Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Habits, Practices & Routines: Conscious Intention Makes the Difference

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woman writes into a notebook looking very happy to see the reader.

What if I told you consistency has the power to cause a dynamic shift in your life – one that will open you up more than any resolution ever has? Let’s try this on for a moment – or maybe I am only one tired of people talking about goals and 2021 as if this new year is going to suddenly cure all of 2020’s problems?

The beginning of the year is a natural time of year for many of us to assess and start fresh, leaving old thoughts and habits behind as the bright shiny new is on the horizon. Are you one of those, like me, who enjoys such assessment?

For years, morning writing consistently as Julia Cameron titles “Morning Pages” prescribes has been an ongoing tool for many for healing and growth. The problem is, Julia Cameron couples morning pages with the unpleasantly long seeming 3 pages of writing. What if your method of consistency was easier – say three lines of writing?

Morning Pages & Early Morning Journaling Causes Positive Shifts

Writing from the stream of consciousness strips away my opinions and thoughts in such a way to discover long held mis-beliefs and shortcomings in awareness.

Notebook, coffee and the candle is what creates the intention for the sacred. Where a writing habit becomes sacred.

I don’t preplan, I just write. This is also a method I teach – and one of the challenges seems to be actually writing with the flow. Many times people get bogged down in high school composition classes and work toward the beginning, middle and ending our one-time language arts teachers suggested.

Today the prompt was “Now is the new beginning” from my longtime friend, Adela. I obviously had some stuff on my mind that wanted to get out.

Sometimes, stream of consciousness (automatic, morning pages, journaling) writing looks like this

“Now is a new beginning and betrayal appears to be an unforgivable, the chopping block is the mind reality I march up to, full of conviction. Put those unforgiveables in the thought guillotine. Watch with glee as I chop off my ____ to spite my ________.

(In special honor of cutting off my pig snout nose in spite of my less pretty than most everyone face.)

“Who cares?” the interior bland girl says as she yawns. Oatmeal colored skin, hair, lips, eyes monochromatic woman I feel like when that mid-afternoon window/door slams all tht I love about me and cuts oatmeal-color-woman, other wise known as Ecru Comma, color evaporated.

Color evaporates. Part of me dies.

Repeat.

Open for the new awareness that comes with each new beginning, each revolution, rising.

Writing Rule Breaks Here: I stepped away to let time do its part in healing

Yesterday I decided my propensity to do better in the morning than in the afternoon and evening is just something about me I have to live with, no questions asked. 

My belief sounded something like this: I am “worthless” after about 4 pm when all color evaporated from my experience and everything turned blah. I felt like sleeping at about 5 pm. I ate dinner in silence and watched the news. I was actually asleep by 8:30 pm.

This morning I woke up before 5 am and didn’t feel like getting up and I knew if I got up and started my daily practices I would feel better. At first I started with my norm – and then I thought, “What if I toss in some modifications?”

I haven’t been doing standard morning pages lately as three pages longhand without breaks was more oppressive than freeing, so I mixed in my skin care, water drinking, dressing, prepping my smoothie, meditation and stretching into my morning pages.

I added some quotes.

I took a writing prompt one of my friends wrote.

The most important a-ha came from my revolt against the norm.

I felt like Dorothy, right before she “returns” to Kansas

I am clearly the one who writes the rules for my daily practices.

I know intuitively that smaller chunks of morning time works best for my overall experience, so modifying what I have been doing with my historical 3 pages all at once helped me gain so much more than if I had forced myself to “power through.”

I also realize the energy drain may be due to not drinking enough water. Even this morning I realize my morning walking nets a lot of water and I taper down during the day.

My belief that I am a morning person may be more about my hydration and daily practices. I am now thinking about how to balance out my practices to other times of day. I do have a night time routine, but late afternoon is… empty. I have been walking on some days of the week but tend to see that as a chore more than a pleasure – so how to morph my belief and practice has the possibility of a growth unlike I’ve had in the past!

Hydration, an increase in conscious intention and no longer allowing other people’s rules or guidelines to hold power over my own intuitive knowing: all of these aspects of what I have been doing (and not doing) are worth exploring.

I feel more freedom now. It is noon and I am about to refill my water glass – and drink it. This afternoon I will meet up with a friend and feel my way into how to make my walks at the end of the day more pleasant so I may create a desire for more instead of a distaste, as if it is a punishment.

Update: it is 6 pm and none of the mid-afternoon malaise came over me.

Is it the intention of this morning’s practice or the plentiful water I have used as refreshment? We will try again tomorrow to get it better.

_ – – _ –_–_–_–_–_–_

I have created a guide to creating your 2021 word of the year. Free download available at this link here –

To JOIN Bridge to the New year, a facebook group where we meet year round as an accountability, creativity community, we also do twice a year deep reflections on our beliefs, progress and experience please visit here

If you are one who would love to find out the magic of consistency in a brand new way, I invite you to check out the One Small Shift program which starts soon. It isn’t just content, it is an experience in self-love with active, short bursts of creative process that will stick – all in a community of people who support your ambitions.

Last year I wrote a three line poem daily, this year I am hugging trees for 377 days in row. I had no idea how enriching this practice would be. Life changing, loving, visionary.

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So Much Better than Constant Drama, Drama, Drama!

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One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is recognizing the extraordinary in ordinary moments.

As I write this I am listening to an audio of rainfall in a library. I am sitrting in my Bakersfield living room “in real time” but I am listening to a recording that makes my heart so happy – and it is completely ordinary.

My coaching clients will often construct a desire or even a perceived need of a life reminiscent of a perpetual retreat experience – which would be very nice and for many of us is simply not where we are every day. Unfortunately, this also sets people up to be pretty miserable most of the time.

How to Discover the Joy in the Ordinary

One of the unusual ways I learned about the joy in the ordinary was through poetry, which many people believe contains a standard context of flowery, difficult to understand, “way above me” language and meaning.

Sunday someone said to me, “I don’t consider this poetry. This is clear and easy to understand writing, it isn’t poetry.”

Why not write about coffee, then, or sunrise?

Some of my best early poems that weren’t overly flowery or angsty were written about coffee. My first poem, in fact, was printed and carried by my love at the time. He enjoyed the poem that much. He may have liked his daily cup of coffee more, but it was a lesson to me that poetry didn’t always have to be about crisis or struggle or ecstatic experience, it can be quite effective when it is everyday and relatable. 

This morning I was chuckling over a poem written more than three hundred years ago by John Dunne. We was writing about sunrise saying, “Busy, old fool, unruly sun.”

He was mad that the sun was shining in his window at an ungodly hour, waking him and creating chaos in his mind. “Busy old fool, unruly sun” is such fun, simple word play it is clear all these years later. Ordinary and extraordinary.

Ordinary: 365 Times a Year, Sunrise Happens

When I wrote my first coffee poem, I hadn’t discovered Billy Collins or Mary Oliver or even William Carlos Williams who wrote so effectively about eating the plums in his refrigerator and realized his wife may have had a different plan for the plums.  (For reference, that poem is “This is Just to Say.”

This reality – that I could write poetry about coffee and an infinite ways to describe the sunrise – was quite a revelation. Poems don’t need to be written about angst or discomfort or romance.

As I wrote this blog post, I found a poem I wrote in 2010.

In the poem, I write of the sun thanking me for taking the time to unwrap her. 365 or 6 times every year she reappears, most often without note. Ordinary and extraordinary all at the same time.

Write Like Jerry Seinfeld: Ordinary worked for him!

Jerry Seinfeld made a career out of joking about nothing in particular and my favorite television show of my twenties was a show about nothing (and everything) called “thirtysomething” – back then I thought they were so mature, Elliot and Nancy, Michael and Hope and their daughter named Jane. 

Writing of the ordinary, extraordinary is as important a subject as one may ever have. Wrestling with the plain, the unflavored, the (what some might call) boring may become your favorite writing of all.

Perhaps you aren’t ready to believe me yet.

In that case, your writing prompts await, not unlike a romantic suitor waiting to whisk you away for an evening of revelry.

Writing Prompts: Discovery & Writing Practice Specialized for Your Form of Writing

Coffee Mugs and Coffee beans frame writing prompts for numerous niche writers: Social Media posts, poetry prompts, fiction writers and more.

Copy & Paste Texts: (Use these to copy right into your text or direct message box and send – or personalize for your situation. Surprise someone with a text message they weren’t expecting!)

  1. It doesn’t need to be a special day for me to remind you how special you are to me!
  2. I’m drinking my morning coffee wishing I was sharing a mug with you.
  3. I just watched (name a TV series or movie) and it reminded me of the simple yet wonderful days we have had together!

Entrepreneurs: What is the most extraordinary (yet seemingly ordinary) quality of the product or service you provide? How can you accentuate the simplicity of it?

Social Media Posts: What you think is everyday in your life may fascinate your followers. Show your most behind-the-scenes/behind-the-scenes in an upcoming post.

Video Prompt: Project yourself back to your school days and make a video that is about a “how-to” and share something simple like tying your shoes or how to hold a pencil. Then stay very present to the reality there may be a time when people no longer hold pencils or tie shoes. 

Fiction Writers: Set the stage for a regular/ordinary day in the moments before something really outrageous or unexpected happens. 

Lifestyle Bloggers: The pandemic has given us a lesson in how quickly things change. Share a blog post of something that has stayed the same – and why you treasure it even more now.

Memoir/Life Writers: Take a dull scene you need to write in order for a more interesting scene to make sense and insert an interesting object to spice it up. Yes, make the object the star and see what energy that gives to the sequence.

Poets: It was a poem about coffee that helped improve ALL my writing. What is something everyday YOU will write about?

Copywriters: How would you sell and market a completely ordinary project? Write some practice copy and then think how to use it in your actual copy assignments. 

Journaling Quotes & General Prompts

  1. “I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”

Alice Paul

Prompt: When people make things more complicated than they are, I wonder…..

  1. “If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.”

George Eliot

Prompt: I imagine the sound of grass grow is much like….. And that makes me feel (continue to follow the thread to see what unlikely place the sound of grass growing may take you.)

  1. “My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset, I hear my mother’s voice and smile.”

Jennifer Garner

Prompt: Watch a sunset and write what you see… like the sun is giving dictation.

Find a supportive writing community via a Facebook Group:

How would your writing productivity change if you received varied, niche driven writing prompts daily – also fiction, poetry, entrepreneur, copy writing and video prompts are offered, join the Private Word-Love Writing Community on Facebook by clicking here.

We look forward to writing with you!

Julie JordanScott lives in Bakersfield, California in a house too small for quarantine life. She leads discussions on Zoom and is polishing her most recent memoir and some poetry for soon-to-be publication. If you would like her to speak to your group over ZOOM until travel is available again, she would be happy to talk to you about that OR maybe you are looking for a slightly quirky, very open hearted, compassionate and tender Creative Life Coach. She would love to connect with you soon.

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Last night I didn’t feel, this morning I wrote…

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Last night I didn’t feel well, so I opted out of book club and then tossed and turned and kvetched the night away, shaking my fist at the new moon until I allowed her to hold me close.

This morning I wrote my 35th haiku in thirty-five consecutive days. I haven’t left my porch yet. I continued with my morning writing practice and lit my candle in another new, sustaining ritual pointing towards intentional connection in all I do, make and live. I did this before I drank my first cup of coffee.

I don’t know what today will hold specifically and I have several distinctive containers – a toastmasters meeting and a book club meeting – for deliberate connections with people. As I wrote that sentence, it occurred to me I may take those appointments (before this I saw them as duties) as ways to truly see and hear specific people who also gather in these groups.

What I mean by “seeing and hearing specific people” is I will not only mindfully listen to people as they speak, I will also initiate conversations with people who may not be engaged – those who may be feeling left out or unimportant to others in the group.

When I show up this way it isn’t so much of a battle to get there, although I believe a shower is in order and I have yet to achieve that!

Why is this worthy of sharing on my blog?

It is worthy of sharing because our future is built on our everyday moments, our conscious intention or lack thereof. If we choose to stay focused on anger and disassociation from everyone who doesn’t think, feel, create and move through the day exactly as we do, we miss opportunities for surprise, delight and increased meaning and creativity.

What of this message today resonates with you?

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Good Job, Dear Friend

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Focus on Practice Just Write

“I have turned away from myself, ” I thought, this morning.

A trigger, a “oh no not that!” feeling rose from my gut. It wasn’t a running away screaming with my arms flailing, it was a quietly tip toe away so no one notices and climbing into a corner behind a curtain so that no one would take notice of my disappearance and then….
I realized this is what I have habitually done.

Past, present and now with awareness may cross off my “to-do” list or “to be forgiven for when arises in the future” list.

So interesting, this self-witness thing because in the turning away from myself, I am actually turning away from the gifts I bring to this world, it is like shutting off a valve of all that is good and right and pleasing to others as well as myself.

Do you ever find yourself doing this? Please tell me I am not alone in this.

I give myself the gift of five minutes to write and I find myself holding my face in my hands like in “The Scream” by Edvard Munch except my face is lifeless and numb, not outwardly screaming at all but…..

Perhaps this is the quintessential Julie scream. Numb, not even noticing myself pull away until I have sunk into unconscious disconnection.

I look around the room. My messy art table, my floor that needs a once (or several times) over.

Note to self. You are seeing. You are feeling. You are writing. You are alive.

You have now turned back to yourself.

Well done, good and faithful friend.

Coffee as a waker upper today and through July

I’ve been absent from here. My intention is to write a five-minute-blog post daily (or as close as I’m able) starting in July and figured this was as good a time as any to begin. I literally grabbed a random photo as a header… it fit… and am looking forward to writing this week with the #5for5BrainDump I’m running this week. Here’s to taking off the numb and beginning again, again.

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Daily Making Diaries: Four Months Until Katherine’s Birthday & Christmas!

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  • This post was written #5for5BrainDump style which means – it was written using stream of consciousness writing for 5 minutes. No editing or forethought of content. Images were added later. #5for5BrainDump writing is meant to be an exploration of personal growths and a mini a-ha incubator… a collector of insights and awarenesses written on purpose… for no purpose.

It was a divine call today, I hadn’t even thought of stopping at the park on my drive home. I thought I would stop at a parking garage and take some panorama shots of metro Bakersfield. It was an ugly-sky-morning and I thought that was what I was meant to capture.

I am focusing on daily making, a practice of daily creativity because I know in doing this – a determined crafting of something – it will positively impact my entrepreneurship. It activates different parts of my mind that have been lying, dormant, waiting for me to shake myself back into life.

I decided I would purposefully capture images not at my ultimate destination of the moment, instead to capture scenery along the way. Interesting how yesterday’s imagery informed today’s choices.

I felt led to a park instead of a parking garage.

I did a fair share of stretching and bending and posing which felt almost yogic which felt great and was a response to my slight whining while I was getting ready for bed, “I need to stretch my hips more, this is ridiculous” and even though this morning I didn’t have “stretch your hips” on the list, there I was, stretching my hips as I squatted to get this, and other photos, so that I might tell the story the imagery was calling me to tell.

Even writing this feels awfully intimate and not entirely safe.

Two seconds and my five minute writing session will be over.

The bells ring. I’m awake. I’ve been uncomfortable enough and thrilled enough this morning.

 

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Darkness: Courage & Being Open to What’s Best

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“In order for the moonflower to completely open, it has to bathe in darkness. I am not a big fan of the dark. It scares me. Still. Yet I cannot walk by this flower without bowing to it, without putting my face close to its opened-by-the-dark heart.”

I am intimidated at cataloguing times of darkness because not only am I afraid of the dark, I am afraid of stacking up towers of memory that threaten me. Sometimes I feel like my life has been either a long, disappointing not-happily-ending-lifetime movie or actually series of movies because I have so many dark days it is almost comical.

Like my new-still-in-therapy-probation-therapist said, “You are interested in too many things” maybe it is the unprocessed darkness soup I have on my metaphorical stove. Maybe that is it.

Maybe I have never bathed in the separate flavors of darkness soup so they haven’t been able to turn into stepping stones I may rise above so the suction moves me instead into infinitely hellacious quicksand, which I’ve learned doesn’t actually exist in the way we might think it does.

And I edit myself.

I stop myself thinking “Julie, you want to publish this and right now you are sounding more than a little ridiculous. I know Beth the dog is wandering about and I hear the sweet little chirping bird and you, in this downward spiraling rant, are sounding like…. A fire engine rumbling on your front porch without any specific fire to put out but it can smell the smoke, continually, always looking threatening so it just sits there, rumbling, doesn’t even have the siren on.”

My timer goes off signifying I’ve been attempting to make some semblance of form from this dark amorphous blob and it’s time to stop.

Even in this gobbled gook I see threads I may return to for clarity: the darkness soup turned into stepping stone soup. The fire truck, loudly idling. Lots of smoke, no seemingly productive fire.

Do you see anything else of merit I might write my way into more deeply from what I’ve written here?

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Writing Prompt: Today I am Choosing….

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Our writing prompt today offers a choice in perspectives. To get your subconscious mind started, consider and respond via comment your initial “gut/heart” response to “Today, I am choosing….. “

As you write for five minutes, allow the opposite or different its space if it enters into your writing. This is a part of “righting” your beliefs and experiences. For “righting” practice, try, “I once chose lack and what I discovered was…..” and as you complete each sentence add, “I now consciously choose abundance.”

Here is what I wrote during my time of 5 minutes of free flow writing we call #5for5BrainDump:

Today I am choosing abundance. I look out my window and I see the early morning slanted light, curling its finger at me, inviting me into a day of lush color and form. I once chose lack and what I discovered was black, white and grey scale. I discovered nit picking and rock throwing and finger poking. I now consciously choose abundance. I don’t choose airy-fairy outside reality abundance, I see abundance in the times of mishaps as well – there is something about the dappled shadow-light I especially love.

I grant myself permission to make mistakes when I choose abundance. In fact, it isn’t even a right or wrong thing when I choose abundance it is a “hmmm. Check this out” kind of thing. In fact, I often feel wobbly when I choose abundance because I am practicing the creation of new more empowering beliefs to build my life upon rather than the oft times destructive nature of lack. Lack architecture has building blocks of “don’t do,” and “can’t do” and “oh my gosh, you’re such an embarrassment.”

Abundance architecture is built upon beams of playful experimentation, hugs of compassion when setback appear, deep eye contact and laughter based in love, not lack’s chosen companion of humiliation.

Today I am choosing abundance. I am choosing to agree with divine favor. I am choosing to be open to what comes and discern as I lift my foot and put it down.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.Facebooktwitterpinterest

What Brings Light to the Darkness? Daily Writing, Everytime

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I didn’t know for certain whether I would write today. I’ve been feeling lousy – new medicine and adjustments to it have not been smooth – and I just didn’t feel like it.

Yes, that would be me, who knows and has known for years, the value of daily writing practice.

What is up with that?

I sat at my desk for a tiny slice of time and made a writing affirmation image and realized the message was as much for me as it is for anyone else.

Funny how often that happens.

So I will stand hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul with the affirmation I just wrote.

Read it, say it, write it with me now:

Daily writing brings light to the darkness. When I write, I feel confident, capable and courageous.

Yes, that statement is true. I have remembered and written into that truth so many times: daily writing does bring light to the darkness. It helps to process what may feel unsayable until it is written. It is silent and you are with it alone – with no one else lobbing judgment at you, you say to yourself what is so and in doing exactly that, you shine the light on it.

When I confess to the page, “I feel lousy, this medicine has been kicking my butt straight into silence” is like a flashlight of clarity. “Wow, it has been keeping me from doing what I love. I haven’t done many livestream broadcasts because I’ve been so tired. I haven’t made many images and beyond my braindumping, I haven’t written at all.”

The light of clarity reminds me I don’t have to stay in this zone of silence, this disempowering slice of experience.

Instead, I realize while it may be the medicine’s side effects at cause, I may now make choices and step into a variety of solutions.

And writing for five minutes, #5for5BrainDump style has power.

Here’s more evidence.

(My timer went off three sentences ago this time. I’ll stop and hit publish, even if the confession itself feels wobbly. That’s part of being courageous.)

 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops,

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.Facebooktwitterpinterest

Secret Hint to Making The Most from Your Brain Dump Experience

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Two memorable conversations keep popping into my head as I begin to write:

  1. Never go to bed angry.
  2. Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

I don’t know that I whole heartedly agree (or disagree, actually) with either of them.

I agree, it is better for our overall feelings of positivity and gratitude if we fall asleep in a state of contented curiosity rather than angry lament, but sometimes the energy of anger clears out a lot of gunk – or is that just our habitual way of experiencing the world?

I could talk (write) myself into a corner with this one and perhaps that is part of the point my subconscious and writing practice is making here.

We make it a practice to complete our brain dumps and free flow writing with thirty seconds of gratitude and praise about anything: what you may have discovered and uncovered during writing or anything at all. The point is to finish the writing practice on an emotional upswing.

If we always ended our writing practice feeling like garbage most of us would give up our writing practice. It is natural to want to feel better.

We don’t want to feel like crap, we inherently want to feel well or at least better than when we sat down to write.

Maybe part of your gratitude IS saying you are sorry.

Love and forgiveness go hand-in-hand as do love and gratitude.

Admitting our weaknesses – is a pathway to wholeness and gratitude.

(And the timer tells me five minutes is up – so this concludes today’s entry about one of my favorite secrets to always ending on an upbeat note, thus preserving the practice that is such a grand, sustaining partner in my life.)

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.

 Follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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Reawakening Love for The Writing Process Itself

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It is one of the most powerful questions you may ask yourself: “What do I really, truly want in this wild and wonderful life I’ve been given?”

As writers, we may ask specifically about our writing, “What do I really, truly want to create with my writing? How do I want my writing process to feel?”

We may ask, “How may I awaken my love for the writing process?”

I wish I  could tell you the answer naturally rushes out in a beautifully crafted message right from my subconscious to my keyboard.

It doesn’t usually happen like that. Instead, a process we come to know as even more delicious than instantly having an answer takes place and instead of just “getting an answer” I give myself room to fall back in love with writing.

Stay with me so you may deepen or fall in love all over again with both your creative process AND your life.  I will share with you what I wrote in five minutes. I am taking that risk, I am allowing you into my own writing perfect imperfections. It is scary for me AND I am willing to go there because it is so important for each of us.

“When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.”

John O’Donohue

I started to write:

Think outside of the realm of romantic love now.

If I reawakened to the love in my writing life, I would discover… my words have more merit and meaning than I had originally believed. In fact, I haven’t believed deeply enough in eons. Or at least a long time. Eons, that’s a bit of hyperbole.

Isn’t it funny how a moment in time may feel like eons? It may feel like hyperbole too. Maybe we should write about love AS hyperbole. Maybe we should write about love being someone else drinking the yummilicous coffee I made for myself. Or stealing the chocolate bar (for myself) or… enter your weird quirk here.

“My sun sets to rise again.”

Robert Browning

Settling in, I think about Nutella sandwiches. I think about my slouchery as a mother. I think “What will my babies eat if I don’t map it out?”

= = =

There are so many distractions as I sit here and attempt to write for five minutes about awakening love for my writing process. I see a broom and want to sweep, I look at the clock and I want to assemble lunch for my children and get out into the money making flow “hurry it up hurry it up hurry it up!” I hear in my inner ear. Oh, Lord I can’t do it all – my anxiety reaches for my throat to shut my voice – my writing voice – down.

Five minutes. That’s all.

My fingers continue to move, on the keyboard focused.

Reawaken love for the process.

Let go of end result. Welcome bad or mediocre or lukewarm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esqu: we are trained to insist upon results that are only in our favor. “There must be a something in order to continue I can’t just continue for a nothing that makes no sense.”

Writing this is not a nothing. Writing these words is definitely a something.

Process is worth all of the wonder and exhilaration of being on a best seller list or having twenty five people pay a thousand dollars to hear me speak.

My community is rising up to greet me and say “Bring your work forward with and for us” it is almost surreal, beloveds, almost surreal.”

Is it still less than five minutes?

I heard the coffee pot call me, the coffee pot that has been creating really tasty coffee lately.

I think of the squirrel and planning and play. And me. And love. And movement.

And applause. (My timer applauds when my time is up.) All that in five minutes.

= = =

Now it is your turn to take today’s prompt and write from it. You may write once or you may write several times.

“How may I awaken my love for the writing process?”

Remember to set your timer for five minutes and after your time is up, spend fifteen to thirty seconds writing what you are grateful for either from the writing experience or from your life in general.

The world is waiting for your words: let’s get them on the page now.

Be sure to follow me so you may continue to stay close to this sort of writing inspiration to keep your writing flowing and your life moving in the direction your heart seeks.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.Facebooktwitterpinterest