyone, much less myself. There was something Brene Brown says in “Atlas of the Heart”  about living disappointed instead of risking disappointment. Over the years, I have lived more disappointed than I have  risked disappointment.

When I visit my patterns of trust, I realize the bruises of opting out of trust started very early. I don’t want to sound like I am blaming because I am not claiming victimhood, I am exploring what happened. I am examining what the facts are without reconstructing a false narrative based on my opinions.

I think about what was happening in my young parents’ lives when I was a little one and I think “I don’t know how they did as well as they did. A cross country move with four children under the age of 7 with Mom pregnant setting up in a new location with a newish company. All the expectations for success…. once John was born with Down’s syndrome… the guilt and the grief and the fourteen month (fifteen sixteen month) me battled the lack of trust with refusing to learn to walk. 

If I didn’t walk, they would have to carry me. They would have to pay attention and lift me up to the places I couldn’t crawl, right? 

I didn’t trust for my safety and perhaps because I couldn’t trust I would receive the love I yearned for and practical love through action which I needed in order to continue my little life.  

Before language set in fully, I determined being the ultimate protector and caretaker was what I needed to be in order to survive.

This was  imprinted upon my innermost psyche:  If I take care of others well, we will all stay safe. 

This might have been my unspoken but definitely believed mantra – the existential background music, so now that my two younger brothers are dead, I have been proven lacking.

I have been proven lacking again. And Again. And again.

The adult, intellectual me says how flawed this belief is as we are all finite creatures. The spiritual side disagrees, saying “our souls are infinite, my brothers have gone nowhere”. The petulant side claps back with “oh yeah, if they’re here why can’t I shake and scold them for leaving me, for not fighting harder, what did I do wrong so that they didn’t fight longer or better?”

Kahlil Gibran ambles in and says a version of his lesson on Children:

“Your brothers were not your children any more than your children are your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.”

I realize in a flash or a glimmer of a flash I can trust life’s longing, the divine heartbeat, because each circumstance I have lived so far has proven itself to be a guide as much as I hated some of those situations and circumstances, as much as I wanted to vomit the moments from my existence – eventually the gratitude for them turned over in the soil as mulch, to be fragrant and helpful to my personal ecosphere.

I am sitting with that. 

Hands off keyboard.

This morning I danced. I said I would dance so I danced in front of the mirror to Nat King Cole’s L-O-V-E twice. I trusted and acted.

I did my lymph exercises in the room of the manse I designated for dance and exercise. I trusted myself to do this, too. It isn’t a habit or a practice yet, it is an intention I am doing my best to fulfill.

Before I sat to write I moved. And I laughed as I danced and I breathed deeply as I moved my lymph system purposefully and it all felt so good, something I wanted to do yesterday but hadn’t built my self-trust ladder sturdy enough yet and now, apparently I have. 

Today at this moment I have trusted and acted on purpose.  Today at this moment my trust is enriched as even white bread may be enriched with nutrients. 

Self-trust is an ultimate nutrient.

The little me can go back and trust her parents who she knows were doing the best they could do.  They didn’t need my assistance, I offered my  assistance with love, even as a toddler. Perhaps part of my assistance was a prayer for love, but it was birthed in love nonetheless as was I.

I was birthed in love, even if my birth wasn’t planned or convenient or even if my parents actively attempted to prevent my conception. I am a gift from life’s longing for itself. I can reference more sacred texts and embrace this.

After dancing and exercising and trusting myself to walk toward feeling better,  I simply engaged with trust at the urging of my friend Laurie Smith and Kahlil Gibran showed up to offer healing.

I can’t think of anything to be much cooler than that.

What has been your favorite moment so far this morning?

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

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

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

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The Joy of Morning Routines

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“Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.”

Twyla Tharp

This is going to sound strange, perhaps, but I am a fan of both morning routines and the joy of consistent experimenting with variations of my morning routine.

This morning, my routine was interrupted from what I have been doing – a rather long, lush time of waking up with meditation, writing, reading, stretching, hygiene regimen with a self care flavor  – to “oh my gawsh, I am behind schedule so what can I pack into this short amount to wake up, get up and still have a good day?”

A writing notebook atop a pink bedspread to show the joy of writing in the early morning in bed. This is part of #rolloverandwrite

I chose to do my #rolloverandwrite practice, read a short-bit and do my hygiene regimen but with less of the equivalent of making googly eyes at myself and more streamlined efficiency, instead.

The irony is I did this because I had an 8 am focus mate session I scheduled to be sure I was being productive nice and early. Another irony is that as I write this I am actually in a focus mate session where my partner is awake on the west coast using her 25 minute session to do what I might have done with my morning routine if I had only thought about things in a slightly different variation.

Here’s the thing: we make our rules about the routines we adopt or those we never even try. Instead of giving up writing every day which I did for quite a while because I got tired of a too long practice, I re-imagined what daily writing might mean to me.

If I hadn’t been open to variations and if I hadn’t had the desire to incorporate a night time routine into my daily schedule, I would not have devised my own morning writing practice I call #rolloverandwrite.

What I have discovered is too often people study different ways of doing morning routines (or starting a blog or creating and teaching a course or starting a YouTube channel, etc.) They invest in classes and courses.  Books and blog posts and twitter streams are read. Many conversations are started and continued. Sadly, the important concept of experimenting and being willing to try something doesn’t happen amidst all the “someday I want to….” activity.

It might be scary and I have found I have to be willing to try and fail more than I am willing to stack up my learning without experimenting. 

My best discovery is there doesn’t need to be an either/or. I can continue to experiment and continue to check in with other people, read articles and books, and make variations to what I am doing with that” still fresh gleam in my eye” even if I am still in bed while I am doing yoga, writing, meditating and reading.

I have had so much freedom and joy when I realized I could do these things while still in bed! If it hadn’t been for a willingness to try and fail, I would still be pushing myself to “get your lazy butt out of bed” and building my resistance wall higher and higher and higher.

While I mostly sleep alone these days, I have also used these routines when I have had a sleeping partner. Experiment with quiet routines if this is your situation. If you have children, train them to respect your practices. My children used to pad into the kitchen in their pajamas and sit at the table with me until my notebook was closed. 

Choosing to do your best rather than worrying about getting your routines done perfectly will wake up an entirely new energy for you so that routines will become a profound pleasure and a playground rich with laughter.

Sometimes you will find something incredible and sometimes you will fail miserably and both are equally wonderful. 

What are your morning routines?

Is it time to experiment and tweak a bit or are you perfectly content with what you are doing?

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

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

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

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Why Reading Poetry is an Important Strategy for All Content Creators

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A block letter of "POETRY" in pink, blue and lavendar encourages writers in all genre to read poetry with great love and enjoyment.

I can literally hear the shrieks from many of you upon reading the title of this blog post.

Poetry, the dreaded. Poetry is difficult to understand. Poetry, that unit in English class that brought your grade from a healthy B to a C, which made your parents take away your phone privileges for a week.

Would it help you to read poetry if you saw real reasons why any and all of us who use words to create content of any sort ought to embrace and regularly read poetry in a similar way to how Robin Williams character in “Dead Poet’s Society” suggests? At the bottom of this blog post I have included a video with some words from that movie about poetry the Apple Corporation used in their advertising campaign.

9 Examples of how reading poetry will help you be a more successful writer and content creator


1) Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously wrote, “Poetry: the best words in the best order.” Many of us believe him and practice poetry for the joy of polishing our words into short, enjoyable and yes, easy to understand and/or natural to make us want to stretch our understanding of life, this world and one another.

2.) Poetry is often concise -which will help you write better headlines, catchy slogans and synopsise main points you want to convey.

3.) The Harvard Business Review stated “Poetry teaches us to wrestle with and simplify complexity.” Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman once told The New York Times, “I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.”

4. ) Reading poetry gives us more unusual topics of conversations, videos and written content. Reading a poem in the morning and planting it into your subconscious mind will ignite you to approach your content differently – which is always a good means to improve your content and writing development.

5.)A Fast Company article visualizing a post-Covid19 Pandemic World leads off with a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke followed by these words about how poets and poetry reading people make for better business leaders: “Poetry requires of its readers a different way of thinking, more expansive than usual, more flexible, more nuanced; a way to tune in to undercurrents, accept ambiguity and the absence of answers—embrace lack of closure and relish complexity and uncertainty.”

6.) Reading poetry increases one’s curiosity and the desire to ask questions. This is especially good for people writing sales copy. How does this poem relate back to what I am trying to communicate to possible clients and students?

7.) Memorizing poetry about success and overcoming obstacles helps the brain to stretch and grow. Suggestions for such poems include “Success” by Ralph Waldo Emerson; Triumph May Be of Several Kinds by Emily Dickinson or In Praise of Pain by Heather McHugh.

8.) Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft said “Poetry is akin to ‘that force created within us that seeks out the unimaginable, that gets us up to solve the impossible.” This sort of inspiration and motivation helps me get up and write yet another blog post, social media post, thank you note… every day – to tune into the creative life force that creates poetry as well as a note to someone who is grieving.

9.) Discover the pleasure of the sounds of poetry through watching videos of poets such as former California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia (who is also a graduate of Stanford School of Business and worked in the business sector for 15 years before pursuing a literary and academic life. Recognizing really good writing through the voice of Dana Gioia will help you to hear your own writing improve.

Your poetry reading challenge:

I challenge you, even or especially for the skeptics among you, to visit some of the links I am providing here and consider how poetry has the power to help you improve in every single kind of content creation you are attempting.

Reading one poem a day will change your life in an infinite number of ways.

Reading (or listening to) one poem today, even if it is the last poem you ever read, will impact you as well. 

I am grateful you are even considering it. Thank you so much for reading this far.

Poetry Resources, including references from this article:

From The Poetry Foundation:
Poems to Read When You Get Stuffed in a Gym Locker (success and anti-success poems):

Success Poem list frpm DiscoverPoetry.com

Dana Gioia YouTube Channel Playlist of Poetry Recitation. His voice and delivery are incredibly enjoyable.:

Fast Company Article about CEO’s and Poetry:

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

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

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







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How to Create Content from Livestream Video + Writing Prompts

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Woman at desk, appearing to be considering a problem or solution - and aiming to have a more satisfying work, life and content creation experience.
Writing and Journaling Prompts plus video are below to guide you.

Two questions before we begin: allow them to circle around outside of your direct thought process as you read the rest of this post.

Begin with intentional questions: in this case, for livestream and written content, explore appropriate questions:

What does satisfaction look like to you?

What does the fulfillment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure of any of these feel like for you?

Yesterday I hosted a livestream – a common experience for me on Sunday afternoons – with the primary intention of starting the week with journaling and planning according to what is discovered during that journaling session. Yesterday we chatted about three primary areas in the prompt:

Satisfaction, passion and purpose. 

Why go live? With a basic outline (quasi-unscripted) and speaking freely, it is a form of “rough drafting” and when people are present, it has an element of market research.

Going live on Sunday afternoons is something I enjoy. I know going live and encouraging people  will provide value for them and has the possibility to make their lives better simply by following through with the writing from the prompts, especially when they take the wisdom they discover and apply it to their everyday lives. 

Here’s a recording of yesterday’s livestream which you may watch now – almost live – or come back later to watch and glean insight before writing from the prompts.

This morning – the day after I recorded the livestream, I used free flow writing to explore further: 

Free Flow Writing from the Prompts – even writing incoherently to anyone except for you – may be life changing.

This is what I wrote: Staying in satisfaction is a joy and a process and yet I know I cut myself off from it regularly, like I turn away from good people or possibilities because of my less than or other than reflex.

I am such an expert in turning from what is good and right and special about myself – so instead, I am stepping into this new space of satisfaction by recognizing the YES, instead!

When have I felt satisfied lately? Today?

Yesterday, I noticed the daffodils in front of the house. That was so sweet. They are gorgeous, so gorgeous and I want a photo with them. I will do that today if the light stays as nice and not so cloudy or overcast. The sky here is so beautiful, when I gaze at it the “what might be seen as wrong” evaporates.

Today I am wearing makeup.

Yesterday Julianne (note to reader: I consider Julianne to be my highest self. I use her as a writing companion and often address her by name in my “role over and write journal. I know, it is quirky and… I am quirky so… continuing now unedited) whispered something like “Let’s wear makeup for a few days and see what happens.” So I got up and put on makeup and curled my hair the tiniest bit and by goodness and gracious I feel happy about it and am smiling at my own face, thank you James Taylor.

This is one way satisfaction is experienced.

Satisfaction I have experienced is also deep breaths and writing these words while listening to classical music.

Satisfaction is walking in new places, trails, fun sidewalks. I realize I want to go walk in Glen Ridge simply for the joy. Retrace my steps. That would be so fun and perhaps slightly surreal. People who move away and come back or don’t come back…. I am looking at the walls in here thinking “What to change to, what to stay the same?” and realize, thinking of these things is satisfying and taking action surely brings an increased satisfaction.

Satisfaction is staying in focus.

Satisfaction is also  giggling when I don’t stay on focus

Satisfaction is sometimes engaging with another human on focus mate and knowing I am better when I am connected, first with myself and then with other people. 

Satisfaction is actually USING my planner 🙂

Satisfaction is the morning life in my home office.

Satisfaction is a tea cup from Czechoslovakia. Contrast is hearing the news out of Hungary… I didn’t realize they have become a “pro-autocracy state” which makes me sad. Satisfaction in response is breathing love to the people of Hungary. I realize some people will not understand what “breathing love” means and some people will get angry about my use of pro-autocracy and I am claiming satisfaction for speaking what I believe and accepting the consequences of doing so.

It is so satisfying to breathe deeply into my own heart, and breathe out love, multiplied exponentially. 

This is what satisfaction sometimes looks and feels like.

After we free flow write and after we live stream, we may continue to feel happy simply for taking action and allowing the action itself to bring us into the intended state.

I am sitting at my desk, smiling. I am in yet another focus mate session where my partner has the same name as someone I love. I wonder if they can see me smiling with a big dopey contented look on my face? They’re probably looking at their own work on their own screen and either way, in taking the time to write about satisfaction – I feel better than I have all morning and it has been a marvelous morning so this says a lot.

These tools are simple, practical and enjoyable.

Let’s go back to our original questions that you may now use as free flow writing prompts as well – if not now, perhaps later today.

Your writing prompts for reflection and action:

What does satisfaction look like to you?

What does the fulfillment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure of any of these feel like for you?

To get a reminder of this session on Facebook, please visit https://www.facebook.com/JJSWritingCamp/videos/4750013225125157

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

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

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

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Another April: To Become Whatever It Will Be

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This is me: March, 2022

It is April Eve and again, I am valiantly sitting at the keyboard to write. I pledge right now to do my best to publish a blog post daily in this, the most historically deadly month of my life. April.

I have spent the better part of the last half hour dissecting blog posts from April, 2007 here I captured early grief after my brother, John’s death on April 2 of that year.

I captured a poem my then nine-year-old daughter wrote, a phone call from my mother, an email from my father.

This is why I write, why I blog, why I share what feels painful and what feels joyful and even, on occasion, what is downright boring because all of it is the bold and valiant proclamation, “I am alive, still.”

It is April, another good month to be alive: quote on pen and paper, and a dyed book page.

I cannot say exactly what I will create this month, I will only say that I will create this month. Here is a snippet of the poem I wrote just now, a draft, a poem-in-the-making. Love letter of sorts to life, to grief, to experience. To continuing in April.

It is April Eve. My heart and I, we

are fluttering. We are flailing. We

are openly and willfully gripping the 

sides of the armchair, praying – begging –

to see this through to the end.

Whatever this this may be.

I so wanted this poem to have a happy ending.

I wrote this poem to feel less dead inside, to begin and not end.

No ending, no beginning. Wait.

Wait.

Who said that  only infinite thing?

Fellini, it was. And I hear myself exhale a quiet laugh not laughter

Maybe a lau – breath – gh- breath.

I cry into the palms of my hands and feel the chilled fingers

reach across my lined forehead.

What is a happier ending than to still being able

to put letters on a page, like a five-year-old-me 

scrawled cursive lower case e’s before I knew how language 

worked, I simply knew language was. It existed. I existed. Together.

We would create. This. And That. Something.

Badly, better, happier, boring, worst, best, eeeeeeeee

looping carefully in pencil across blue lines 

Eeeeeee as I sat, deeply focused in the country

squire before I was

Banished to the way back

I never knew

someday a much older version of me

would create a magic circle to honor

my brother and give a gift to my father and my 

mother no one else could give?

It is April Eve. My heart and I, we

are fluttering. We are looping through another

April. We are alive. We are still writing

things down. If I am still alive in fifteen 

years I can recall the things I will have 

Inevitably forgotten this.

===

I hope we will connect meaningfully this month.

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

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

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

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Inspirational Writing, Meditation & Poetry is Right Here & Out Beyond

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A Call to Love Yourself & Others

Sometimes it feels like “Self-Love” is overdone just like sometimes “Self-Care” often falls into a shallow trap of massages and manicures.

Beyond those limiting experiences, there is a depth of beauty you and I may not know yet.

This series “Out Beyond” will blend the richness of poetry, the mindfulness of meditation and the expression of writing and visual art to respond to the ever important call to love others… as yourself.

How often do we forget that this most important guidance not only calls us to love others, we also need to have a true respect and honoring for ourselves before we can understand and apply that same knowing of love for others.

Compassion: Beyond Others and Into Self

“Remember to give yourself grace,” I said yesterday to someone I am working with to have a more satisfying life experience while also living with a chronic illness.

I might as well have been holding up a mirror to my face.

How often do I offer myself undue favor, kindess and offer an outstretched hand of understanding before I leap into negative talk toward myself I would never say to others.

In “Out Beyond” we will explore compassion, too.

Forgiveness: Look Both Outward and Inward, to Self

It is not unusual for people to be great at forgiving others and not so good at forgiving themselves.

I will raise my hand and say “ME!” here because it is something I have been actively working on for quite a while. I recognize how valuable and necessary self-forgiveness and other-forgiveness are during this time of explosive separation, let’s step peacefully into increased forgiveness starting with ourselves.

This experience will take place here, at the Creative Life Midwife, and will writing exercises, videos, inspirational quotes and two five-day writing explorations with prompts and the option to practice and apply what you’re learning through the poetry and meditations.

Rumi wrote, “Out beyond the field of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.” A field of love, compassion and forgiveness will welcome you to explore, discover and add to your creative life in ways you may not even fathom yet.

I look forward to seeing you “Out Beyond” beginning on February 15, 2022

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

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

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

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Do You Feel Your 2022 Word?

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Framework of a home being built and the words "What's Your Word for 2022"?

What’s your word of the year for 2022?

Commemorating each new year by naming it with a theme or intention is something I have done for years. I can trace it back to at least 2009 and every year since then I have boldly declared an overarching theme to frame the new year.

Last year I declared 2021 would be my adventure year, and yes it was. Much of the adventuring wasn’t what I expected and yes, it fit the frame.

In 2020, it was intrepid and yes, I needed to claim that over and over again as we floundered in the early pandemic and continued into social unrest.

This year, I have a fiercely gentle word to frame both what I do and who I am.

I am claiming 2022 to be framed with presence. 

What is framing your 2022?

Feeling (20)22 borrowing from Taylor Swift
Borrowing from Taylor Swift

Presence as experienced in being mindful, deliberate, focused, aware.

Present in action through making choices that are aligned with purpose, passion and taking the greater good for my fellow humans into consideration as well.

Presence as in acknowledging the depth of feelings and how they may, at times, overwhelm – and right the wobbly while riding the waves and curves and the messes that will show up.

Presence as in forgiveness, compassion, joy, humility, gleeful laughter.

Definitely, 2022 calls for my most present heart to be engaged.

If you don’t have a word yet, here’s help right now!

If you don’t have a word as of yet, part of the Vlogmas celebration I put together on my YouTube channel included a free guide to take you through a process – or at least offer some direction to recognize and claim your word, even giving permission for you to explore before definitely saying THIS IS IT!

To Download Your Word of the year Planner, visit here. I’m so grateful to be celebrating Vlogmas with you!

This is Julie JordanScott Jordan Scott in Bakersfield, California.

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

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

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

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