Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

How Morning Writing Practice Helps Calm the Nervous System & Lead a More Effective Life

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Many of us yearn for a sense of calm and centeredness, especially those of us who may be grappling with mental health challenges. A simple yet powerful tool that can transform your mornings and your mindset is a daily writing practice. Often referred to as journaling, this practice offers a sanctuary for your thoughts and emotions, providing clarity and peace amidst the chaos.

Is your curiosity piqued? Is any resistance rising up? Please continue to read – and at least consider how starting a morning writing practice – a journaling practice – may help you to create a more joyful daily experience.

Benefit one: Unlocking Creativity

Morning writing allows you to tap into your creative side without the constraints of daily obligations clouding your mind. Here’s a three-step method to cultivate creativity through writing:

  1. Free Write: Start with a free-writing session for 5-10 minutes. Let your thoughts flow without worrying about grammar or structure.
  2. Prompt Exploration: Use creative prompts to spark ideas. Write about a dream, a memory, or a what-if scenario.
  3. Reflect and Expand: Choose one interesting idea from your free write or prompt exploration and spend another 5 minutes expanding on it.

Benefit two: Building Courage

For those facing mental health challenges, courage can sometimes feel elusive. Writing each morning helps build this courage incrementally. Follow these steps to foster bravery through your practice:

  1. Face Your Fears: Write about a fear or challenge you are facing. Acknowledge it on paper.
  2. Affirmation Writing: Create affirmations that counteract those fears. Write them down and repeat them daily.
  3. Action Plan: Write a small, actionable step you can take to confront your fear today. Reflect on your progress regularly.

Benefit three: Achieving Consistent Completion

Consistency can be particularly challenging for individuals with mental health issues. A morning writing routine offers a tangible way to experience the satisfaction of completion. Try this three-step method:

  1. Set a Timer: Commit to writing for just 5 minutes each morning. Gradually increase the time as it becomes a habit.
  2. Daily Log: Keep a simple log of your writing sessions. Note the date, time, and a brief summary of what you wrote about.
  3. Weekly Reflection: At the end of each week, read through your entries. Celebrate your consistency and note any patterns or progress.

Simple method to use: The Power of Experimentation

Understandably, the idea of adding another task to your morning routine might feel overwhelming. However, consider approaching it as an experiment. Follow these steps to ease into the practice:

  1. Start Small: Begin with just 5 minutes of writing. Focus on the process, not the outcome.
  2. Be Flexible: Allow yourself to write about anything—thoughts, feelings, dreams, or even lists. There are no rules.
  3. Review and Adjust: After a week or two, review how you feel about the practice. Adjust the timing, duration, or focus as needed to fit your needs.

Creating a Calmer, Centered Life

Incorporating a morning writing practice into your routine helps create a foundation of calm and centeredness. It provides a safe space to process your thoughts, reducing mental clutter and stress. This ritual may become a grounding force, allowing you to approach each day with greater clarity and intention.

Final Thoughts

If you’re navigating mental health challenges, embracing a morning writing practice might seem like “too much.” Yet, by being open to this experiment, you may discover a powerful tool for fostering creativity, courage, and consistent completion in your life. Start small, stay patient with yourself, and watch how this simple practice transforms your mornings and beyond.

Take the first step today and see how morning writing can become a cherished part of your journey towards a more calm and centered life.

What are you saying YES to in your life 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 has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch exclusive reels, 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 our re-energizing private writing and creative life facebook group.

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Who Is Julie Jordan Scott & What are her July Goals?

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First: I don’t normally talk about myself in third person, but here I am and here we are – and I am incredibly grateful you cared enough to visit this blog post and hopefully let me know what resonated the most with you in my introduction and in my goals.

We’re going to do a 5 + 5 approach: 5 Unconventional Facts About Me and 5 July Goals

Facts, just the facts about me, ma’am by means of introduction:

  1. I am the fourth of six children. My two younger brothers have died so since December of 2021, I have been the youngest child which has been quite strange (at least for me.)
  2. I enjoy doing consistency projects like writing Writing Haiku for 377 Days or Hugging Trees for 377 days. It has been a while since I have taken on a new big consistency project so this month I have a top secret experiment in a shorter term to see if I still get as much joy from these activities.
  3. My middle name is Ann, which I always thought was exceptionally plain and ordinary. I did think for a long time that one of my heroines, Julie Andrews, was actually Julie Ann Drews, so this made my middle name much less unfortunate.
  4. Rivers, lakes and the ocean are among my natural friends. In July, I will experience all three.
  5. When I was a child I wrote letters as a hobby. Perhaps as a way to encourage my writing, my parents never complained about the cost of stamps, even though I wrote upwards of 10 letters a week or more.

GOALS for July:

  1. By Mid-Month, send my book to the book designer (finally, not finally, right on time.)
  2. Create a sustainable evening/ pre-bed routine.
  3. Successfully on-board my new virtual assistant.
  4. Participate in Summer Reading Challenge
  5. Maintain a learning goal around writing fiction (I usually write creative non-fiction and poetry but participated in NaNoWriMo again this year and enjoyed it very much)

Who are you and what are your goals for July? What do you resonate with from my two lists?

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Invite Your Buried Dreams to Return to the Open

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A question mark and some faces below the question "Why are you waiting? Invite Your Buried Dreams to Come Into the Open."

“I feel like I’m cheating,” I said to the other women in my mastermind group, “because I’m a performer.”

We were talking about going live on a social media platform: Facebook live, instragram live,

YouTube, LinkedIn or whatever places one may go live. The women were collectively complimenting me but I wasn’t receiving their compliments, I was shaking my head in denial of my gifts.

Maybe it is because I have done live theater for many years now and have been horrible on stage at times and have done some pretty embarrassing and frightening things like making sound effects I certainly wouldn’t want my parents or siblings to hear, wearing a bathing suit on stage – if you know me you would figure why that horrified me.  I also clearly remember what it felt like to be typing away on stage left when the chair I was sitting in broke. 

These are just a few live theater failures I have experienced in front of paying audiences. That doesn’t even begin to say the missed lines,cues or near misses on wardrobe malfunctions. 

What most people now don’t know is there was a thirty year gap in my stage experience. I stopped acting because I was an eleven-year-old with the role of (to that point) lifetime that got rave reviews except for the person I most wanted to impress. 

Thirty years later, I took an acting class not because I wanted to because I was never, ever going to go on stage. Theater and performance weren’t my thing. 

My interest was in improving my voice because of my radio show.

My voice was paramount but the class got canceled. I was offered a chance to take the acting class, instead.

Remember, I never wanted to do theater. My kids did theater, not me.

I had a lightbulb moment. I realized I could take the acting class to practice my voice until the voice class was offered again.

I figured what the hell. Why not?

I was aggravated about playing Improv games. How annoying, I thought. My acting teacher decided to be secretive about it and whispered a scenario to my scene partner,  a teenage girl. 

He looked at me and said, “Your job is to say no to whatever her request is. Keep it as realistic as possible.”

I can follow instructions, even if I had no idea what I was supposed to be saying no to at first.

In less than a minute I discovered I was supposed to say YES to taking my daughter off life support? My acting teacher did not realize he had touched a very deep scar in my spirit.

My scene partner was pushing and pushing and pushing and I was escalating and escalating and escalating. I remember my hands were rising and my shoulder was holding on and holding on and holding on.

At the time, I thought angels had surrounded me whispering, “let go, Julie, you can so this, just let go… drop your hands and let go…”

I took their advice and crashed through the present moment into a transcendent moment. When I came back up for air, I knew the art  I had abandoned thirty years ago wanted me back.

This dream, this love, was buried so deep inside me I wouldn’t allow myself to hear it. 

When I go live, however, that side of me has been known to come roaring back – sometimes because of synchronicity due to the subject matter. Recently on Instagram Live I have been doing improv topics combined with storytelling.

Rather than telling you what happened, I will share the video clip.

I wonder if you have something you do really well that is a sign you have a dream buried inside, asking to be heard and experienced again?

Any inklings?

I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Woman hugging a cartoon tree - white with black polka dots

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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Creative Life Midwife with Julie Jordan Scott Weekly Highlights October 8, 2022

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I have not made it through a month of blogging for several years, so while I was trying again there was a part of me that wondered how far I would get.

Success = Affirming My Abilities after time in a dark tunnel of “not so much.”

I am pleased to say that today is the first day I am doubling up and that is only because yesterday got away with me while I was busily working on other aspects of my business: course creation and networking, primarily. 

My daughter was due early in the evening for an event and she came earlier than expected so…. I missed. This morning, one of my first tasks was completing the missing day and here I am with my Saturday recap, just as I expected to do each week.

Favorite 3 Posts this Week (with Links)

Highlights for me this week include learning how incredible Beatrix Potter is and weaving her story into two blog posts. The Beatrix Potter post about repurposing is a new favorite.

I was also pleasantly surprised by Thursday’s inspirational post. It wrote itself during a daily morning writing practice and has been getting favorable reviews from many readers.

Next Week’s Content Plan

Question for Creativity and Contemplation: How will doing something slightly scary change your life this week? Image is of a door opening behind the question.

The plan for next week includes stepping into a multi-passionate approach because I have discovered over time how helpful it has been to me to explore life through a variety of callings rather than “niche down, niche down, niche down” which I know fits for most people. I have finally concluded staying focused on passion itself is the best for me.

I also plan to write at least two posts that require courage from me. I added this journaling prompt in yesterday’s blog post. It is one I will visit personally. I invite you to do the same if you are having challenges with staying the course over the upcoming days and weeks ahead.

What is your plan for content next week?

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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On Sundays, We Plan the Week Ahead

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It is basic and also easy to overlook: life works better even with the most basic plan.

Planning Basics: Even with a Hectic, Unpredictable Schedule basic planning is grounding and illuminating.

As a creative who is also busily caretaking, it would be easy to toss away any idea of planning and just “go with the flow” or as it often devolves into “go with the chaos” or whatever is the best of the worst possibilities.

This is not inspiring in the least.

This is why it is better to at least have the minimum amount of a plan before your week begins.

Calendar + Appointments + Tasks “To Do” + Practices = Better

On Sunday afternoon, evening or early Monday morning, be sure to gather your calendar, a list of your projects, classes, and to-do’s you are aware of as your week kicks off.

Fill in your calendar with what you know for now. Include any family or friend activities you are expected to attend. If you are unsure what other people’s expectations are for you, now is the time to ask and set the boundaries that fit.

Once those times are filled in, it is time to do some intentional breathing and take time in free flow, meditative writing or journaling to see if there is anything deserving space that has not yet appeared in your plan.

Journal or Free Flow Write to Double Check” and Allow the Unspoken within You Speak

Here’s a reality we often deny or pretend away: within our busy minds racing to get things done, we ignore the wisest part of ourselves. The quiet whispers, the tugs on our intuition, the nudges that are encouraging you to go in a possible different direction.

As you consider the blocks of time filled with appointments, daily basic care activities (hygiene, meal prep, spiritual practice, exercise), tasks and to-do’s, take a moment to journal or free flow write using this question and the sentence starter to tune into those most important aspects of your plan you may have not paid any attention to (yet.)

Revise your plan: It is a leaping off point, not a concrete wall.

One of the ways people resist planning or decide not to plan is based in perfectionism or “all or nothing” thinking. Can you relate to either of those?

Starting Next Week: Suggestions, Coaching & Response to Your Questions

Do you have any questions about how to plan, best practices for planning, planning mindsets or advice around planning? I will incorporate these in upcoming blog posts.

Please comment below or send me an email at juliejordanscott at gmail.comVideo Exploring Trust (which may have kept you from planning in the past.)

Optional Video Exploration/Writing Exercise on TRUST

A blast from the past (2017) a prompt for you to write with – videos will be shared at the end of each blog and are optional for you to use (or not) as a means for you to be inspired to write more or differently or better. This particular theme of TRUST is essential to grow as a writers and leaders.

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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Let’s Get Creative: Write, Journal, Doodle, Jot about Freedom

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This is the weekend we are celebrating freedom in the United States. To ignore our country’s current struggles on this holiday working feels unauthentic – so instead, I invite you to consider how you recognize freedom in your everyday life before making something inspired by freedom.

Use creativity to explore how you have or would like to experience freedom

Open a new document or get our your journal and begin with the sentence starters in the image. Write for at least five minutes freely, stream-of-consciousness style. You may want to get your juices flowing by beginning with a comment below before you leave.

  • Freedom feels like
  • Freedom is….
  • Freedom tastes like
  • Freedom looks like
  • I know freedom when….
  • I am grateful for freedom because…
  • I would describe freedom to an alien by saying….
  • Freedom sounds like
  • Freedom smells like

To further spark your writing and creativity

To further spark your writing, watch this video and use it as a prompt in addition or instead of the freedom prompt.

Please begin your response to the prompts that are offered here in the comments. I would love to hear from you!

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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July: 2022 Begin Again”The Best is Yet to Be”

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I am a relentless optimist, usually. Today as we begin a new month, I am reclaiming my Optimistic Hat as will many of us in the community of bloggers in the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

Ultimate Blog Challenge banner for Fridays which will be recaps and refreshers. Today is all about goals: being and doing goals, intentions and writing goals.

Recap: The Year that Wasn’t

I had some ambitious yet also not too outrageous goals when 2022 started.

Unfortunately, my brother’s death with less than two weeks left to go in 2021 helped start everything off in a rather dark way. Two family deaths in a short time was nearly unbearable.

I didn’t factor in grief as well as the health failures of another family member in which were healing after I left California in February and came to a climax in March – when I returned for three weeks and then in May, when I returned for final stages of that healing only to find his health had slidden beyond the place where it had started getting bad.

It had become a crisis so I had to give up my sabbatical on the east coast for a time not just for standard caregiving but for crisis caregiving. 

Somehow the past me knew I would be best off by setting goals differently this year.

Refresh Intention: Goals of Being + Goals of Doing

CS Lewis Quote: There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." Relax about the year so far and settle into what is next.

Goals of Being are more like the Miss Congeniality winner intentions and goals: engaging, kind but not threatening – more like the one who builds up others confidence rather than setting the bar too high for the average person.

Goals and intentions of doing focus on accomplishments, achievements, tangible, measurable tasks and the like.

I revisited my goals for the year and was thrilled when I realized my crowning glory was in the goals and intentions of being. Here are some examples:

I am consistently 

  • Enjoy the process, whatever the process becomes
  • Be present to what is rather than what was or what is to be in the future.
  • Create small, daily goals and move forward with love toward a desired result
  • Practice clear, soulful communication
  • Do a daily self-belonging check in as a part of my work-prep session (since I have been caregiving and not business building, my work is showing tender loving care to my family member and others providing health care and service to my family member.
  • Playful experimentation and practicing passionate detachment about the results: I continue to write and do writing and creative experiments even while not working on building my business. This is as close to “doing” as these goals are!

Looking into July, I will be returning to my original 2022 goals and updating them on my Friday weekly recap posts here. My hope is I encourage you as well to look at your own goals and intentions as I do – with authenticity, courage and hope.

Caregiving, Grieving and the Creative Life

My professional life work includes creative life coaching, facilitating personal growth programs, classes, courses and workshops. My caregiving life this year has included several members of my family. Health, Grief, Aging, Support.

It is very difficult to schedule classes, clients, speaking engagements and live streams or set goals and intentions around this while grieving or caring for loved ones. I can barely schedule one hour ahead, much less a few weeks or months ahead.

Since April 2021 I have both grieved and taken care of others, simultaneously.

During these months I have continued to be active creatively: I’ve written a short play (it was produced in May and I was able to see it while I was in Bakersfield), I have been in a play in a new community. I have written many blog posts, poetry, completed a 377 daily challenge and while in New Jersey my primary task was working on the completion of several book projects while rebuilding my business. I have participated in other blog challenges and I hope to complete this one.

Since mid-May until now, in early July, the caregiving has taken over all other activities except for writing and creative practices in the early morning moments and late night moments. Most of the time, that is.

I don’t know if I could even attempt the Ultimate Blog Challenge without this continued attention to creativity. I am so grateful for the people who will visit in July and comment, share my work and get to know me better or get reacquainted. 

I’m grateful to celebrate with you in all your best hopes, goals and intentions.

I have come to value friendships on an even higher plane since my father died and the many tumultuous chapters since then. You may have helped me and didn’t even know it. For this and other things, I am grateful you are here, reading.

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.

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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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Lights, Camera, Create Live Content (and have fun doing it!)

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A video or film set: livestreaming isn't this fancy and it has the same energy. The text says Light, Camera. Create Content!

Yesterday I started a live-streaming challenge along with several of my friends from the PeriGirls – a group of women who were pioneers in livestreaming who started going live way back in 2015. When our favorite livestreaming app disappeared, many of us lost the vigor to continue.

One of our members decided she wanted to get her groove back and recognized how much more fun it is to do when there are others out there doing it, too so here I am, livestreaming every day in January.

Beyond the Plan there is…. Action (even if afraid)

I have a plan, I know where I am broadcasting when. I am experienced. I have nothing to be frightened of and yet.

I have to tap that darned red button and go live. Every day. Whether I feel like it or not.

What is good about a challenge like this?

  1. If you are doing it with friends, you are more likely to get it done.
  2. You feel less pain as you rip off the mask of perfectionism because some days you are guaranteed to suck. Or be less great than usual. Or at least I am, maybe some of my cohort are always fabulous. Live-streaming is a great way to cure perfectionism, especially if you stick with it after you’ve fallen flat a couple times.
  3. You remember how to do “old things” more than you know. In case you haven’t ridden a bicycle in a long time, your knees may hurt and you may wobble at first, but it does get easier.

In case you are curious, I am live-streaming about writing, blogging, books and poetry… and people who write and read and lead passionately creative lives.

I would love your support when I live-stream

On Wednesdays I plan to interview people on instagram live (if you’re interested in being interviewed let me know in the comments!) I will turn the lives into videos that will stay on Instagram and become evergreen content.

On Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays I will be going live in the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community and the Writing Camp with JJS Page on Facebook. These are streamed concurrently. Today I wasn’t so great. Tuesday will be fun as we are talking about activating our writing magical wands.

Meanwhile I almost didn’t get this blog post written because I was too busy cleaning, fussing and feeling sad. That’s another thing about this kind of challenge: it helps to keep you focused on what makes you feel good – and live-streaming always makes me feel good even if I don’t do all that well because I know I did something.

Taking a daily risk by going live also stretches the courage and vulnerability muscle.

Today I scooped up the lights, the camera and I am took action – just like I am doing with my blog here, today.

Have you ever live-streamed? What are your thoughts about live-streaming? Share in the comments – I love talking about it, too!

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.

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