Julie Unplugged

Reverb Day 4: Remember to Celebrate Yourself During This Festive Season!

Today's prompt written by Kat McNally from I Saw You Dancing:

How are you going to celebrate your self this festive season? 

Will anyone be shocked that I start this post of celebration and festivities with a confession?

The curtain fell on my last completely festive season in 1989. Some of you weren’t born yet. The average person who knows me doesn’t know this. It isn’t as if I whine and sulk and put on an annual “Woe is Me at the Holidays Parade” or anything even remotely similar.

It has been too long.

I need to choose to end those days of unhappy holidays and painted on happy faces. I need to create a ceremony with my children where we all celebrate each other individually, to make the holidays sacred just because we are and just because we love each other.

My parent’s 60^th Anniversary Party is on December 26. My daughter’s twenty-first birthday is on the 25^th. We will leave for the party in San Diego County on the morning of the 26^th and spend the night on the 26^th and 27^th in Dana Point, the town where I lived for three years as I finished high school.

My children and I love it there.

One of our every-visit events is watching the sunset at the Dana Point Jetty. My eldest daughter will be back from her semester in Scotland. We will have been reunited for four days, so we will be mostly used to each other again. On that night, as we watch the sunset, we will create a ceremony to bless the year that is ending and to bless the year that is about to begin.

Each person will have a chance to “sit on the throne” and speak of their highlights and perhaps low lights of the year with the others offering praise and gratitude for each person.

My younger kids may balk a bit, but I am going to keep my Julie-and-Kids celebration in a space of love.

Then we’ll have dinner at one of our favorite places down there. Right now we don’t have a favorite place, but I want it to overlook the water.

This is a chance to celebrate and wash clean the dust of 2012. It has been a bittersweet year as many years may be. I have noticed through Reverb this year I am even now beginning that process of washing the year clean and spreading gesso atop next year’s canvas.

May each and all have a festive SELF CELEBRATION this month (and how about we report in during next year's Reverb13?)

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Time. Time. Time. Just this Weekend I was Reminded.... "You have a Time Issue!"

Today’s Cultivate 2012 prompt:

Time is a valuable resource. Did you spend your time wisely this year?

What can you do to cultivate more quality in your time during 2013?

I had to get a cup of coffee to write to this prompt. Ugh.

Time is one of my “things”. I have been called a Time Nazi – not a very pleasant term at all – but I have a tendency to be really prickly about being late. I have a very low threshold for people being late or for myself being late.

In the mornings I walk around as if I was stage managing: I tell Emma, “fifteen til we leave!” to which she says “Thanks, 15!” and I count down by five minute increments. By the calls to “5” and “I’m walking out the door!” she is no longer humored, she is grouchy and snappy and the way most normal fifteen-year-old girls are early in the morning.

That is in my family management, though, not in my personal business, creative and life management.

This year I have pulled back from a lot of my former “time sucks”. I have become a much better “steward of my time.” Today, for example, I am working in 30 minute increments. I am facing a deadline today, so for my reverb writing (which has been ridiculously eye opening this year) I am only spending five minutes to write each post. I am timing myself and sticking to it.

I am intermingling writing with chores, my grading – it is the end of the semester and it is due today, no ifs ands or buts, and other stuff I choose to throw in.

Working in small chunks always helps me get things done and it flexes my “laser like quality time” as well. I’ve been a Mom for twenty two years now. I have learned from parenting how to work in very short chunks and how to work around the needs of my children.

For now – and throughout December – I will be using that model of spending my time in chunks.

In 2013, I will do that, but in addition I will blend in my questioning technique I have been using. I start my day, for example, with asking myself, “How will I build my business today?” which I stuff into the back of my mind and my subconscious comes up with a few brilliant ideas which I enact as efficiently as possible in with my other stuff.

Perhaps this is why chunking works: I write down what my subconscious brings and ta-da, begin enacting  it with an hour. This makes my subconscious very pleased so the ideas just keep coming.

I feel much better about time than when I started writing.

It’s the magic of Cultivating and Reverbing. YES!

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Choose to Love What You Want to Hate? Close Friends with Limits? Clearly - More Proof I am Losing it?

 

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“We reach for destinies beyond what we have come to know and in the romantic hush of promises perceive each the other’s life as known mystery.”

Alice Walker

I found this snippet from the poem “Beyond What” as I was clearing off my dining room table and pondering the prompt: Limits – from one of my Reverb12 sources.

Here is how it was written –

We often learn our limits the hard way. Were there any limits you realized this past year?

Alternately, what self-imposed limits were you able to move beyond this year? (Author: Carolyn Rubenstein) 

I love Alice Walker’s phrase “known mystery”.  My definition of “known mystery” goes like this: 

There are those limits we are close friends with, those “I would if I could and I can’t” sort of mysteries we would love to get to know more intimately but we shy away from for whatever reason… we actually know the answers and the roots of the “can’t” but we choose, elect or are afraid to go deeper and farther.

Do you hear yourself or see yourself in these words?

This year I have put limits on what I do and also who I am by claiming my weight and my melanoma (and scar, even though the doctors tell me they got it all during surgery) are barriers to doing certain things.

I have used my weight as a limitation so many times I am bored of it, completely bored of it.

Which is perhaps why I ignore it or don’t notice it, it has been so pervasive (and so handy) for so long it is that perpetual snake that has wrapped its head around my being and is just now starting to tighten.

I have been so self conscious of my wound during my healing process I haven’t wanted to “go out without my band aid or scarf because it might make other people uncomfortable.”

There. I’ve said it.

It is ridiculous. It – no I – has  kept me separate. It is I who have  kept me focused on my ugliness rather than my beauty. I have set aside so many long term goals during this time of healing. It is I who imposed all of this on me.

A younger friend of mine is now dealing with cancer also and her attitude is so different than mine. I honor both of our ways of coping, but her attitude  is much more aggressive when it comes to knocking down any self imposed limitations.

I know that saying, “If there were no limitations, what would you do?” or “If finances were not a barrier, what would you do” or “If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do?”

I have thought those are hokey and for other people.

I am going to adopt them and teach myself to ask them as prompts for living and prompts for making choices that will systematically destroy my limits.

Thank you again, Reverb. This is such a different journey this year. I love it… even when I want to hate it.

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot    

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

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Look How Optimistic Julie Trumps Grouchy Julie (almost) Every Time!

My intention for this Australian version of Reverb12 is to complete the writing near bedtime on the American day before the prompt is to be written. I've learned weekend nights may be more about others than me. Ohhhh, well.

And in the spirit of Reverbing - that is JUST fine!

Kat's prompt for today: I can't believe it, but apparently I lost the most important part of this particular prompt.  What Do You Really Wish For?  That question is filled with optimism and much of my response is just down to business.  Knowing its all perfect, this made me laugh. Anyway - read on! 

Today's #reverb12 prompt and image come from my lovely friend Cam aka Curlypops. Many of you may know Cam as blog button designer extraordinaire. What you may not know is that she is also making the most of a life lived on hold:

Living life on a transplant waiting list gives you lots of reasons to reflect on what you've achieved in your life, and what you wish for the future.

Imagine a scenario where you only had one year left to live. What is one thing that you really wish to do that you just haven't had the chance to accomplish yet?

I would like to add: what steps could you take (however small) to ensure that you accomplish this thing in 2013?

Thank you, Cam, for this incredibly important reminder.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You would think that because of my cancer situation this year I would have leaped onto this one before I got a prompt. It reminds me of how situations such as this impact people in different ways.

I have long said if I die, I want to give a very trusted friend the permission to glean from my writing and see if it is publish worthy. This is ridiculous because it IS publish worthy. I have been published before, I get almost constant compliments along with the occasional person nit picking my grammar… so be it.

Even before I read this prompt I have been revisiting my blog posts for 2012 thanks to reverb and yesterday morning I said to myself, “Hot damn, I can write.”

So my answer is this: if I had a year to live, I would ask a friend to be my literary partner and stand alongside me and with me go through what I have written methodically and get those books sewn together.

I have so much writing out there you may not be able to comprehend it. My main blog has almost 2,000 posts but I also have ezines and other spaces and places I write. I imagine I could easily have ten books among all that stuff.

There was one year I set the goal to pull together a book a month from all I have. I have started this task and never finished it.

Here is what I am going to do: find a friend who will come alongside me in this task and start it now – so I have a running start on 2013. Yes, this will be my grandest year yet.

I love how this optimism feels. I remember it, now! This is the optimistic Julie! Yay, I like her.

What was your most siFollow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot    

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Path: Some times the best path chooses you. -- Patrick Rhone

"What path chose you this year?" asks Meredith from Cultivate2012

Phew. I am getting tired of talking about this all the time and it is only day 2 of December.

One path chose me this year: cancer. Melanoma to be specific. It is a path that pisses me off, quite frankly. I am working through it. Sometimes I abhor this scar on my face, other times I think it is awesome and still other times I forget it ever happened.

I like that last option the best.

I haven’t reached that giddy excitement to just be alive like many cancer survivors do.

Another path chose me: branching out creatively.

Yesterday at a soul collage workshop the facilitator said, “Well, you know how it is, Julie… as a painter you understand.” I didn’t say anything because I am surely not a painter, I insist. I am a poet, yes. I am a writer, yes. I am a performer, yes. I am certainly not a painter. I play with photography, sure I’ve sold some pieces and I have leaped into mixed media and jewelry making but no, thank you, I am not a painter and then someone I respect deeply not only referred to me as a painter, he called me specifically an “abstract painter.”

This seems ridiculous. Why do people keep insisting I am on a path which I know I am not on?

Silly people.

Perhaps this is partially because of my melanoma: I have pulled back from theater because I am concerned my appearance will be upsetting to audience members and “pull them out of the moment” that is, if any directors would be foolish enough to cast me.

Cancer chose me. Deepened creativity chose me. I can’t be angry for either. I believe I was at choice with the deepening creativity now I guess I need to be at choice in not saying, “No I am not a ____, if I was that I would be horrible at it!”

I also want to shift to being at choice with my cancer, more in that I do not see cancer as a “thing that happened to me” or “something that chose me because I am somehow wrong, bad, or I deserve it.”

Each prompt this year is helping me get more clear.

By the end of December, I should be exceptionally brilliant. (See me laugh and hold my tongue firmly in cheek.)

Thank you, Cultivate 2012!

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot 

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Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. 

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My Most Significant Expenditure in 2012: Finally, finally, finally....

My intention for this Australian version of Reverb12 is to complete the writing near bedtime on the American day before the prompt is to be written. Last night, however, was consumed with driving a bunch of high school choir member from gig-to-gig and as soon as I got home, my son wanted (deservedly) attention so I didn't get to this until... now.

And in the spirit of Reverbing - that is JUST fine!

Kat's prompt for today: Your most significant spend?

What was your most significant expenditure in 2012?

My most significant expenditure was also the most pricey one. I am now the proud owner of a 2012 Mazda CX5.

I have not had a brand new car in this millennium. I have not had a brand new car since the last decade of the past millennium. I have bought some great second hand cars. I have been cool with that, primarily because I know about how brand new cars lose value as soon as I put a mile on them blah blah blah but getting this brand new car opens so many options for me.

I am a lover of road trips.

Four years ago my children and I set out on a cross country road trip and our car broke down – blown transmission – in the middle of South Dakota. This curtailed what was to be a fantastic adventure. As soon as I even thought about buying this new car I thought, “ROADTRIP!”

I have my first cross country trip planned for Summer 2014. Everything will be under warranty then, so I will have that feeling of safety as we set out this time.

This was such an easy prompt for me.

I am grateful for each and all of you reading. Thank you for sharing the end of 2012 with me!

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How I am starting: December, a New Generation of #Reverb12 and with YOU!

My plan for this series of prompts is to write from them right before I go to sleep, almost like a closing written prayer for the day. Our Reverb12 host from Australia is Kat from I Saw You Dancing.

She asks:

How am I starting?

I am starting with an open heart and an open mind. I am starting with joy and hope.

I am starting with smudges of fear across my cheek. I am starting with tendrils of anxiety between my eyebrows.

I have been “reverbing” in some form or fashion since BestO9 I believe it was initially called. I really should go back and see what I said on Day One for the last few years. I have it all here – but you know what I just realized?

I am starting with a white canvas. With December  1, 2012 waiting for me to live my way to loving each question and reaching out to as many of you as I possibly can and hoping, praying, wishing you will reach back.

I am starting with a bucket of anticipation, lots of paints and crayons and fabric and pages from old books I have painted and are waiting for further reflection.

I am wearing a smock so my “regular clothes” won’t get dirty. My regular clothes in this exact moment are a nightgown and bloomers. I feel very Victorian. I plan to close each night with one of these prompts, since they are coming from Australia so they I am writing into the future, truly.

I am starting with walking shoes on my feet, a camera in my pocket and a pencil and notebook in my hands.

I am starting with you.

I am starting.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott

Reflecting on 2012 & Manifesting What's Next in 2013

I have participated in end of the year reviews since 2009 with a group of online friends, some old some new some in between. This year, like last, there were many options of prompts to choose from each day.

Depending on which prompt I write about, you will see the badge or header from that prompter. Click on the Reverb12 images to see what those particular blogs have to offer.

Now:

Encapsulate the year 2012 in one word. Explain why you choose that word.

 I started 2012 with my word focus being INTIMACY. I don’t mean sexual intimacy, I meant diving into everything more deeply. I wanted to stretch less wide and more deep. I wanted to come to know myself and those I love better.

I should congratulate myself because I did exactly that though not in ways I might have intended if I had a magic mirror or something similar. Nonetheless, dealing with challenges with my children, with my health via melanoma, and shifting mostly out of theater after years doing upwards of six or eight or ten shows or more, I have tended to closeness.

I have more close friends now than before and in some of those friendships there have been rocking and rolling and learning and sewing, metaphorically. I have also ended some friendships or perhaps “let go” of some friendships would be a better way to describe it.  Letting go has given me room to become intimate with others: those whose friendships I continue to savor.

I became more intimate with the chilling fear of melanoma. I remember when I answered the phone as I walked out of the office at my son’s school. The biopsy results were eight days of waiting. I was shocked when my doctor said “Its melanoma.” My daughter almost lost it: she had a belief I would die, no matter what. I am still dealing with leftover fear and fear that can be traced directly to this experience. I’m giving myself permission to continue with growing more intimate with this different variety of fear.

Now, imagine it's one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2013 for you?

GROWTH is my word for 2013 with a sub theme “Adding to the Increase” which I used in the program 42 Days of Passionate Prosperity I created close to ten years ago.

I want to continue growing – in a variety of ways.

I want to grow my creative life and writing coaching business, I want to grow in my publishing endeavors, I want to grow my audience, I want to help my children grow, I want the intimate friendships I have continue to grow, I want my financial abundance to grow, I want to grow and sprout and take deep root… you get the drift I am sure.

Isabelle Eberhardt  said, “For now it seems that by advancing into unknown territories, I entered into my life.”

I found this quote and it seems like I perfect fit. I want to grow comfortably in discomfort so that I may move into new territories I don’t even know right now.

Watch on my blog as I continue to develop this theme throughout the year.

Hooray for Growth: Adding to the Increase throughout 2013 and beyond.

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott