10/31/2017 0 Comments I Choose to Engage With.... Day 2 #5for5BrainDump Writing A Mind is NOT a vessel to be filled, it is a fire to be....Now I choose to be engaged by….my work, my precious life work – what I can control is my output, my willingness to step into this precise moment and create something of meaning that compels others to be more clear and more exhilarated with and by their own experiences.
Earlier I chose to be engaged by the process of decluttering. I made a trip to the dump – a sort of ritual for me with my friend, Cameron. We go to the dump almost weekly. I’ve been wanting to get rid of a lot of stuff that is no longer necessary or is in disrepair. Today I looked at what I was throwing away and I thought, “This is what my depression looks like. This is my depression made into form,” and in throwing it away and no longer allowing it to have space in my life, I felt a calm fall onto my shoulders. It was like when I get a massage, the gentle touch and the lifting of worries out of my body via conscious human interaction. We laughed on the way to the dump, my hands slightly scaly and we laughed more when we saw a historical marker seeming to mark nothing, anywhere and on my way to photographing it I thought I would stumble and then THAT could be marker. “Normal people don’t do this,” I giggled. “I can see it now! I called out to Cameron as I took a photo. “The new historical marker will say ‘this is the spot where the woman taking a photo of the historical marker to nowhere died trying to get back to the car.” Instead of saying “normal people don’t do this’ with disdain, I said it with laughter and joy. Perhaps even a trace or two of holiness might be seen. As we drove away from the dump I felt lighter, my hands felt dryer and scalier and I realized in giving up this broken, weary, not useful “stuff” which had taken on the physical form of my depression, I was also letting go of what was broken, weary and not useful in me anymore. I had removed items that were important and that had been forgotten in the interim. All was well. All is well. I am continuing to choose to engage. Choose to engage.
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10/30/2017 0 Comments Now, I allow - invite - engage - (Video provided for you to write along with us).
Now I allow myself to feel my way into my response I keep blustering into forgetting. I need to start over because I forgot my timer.
(Took a moment to get a cup of coffee and re-set timer) I allow myself to be transparent again. Really, really truthful and clear because I find when I am transparent I am free. I have nothing to lose and as Janis Joplin reminds us (well in the Julie version) freedom stands or freedom means there’s nothing less to lose. Things have not been easy this year. Things have sucked much of the time. I have kept a smile on my face most of the time and I have allowed myself to pull back and pull away. I am allowing myself to use language differently – getting away from the should and needs and lack based language I fell into unconsciously. November is about recreating from love and abundance rather than fear and lack and neediness. “What if they leave me? What if they hate me? What if something bad happens and I need help and I’ve alienated everyone by being so full-on-flat-out myself?” I can get intellectually it is distorted thinking that people will abandon me if I am fully myself but I can point to times when it has happened over and over again and that base fear of abandonment is a doozy! I remember Katherine’s wedding nine days ago and I was dancing and singing like when I was a young girl. I had so much fun and I didn’t care what people thought. I remember one flash of a moment when I cared: I caught the eye of a member of Katherine’s new family – my new family – when I was singing and dancing in a way some might think unbecoming of the mother-of-the-bride and deep within me fear popped in, evil weasel like. I smiled at it, winked, and kept dancing singing and laughing with my friends. Wasn’t wearing shoes, wasn’t at all dolled up beyond my normal self-face and I had the time of my life. #MoreofThatPlease Now I allow myself to continue to write into the #moreofthatplease. This week and beyond. I am grateful for dear, life-long friends and family. I am grateful to the people who show up for me when I facilitate writing programs. I am grateful for coffee and actually drinking it without it going cold. I am grateful for my cell phone. I am grateful I asked for what I hoped for and I got it… even belated it was good still. I am grateful my neighbor “Dilated Dad” was thrown in jail. I pray he stays there.
I'm preparing for next week's #5for5BrainDump session. Day One's theme is ALLOWING and I poked around my own writing for prompt inspiration. I found a bit of writing that included a one-page-autobiography that was included in a college course. I picked it up and allowed myself to fall back into the narrative partially because I wanted to work out some of the niggling emotions that turn up and secondarily, to see how this concept may apply across genre. |
Julie Jordan Scottis the founder and creator of 5For5BrainDump. She has been inspiring artistic rebirth since 1999. Archives
December 2021
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