Great thought: a week to myself, a luscious extravagant nothing planned week to myself....
Since I am tired right now, probably close to perpetually since I became a Mom nearly twenty-one years ago, I think, “I would go to sleep early and stay asleep as long as my body wanted to stay asleep.”
I would also go someplace other than home to create, to contemplate and to declutter my thoughts.
Right now there is a lot of thought-matter up there. I would take a week to bid adieu to the thought matter. Just open my mind and let the sun, the wind, the breeze, the thunder and lightning touch it.
I would like to ease into a 48 fast from communication. No talking, no writing, no reading.
Easing back into communication, I would give myself an hour with my notebook daily for the rest of the week. For the rest of that time, no one else’s judgment, opinions or beliefs would touch my now cleared mind.
I would have space to begin missing people.
I would ease back into normal life by slowly reappearing. A small slice of time with my cell phone on, perhaps a text or two, but I think after that I would be committed to a time, daily, to let me mind open and flutter in the breeze without agenda, without plan, without concern except to be open.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
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It's important to have some “do absolutely nothing” time every once in a whileaway from your children.
I don’t even mean time for what we would normally call self-care, like getting a manicure or taking in a matinee or even having a chatty lunch with a girlfriend you haven’t seen for a while.
I mean time to do absolutely nothing.
I like to do this on my porch, usually in the early morning before anyone else is awake. Sometimes, though, doing absolutely nothing time only comes in the dark. Like last night.
Last night I sat on my porch in the near middle of the night because sometimes this is the only time I have to “be away” from my children. My son begged me to rest my weary self next to him while he fell asleep because he has cultivated a recent fear of ghosts and haunted houses and the still darkness of his pillow conjures scary thoughts. He will call out, “Emma, is that you in the hallway?” because he is afraid the footsteps belong to an unknown ghost.
So I gave him plenty of time to fall asleep and then crawled out of the bed and onto my porch. I sat and listened.
The thing about being quiet is it takes a while for your ears to acclimate to the quiet, just like when your eyes get used to the dark.
The quietness waits as if to see whether you are trustworthy to hear the nuances and hushed messages of near silence.
Like in the morning, when I write haiku, last evening I wrote some contemplative short poetry:
My neighborhood sounds so different late at night.
Breeze helps me forget 100 plus days.
Crickets sing timelessness.
Car passes, unaware.
I don't want to be that car, passing unaware.
I would rather be a cricket or a leaf the wind is strumming.
I tweeted the poetry as it was born, thinking there might be others out there who couldn’t sleep and rather than being bothered by sleeplessness, I thought they might want to step out their front or back doors and sit awhile to listen to whatever sounds there are in their neighborhood’s near silence.
It's important that every once in a while to have some “do absolutely nothing” time away from your children, even if it only steps away while they are sleeping in another room.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
This is post #16/31 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!
I have taught myself how to be cheerful in the morning. There may be a bit of a hereditary piece here, but I believe all people are capable of waking up with a brighter perspective in front of their eyes. Please try at least one of these tips to see how it will change you.
Ready to Wake Up?
Know what you need to get done – and start the day doing something you are passionate about doing every time: This may mean to start the day writing in your notebook or taking photos of dawn or, if you’re like me, sitting on my porch writing haiku.
Use yummy smelling (to you) morning things: soap, face cleanser, toothpaste… or if you use unscented personal items, how about waking up and lighting a candle – initiating light into your day and dedicating your day to passion, love and light (or your greatest intention.)
Don’t rush, don’t delay. If you wake up with an alarm, get up when it goes off. Stretch when you turn it off. This is so simple and it works. Arms up over your head, stretch and smile! Greet yourself (even if this sounds corny.) If you keep a dream dictionary, write in it.
Play music (softly) preferably “language free”. Words are so powerful, they punch your subconscious mind with all sorts of suggestions. Early in the morning, instrumentals are best to keep your mind clear and your attitude moving forward.
You’ve heard it a thousand times before: have a healthy breakfast. Sometimes a smoothie is the best breakfast there is. A donut and coffee definitely don’t count as a healthy breakfast. If this means rethinking your routine then rethink your routine.
Start your day with radical self care and if you are one to add spirituality to your self-care, do so daily. Meditation, Free writing, Yoga, Pilates, a Walk or any combination of the above to begin refreshed and renewed: These work.
Stay Unplugged: Give yourself an hour before you turn on your computer or check your text messages. Really, all this can wait. No email with barely awake eyes, please. Settle into your day away from the keyboard or television. You will be grateful!
Tell your housemates what works best for you. This includes children, spouses and parents. My children know I write every morning, so they will sit at a table with me, quietly. I simply set that expectation and they know the expectation. Once I arranged it, everything has been just right.
This is post #13/1 for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Slowly and surely I am getting caught up!
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
This Summer I asked for mothering advice from two famous Hollywood Mothers.
Well, I didn’t ask them mothering advice exactly the way you might think.
These are not, after all, living Hollywood Mothers.
They are legendary Hollywood mothers who are no longer alive.
I took time beside them at monuments in their honor: Donna Reed, the first mother, at her graveside in Westwood and then Joan Crawford, at her Hollywood Walk of Fame star.
Donna Reed’s show was one of my childhood favorites. It was in reruns by the time I watched it. I loved her swishy dresses and pretty face. She reminded me slightly of my own mother, except for the wardrobe. I got older and fell in love with Mary on “It’s a Wonderful Life” via its annual showings during the holiday season.
She seems like someone everywoman would want to chat with about motherhood, about being a woman, and then after the layers of fiction were released, I would want to know about what compelled her as an artist. I might even ask her now, post life, about what she misses about being alive.
Perhaps this is something that compels me as a writer: wanting to know about death and after death. Wanting to know at the end of one’s life as an artist what sifts out as significant. What seemingly small work became what one remembers the most and what “big” project turned meaningless and why – how- where – what was up with that as it happened?
Now Joan Crawford is a completely different mothering story. I wouldn’t even think of asking her mothering advice but something in my gut brought those words to my lips as I cuddled up next to her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last Sunday night.
Yes, as odd as it sounds, I rested on the sidewalk with her star in order to get a compelling photo. I will do almost anything creatively for art or a laugh or both. It was sincered when I heard myself whisper to Joan, “Do you have any motherly advice for me?”
She has become a mothering joke from the “Mommy, Dearest” book and film. “Wire hangers” are legendary because of her disgust for them as they played host to expensive clothing she didn’t feel her daughter, Christina, valued as she should with a more voluptuous, fabric covered hanger.
I wonder how her thoughts would change if she could speak after death. While she was living she said, "Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."
What would happen once her anger and fear went away?
I poked around online, newly fascinated by these two iconic women. I discovered Donna Reed, who was a mother to four children and a “second mother “ to co-star Shelley Fabares, was also a co-founder of the Peace Activist Organization, “Another Mother for Peace”. Within the group’s beliefs is “No mother is enemy to another mother.”
What would Joan’s life as a mother been like if another mother – another woman – had reached out to her with that sort of compassionate, loving energy of “no enemies here, simply mothers caring about other mothers”?
What would happen once her anger went away?
What got in the way of her freedom from anger?
What can we, as mothers and as women, learn from how she held more tightly to anger and rage than to the love she must have felt underneath all that excess emotional warfare she fought every day.
You may be reading this thinking, “How do these two Hollywood Mothers have any relevance in my life today, anyway?”
Do you know anyone whose anger and fear tear awayen any love in a poisonous fire of contempt that kills any hope of joy they may have within them?
Perhaps this essay was written especially for you so that you may ask the questions to your friend or family member that I posed to non-living beings:
What would happen if your anger went away?
What would happen if you let go of anger and replaced it with something less destructive?
What is getting in the way of your freedom from anger?
Donna Reed might tell Joan Crawford, “When you handle yourself, use your head; when you handle others, use your heart."
When you handle your children, use your head, your heart and your arms for hugging.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
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I have lost count of how many times I have reinvented myself.
I left a stable job with corporate America after my first baby was stillborn and I just needed a break from everything that was before she died. I played stay-at-home, Bible Study going, nodding at the cocktail party attending, no one asking me a question at parties because I obviously wasn’t interesting enough to talk to woman for a bit. I segued into county bureaucrat for a while – which nearly killed me until I reinvented myself as life coach/speaker/teleclass leader/writer/poet.
The writer/poet was actually the given throughout my entire life. The other costumes were like skins, shed when I was time to evolve into the next me.
I am evolving right along now, right on schedule.
It has been nearly five years since my brother died, my Mom got diagnosed with cancer and Samuel got diagnosed with autism. The biggest event after that event was the non-event of “The Aftermath” which I am just now pulling out from underneath – the aftermath and all the accessories it comes alongside.
I am actually interested in my business again: that whole Life Coach/Teleclass Leading/Speaking/Writer/Performance Poet me is back, almost with a vengeance. I am laughing more. I am shedding less. I am talking less and acting more.
I am acting in theater less.
I am being 1,000 percent (and somewhat) comfortable with this latest reinvention of myself.
Sometimes I get flustered when my friends reinvent themselves in a way that interferes with my view of my own reinventions, but luckily I am so accustomed to it, I am entertained more than anything else. I nod and smile and remember what it was like when I reinvented myself for the first, second or third time.
Now I know my skin gets shed and a new skin is there, instantly. Sometimes it looks better, sometimes it looks worse, but it is always interesting. Life hasn’t been boring since I left my days as a bureaucrat.
Congratulations, beloved Fadra, for your most recent reinvention, even if it means Sundays won’t be precisely the same from now. It just makes space for the rest of us to be free to reinvent and live some questions of our own.
I honor this space you have created for us.
You are love incarnate as we are, too. I am grateful for this time. Maybe now you will have more time to tell your stories? Whatever you decide, do it with the great love you are – that goes for each and all of you, not only Fadra.
Be love as you shed your skin and stand back, looking in the mirror at your new skin. It looks good on you.
This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…
Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
Listen: It is to live consistently as simply as this inhale and that
exhale, one in and one out, peaceful, content and open for whatever the next
thing is your children, your boss, your partner or the weather or the
construction on your street sends you next.
This is the most basic sense of what it means to be a Haiku
Mama.
One of my great and simple joys is teaching people in
journaling and writing classes the pure joy of writing one of the most
condensed forms of poetry possible: the haiku. If you don’t remember from
elementary school it is – traditionally in Japanese and this is only a very
short bit of it – a three line poem with the first and third line consisting of
five syllables and the middle line being seven syllables.
A Haiku Mama (or Mommy, which is what my children call me) is a Mom who takes live one moment at a time not with a heart pounding in fear about the "what shoe will drop next!" but rather knowing that whatever comes, everything will truly be just fine.
I do some of my best contemplative “work” while driving. Maybe it is because as a Mommy, I spend more time than I would necessarily choose to spend behind the wheel of my Mom - Mobile. I don’t know how it works, but today I was driving along thinking about this exceptionally fine, exceptionally full week I just experienced.
There were whirlwind elements and a lot of moving and hustle and bustle, but within all that flittering and fluttering there were moments of deep soul that will carry be above and beyond all the heres and theres and the other places.
This is important, especially during the Summer when the children’s needs are not only the highest priority, but everyone is underfoot all the time and reminding me I need to spread myself out amongst them… as equally and lovingly as possible.
If I look back and tell you all the activities from this week, you might get tired before I highlight three major “wow” moments. These are times when everything slows and expands, moments where we will remember and tell and retell or perhaps just like at each other and smile, connecting over and over again.
1) For the love of a fallen Sequoia.
My love of Sequoia trees is not a very well kept secret. I love my Sequoias so much I have put off visiting Yosemite again because it feels like I am cheating on Sequoia. I know, my logic isn’t sound but my love is pure. I took Emma, Samuel and our Couchsurfing visitor, Sara, to the Trail of 100 Giants – a very familiar and beloved place only this time we were in for a surprise. One of the giants had fallen. These are no minor giants, either. These are fifteen hundred year old trees, as in were one thousand years old when Shakespeare was first putting quill to paper. To see a friend, fallen was breathtaking. To reach into her cracked open side, like reaching inside a living person, offering her heart to me. I need to work on the description of that moment. It is so beyond words still for me.
2) Space Mountain & Trust at Disney– I wrote about our Space Mountain adventure in my blog yesterday. You may read that here. I loved exploring Disney with my children, but I was also gripped in fear and anxiety much of the time. Each time Samuel, my son with autism, said, “I want to go on that again!” my heart stretched. He was so afraid of Disney until we went there and he overcame each and all of his fears. We all stretched on this trip. I will also forever remember when Emma and I spent time there alone in Fantasy Land, primarily, going on the kiddo rides and Small World and laughing a lot together.
3) Jacaranda Buds Fall into my Hair – I took the train home and left my children with their Dad because I had a show and didn’t want to worry about being late home. You can never tell with Los Angeles traffic. I had a bit of a layover in Union Station which I filled with writing. I sat inside for one point and a random woman asked me to watch her things. I agreed, knowing it was impeding on “what I wanted to do” but I also believe random kindnesses are important in this day and age. In doing so, I got some incredible photos I wouldn’t have gotten if I turned down her request. I also went back into the garden at a glass topped table under a jacaranda tree. I was in heaven just at that, but when one of the flowers from the tree offered herself to me by landing in my hair unexpectedly, once again my heart grew in my chest.
If I had to dissect each moment, I would say they were an exercise in mindfulness, just like the haiku poetry form. Awareness + breath + full hearted experience = abundant rewards as a way of life.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
I got such favorable responses, I decided to write short articles and sometimes, more tips, to go with the original article.
I'll repeat what I said there:
Hold lightly & apply with love.
I am going to preface this list of life tips with the last tip. Please read this as a beginning, an end and an in-between: Hold all of these tips lightly with love rather than duty. Duty is a fun-sucker, love is a fun-creator.
I can’t remember all the times I was told to keep scrapbooks filled with all sorts of stuff from my children’s lives. I tried. I did! When I was pregnant with Samuel my goal was to at least get started on Emma’s baby book.
I prepped photos, I collected stuff – and all of it sits in an 8 X 11 envelope, still waiting for me to get it together enough to get that scrapbook – baby book made.
So – you may be asking how can I be suggesting this very tip: Write things down, witness your moments & document with photos when you can’t do it yourself?
Well, truth is I have done it, I have simply done it in my own way. Which is
Key to Success #1: Find a way to document that suits your personality which you will continue to return to rather than abandon before you even get started. You might take photos for a month and then have a day to organize, categorize and choose which ones to print, hang and share. You might take photos every day and organize daily. Neither is wrong or right: either one is a success.
Key to Success #2: Carry a small notebook somewhere. I know, you can take notes on your phone (see #3) but a small notebook will help you to sketch something you see or ask your child to contribute or collect a quote from a surprising stranger and allow them to sign it. I know, notebooks seem old school – but you can even get tiny composition books from the dollar store. At least try this for a week or two and if it doesn’t fit, give your teeny tiny notebook to someone else to use.
Key to Success #3: Use your phone’s note taking feature to witness the world around you. I do this especially when I am standing in line. I found myself in a convenience store in a crummy part of town recently and to distract myself from freaking out wrote these lines:
Smell of a convenience store: inhabited by a crack head smelling like smoke, beer, and a t shirt worn for eight days in a row. Tattoos decorate the calves of a man in cut off shorts whose glassy eyes tell a story all their own I write lines for future poetry, perhaps, into my cell phone to stay safely distracted. Pink paint sparkles on my left thumb as I type type type into my android colornote “Armando, I looked the door,” she said, “We just had a beer run” Too long t shirt man puts a gallon and 81 cents into his dodge. I see glassy eyed man move in the opposite direction I will be driving in his car and I am frozen, unbelieving: I pray for his inebriated abilities and wish I had thought to write his license plate into my poem. Please, God, forgive me. Keep this neighborhood - this place – safe.
Key to Success #4 – Write using either the simplest form (strings of sentences) or a form that will inspire you to write (like haiku). Be sure to capture, anyway, so you will be able to hold this moment in the future.
Key to Success #5 – Don’t worry about having the biggest, best or most bad ass camera or tablet computer to collect your moments. Just use what you have. Test what works. Let go of what doesn’t and continue trying until you have your own brand of “keepers.”
You will soon have a potpourri of memorable stories, photos, poems and momentos to not only keep your family legacy alive, you may find yourself writing to earn money or teaching workshops or simply being a more engaging storyteller as you tuck your children into bed.
Whatever the result of this is, know it will make your life even better than it is today.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
I laugh when I think about the birth of writing camp.
I started hosting camps when I looked at my long term goal of creating an Artist Colony/Writers Retreat/Camp sort of place for all generations. I had been looking at writers residencies and found nothing where I could have a residency AND have my children with me.
I am just not up to leaving my children for four weeks at a time.
I thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a place where people could elect the option of bringing family with them on their artistic rest times, where the children are cared for and also doing creative activities simultaneously and learning the joy of silence, quiet and the creative process.” I also thought a certain Mother (of mine!) would benefit from the same thing!
Grandparents, Children, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Moms and Dads, all enjoying a sacred and protected time of creating together separately.
This was my dream AND it didn’t show any signs of manifesting right on my horizon so the creative me said, “How can I bring this sort of experience into fruition before I have an actual property?”
This is how Writing Camp was born.
Since then there have been many (I have lost count!) virtual writing camps. There have been Writing Camps in high school classrooms, in City Parks, in National Parks, in Hospitals, in College classrooms. People have attended camp from all over the world.
My next logical step is to take Writing Camp on the Road: in other words, bring Writing Camp with me when I travel and/or intentionally taking Camp to certain places. A natural combination to me is taking Camp to writerly AND natural places.
Since I love visiting writers’ homes and benefit from the creative vibe within places, this seems like not only a logical next step, but a “filled with passion” next step.
This Summer, I will be in these cities and locations:
Flagstaff, Four Corners, Canyon de Chelly, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Colorado Springs, Denver, St. George, Bryce and Zion National Parks, Las Vegas and also since I am so close to Los Angeles, would love to do some Camps there: preferably at Art Museums and places like the variety filled Griffith Park.
In the Fall, I am thinking Portland for a weekend trip and South Dakota or Kansas or both for another weekend trip.
Where would you love to see Writing Camp appear? Perhaps you’ve been wanting to manifest an intentional writing community – here is your chance, delivered to a neighborhood, a museum, a home near you.
All you need to do is speak it to me here, email me at juliejordanscott at gmail dot come or call or text me at 661.444.2735 and we’ll begin the delightful task of putting it into motion.
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. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
Did you enjoyed this essay? Receive emails directly to your inbox for Free from Julie Jordan Scott via the Daily Passion Activator. One inspirational essay and poem (almost) every week day. Subscribe here now -
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