The Fertile Unknown

Considerations for a World Disrupted: Engaging Your Creative Self

I hope you are staying safe, and taking the 
precautions you need for yourselves,

your families, and your community to stay safe, healthy, and functioning. We're all in an unprecedented unknown together - a high-stakes global improv scene. People are being more raw and real and vulnerable. We're learning, adapting, and creating as we go.

 

We're seeing real suffering, fear, and pain. It's easy to go into fight-flight-freeze or hopelessness in response. Yes, And...we're also seeing amazing and awe-inspiring acts of love, kindness, humanity, creativity, compassion, innovation, connection, support, generosity, and true community, even with the physical distancing.

 

The human(e) spirit and the Creative Spirit are not being held down! I'm seeing people all over the globe turn hopelessness into helpfulness. It's not about waiting until the constraints are over - it's about using them now, as they emerge, in our own lives and to serve the greater good.

 

I have various reactions to what's happening, from deep sadness for the real suffering and challenges of so many to huge hope and awe for how people are showing up and for what's creatively possible, among others. My work focus all stems from the life-giving creative source/force within us, and working with it to transform the darkest night into a new dawn. I'm committed more than ever to that, and in the process of learning what that means at a new level.

 

In that, I'm reflecting on what's emerging and my role within it. My work is changing as my in-person workshops have halted and I'll be going virtual. While I have no answers, which is the hallmark of being in emergence space, I'm staying present to real-time discovery to get more clarity on what's mine to do.

 

There are ways of being, thinking, and acting to support our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual/soulful, and creative well-being given the constraints of this situation. I'll share a small first batch of them here today, and will add others, and expand on some of these, in future posts. These are considerations, not prescriptions...take in and adapt whatever resonates, and leave the rest. :-)

 

Considerations for Your Creative Self in a World Disrupted 

• Creative Self Care. In addition to whatever else you are doing for your self care - staying informed, eating well, hydrating, exercising, social distancing, meditating, breath/body practices, staying connected w loved ones, getting out in nature - do something to actively nurture your Creative Self and keep aliveness energy moving through you.
  
  Paint, draw, move, dance, make crafts, dance, sing, write poems; improvise, play games and make up games; discover new music and write music; watch funny videos that make you laugh, aspirational videos that inspire you, educational videos that teach and inform; read inspirational books that uplift you; join social media groups of caring creative people coming together around for shared support or shared aspirational actions and discussions - they are out there!
  
  
• Our Creative Self Flourishes with Hope. Feed it some hopeful news or ideas each day, especially when the world is living in fear. Stay cautious and informed...and consciously seek out positive stories and energy, acts of kindness, helpful innovations. It's all out there. Learn new things; try the creative things you've put off; reflect, think, contemplate, and question assumptions.
  
  Journaling is one great way to sort out your thoughts (fears, hopes, ideas) and tap into what emerges into your consciousness. it's a great way to dialogue with inner parts of yourself, including what's alive and generative in you. it's especially needed now. This is a good time to use the "Pause" we're all in to deepen Self Discovery in creative ways. I have more to say on this in future posts.
  
  
• Creative Self Safety in an Unsafe World - we need some sense of psychological safety to best engage with the Creative Self. Familiarity and stability (the norm) is not giving it to us now, so that means we need to learn to find it in the unknown. One way to do that is Stay Present to what's true for you, moment by moment, day by day. Don't leave "space-time" in your mind to go back to the ways things were, or create harrowing future narratives of what might be - stay in the moment with what really IS.
  
  Learning to stay present, like in an improv scene, means being with what is, creating with it in the moment, until what's next unfolds...and then being with that. If you can answer "Yes" to, "Am I safe in this moment?" and really feel that, then more creative potential opens up to you. You can begin to feel safer, and see possibilities that you had not seen, just by practicing presence. Yogis, mystics, athletes, and improvisers all practice various forms of presencing (and there is much online on it and how to access it) because it transforms how we respond to life, and is especially useful in disruptions. One paragraph doesn't do this topic justice.
  
  
• Embrace Both And (and Yes And). Accept the Paradox of Both And that we are all in right now. Creativity thrives within paradox. There is no one completely right way to view what's happening. No matter what you think about this situation, there is evidence to back you up: if you think this is devastating, there is much to validate you on that. If you think this is a dawning of a new creative renaissance, there is much to validate you on that. Both are true. There are horrible things happening for people, and generative things emerging. We're seeing people get incredibly creative in how they're helping others. We're seeing groups gather online to commiserate, collaborate, and co-create.
  
  Both And is not about denying any aspect of what's happening - it it's about accepting the various parts of what's there - and creating a larger context or framework for them to co-exist so they are not limited to narrow ways of seeing or meeting the situation. I see BOTH AND as accepting both and more, and YES AND as accepting them, AND adding something new that is our contribution. We're both in a breakdown and in a breakthrough to something new. If we can hold both the challenging aspects WITH the generative aspects without denying one, it becomes easier to find a call to contribution within it.

If you are having a hard time accessing your creative voice in what's happening, I am offering a limited number of pro bono 30-minute Creative Self Support sessions over the next 3 weeks. I'll give you personalized specific tools and techniques, based on who you are and particular needs, specifically for accessing and focusing your creative self. It's first come first serve until my schedule fills up. Email [email protected]_creativeemergencedotcom to see up a time.

 

Stay safe! Take good care of yourself - and others! We are all in this emergent unknown alone together...and with the creative spirit.

 

Love and good thoughts,

Michelle

 

Other Related Blog Posts for a World Disrupted

1. 10 Creative Emergence Reminders for Volatile Times
2. Make the Unknown Your BFF
3. 50 Ways to Think Creatively
4. Reclaiming Your Creative Core
5. Cultivating Your Calling - An Intentional Practice
6. Practices for Cultivating Creative Aliveness
7. Navigating the Unknown - 7 Reflection Tools

Michelle James ©2020

Creating Generative Work in a Chaotic World: Doing What's Ours to Do to Move from Helplessness to Helpfulness

Picture from last Sunday's hike at Bearfence Rock Scramble in the Blue Ridge Mountains

Trying to take on the healing of the world is a daunting task, which can leave people feeling hopeless. Focusing instead on on what’s ours to do, in our own life - with our own unique set of gifts, skills, talents, and experiences that no one else can possibly have - to serve the betterment of the world in the unique way we're destined to serve makes our soul’s work accessible, and empowering. And it will help the healing of the world, because embedded in every soul’s calling is always some way to serve that is for the greater good. It’s not limited to the small palette of choices that others put forth for us.

We can create life-giving work outside those lines that serve our hearts and souls and spirits as we serve others. We’re not limited to jumping on pre-existing bandwagons - though we can choose that if we’re called to it. Yes, and…we always have the ability to create our own ways of serving, and they doesn't have to fit neatly into the conventional norms of what it looks like to serve. Creativity is messy, but there can be order in the chaos if we care to delve into the unknown to find it:

1. The first step is to open to that there are options we don’t yet know…and that we can access them from within ourselves. Just opening to that possibility frees us of being beaten down by what is going on outside of ourselves.
2. Next begins the work of connecting with our inner selves, and engaging our Creative Source (the life-generating-life, love-generating-love creative energy within each of us), exploring and creating with it until we can move past limiting belief systems and outdated stories of what we can do, and into a deeper reservoir of potential and possibility. As unconscious stories of helplessness become conscious, we can change them to new stories of helpfulness.
   
3. Then is the ongoing the creative cultivation of the creative impulse and what we've discovered out into the world - turning it into a set of guiding principles, applicable ideas, life-giving stories and manifestos, approaches, services, and products - whether we work for ourselves or for others. We all have generative ways to contribute.

We can stay in a fight-flight-freeze reactive mode to the world’s harshness...or we can acknowledge it, and choose a proactive, procreative stance in the face of it…and choose to discover and uncover what's ours to do anyway, even in the external chaos, to serve and steward our own little corner of the world (humans, animals, the earth) in the ways we can - creating a healthier new operating system from new paradigm aspirational energy instead of reacting only from the outdated familiar one.

If enough of us do our part in cultivating and doing soul/heart/aliveness/creativity-centered work in our own corner of the world (whether it's locally, nationally, or globally; with individuals, group, organizations, or communities; with people, structures, or systems; high tech or low tech; for profit or not for profit), and level up into a new aspirational story, it can't help but impact the good of the whole.  #my2cents #newparadigmwork #creativeemergence

Michelle James ©2020