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.
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.
spirits – from spite and the ruthful destructiveness of abhorrence on fire.
“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.”
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 and sure, there were aspects of it that were troubling and it is so easy to set those troubling aspects aside when one has been starved of the other constructive aspects for such a long time.
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 
Please pardon my lack of polish in this writing.
The timer goes off, very few words written.
not have confessed this post script. It sounds pitiful and sophomoric.
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 started this series to document the shifts that happen as I seek to rewrite the narrative that shapes my life, especially in relationship to a domino sequence of events from nearly ten years ago that created a wall of sorts I haven’t been able to move through. Revisiting the meaning I add to each vignette empowers me to claim my life experiences and create a door through the wall so that I may come to integrate the bricks into a new mosaic, perhaps into a path back into the light where I used to be most at home. Ironically I’ve been inconsistent with it. My aim now is to raise my level of consistency and share stories and progress (at least) daily.
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!
I would rather feel a lot than be numb.
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!
Hello, February!
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.
The woman sat across from me, smiling – eyes wide and happy. I thought it was miraculous: she looked excited to see me – this she who is my therapist, one who enjoys the Myers-Briggs assessment tool. She was talking about how I show up in the world, personality wise. She was talking about how I am free spirited, don’t like to plan, don’t like the middle or endings of things so I work under pressure… and I remembered, so clearly…
So when did I stop behaving like this and when did I start stuff and then (more often than I will care to admit) fall apart before crossing the finish line?
Then there is the job I had that seemed like such a good fit which ended when my life was threatened twice in two months and then my associates and co-workers all deserted me.
My son’s school called when I was away from my phone. I saw I had just missed it so the voice mail hadn’t yet arrived. I stood there and felt my heart race, a sudden unexpected flashback.
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.”
Here is the first take: a window into process that includes falling (and getting up) and veering more than slightly off course.
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!