Julie Unplugged

Instant Happiness Cure: How to Feel Better by Allowing a Teeny, Tiny Slice of Creativity to Find You

 

Its so simple: choose to allow yourself to stop feeling bleechhhy

I woke up with a rant-hangover.

I was tired, fussy and overall feeling rather unpleasant due to too much personal ranting yesterday all the way up until the time I turned off my light and attempted to get to sleep.

I am normally not a person who rants excessively. I save that particular brand of charm for other people. I don’t have any particular issues with an occasional tirade, especially if it is entertaining or the topic is one I feel passion toward, but like most things, too much is too much is too much.

I dropped Emma at her high school and turned toward home.

It got worse, or rather I got worse.

I yelled at a friend who called me, a very rare occurrence, and finally came to my senses when I realized I could spend some time taking photos of some very pretty trees on my return trip back to my cave where I would be less likely to inflict my annoying manner on anyone else.

I allowed creativity to find me. That tiniest moment where I asked myself "What the

It felt so great to walk into the tree to get this photo. Yum!

heck is going on with me?" allowed me to open the door to creativity. The most significant moment was when I chose to accept the call of the muse instead of pushing it under and choosing to stay cranky.

I pulled into the parking lot at the Bakersfield Art Museum, hoping to get some shots of flowering purple tree branches against the early morning sky.

The light wasn’t having it. I walked around the tree, sort of like an old-fashioned dancer assessing her partner in ballroom dancing. As I made my final turn, a sliver of purple branches from the neighboring park whistled at me.

It felt like I had just discovered gold.

I caught my breath and made my way toward the flirty tree.

I am not exactly sure when it started, but my breath became steady. I felt my face relax, slowly. A lady mallard came flying past, barking orders to the hapless male mallard, following along after her musing. I laughed at the two of them.

It was then I realized it was impossible to stay grouchy when I am around mallards during mating season.

I took some more photos of the trees and then walked toward the pond where more mallards were doing their annual mating dances. I noticed how this park was starting to show progress as an urban center park. Just six days ago I attended a festival there, but hadn’t noticed it.

It took the mallards with their sweet, unpossessed personalities to help me find my way to feeling better.

Now, for you:

1. Keep your eyes open for undiscovered gems along your usual routes from one place to another. One of the best ways to discover such places is to simply remind yourself as you set off, “I look forward to finding something new today!” It is as if that is all that is needed to open your eyes in a new way.
2. Allow yourself a few moments – as few as two or five will have an enormously powerful impact. You don’t have to take a lot of time with this – to take photos or meditate or sketch or write about what you see and experience.
3. Share your stories of “finding your way to feeling better” with others instead of sharing unconstructive conversations about the weather or last night’s reality show. Those conversations are fine, but imagine the positive change in your world if you simply speak some positivity to others in your world. I like how that feels, don’t you?

 What seemingly small action will you take to just feel the tiniest better in your life today?

  =====

 Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy andmixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. 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: @JulieJordanScot    

 

  Be sure to "Like"WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

 

  Follow on Instagram

 

  And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

 

   © 2014 - Julie Jordan Scott - all rights reserved.

 

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Straight Line Thinking - Yes No Maybe So?

So what is flirting with light? Responding to it via any form of creativity or soulfulness. Meditation, Writing, Sketching.....

This morning the light from the just rising sun peeking through the branches of trees flirted with me. The rays woo'ed me, trying to take me away from my busy (yes, self imposed) schedule for the day. I am an artist-of-life and morning photos especially delight me.

I was strong, though, resilient. My intellect knows I have a short week facing me. I'll be traveling on Friday and I have few details about what awaits me at my destination.

I type those words feeling slightly arrogrant and filled with self control until I realize perhaps that is why the sun was wooing me. I love my early morning creative play with the sun. It is one of those activities which is simple, free and sometimes is the highlight of my day.

I look at the sun now, still low in the sky, still encouraging me.

My internet was going slowly this morning and I decided to take a few moments to write.
I am grateful to the sun for continued lessons about moving through life with love and light all around me, even when I choose to ignore the gentle, invisible suggestions in favor of more logical "straight line only" thinking.

I know "straight line only thinking" can get me from Point A to Point B quickly, but most of the time my life is about twists and turns and exploration rather than speed. This morning my "straight line self" told me to just go straight home, no meandering around looking for fun early morning photos.

I sort of listened.

I drove home in my usual way, but in one block I found three cool photo ops.

The blow up gorrilla, grouchy in the morning, is my favorite.

Do you pay attention to the morning light?

What tiny, intuitive nudges do you listen to?

What makes you follow - or not follow - them?

  #####

 Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at a First Friday soon, when it is warmer than it was in December!, in Downtown Bakersfield. 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: @JulieJordanScot     

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

  Follow on Instagram

  And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

Related articles

Reflect Greatness: Let Your Words Flow - Inspiration for Blogging, Writing & Creativity

On Creating a Community of Co-Conspirators - Perhaps You Are One of Them -

"Delight in the Unexpected. Flirt with Your Surprises." Julie Jordan Scott in Let Your Words Flow

Style and Clarity: Inspiration for Your Blogging, Writing & Creativity - Quote, Prompts & More

Each day, a quote, an image, several questions and a writing prompt are offered to you to use for  Your Blogging, Writing & Creative Inspiration in order to increase your creative thinking as well as your personal and soulful  development.  

Quote

 “Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.”

Matthew Arnold

Questions:

When you work on your blog or an essay or a chapter or a poem, are you conscious of your style?

When others describe your style, what words do they most frequently use?

How much time and effort do you spend on revising your work for clarity?

Lists:

List 5 to 10 people in your life who have a distinctive style – use one or two words to describe them.

List 5 to 10 bloggers, authors, poets, or performers you value who have a distinctive style – use one or two words to describe them.

List 5 to 10 different ways you express your personal style in your blog, your business or your other creative outlets

Traditional writing prompts:

I would define style as….

My writing style is….

My opinion of my writing style is….

I am the most clear when I write about…..

Bonus:

What is one thing you could focus upon improving in your style?

Creativity Coaching/Personal Growth:

How devoted are you to becoming a more clear writer?

On a scale of one to ten, how much does your personal style show up in your creative work. Write about that.

  >> ----- <<

One helpful strategy is to read the quote, questions, prompt and list and not to "take them on" all at once, but to allow them to simmer in the back of your mind throughout the day. Sure, you may "write" one immediately, but don't call it "done" until you have allowed your powerful subconscious mind to bring up some unexpected responses for your conscious mind to create within.

Remember, though - there are no rights and wrongs, there is only showing up for your life and your creativity. Brava for being here!!

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.

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. 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.

Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

 Follow on Instagram 

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

On Assignment: Locked Doors in Vacant Houses I Once Dreamed of Owning

There are several questions I am living right now, as my friend Rilke suggests. I wrote this almost two weeks ago and it has sat, waiting - and yet I continue to ask, live and the question.

“Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.”

― Rainer Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

 

This morning I sat down at my kitchen table, long time favorite spot for morning pages, creative life coaching calls and teaching teleclasses. Yes, occasionally a meal is shared here, also. Occasionally.

 

This morning I labored at writing my morning pages, though.

 

I sat and I scoffed and I wiggled but I kept my butt where? Safely and snugly  in the chair I bought for $5 at a yard sale last summer, a gorgeous harp back chair, duncan-fife style. Though I am sure I am spelling Duncan-Fife wrong I am writing this way so you can see first hand how ridiculously morning pages sometimes look.

 

I managed to stay and after I lamented briefly to Emma about not being in Yosemite, where I would rather be and had planned to be today, but a bunch of spoiled baby politicians decided it would be fun to shut down all the national parks.

 

I dropped Emma at school and set off to take a few random photos as has become my second creative practice of the day.

 

“I want to go look at my house,” I whispered to myself internally, a home I long ago lusted for and even made an offer on but the owners decided not to sell.

 

I blinked twice when I saw it was for sale again.

 

If this was a lifetime movie, love scene music would have started playing.

 

There were the requisite children coming from other homes on the street gathering at the bus stop. I hungrily took photos before I asked a woman sitting against the fence post about the house: how long had it been vacant? What was the story?

 

She was a nice enough gal, lived on South Union so I was pretty sure there was a story there more than I could see on her hoodie and t-shirt with the heart sewn on it.

 

I called the real estate company having absolutely no idea whether or not it was a practical thought, but I felt like/feel like I must visit the house again, even if it is to just say goodbye.

 

The real estate agency called me. It fell out of escrow yesterday.

 

Maybe this will become a lifetime move afterall. Maybe the Morning Pages angels are saying, “Keep your butt in the seat and magic happens.” Maybe this is the way the Yosemite Gods are apologizing - perhaps it is John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt with puppet strings saying, “Give Julie this home!

She has great plans for it or will as soon as she has it!”

 

For now I will pick up and move along.

 

It feels like the right thing, and the only thing, to do right now.

 

For now,  I looked at the home and the question still rests. I may go back down there with my notebook and take some time to love the questions, alone and in quiet.

 

= = = = = =

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. 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: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

 

© 2013

#31Days of Living a Passionate Life, Day 2/31 - Choosing a Passionate Attitude

 

In October 2013, I am hosting an exploration of liiving a passionate life. On Day 2, we look at choosing your attitude via a conversation with my daughter and mother.

My sixteen-year-old daughter, Emma, was frustrated with me last night. My car has a phone which makes everyone a member of the conversation. My Mom called and I said, “Mom, great news! I don’t have melanoma again!” to which she responded, “Oh, Julie, that’s great!”

 

Considering I hadn’t even told her I had a biopsy last week I found this more than slightly surprising.

“Yes, it is great even though I don’t have melanoma again, I do have basal cell happier to have basal cell than melanoma!”

happier to have basal cell than melanoma!”

 

We went on to talk about how we were celebrating and on and on and it turns out Emma was seething in the back seat. This morning she told me with an angry face,

It is easier to choose a passionate attitude when life is going exactly as planned. Last Spring with Emma and Katherine (Emma on the right).

“I was so mad at you guys. You have cancer – you shouldn’t celebrate, this is going to be awful again.”

 

She even said the color of the ribbon for melanoma was black and that wasn’t even a fun color to wear, to which I quipped, “Basal Cell Carcinoma is so harmless, they don’t even have a ribbon.”

Suddenly, Emma didn’t mind our celebrating and she understood why we were jumping up and down with glee over the news.

This is how it is a lot when we “lose” our passion.

It isn’t that your passion has disappeared or is no longer functional, it is that you have chosen to look at life as if your passion doesn’t exist.

What if you shifted gears and looked through life’s veil differently.

A year ago I wouldn’t have understood about the different variety of skin cancers.

Now that I have lived the journey of melanoma survivor, I am able to make light of it not because it isn’t serious, it is because I am choosing to look through life with a different attitude. I’m a melanoma thriver, not survivor. My heart hurts for those who have had melanoma and weren’t so blessed.

I hear it regularly, after all, because when you have something like cancer, everyone tells you their worst case scenario stories.

These folks don’t mean to be  passion killers and it is up to us, people who are devoted to leading a passionate life to be passionate even and especially when it doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world.

+ + + + +

I was so excited to find this challenge, #31Days hosted by The Nester. You still have a couple days to join. I'm doing the "Personal Endeavor" category with a whole bunch of other cool people.

Consider spending a part of your October with us!

 

 

 

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. 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: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!) 

Follow on Instagram 

And naturally, on Pinterest, too! 

© 2013

 

 

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31 Days of Living a Passionate Life: Paradox, Virginia Woolf, Federico Fellini, You & Me

“There is no beginning and no ending, there is only infinite passion.”

Federico Fellini

Below this first post for #31Days I include a  list of Daily Posts from this adventure. Thank you for reading!

I  had a dream the other night. The most memorable image was a room that I intuitively knew was my version of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of Her Own.” It looked like a combination of my current living room and a private space I had in our overflowing with people (six children, need I say more?) in our cozy house. We called it “The Doll Room” because I spent my time in there with my family of dolls. It was a place I felt perpetually safe, sort of like I do in this room today.

My space today, though, isn’t my own. The entire family is in and out of here and while that’s to be expected, I have had a longing for a room of my own for a long time now.

I pondered the paradox of that dream: going back to my roots while being present in today.

I remembered back in 1999 when I started my life work online. I had a thriving life coaching practice and a website named 5Passions.com. The concept of Passion + my name was my brand.

Life happened and things fell away, yet now with this 31 Days, I’ve decided to write a series on 31 Days of Living a Passionate Life.

The first stage of living a passionate life is to forgive myself for all that time I forgot about passionate living and to allow myself to receive that gift of self forgiveness. It is a tough one for me: I’m much better at forgiving others. How can I live a passion filled life if I am chronically worried about what a mess I have made in the past and how I separated myself from passion much of the time?

Now is the time to begin.

Allow yourself to simply sit with these questions - no need to rush into an answer. Simply ask and let go, and watch what comes throughout your daily life.

Where will you seek forgiveness for yourself?

How has not forgiving yourself completely gotten in the way of living a passionate life?

 >>>-<<<

Day 2/31 - A Passionate Attitude

Day 3/31 - Choice + Intentional Action

Day 4/31 - Passionate Detachment

Day 5/31 - Curiosity & Passion

Day 6 – Create a Monthly Theme

Day 7 - Gratitude

Day 9: The Artful Skill of Making Requests

Day 10: One Big "D" - Devotion

Day 11: Community

Day 12:  Silence

Day 13: Live and Love the Questions

>>>-<<<

I am participating in #31Days, a writing challenge hosted by The Nester. I am writing in the Personal Endeavors category... which I am very excited to report! There is still time to join the challenge - I believe until Friday. Look on twitter for the #31days hashtag or visitThe Nester's Website.

 

 

>>>-<<<

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist. Her word-love themed art will be for sale at First Friday each month in Downtown Bakersfield. 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: @JulieJordanScot    

  Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!) 

Follow on Instagram 

And naturally, on Pinterest, too! 

© 2013 

 

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How Will You Invest Your Irreplaceable Light of This Day?

Give this some contemplative time to reflect and consider: How will you invest your irreplaceable light of today?

Yesterday morning I sat on my front porch and watched the colors of sunrise which were indescribable. What would one call the light coming off the clouds? The most gold rays hadn’t come through so it was primarily a pure high note of color. I could use a metaphor of “invocation” if I was feeling church-like. I could use a metaphor of “preface” in the next great book to come, I could use the “prelude” from the Sound of Music if I was having a musical theater morning.

None of those fit exactly, though, and my reverie was shaken by an upset Emma and the need to move beyond my porch and into the rest of my life.

It wasn’t until this morning, yesterday’s tomorrow, that I noted I hadn’t even sat at my keyboard since yesterday’s ripped from the porch reverie moments, trying to be super Mommy and wipe my child’s early frustration from the whiteboard of her day.

Twenty four hours had elapsed since I sat here and wrote a word.

I had texted and tweeted and photographed, but I hadn’t sat here in my chair and “spoken” to you, beloved reader.

Last night I watched the sunset, too. I noticed the different texture and tone of the goodbye of August 26 that was so different than the texture and tone of the hello of August 26.  It was burnt orange and red the closer it got to its final word.

The initial descent had a similar vibe to the morning: optimism still steadfast as I clicked my first photo from the close-to-my-house bluffs.

As it came closer to the horizon, the deeper more insistent colors took hold.

The sense of urgency now held the sun and held my eyes, “What have you done with me?” it asked.

“How have you invested these precious hours of light?”

Interesting, in retrospect, that yesterday was tangled up in so many things other than writing, what I lovingly refer to as my anchor art.

I had, however, collected notes in my mind, as Miss Prism reminds us in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest, “Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

How blessed am I to carry the memories of yesterday’s sunrise and sunset and deliver them back to you?

I think last night’s sunset is smiling, saying “Yes, you invested our moments well.” I did choose, after all, to experience both the sunrise and the sunset. Both transitions were brand new while also compellingly ancient in their retelling.

Maybe you are reading this after the light of one day has faded, in the respite of the darkness and waiting for your next day to arrive.

How will you invest (spend, use, empower, devote, endow) your irreplaceable hours of light?

Maybe your day is just beginning. The same holds true for you: How will you devote your irreplaceable hours of light?

For each and all of us: How will you use your irreplaceable hours of light?

The sum of your days and how you spend them lead, as always to, “How do you truly want to endow and empower your life?”

# # # # #

 

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

© 2013

 

Literary Grannies and Creative Block - How to Move Through The Creative Door Marked "Ouch"

My Literary Grannies Remind Me to Write about Whatever Shows Up

Leave it to my friends, the poets from the beat movement, to distillize my thoughts in so few words.

This time it was Charles Bukowski who wrote the words that picked me up and out of my funk - at least getting my pencil to move when I thought it was stuck in frozen mod podge. Perhaps we ought to name him an Honorary Literary Granny. I can see him scoff (and smile) at that thought.

Here's what happened earlier:

I realized something disturbing today as I sat down to write, to brainstorm, to let whatever was meant to fall on the page to fall on the page.

 

It was like knocking over a glass of chocolate milk, the first words in my writing stumble went every which way. I wrote these words: 

 Just this afternoon I was speaking to

my dear friend about writing styles,

comparing one genius writer to another.

 

The first genius writer was able but

the second genius writer was more

deeply and profoundly able.

 

The second writer didn’t turn when the

doors marked “ouch” opened.

 The first writer held tight to the banister, afraid to see what happened when he pushed himself into the darkness.

The second writer relished the darkness and poked about it with glee, no matter how hot the fire got or how tempting it felt to turn around before he got to his destination.

That was when I realized how much I have in common with the first writer, the timid one. How much I have in common with the one who doesn't leap, the one who doesn't complete his open heart surgery with words.

He stops, takes the pulse, gets a diagnosis, does all the pre-surgical work but when it comes time for the surgery he goes to sleep under the anesthesia yet never has the surgery.

Let me personalize that.

Perhaps you are like me and need to personalize it, too.

I realized how much I have in common with the first writer, the timid one. I am the one who doesn't leap, the one who doesn't complete her open heart surgery with words.

I stop, take the pulse, get a diagnosis, do all the pre-surgical work but when it comes time for the surgery I fall asleep via the anesthesia but I never actually have the surgery.

This is especially painful to me, personally, when I realize my mission lately of bringing as many Literary Grannies back into the minds of people who either forgot them or never knew them at all. I rant and shake my fist, but I have all along been denying my space in a literary lineage.

I must confess I am not as good with giving my creative projects the wings they deserve. Instead, many of them sit, unread, unfelt, undigested by the very people who may be serve the most from my projects’ existence.

Ouch.

It hurts to confess that, yet I know I must face it.

The door marked “Ouch” is open. I am facing it.

This week I will face the "door marked ouch" and continue to face it and write more about it here, publicly, in hopes knowing you are out there holding me accountable for continuing and completing this project, the better I will do at showing up.

That helps me to smile, knowing a long trail of writers leading up to me are encouraging me and hopefully a long trail of writers behind me are encouraging me, too.

As Charles Bukowski said, “writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all”

I'll be back tomorrow - if not sooner - 

# # # # #

 

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!

© 2013

 

In the Heart of the Mishmash of Experience I Came to Forget: 2012/13 = Getting Up & Getting Up & Getting Up

In theater and in life, its a mish mash of falling & getting up, over and over and over again

All week long I thought I “should” be writing about “it”: getting back on stage again after this tumultuous year.

It was my first “opening weekend” in a year. Sure, I have had spits and spurts of the theater world: I did VDay, I emceed a cabaret show, I did some storytelling and poetry gigs, but I didn’t allow myself the pleasure nor assign myself the responsibility of creating collaboratively over the long term. I didn’t say yes – nor did I audition to create any possibilities of the pleasure and the sadness I have come to know intimately during my last decade in local theater.

I was on a break from theater when I noticed the changes of what I thought was just another mole taking up real estate on my face. It was pink and therefore in the “not scary” category, but when it started puffing out I became curious. I almost didn’t go to the doctor about it, though, because I thought I was (literally) making a mountain out of a mole hill.

My doctor told me I was smart to come in to get the mystery mole checked. I didn’t realize there would be a parade of people photographing and measuring and clucking about my face as I sat there, somewhat inert, eyes wide and more than slightly curious.

I was sent to a dermatologist who informed me over the phone a week after biopsy that it was, in fact, melanoma, and to meet with the surgeon asap, they had set a date for me where I went and then a few days of testing for surgery prep – in which I also was sure to get my overdue mammogram. It seemed like I had time enough to sneeze between my first appointment and when I sat in the operating room saying to Ash the anesthesiologist, “This feels sort of like a massage table,” and waking up almost simultaneously staring at the ceiling back where it all started, a big bandage across my face.

That was nine months ago. It is equivalent to the time spent in pregnancy. Like pregnancy, no one tells you exactly what to expect mostly because while there is a vague blueprint, each patient and each cancer is different. My scar is finally maturing now – I can feel all of my face again and the glory of my smile lines disappearing is now more like my smile lines assimilating themselves into the heart shaped scar I now wear.

You might wonder what any of this has to do with opening weekend.

It has a lot to do with opening weekend for me. It has been my season of playing Sisyphus, the mountainous impossibility I believed cancer created yet no one else, it seemed, could see. I read the words of Albert Camus which read, “Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?”

I couldn’t, in the early days, imagine hope or success being intimates with me again.

Instead I had more than one verbal sparring match with friends I loved, lots of tears shed, intense disappointment of myself amidst some people reassuring me my scar was “practically invisible” to others curiously wondering, “Is that scar a result of trauma?” and probably hoping for a more dramatic story than noticing, doctoring and waking up as a cancer survivor.

Somewhere within the mishmash of experience I came to forget, most of the time, that I wore a heart shaped scar on my face. I started making conversation with strangers again, for example, even though they weren’t always as smooth as in the past. I started laughing loudly in public again. I even started agreeing to have my photo taken again.

I started giving myself permission to miss theater again, to long to be on stage again.

I was in the Berkshire Mountains when I got a text from my friend, Tim, saying he needed to find a wife for the play “The Nerd” and the director had asked for suggestions. He suggested me and I thought about it and said, “Hey, if they want me, I’m in but I can’t start for another week.”

I returned to rehearsal the day I returned home from my east coast travels.

The second day of rehearsal I decided I needed to give my directors a way out from under my scar. “If you want to find someone else who doesn’t have a scar, its fine with me. I understand. I wasn’t sure if you knew before asking me about my melanoma and surgery, so I just wanted to be sure you are comfortable…”

They said they were so I chose to believe them.

I survived worry about losing my abilities on stage. I survived worry about getting more corrective notes than I usually do. I survived worry about my daughter, Emma, who had a personal crisis throughout which came to a dramatic climax on the second day of tech week.

I remembered the lost art of getting back up. And getting back up. And getting back up.

It is Sunday morning of opening weekend.

I am exhausted and satisfied. I thought I wanted to get away to the beach or something similar today, but that just felt like too much effort. Instead, I am here, writing these words, processing all that has happened and allowing myself to continue opening more doors of possibility.

I am peeking in without attachment.

I am listening and accepting and growing without judging.

I am willing to dangle my feet into the flow without flinging my whole self back in until I feel “good and ready.”

I am even comfortable not coming up with “tying all of these thoughts in a carefully crafted red bow” and bringing it all to you in a caravan of word-pleasure.

I am here. This morning. You’ve read a snippet of what I have been doing.

That is more than enough. 

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© 2013 Julie Jordan Scott

Today: Stop Allowing Bullying Beliefs Get in the Way of Your Dreams

What are you willing to risk to stop allowing Disempowering Beliefs to Bully My Dreams?

What is getting in the way of you reaching for your dreams?

This is simple yet not so simple to answer.

The thing is, I don’t want to be trite and shrug this issue off my shoulders like my navy blue sweater leaves my shoulders once Spring arrives. This is one of those niggling areas of belief I need to take a sledge hammer to rather than let it bully me anymore.

That’s it: my barrier to my dreams is a belief “There isn’t time and there isn’t money for me to reach my dreams, so why bother when it will never work out?” If that were true, how do those scrappers who were in the face of ruin managed to rise up and take the world by storm?

Perhaps that is part of it: there is no metaphorical gun to my back.

 

Perhaps it would be wise to create one today. Something like, “Your daughter can not go to college unless you are able to fund it on your own.” This actually isn’t far from the truth. My eldest daughter is at Smith College, a very prestigious seven sister’s college. Several weeks ago she visited Princeton, which is where she wants to go to graduate school because they have the not only the top Presbyterian Seminary in the country, they also have the second largest theological library in the world. The Vatican’s library is apparently larger.

This leaves my second daughter’s education to be concerned about when my eldest is going into her second year at Princeton.

Can you even imagine the financial opposite of windfall that will create?

What has worked for me when I was the most successful in the past is to create a game of some sort – a personal challenge – and then to go for it with all my might. I am looking at an adorable photo of my daughter right now as I type. She is looking back at me as if to say, “I believe in you, Mommy.”

She has risen above the bullies of her past. It’s time for Mommy to do so, too. I notice my shoulders aren't up around my ears anymore. Just writing those words seems to be have started the process of releasing the Belief Bullies.

Now, to create the game that will send them completely underground. Come back again to see what happens next so that you may toss your Belief Bullies out of your world.

 

 

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott