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.
