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Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Mark Twain Made Me Do This!

January 31, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

This is all Mark Twain’s fault. Mark Twain, the alter ego for  Samuel Clemens, as in the man who was a humorist and once a journalist and has created many well-known characters like Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher, as in the man portrayed in countless one-person shows often played in middle schools across the US.

Mark Twain is the one who reportedly said, “The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.”

How do I bring this up, the question I most want to ask you?

I realize I ought to try bringing it up like I bring up many things – by asking questions and telling stories and offering you some prompts to write, journal and make things – like conversations and photos and paintings, for a few possibilities.

How do you know when you are comfortable with yourself?

At first I was thinking like this: I am not comfortable with myself when I want to ask you (or anyone, actually) something that feels uncomfortable to ask and if you are to respond, “What do you mean by that, Julie?” I am not sure I could give you a decent answer on this one.

Maybe I will forget this idea for a blog post and go along my merry little way and no one will know I even thought about writing it.

Then I remember I am at the tail end of a blog challenge which is something like a promise – and I missed posting on another day this week and after that, I forgot to add my title before I posted which is close to not posting at all so what I will do is just take a deep breath and ask you a question I don’t know how to answer myself.

Then I realized the problem I had was in this precise moment I am much more equipped to answer “how do I know when I am not comfortable with myself?” like right now, as an example.

I thought of writing right away but then I looked at the clock and realized I needed to pick up my daughter from her class so I stepped away and my mind started working on this concept again.

Here is your prompt, to write along with me – be sure to put your writing in a two to five minute container and end your writing with gratitude.

  1. I am not comfortable with myself when….

And now me (my turn to write)…. I am not comfortable with myself when I am smothered by fear, whether or not it is rational. This happens when I am stuck under the rock of history, the big pile of mind clutter and argument I built for far too long because I believed the “less than” and negativity other people have shoveled and I have agreed to by staying on the ground, limp and sad and lonely.

I am not comfortable with myself when I bump into people I am in a broken relationship with, someone who I believe doesn’t like me or has hurt me in the past.

I am not.. and the timer went off!

And now you… write it, now…..I am not comfortable with myself when

2. Second prompt….I felt the most comfortable with myself when I….(and now, I write) I felt the most comfortable with myself when I had the feeling of being successful, when I knew I was where I was meant to be. When I facilitate workshops and see people making discoveries they wouldn’t have made if we hadn’t joined together: that’s one example. On stage, I have felt it both in plays but also poetry performances – especially improv style poetry performance. Deep conversations does this, singing does this – being in a meditative sort of space I feel so comfortable in my own skin.

When people see me and hear me and love me anyway, I feel so comfortable in myself, with myself and with whomever I am with – whoever has blessed me with their presence.

Timer – went off.

And now you…. write it, now….I felt the most comfortable with myself when I….

Take time to write in response to these prompts. If not now, copy them into your journal or notebook or a document on your computer and give yourself the gift of time to respond. Blame it on Mark Twain if it makes you feel better: writer of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and my favorite, the lesser known Pudd’nhead Wilson.

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Filed Under: Creative Life Coaching, Intention/Connection, Intention/Connection, Self Care, Writing Prompt Tagged With: Eradicate Loneliness, Loneliness, Mark Twain, Mark Twain quotes

Hello? The is Universe Calling –

January 24, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Sometimes the Universe seems to send me assignments and without warning, the compulsion to dive in takes over my mind and heart. It seems to be without choice! There I am – fascinated by facts or happenstance or a new hobby or person or learning a new skill.

I can’t remember how this one started, but I was working on a speech for Toastmasters when a headline about “the Loneliness Epidemic” caught my eye and all of a sudden it became my primary hook for my speech.

Today I decided to follow up on that speech because I decided my next speech would be on the same topic with additional visuals using power point in my presentation.  I searched my computer for notes and found absolutely nothing.

That’s when I remembered sitting in my car, scribbling out an outline in the last fifteen minutes before the meeting started. I was going through a rebellious phase in my Toastmasters experience because the last speech I spent a lot of time preparing was the most difficult I had done to date and the feedback I got from it was filled with negativity and some deeply cutting critique, not constructive at all but like slashes on my raw heart.

I decided I wouldn’t invest so much in my speeches in the future, “It isn’t worth the pain,” I thought.

I remember when I spoke, I got my outline mixed up and had to do what I had planned to do in the beginning at the end. I felt like I repeated myself but apparently on that day repetition was an effective strategy. Most importantly, I managed to remember the statistics on loneliness.

Here is some of what I said:

Scientific American reports 60% of Americans experience loneliness on a regular basis.

Americans are lonely in boardrooms, classrooms, restaurants, movie theaters: everywhere, people are lonely – even when surrounded by others.

Loneliness is one of those “untalkaboutables” people don’t bring up. Your shutting down may have looked like my shutting down when I told my closest friend I was feeling painfully lonely, but she didn’t understand. She believed that since I had children and a handful of friends I do activities with, it was impossible to be lonely.

She lobbed a healthy dose of shame in response to my confession.

I think I gave my original speech some time in November, close to two months ago. It has taken all this time for me to respond with a hearty “hell, yes” to the Universe.

My call is to work toward eradicating loneliness. My task is to continue the conversation, no matter how scary it is or how vulnerable I become in bringing it up.

I was surprised to find this poem on my old blog yesterday, a poem I don’t remember writing but still sounds much like the me-of-recently.

 the only

real she knows is

loneliness

it would surprise

some to know. Some

like that

one friend who

was startled she

felt left out

and hurt and discouraged

arriving to an event

where the others had

gathered. perfectly content

without her.

so what is real?

her statement

“my feelings are

hurt. I’ll get over it.

I always do. for now

I prefer to sit here

alone.” again. as in

the other times.

she could trust

loneliness. even

find contentment

in loneliness.

unchanging. predictable.

Today isn’t the day for chirpy tips on how to not be lonely.

It is a day, instead, for contemplative reflection.

Take this prompts as a way to remember both loneliness and connection.

Tune into loneliness as a way to know it more clearly from a space of love.

Tune into connection so you may invite increased connection into your life experience and multiply connection out with and beside others.

Prompt: I remember feeling lonely, back when….(re-create a moment of loneliness in written, spoken (into your video camera) or in a piece of expressive visual art).

Prompt: I remember deep connection in the moment I.….(re-create a moment of deep connection in written, spoken (into your video camera) or in a piece of expressive visual art).

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Filed Under: Creative Adventures, Poetry, Rewriting the Narrative, Storytelling, Writing Prompt Tagged With: Eradicate Loneliness, Loneliness, Toastmasters

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