Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

My First Renaissance & Making My Way Back to Believing In Happy Endings

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I would rather feel a lot than be numb.

I know numb. I don’t like numb. It is like being asleep – eyes half open, heart shuttered, laughter muffled.

I lived this way for far too long: back when I believed in sacrificing all my hopes and dreams (except for conventional, acceptable ones.) For some people this was an agreeable Julie.

For me, It was like a slow churning road to a very sleepy life.

I notice my hands leave the keyboard.

I don’t like writing about that time – I don’t like remembering that time. A big part of me doesn’t remember many specifics from back then.

I remember bits and pieces like when I broke my arm the day I took my first roller skating lesson. I was 37. I wanted to be sure my children knew how to skate because there were lots of birthday parties back then at skating rinks and I didn’t want them to be the only children who couldn’t skate.

I was in a bright pink cast for a few weeks and as soon as it came off, I was back at the skating rink. I never got good, but I did actually skate backwards (on purpose) once and I learned to fall so I wouldn’t break anything.

I remember going to Open Mic night. Actually, that was later.

I remember the first time I bumped into the man who told me my assault wasn’t an assault, it was a miscommunication. He laughed at one of my pieces at Open Mic I didn’t realize was funny. I was just being me and yes, that is sort of funny. That was at Open Mic my first time and I was reading from my first ever ebook, a memoir called Don’t Let It Take Two Death Threats published back in 1999.

This was when I was coming out of my sleepy fog.

My first renaissance. I actually read How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci and back then I still believed in cliché versions of happy endings.

I don’t see that as a bad thing, actually. There are times I wish I still did believe in happy endings.

I need to write on that, actually, because I may still believe in them… just need a tussle or two to get my Santa Hat on straight. I still believe in him after all….. and the timer sounds saying “Time to pick up Samuel from swimming!”

(I would love to hear your insights on happy endings. Please leave me a comment if you have something to share.)

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

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

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

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Hello, February!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I pause as I write because that feels so paradoxical.

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

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

With Passionate Gratitude and Radical Grace in Abundance,
Julie

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

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

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

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

 

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The Journey to Passionate Detachment is the Road to Healing

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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…

The college-aged me loved getting assigned mammoth research papers. I am such a nerd I wrote my first research paper in the fifth grade. Thirty-five pages on the plight of the migrant worker. No accident I live in the county where Caesar Chavez got his start. Those thirty-five pages included 37 different references which I gleefully compiled on index cards which I joyfully attached to a carefully crafted outline.

I loved watching other students race to get their assignments in when mine were consistently done well before the due date, no crunch necessary.

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?

I can easily look back and point to “stuff” that happened that made me not want to go the finish line because of painful associations.

The first notable case of this is the Birth/Death of my long awaited first child, Marlena.

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.

There is the reality of two of my children’s education where schools failed them, repeatedly, in more ways than I need to document here (and would happily do so privately for those who may have similar circumstances).

For someone with serious abandonment issues, feeling left out or different from the mythical “most people” may create a downward sloping day, week or months or more.

Let’s face it, most people are excited about pregnancy and delivery and I, instead, almost always have death hovering as a very real known-to-me  option.

Most people look to new employment as an exciting opportunity for growth and I look to it as if the unexpected associations with work may cause my death – no matter how irrational this may seem, my brain serves up this fear when I think about getting a “conventional” sort of job.

I know some Moms who break out the bloody Mary mix and Margaritas on the first day of school. Me? I am more likely to don combat boots and camo, waiting for the inevitable crisis call.

This very real scenario happened last week:

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.

“Ohhhh, no… the school called, the school called… what happened what happened what happened? Did he get bullied? Did a teacher humiliate him? Did he have a breakdown or a meltdown or was he sexually molested (and blamed for not coming straight back to class) or was he urinated on by a peer?   Do I need to rush over there and pick up the pieces?”

Here’s the thing. All of these things have actually happened on school campuses to my children.

The voice mail landed in my email box and here is a reasonable version of what I heard: “Hello, Parents. We are calling to inform you at 8:40 we were called by the Sheriff’s Department notifying us there was a man on the adjacent street to us carrying a rifle so we immediately went on lockdown.”

My response? “Oh thank God, it was just a man walking near the school with a rifle.”

I have told this story to other special-ed parents and the story brings nodding and understanding and yes, the occasional laugh or two or three.

My beginnings haven’t been met with excitement because the journey turned from gleeful excitement about the what’s next to dismay and horror about what might come next and then, so it seemed, the “rightness” of the mess that came next.

Now, the-me-I-am now – has a whole lovely decade (and more) of narrative to rewrite.

Old narrative: “The experiences and starting lines other people celebrate with hopeful expectation, I need to be wary about because I don’t think I can stand anymore pain in my life.”

New narrative (First draft, will continue to tweak). In any life process, there are possibilities for deep pleasure and satisfaction and there are possibilities for loss. This is true for everything. My choice today is to do the work and experience the profound joy I was meant to do here to benefit humanity and experience mindful creative abundance every day. My choice is to have my eyes wide open and to keep moving forward, onward and upward with loving, passionate detachment.

If you would like to work towards rewriting your narrative in order to have a more truthful foundation to build your life upon, I would love to work with you to do that. Contact me at the number below —

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

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

 

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

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

Yes, this is a start.

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

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

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

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

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

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

Virginia Woolf

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

We want to go where we are praised and adored!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We may risk losing friendships.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Stop Taking Action Towards OTHER peoples Goals: Focus on YOUR Dreams Now

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Is this action moving me toward my goal?

This is the question that is guiding my “in the moment, going to get this stuff done” reprisal Passion Activator Friday, a regular activity I used to do when my website and personal development business was humming along in a pleasantly sustainable way.

Is this action moving me toward my goal?

Not someone else’s goal, vision or dream but MINE.

In December I created a wheel of life which broke down my overall life vision into 8 categories. I continue to review those and when I ask the question, I can easily scan my categories and see how that action fits in such as:

Is this action making me healthier?

Is this action engaging me in creating more abundant financial sustainability?

Is this action helping make my family stronger?

There are 5 other categories I can quickly scan and see if it fits or not. Today, if it doesn’t fit, it is off my list. If there is any hesitation it is off my “now” list and onto “later if I have extra time” list.

With that, I will move to my next thing, which is taking a water-and-walkabout intensive time and prepping for about 30 minutes of intense marketing focus work.

Are these actions moving me toward my goal?

Why yes, beloveds, these actions are! What about you?

Tell me how your next actions are moving you towards your goals. If your current actions and plans are NOT empowering you to reach YOUR goals and dreams, please let me know because I’ve been where you are and I have tools to help. After all, this was written because I noticed for a couple days I was other-centered constantly instead of my dreams and goals centered.

In a moment, that changed by asking the simple question and found support for my continued process.

Let’s support you now, too.

Is your next action going to move you toward your goal?

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

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

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3 Simple Steps to Knowing What You Believe & How to Achieve Extraordinary Results

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I sat down this morning to write for five minutes. I literally rolled out of bed thinking about the power of rewriting my narrative (after being horrified about rewriting my narrative publicly) and I thought about how to dig deeply into what is actually going on in the day-to-day narrative when I am feeling good and strong and in alignment -rather than triggered.

I had a prompt that was totally simple and yet left me totally stumped because I didn’t want it to be a cliche, I didn’t want it to be a bunch of trite phrases or posters hanging in the hallways of junior high schools.

I don’t know if I succeeded, but I know I went on a journey during my five minute writing that I could not have entered without this prompt – and without sleeping on it and waking up and writing soon after I got out of bed.

(On the way to writing, by the way, I plunged the toilet, cleaned up a mess or two made overnight and made a pot of coffee.)

To discover your beliefs and how they shape your world, follow these simple steps:

  1. Write for 5 minutes a day to simple writing prompts.
  2. Before you go to sleep, review what you wrote when you first woke up as you do an overall review of your day mentally and create a brief t0-do (or I call it a possibility) list.
  3. Repeat, preferably in community so that your transformation may be witnessed by people who believe in your newly rewritten narrative and may support you as you set out to create and live your life accordingly.

Here is the prompt and my response and I wanted also to offer a dare to you to write for your five minutes as well. Your “I believe” may be completely different than mine. Whatever you write is absolutely perfect. There are no rights and no wrongs here and I never ever ever expect other people’s beliefs to match mine. That would make for a very dull, uninteresting world.

I believe…love is the question and the answer. I believe the path isn’t paved with good solely good intentions like the common perception may believe, I believe the path is a playground for practice between love, fear and apathy. Love, hate and uncaring.

I don’t believe the opposite of love is hate or fear, I believe the opposite of love is apathy.

The road is paved with love taking form.

The road is paved with our actions which are most fruitful when they begin with the love question and are completed (if there is truly such a thing beyond momentary satisfaction – I have to sit with whether I believe in that whole finality rather than infinite loop de loop later.)

Our actions, projects, plans are the most productive, the most abundant and feel the best when we ask the question with love as the coating, the primary content and is filled with our breath of love inviting your breath of love to join the game.

I believe love is both the question and the answer and I believe that together, we will continue to make things better and better for now and the furute when we bring ourselves to make that belief into something whether it be word on a page or a photo in the book or a business that employs people or a song we sing on street corners or a meal we create to feed whoever happens to be hungry.

Love is the question and the answer.

And when the timer went off, I felt like a few more words would add value for you so I wrote –

So for you, love personified, reading these words, how will you take this reality and create something from it?

Perhaps this one and only day with this date upon it will be your first creation.

Perhaps you will write a thank you note in five minutes, free flow, #5for5BrainDump style like this one was.

Perhaps you will invent something or make a new life or be thoughtful by speaking up for someone (perhaps that someone is yourself) or maybe you will incognito take a task off another person’s overworked schedule.

You, after all, are love. Be the answer. Live the question. Report back what you find in your world. If you would like individual guidance, my phone number is listed below. Text me or call me and we can set a time for a transformational conversation.

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

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

 

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Now Begin Again: How to Find Success Through Rewriting Your Life Narrative

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One of my weaknesses is borne from one of my strengths.

I create so vigorously and so often I forget what I write – and in so doing I lose a lot of the depth that seeks to be birthed.

A little less than a month ago I decided I wanted to work on rewriting my life narrative. I wanted to intentionally rework some of the messages I believed from my past in order to create a present and future that is more aligned with who I am, more aligned with my core beliefs.

Ultimately, I sought to merge my core beliefs with my unique gifts and talents to create a body of work – in this case a life and a sustainable income – that matters to myself and to others in the world as well.

While flowing in some areas, I felt hopelessly blocked in others. Reworking my narrative vigorously and openly seemed to be the best path.

I started along the journey and almost quickly as I started I stopped.

It wasn’t a big. dramatic stop with brake marks from my tires left on the road, it was just quietly not continuing because… perhaps the coffee finished brewing or a child made a request or I got a notification from Instagram or who knows what but I got distracted.

Note: this is a common practice, too, right on the verge of breakthrough I have a tendency to veer off course. I know this about myself. It doesn’t mean I always act accordingly in response.

The rest of this brief chapter I’m writing will right that practice. It is interesting to note in re-reading what I just started to edit and mold less than five days ago  I can’t recognize when it is is the seven-years-ago me “speaking” and when it is the just several days ago me “speaking”.

Today, I realize that isn’t the part of the story that matters.

I also realize this preface is taking on a life of its own which isn’t necessarily fruitful, another way block shows up. Let’s get to it.

Let’s explore the originating story now.

On this path to rewriting a damaging narrative, I have been reviewing content from the past and fusing those stories with the light of what I now know to be true.

This morning I read a seven-year-old blog post wherein I wished about having and themes of grace (a topic of exploration scheduled this week) and the be-do-have coaching formula which popped into my head and thoughts last night as I drove. I had no recollection of the relationship of “I wish” with “Be-do-have” – the seven-years-ago me is once again reminding me how smart I was and am.

The final synchronicity was in the opening paragraph. It overflowed with woundedness – both writing wounds and be-ing wounds: when people who matter to you reflect your being is somehow not good enough or is otherwise ugly or unwanted. Read now from 2010:

 “As I prepare to write my Wishcasting entry, I can’t help but hear a chorus of voices from my past, intoning slight variations along the theme of “You just can’t do anything in a small way, can you?”

In my mind’s eye  the “small way” tended to include either a facial or a vocal jeer or both and I always ended up feeling somehow less than even if I had accomplished something unique, visionary or just more out there than most people are comfortable with, but the jeers left a lasting scar on my psyche. That scarred kid doesn’t want to post my wish, doesn’t want to admit the lengthy process I took to getting to my wish because other people who made wishes  simply dove right sharing their wishes without risking life, limb or burning down your homes.

My end-of-2017 self reappears writing:

I wish to have a sense of peace that comes from abundance, from prosperity of the tangible kind – like my wish to have cash flow in and out, out and in, from multiple sources. My specific wish for a long, long time has been $25,000 dollars in and out, out and in, coming in from purchases of my products and services, flowing out to invest in making the world a better place and continually, infinitely repeating this joyful, deliberate practice.

I smile into that thought, feeling my fingers as they continue to tap even after I almost stopped – my limiting beliefs were about to hijack my fingers so instead I will intone.

I wish, I wish, I wish and I willfully intentionally lovingly agree to take action toward this image of actively manifesting and taking steps toward this wish coming to fruition. Further, I will continually, infinitely repeat this joyful, deliberate practice.

I will trust this process.

I wish to have the sense of peace that arrives on the wings of plenty and extends beyond one’s heart. I wish to move beyond an illusion and concept into reality. The birds begin to sing out my window. My heart smiles as my fingers continue to type.

I will wish in a big way because I am a big, larger than life persona. This isn’t a bad thing to be hidden, this is a fun, festive reality. Nowhere did “offensively large and loud” pop into this writing. Those people who jeer when they spoke to me of disdain were actually reflecting their own jeers at themselves, not at me or my hopes and dreams and plans. Whoever these people were – they live only in my past and may not harm or influence me now.

I wish to feel satisfied and content with the progress I make as I take action willfully toward this wish coming to fruition. This hunger I feel in my belly is the delightful recognition of alignment.

And today, Sunday, December 17, 2017 I will devote myself to repeating the key points of this chapter of my life narrative:

I trust abundance flows in the space where value is received from taking aligned, intentional loving action using my unique gifts and talents. My scars and wounds are part of the curvy road map to my most satisfying here, now and future. I trust my process, I trust in my resilience, I trust in the collaborative process of restoration and in rewriting this narrative I reclaim and rebirth my Self.

(And I can even laugh at the desire to say “This is a draft and I claim the right to continue to draft as necessary.)

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!

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

 

 

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Words: Are Healing. Are Light. Consciously Offered, are Love in Form. Use with Care.

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“Every kind of creative work demands solitude, and being alone, constructively alone, is a prerequisite for every phase of the creative process.”

Barbara Powell

I remember when Katherine was in pre-school and we had our first parent-teacher conference. It was her pre-K year and I felt like this was a HUGE thing and ran the risk of discovering what a rotten parent I obviously was.

It was none of that. She was doing great, was reading a bit and such a delight to the entire campus. (Some things don’t change, even more than twenty years later.)

I remember five years ago when I went to my primary care doctor to have a spot on my face tested I was sure was nothing. It was something. A week later I was called by the dermatologist I had been referred to. I was standing in the office at Samuel’s school when the call came. It was melanoma. Katherine was about to return to school at Smith College and wouldn’t be around for the surgery. Samuel had started 6th grade, Emma 10th grade.

I had surgery and received a lovely reminder of my cancer via the scar on my face. I spent time creating art and writing about it. There is a link to a post on my old blog about it I can’t even remember writing but in retrospect had some insightful, caring writing that deserves to be read again.

Five years later I have not had a return to melanoma but I do sport a fancy heart shaped scar on my face, I have had basal cell carcinoma removed from my back and actinic keratosis led to facial lotion chemotherapy and just this morning I learned I need another round of facial lotion chemotherapy.

This time the actinic keratosis had spread more, so she froze the four spots where it had popped up and sent me off with a prescription.

My skin still stings from the freezing process and I am not quite ready to be my cheerful, upbeat, face the world squarely with confidence self. I do feel compelled to meet the world with passion – after I take a moment to reflect and be alone for a few hours.

Probably the moment I will remember the most from this morning was my dermatologist noticing I was not my usual ebullient self. I was having a challenging time not crying – I have been straddling the line between being so-so and falling into a funk again – and she gently asked if I was ok, if I wanted to talk to her about what was going on – if it was something she might help me with.

My responses were head shakes, couldn’t quite speak yet, and I felt cared for by her even on a morning I knew she was extra busy.

That felt nurturing and good.

Maybe I should have asked for a gift certificate to a luxury hotel and a house cleaning service for a month so during the chemo treatments I wouldn’t have to worry about housework? J

The simple act of writing about it is making me feel refreshed a bit. I was able to dress my bitmoji in a cute holiday outfit. I watched some of my live streaming friends do their thing. I am now looking at “how to draw a bridge” instructions.

I am not falling into a black hole, I am stepping into the light at my pace. It is slow but not too slow.

I’m starting to look forward to the stories I will collect and tell about today in the future.

I found a stirring blog post from five years ago I really enjoyed discovering from when I had a diagnoses that included melanoma.

Here it is:

“Words. They can do for the heart what light can for a field.”

Juan de la Cruz

Words have always been my anchor art. I can always return to them. They always wait for me to show up. And the rest of the world? Is waiting for them.

So here I am, offering my words up – sure that for someone out there this is exactly what they needed to hear. For that, I am grateful.

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

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

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You or Someone You Know Needs to Read This: Forgiveness & Reconciliation

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2009:

I wrote about having a falling out with a friend and finding my way back to forgiveness.

In forgiveness, we find the pain of the shattered glass is remembered by the scars it leaves, but the strength gained from those scars makes them both worth the pain and strikingly beautiful as well.

2017:

I write about having a falling out with myself and finding my way back to understanding.

It is the 5 am hour and I am writing. I lit a candle, the coffee is brewing it is quiet except for my fingers tapping and the heater making the room comfortable for me. A soft pink blanket is covering my feet. This feels almost idyllic.

Next week at this time there will be a Christmas tree in front of me.

Fifteen minutes ago I discovered the toilet had overflowed sometime after I went to sleep and this morning I plunged it, matter-of-factly, when I noticed the hem of my pants and warm socks were inexplicably saturated in water.

Not idyllic.

This week the Christmas tree isn’t in its spot and I wonder why I feel content and satisfied. Aren’t things supposed to be perfect, like an Instagram photo of the clutter free living room, everything in enviable feng shui order, cookie cutter offspring leading successful satisfied lives and me with a huge bank account, an adoring partner and a vast array of assorted friends who unwaveringly support every choice I make with a chorus of hurrahs?

That would be satisfaction of a slightly different sort. Perhaps that is a goal for six months from now.

Progress is the new perfection.

Julie Jordan Scott is enjoying writing without her glasses on so she can barely make out what the words say as she writes. She has been revisiting her past writings in order to gain perspective and to learn from the wise one who once wrote from these very same fingers yet have been forgotten, somehow, even in the words’ inherent value.

Interested in working with Julie? Getting to know her? Use the social media links on the side here or text her at 661.444.2735. its the most direct method of contact. She loves hearing from you, even when it feels awkward to write in the expected third person.

 

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Where Has Your Journey Taken You – Artist, Entrepreneur, Human? Let’s Explore Together –

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I tried something different today with my five minute writing free writing/brain dumping time. I took an essay I wrote ten years ago and had a conversation with my past self.

It was the closest thing I can imagine to time travel, witnessing my thoughts in the past and communicating back to myself.

I even quoted myself from ten years ago on twitter and facebook and got responses from dear friends who offered reassurance. So much love abounds: for all versions of me and for all versions of you.

Do you wonder what a conversation like this sounds like?

Here it is – me now in bold italics and me then – not bold and not italics.

Collaboration with ten years ago me:

Sometimes I think I pour too much of myself into my art. I get concerned that somehow the dark corners of my being will “pollute” the art itself.
(Just this morning I worked on a mixed media piece and smeared paint across a segment of the work I thought was “just right”. Even as I type here I think “maybe I should go pull some of that paint up, restore what’s underneath. Admit it, self, it did look cool as was and now, as you so often do, you messed it up.

And then I remember the following whisper into my mind-heart. “Trust the process” it told me. I took a deep breath, set the newly smeared canvas aside and walked away. “Trust the process” – don’t intervene anymore and allow someone or something outside yourself to decide what is just right and what isn’t.)

Then there comes a time when I get to purposefully and intentionally explore my artist’s journey, like
I did when I was asked to prepare an artist’s statement for an upcoming art show.

(Note to self: seek submissions to art shows. Trust that process, too, of rejection to rejuvenation and the steps in between.)

Here is what I wrote (back ten years ago).

My artist’s journey has taken significant twists and turns since the first (burn the witch).

I watched myself dive into wordlessness (through  watercolor paint and photos) and trust that
even without my preferred creative medium – words – art is born. Three words encapsulate this year: Loss.
Sacred. Love.

(I didn’t know it at the time but these words became the foundation for the following decade.)

Loss, through absence and broken perceptions and death – awakened a different form of creative
communication. The Sacred invited others into my world of flow, trust, divine guidance and non-judgment. I discovered love cannot always adequately be communicated with words, it must be felt in breath, in energy, in what is conceived when we collaborate.

(Note to self: this paragraph is worth reading daily, maybe several times a day. Your ten years ago self was wise. And by the way? Don’t go into self critique.  – You temporarily forgot this wisdom.

What were we just saying? “Trust the process” even the sliding backwards. The world is waiting for these words of backslides as well as the words of victorious celebrations of insight after insight after insight.)

It is especially joyful when we join hands to experience (metaphoric) creative tandem bungee jumping. I love feeling the wind whip through my hair and the whooping and hollering in my heart as we careen towards the earth and then get swooped back into the loving arms of the Divine.

(Note to self: I was writing about Soul Poetry. It is time to write this again.)

This year that deep, profound, sacred love looped back into loss which bred even more art. This year I picked up a camera, I wrote another play, I allowed myself to step into the darkness and draw the door
closed behind me so that I could learn from this year’s gift.

(This decade-long gift)

Feel the loop now: Sacred. Love. Loss. Art. Love. Sacred. Art.

(Feel the loop now: Sacred. Love. Loss. Art. Love. Sacred. Art.)

Where has your artist’s journey taken you this year?

(Where has your artist’s journey taken you this decade? This life?)

(Where do you want to go next?)

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

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

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