Julie Unplugged

Are You Ready to Take a Different Approach to Your Goal Setting & Reaching?

I have been approaching my goals differently this season.

I have always respected the process of stating one’s goals in writing, getting them on paper and then working full force on achieving those goals.

What I have often done in the past is this: I have taken the time to write goals and then they got buried in a drawer in a notebook somewhere. I didn’t interact with my goals once I set them or they became a vague idea of something I had hoped or wanted to do but never engaged with much again.

I’ve changed my approach as my life has changed.

It is just Samuel and me now, the girls are grown up and out of the house. They are onto their next adventure and consequently, I need to grow as well which for me means doing things differently.

 

A slightly different approach to goal setting - via intuitive art journaling & stream of consciousness writing

 

This fall season, I created a bucket list as prompted by one of my personal growth groups. I approached both the creation and the execution in a very different way.

I didn’t just write a list and put it in a drawer.

I wrote a list of categories and then I took my time in filling in the blanks via not only language, but also using art.  I art journaled. I am making a mobile with autumn colored book pages, die cut in the shape of leaves. I am continuing to work on both. I revisit the categories in my daily writing notebook.

I am allowing the how-to’s to gently enter my consciousness rather than stand underneath the end-result and shake it until whatever is loose tumbles out and I mistakenly or clumsily shout “Eureka!” and blindly follow whatever drops first.

The first droppings, I have learned, do not always morph into what is the most effective or productive. My art journaling makes my goals, my hopes and my aspirations into living and breathing possibilities which bend and shift and grow as I bend and shift and grow.

Julia Cameron reminds us, “Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping.” It feels grounded to take this approach, one moment at a time.

 In taking a calmer, quieter, non-language based approach (which is really odd for a writer) I am also able to soak more of my spirit, more of my intuitive nature into the work. It is less driven by force and more open by flow, instead. It is more soothing, this gentle movement of color and objects and messiness in the process perhaps because, as Maria Montessori once said, “Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.”

 

Intellectual understanding comes from the actions, the gentle nature of the art finding its way onto the page. I know my goals are much more at the forefront of my mind than they have been in the past using my previous techniques.

 What have you got to lose from trying it out? The new year is coming soon – why not start considering what you want to create now, a little bit differently?

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  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 Fall, 2015 and beyond.

   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. 

  Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter:   and on Periscope for writing prompt, tips and inspiration daily created to ignite your artistic rebirth. 

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For Your Writing & Creative Inspiration: Quotes, Questions & Prompts about Orchestrating Your Day.... or Not.

Each day, a quote, an image, several questions and a writing prompt are offered to you to use for your personal and creative development. Enjoy!

The photo was taken on my birthday in 2010. I was driving somewhere near Wasco, California, with my purple whale mascot you see in the foreground.

Quote:

“No matter how hard you try to orchestrate your day, it seems to have its own composition.”

Natalie Goldberg

Questions:

What are three components of your “scheduled perfect day”?

About how often do you complete those three components?

What can you do to feel satisfied in whatever composition your day takes?

 

Writing & Creativity Prompts

My average day sings the song of……

My ideal day, however, sings the song of…..

Bonus: The difference between the song of my ideal day and the song of my average day is….

>> -- <<

This Blog Series was created to increase your creative thinking process as well as inspire writing and ideas to take form that may not have taken form without these specific quotes, questions and prompts. If you find them helpful, I hope you will pass them along to friends as well.

I’m so glad you are here, reading and creating.

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Welcome to my second post (of 31!) for the October Ultimate Blog Challenge. Watch here for Your Writing & Creative Inspiration! Word-Love to YOU!

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

Mixed Media: Broken + Layered + Past + Present + Future

I’m not sure when I discovered how fun it was to layer photos, especially photos taken years apart with content that looks completely unrelated.

Last week I posted my image that combines an image from a cemetery very close to the birthplace of W.E.B. DuBois overlaid with a screen window from the hospital building at Weedpatch, the setting for John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

This week, I did a photo transfer of a layered photo: a self portrait of me, crying, from my soul-grief series from 2007. The layered photo is me, writing, in 2012 at the Mountain View cemetery in Oakland, California, on the steps of a mausoleum there. Somehow these two photos painted a picture for me the two separate photos didn’t say on their own.

Broken: Mixed Media on Wood Board by Julie Jordan Scott

 

I had a painted piece of salvaged scrap wood that begged to be used in art, so I painted a layer of black, white and gray acrylic paint. I transferred the photo collage directly onto the wood. I appreciate the slight tear in one section. The imperfections spoke out, reminding me of the perfection of imperfection and brokenness.

I bought some dishes at a thrift store with the sole intention of breaking them and using them as another dimension of this piece, another monument to brokenness, literally. I used the mirror I broke as a reflection of the brokenness in everyone. Each person in the world shares a sense of brokenness which we rarely recognize in one another.

I know I often think I am the only one who is broken, everyone else has it perfectly together, right?                                           

This post is a check in for Creative Every Day with Leah Piken Kolidas

There is more, too, which the piece is speaking to me. Perhaps I’ll write more about it here.

I’m so grateful you are reading. I look forward to reading your comments & hope to return the visit to you very soon.

# # # # # 

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© 2013

 

Grace Offered & Grace Received: Choose to Do the Receiving Dance (Flashback to 2013)

 

Emma in a moment of frustration... circa 2009

Yesterday shifted from a maelstrom of frustration to a moment of grace right when my daughter Emma and I were ready to give up hope.

 I had spent the two previous days dealing with bureaucracy and trying to get Emma enrolled in a Concepts of Biology course at our local community college. Because her high school schedule was completely impacted, it was a necessity to approach her course work differently than the norm. The plan has always been to have her attend Bakersfield College during the Summer.

She took the assessments, she did all the new student activities and then we discovered one of her assessment scores was lower than the required pre-requisites. It had appeared we had driven into a brick wall of bureaucratic ugliness. Our final strategy was to meet with an educational counselor and plead for mercy.

At the college level, the mother isn’t the driving force of one’s educational planning, it is the student.

The counselor asked Emma’s permission to be present. She sat me down in the corner and spoke directly with Emma. Emma would ask me questions occasionally, I would respond only to Emma. When it seemed as if we were not going to make progress, a very stressed out Emma stood up and said, “Let’s just get out of here.”

The counselor said, “Wait a minute, Emma, I have an idea. This is very unusual but since you scored in transfer level writing and you are only a sophomore in high school, let’s see if we can get something to work for you.”

This counselor called the people involved with assessment and pleaded Emma’s case.

Choose to Do the Receiving Dance of Grace

She said things like, “This young lady is exceptional” and “I will take full responsibility.” She got Emma the opportunity to re-take the test that was holding her back from registration.

 

Emma was ecstatic. I was frightened. My thoughts immediately floated into the “Oh, no, she can’t have another disappointment right now.” I asked the counselor for testing advice. She gave one simple thought, “Don’t rush. Take your time.”

Using her yearbook as her photo ID, Emma slid into her testing spot while I waited outside. An hour later she appeared with a very wide smile. “I did it!” she said. “Perfect score!” She soared up the score brackets going even higher than where she needed to be to register.

I believe part of the reason was this counselor – a woman who had only known her for a few minutes – believed in her enough to go to bat for her. A stranger advocated for her.

To say our days were made would be an understatement.

I call this short chapter, “Grace offered to Emma by a stranger.”

Grace arrives in an assortment of packages. When we are open to receiving it, it seems to magically appear. I like to think of it in this way: when I hold my arms open and raise them to the sky to receive, I am able to receive. When I cross my arms over my chest in a defensive position, I am less able to receive.

It makes perfect sense when I choose to remember this simple truth.

I hear a mourning dove and a starling singing together outside my window. A few moments ago I heard chickens clucking from across the street. They wander out of the chicken coop at my neighbor’s home on a somewhat regular basis.

These are the sweet moments when I settle my forehead into my hand and lean against it, allowing it to support my mind which is oftentimes thinking too much, to just take a short siesta. I fall off to sleep and suddenly I am dreaming in little dribs and drabs of dialogue and images.

It hasn’t been a week with many supersized doses of delight.

I have been facing each day, though, as if I am rushing through a revolving door.

Do you know the feeling?

It doesn’t give much time to be aware of slight moments of grace and wonder you can meet and together create a better feeling than I had the moment before.

I know the everything-is-perfect school of thought as I am sure you know it, too.  Most of the time I can hang out there, but today, no way.

I have had enough of the unreturned phone calls, the times when people don’t respond and then a moment of grace appears and in an instant everything shifts.

The moments of grace I am choosing to build upon are the counselor’s defense of Emma, completely unexpected, and the birdsong, the chicken song, the sleeping of Walt on my toes as I took a rest yesterday.

You may have noticed the defensive, arms over my chest position in “today, no way.”

Drops of grace open those arms so that you and I may begin to receive more and more and more again and again and again.

I am open to more of that. How about you?

Are you ready to raise your arms to receiving?

Are you ready to do the receiving dance?

Today, I am looking back at this moment - and together in writing community we spent time in GRACE. If you would like to write with us - the moment-in-time is saved in a blog post with a replay of the live stream experience here. 

LIVE on #Periscope: Grace: Writing Grace - #5for5BrainDump unblock your stuck spots - #amwriting https://t.co/0fUE3b5SlU

— Julie Jordan Scott (@juliejordanscot) November 23, 2016

 

 

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A Simple, Quirky & Plain Old Fun Way to Feel Better & Better, Happier & Happier

 

 

A Simple & Quirky Way to Feeling Better Every Day

Would you value discovering a way to move instantly from an anxious or worried space into a smiling, much happier, feeling better and better sort of space? I learned a trick to do that by accident recently that you can put into place as an immediate perk-up strategy.

 

Here’s the story:

Today I saw a double decker shopping cart, a lusty blue one, across the street from Lowe’s on Columbus. I pointed and with both loudness and glee announced to Samuel, “Shopping Cart!”

He laughed. Yes, he laughed at me.

“You sure do love shopping carts, Mommy.”

It’s a strange thing: quirky, I suppose, started by the discovery of what I called “a shopping cart convention” in an empty lot on the way to Emma’s high school. Since then, I have been alert to any unique arrangements of shopping carts in unexpected places. Now, the one across the street from Lowe’s was only exciting because I have not photographed one of that particular style yet.

I also photograph familiar images: sunrises and sunsets, birthday parties, children, but I find the most joy in discovering a fascination of some object or scenario that at first only seems to thrill me – which is all that matters in the moment of creativity. Then I discover in the sharing, other people also enjoy the image, other people find it fascinating. I’m not the only one who oooos and ahhhhs at the coincidental modern assemblage of shopping carts outside of the parking lot where they are supposed to live.

When Katherine was a baby, the fixation for many was cows: cow figurines, cow kitchen decorations, cow this and cow that. Later, it became sunflowers everywhere. Recently I have seen more chickens than I care to see. Ever. Again.

My love for cows during Kathie’s babydom had her name every large four legged animals “moos” and even her pillow pet today – at age twenty-one – is a cow.

This quirky love actually lifted me up this past week when I was feeling low. I would see a random shopping cart at a random, unexpected place and I would perk up. Insta-happy. If my mind veered away into sad-or-worried-or-fretful, it was as if a shopping cart angel would roll a cart out someplace for me to take note and smile.

Who would ever describe a shopping cart as “lusty” besides me?

Just choose a random something that catches your eye – you may even choose chickens if you like – and be aware to them when they pop into any of your senses: your view, your hearing, your smell, your touch – you know the drill.

Allow that momentary delight to flood your brain and wash away the other stuff that doesn’t serve you.

Two things will happen: you will suddenly feel better AND you will be able to steer yourself more easily toward a better day overall.

See? There is a reason for quirky shopping cart love.

Feeling better and better and better is one of the best reasons of all.

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This Day: How to Have a Satisfying Start after... a different start....

I realized this morning what my deal has been this week: you know, why I am feeling – right now – so wiped out. I sort of feel like I imagine how lava feels, once its cooled down but is still moving just not moving quickly. Molasses mind. It could be described as sticky, tenacious feeling of what was once completely destructive in a microwave-sense-of-quick now becoming dense and the opposite of mercurial.

Traveling solo and leaving the children behind is automatically a bit of a hot bed of emotion for me, but leaving the children behind and during that absence having a gas explosion in front of the house next door and the entire block evacuated does not add a warm and fuzzy icing on the cake. At all.

There were several other shocks to my system including Emma’s high school counselor waving an “expulsion” flag in front of my panicked eyes – and the red alert was like automatic rifles shooting through my gut and causing all sorts of interior, invisible to the eye damage.

My realization of this is critical and if I was Pollyanna, I would say “very exciting!” with perhaps a few extra exclamation points.

Instead, I will admit the realization and its partner, understanding and continued processing is what will get me into a better emotional space. Even as I write this I am smiling again: I am clearly being self coach, self therapist and self any other clinician who works with humans to help them actualize and improve.

1.       Stuff happens.

2.       Sometimes stuff piles on top of other stuff.

3.       The natural response differs between people and is different each time. If the stuff is piled upon other discombobulation, discomfort may leave a deeper mark. This isn’t a sign of somehow being weak, or bad, or unevolved, it is a natural part of being human.

4.       The best way to heal the stuff upon the stuff upon the stuff is whatever version of rest suits you. This may be exercise, this may be writing, this may be sex or other intimacy, this may be silence with friends, this may be prayer, this may be a combination of the above or others that best suit you.

5.       There is no magic key or jealously guarded secret that will make the progress “easier or better” for you.

6.       Forgive yourself for any responses you felt were “less than” who you know yourself to be.

7.       Repeat as needed.

8.       Instead, I will admit the realization and its partner, understanding and continued processing is what will get me into a better emotional space. Even as I write this I am smiling again: I am clearly being self coach, self therapist and self any other clinician who works with humans to help them actualize and improve.

9.       Instead, I will admit the realization and its partner, understanding and continued processing is what will get me into a better emotional space. Even as I write this I am smiling again: I am clearly being self coach, self therapist and self any other clinician who works with humans to help them actualize and improve.

Simply taking the time to write this down has cleared my system a bit. I feel happier, more content and definitely “on my way” in a way I haven’t felt since the flight from Houston to Bakersfield when I knew there had been an explosion and evacuation but didn’t know what would face me once I landed.

From the poem by Mary Jean Irion:

“Today: Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart.”

It is satisfying to have this start.

* * * * *

This post is Number 28 of 30 and was inspired by the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Throughout the month I will be posting writing and creativity tips especially to make your writing (and your writing experience!) better.

I'm so glad you are here!

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Writing & Word Love Tip: One Sentence - One Word - At a Time

Sometimes I simply write one sentence at a time.

Sometimes that is the best medicine. One sentence – no, one word - at a time.

Slowly, methodically, letter by letter dropped onto the page.

Phase two: Let the words sit without you hovering.

Get up and leave, do something else,  remembering what you have written even in the vaguest sense.

In case you didn't "get" that, what I said was...

Get up and leave, do something else,  remembering what you have written even in the vaguest sense.

Return and repeat: one sentence at a time

Our best medicine may be a word at a time.

The most important ingredient in the word-love writing medicine is action. You pick up your pencil (or pen, fingers on the keyboard, etc) and you write that one word.

Simply start and continue and take a break and start and continue and take a break.

Here is how I did it just now for a story I want to write but can’t seem to get it to work how I want it to, right now.

Instead of sitting and doing nothing, I am choosing to write one word or a phrase and then one sentence about three images from the story I want to tell.

Waiting - - - The farmer’s recent presence is left behind as he takes his claim upon the still sleeping trees.

 

DIY – The Farmer made a stop sign from agricultural scraps. Such a human element amidst so many growing things.

 

Dancing. The upturned tree exposes roots as their ghosts take the opportunity to throw a celebratory ball.

What images or words or sentences are calling you to put them into language form?

Instead of rushing to write, “rush” to allow yourself to take action to write slowly.

Allow your write action to be a peaceful waterfall of words rather than a freight train rumbling through a busy intersection, upsetting the normal traffic patterns by shouting with its horn and making the buildings around it shake.

One word.

One phrase.

One sentence.

Repeat. Allow the words to guide the growth of the writing itself.

Take action, slowly....

 

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Little Slices of Creative Every Day Opportunities from Every Day Life

This week I worked on a lot of individual pieces and this COMING week, I may actually bring some to completion to show you here. I did manage to make some art quickly – but as is my style, I am sitting with them for a bit before I declare them “complete”.

I also got a new phone this week and have really been having fun with slice-of-life phonetography. I am not sure how to spell that, but with instagramming and all, photo sharing has become such a pleasure. I have always loved to snap the everyday. Just like the history I love most is social history, women doing everyday things, for example, in the 19^th Century delights me to no end.

I thought today I would show you three photos from my phone that fit this “slice of life” unpolished, not at all poised or posed shots. The first one, I admit, is absolutely gorgeous. It was born from just being awake, alert and aware.

The camellia bush outside the Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital in downtown Bakersfield has some of the most gorgeous flowers I have seen yet this Spring. The symmetry and geometry in this flower are astounding. I simply had to respond to it by taking its photo and sharing it with others. I also plan to use it in other ways in my photo-editing creativity.

Here is Samuel doing a forever fun activity, running in the sprinkler. I know, I know, he is fully clothed in long sleeves yet I allow him to do this crazy stunt? The simple answer is “YES”.  There are two strong beliefs I hold close. One is to allow my children the space to experiment playfully in ways which will not cause damage. The other is all things are good in moderation, even those that seem out and out nutty are even allowed in my world.

I also believe helicopter parenting is one of the reason our children are less able to think critically or observe the world around them. Their brains are so full of their parent’s constant chatter while hovering they don’t have the time to notice how that leaf is half underground and becoming soil again or see the snail slowly crossing the sidewalk.

 

 

Please meet my desk how it appeared yesterday morning. It is a humble desk and yes, my monitor stand is dusty and I didn’t wipe it clean for the photo. Slice of life is all of life, not just the Stepford life. My glasses are off because as I get better – read older – my eyes are not the same as they were. I actually see the computer monitor better without my glasses now, so I take them off and then put them on for important places, like when I am behind the wheel of a car or need to see in the distance.

Do you ever create in a “slice of life” style?

I would love to see your stuff and hear what inspires you to simply show the moment as it is.

This post was inspired by the community at Creative Every Day - please visit there and see what people are building, making, baking, painting, stitching, sketching each and every day of 2013.

 

 

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Art Heals & Helps: See How it May Help You with the Grief Process & More

I use my entire body when I create art.

 

I call this photo "Prayer Hands" because the Process felt as if I was praying the entire time.

I call this photo "Prayer Hands" because the Process felt as if I was praying the entire time.

My favorite method is not to use a brush or a pencil, if at all possible.

Sunday I created a piece I call “Dividing Line” at a Grief-Art workshop at the Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield. The piece doesn’t feel finished yet though it will be on display in an upcoming art show. Perhaps, like grief and like the General Assembly at the United Nations, it is never finished, it is just experienced differently.

I closed my eyes in the making of it.

I started in a much more organized manner. I didn’t know what I was doing with pastels as I have never used them much in the past. I started with a white pastel on the black paper. I moved it back and forth, soon discovering I liked to use the chalk on its side more than using it like a pencil or pen.

It was a large piece of paper and I was using my non dominant hand. Up and down and all across the page in circles and colors and sweeps. I crashed into the end of the table cloth and my chalk seered down the edge, tracing the stitching of the table cloth.

It jolted me.

I adored it.

This is how I have been taught to grieve: behind a line, behind a veil, in a space where no one else might be made uncomfortable by the rawness of my emotions.

How many times have we heard it at a funeral? When the family members are stoic and showing no emotions, we say “Oh, they are doing so well!” Maybe we should say “Are they on too much medicine to feel the service? Will they remember it at all? Do they have a safe place to express their loss?”

Yes, we all grieve differently.

I am a loud, active, deep feeling, very reflective griever.

I respect each of our methods of grief.

What was difficult for me when I was younger is I never had any grief models. I was never allowed to go to funerals. I didn’t get to talk about loss or death. I remember when the call came in that my grandfather died, I was with my mother. I looked at her with an odd, six-year-old excitement, “Should I go tell Daddy?”

I still don’t know how he was told.

I still don’t know how he responded. He was in the midst of a worsening relationship with alcoholism though.

I do know when I facilitated my brothers Celebration of Life nearly forty years later, all the grievers stood in a circle, holding hands, as we remembered John. Katherine, my daughter, said my father’s hand shook with grief as she held it. I am so grateful he was able to express his grief and I am so grateful my daughter was able to fully witness it without fear or anxiety or judgment.

If I had been faced with raw grief like that at her age then – fifteen – I would have been frightened. I had no exposure.

Now I feel like a grief expert of sorts. It isn’t a title I enjoy claiming, but I do value it as an integral part of who I am as a member of the human community.

This post is a part of Going Green: where the best posts are "recycled"

Check it out here or by clicking the "Going Green Image"

Let's Show the World How Cool We Are... Exactly as We Are Now!

The Wiltern Theater: Oh, to Be as Cool as THIS! (and who is to say we aren't?)

I can’t remember when I was first told this, but I have been told a variation on this theme a number of times. “One of the cool things about you is you have no idea how cool you are!”

I picture myself looking out of my left eye wondering who they are talking to since cool-and-me are not on the same page. Except for all those people who keep telling me I am cool, or whatever the current most used synonym for cool may be.

The only problem with any of us not knowing we are cool is that we tend to not believe in our own coolness. Imagine my surprise at a writing workshop I was facilitating and one of the women writers there wrote about why she came and she included, “Come on, its Julie Jordan Scott!” as if I was someone impressive.

I am not writing this because I want people to comment with, “oh, Julie, I think you are cooler than cool!” or “What might happen in your world if you believed you were uber- cool? How would you behave then?”

Taken while waiting to be filmed for Hamlet Machine - an awesome experience... and my look shows its cool, doesn't it?

Please don’t life coach this life coach unless she requests it.

I want to go beyond wondering what if, I want to act upon the what if because I know how other people see me as oozing with cool is actually more accurate to who I am then the way I see myself.

What I will do also is to invite you to play along, too.  

Play the “What if” game with me for a week.

We’ll start on Valentine’s Day, simply because it is a day about love and if we truly love ourselves we would have no issue recognizing and valuing our own coolness, right?

For seven days we will consciously affirm ourselves and our unique coolness via some sort of passionate action.

Here is an example: because I know my facilitation of workshops continues to change people’s lives positively, I will schedule a workshop AND I will tell people about it as soon as the date is set.

Bonus: Begin working a marketing buzz list to kick it off.

Another example: Because I love to write poetry, I will submit three poems to at least one poetry journal.

Bonus: Submit to more than one poetry journal.

Another example: Because I would love to make some new friends who are into activities similar to me, I will sign up for a workshop or a class within the next month in an area of interest.

Bonus:  Sign up for a class or workshop where I have zero experience and am a complete beginner.

Another example: Even if no one else joins me, I will do this exercise anyway.

Bonus: I will prove to myself I can be even more fearless than I felt five minutes ago!

Are you in? Let me know by commenting below or you may choose to email me (juliejordanscott at gmail.com) or text or call me (661.444.2735) I’ll post my progress here on my blog as well as on the Facebook Writing Camp page.

I’m also happy to run it again, starting February 28. Let’s show the world – and ourselves – just how cool we are!

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott