The Fertile Unknown

Creative Emergence in Uncertain Times: Getting Back to Core Principles

Where there are layers of unknowns, core principles offer a port in a sea of foggy unknowns, and provide ways forward - foundations to build on, and create from. The following are just a few reminders, in no particular order. I'm sharing 7 (of many more) here today as considerations and reflections - not as prescriptions.
 
A Few Core Creative Principles
 
• Creative emergence is an evolving dance of expansion and contraction. In contraction, it is hard to see that next expansion, but just having the understanding that a contraction is a temporary state helps us better move within it. Nothing is static, and everything is in dynamic flux. Current versions of our stories often give way to generative emergent versions as we are present to them.
 
• There is always more than one right way. In any creative emergence process, it is not about one right answer, but uncovering what is possible in a sea of potential options. Binary thinking leaves out nuance, and nuanced thinking leads to more possibilities. To open the creative field is to go beyond just one or two ways of imagining something.
 
• Creativity thrives with purposeful actions. Challenging times can get us thinking about what matters most to us, and what we can do that is in alignment with what matters. When we align our creativity to a sense of purpose, we unfold a different quality of workable ideas than when we create from what we want to avoid. Brain research backs this up. We get more of what we reinforce. Purposeful actions relax our nervous systems by moving us from feeling helpless to serving. Paradoxically, we can use a sense of purpose to inspire actions, and we can also take actions to discover more of our purpose. It is not necessarily linear.
 
• Being informed from within. Our creative unconscious has more awareness than our conscious minds at any given time, and we can learn to access it and use it to help guide our decisions and creativity. We can use our inner creative selves to break “reaction patterns” (from our default zone) and turn them into new “creation patterns” (from our creative zone). So often in a creative emergent process, what emerges doesn’t fit neatly into our preconceived expectations. The creative unconscious, below the surface of our conscious awareness, contains more wisdom and creativity than that which is consciously known to us at any given time.
 
• Primary experience leads to creative empowerment. In discovery mode, we feel more free to go off script, to break our patterns. There is a certain type of empowerment that comes from knowing through discovery. Creative empowerment can't be fully experienced through "left brain" analytical thinking alone. Primary experiences goes beyond data (but includes it) into stories, and whole-brain/whole-body/whole-self engagement. The more of ourselves we can access and experience, the more empowered we feel making choices amidst the noise of the world about what we might want to create, and how.
 
• New metaphors and language replace the old. Using life-giving new metaphors allows us to conceive of situations and problems differently. Our language can keep up locked in our same everyday reality and thinking that created the problems in the first place. In an emergence process, using generative language can liberate our thinking, overcome blocks, assumptions, and connect our creative unconscious with our conscious mind.
 
• Generative questions inspire generative ideas. Generative questions are open ended, and are ones where we do not already have the complete answer. Asking "What's mine to do - no more no less - to serve this situation?" (see next section) is one example of a generative question. That question, if seriously asked and truthfully answered, narrows the field of all things possible into that which is most relevant at the given time for the particular circumstance. By asking any kind of generative question, and staying present to our insights and impulses that arise in us over time, we start to see options open up.
 
Principle-based navigating allows us to expand our stories beyond any one concept or story, and find a new place for ourselves within them. In any creative emergence, something new emerges in some way.

12 Ways to Engage Your Creative Self

Engaging our creative selves is an ongoing

journeythat needs space and time for refection, exploration, and cultivation. Here are 12 reminders of  ways to engage with creative self this summer:

 

1. Cultivate a creative mindset. Stay open to new ideas and perspectives. Embrace ambiguity and uncertainty as a creative wellspring filled with creative opportunities.

 

2. Engage curiosity and wonder about the world around you in your daily living. Ask questions, seek out new experiences, and be willing to to be uncomfortable in the unknown.

 

3. Make time for reflective thinking. Journal about your experiences, thoughts, feelings, dreams, hopes, aspirations and intuitive knowings. Look for patterns that emerge over time to gain more insights about yourself of whatever you are reflecting on.

 

4. Follow your aliveness. Make choices and engage in activities that resonate with your passions and interests. Try different things out until you discover what is. Authenticity fuels creativity and aliveness.

 

5. Embrace playfulness. Engage in activities that are fun and joyful to unfold new ways of thinking, being, and interacting. This also changes our brain's chemicals and keeps the energy high - opening us up to new levels of creativity.

 

6. Tap into something meaningful for you. Align your creative pursuits with your values and sense of purpose to create something meaningful for you. It can be anything - meaning generates creativity.

 

7. Integrate left and right brain activities. Use both analytical and intuitive thinking to get clarity and generate ideas. Balance planning and structure with allowing emergent space for spontaneity.

 

8. Use your body. There's a connection between your physical body, your passions and your creative mind. Practices like movement, dance and somatic exercises enhance creativity. Move differently to think and embody differently.

 

9. Get present. Stay present and engaged in the moment. Improv theater, mediation, and mindfulness can help you tap into deeper levels of presence for creativity.

 

10. Engage with diverse perspectives. Co-create and collaborate with others who bring different perspectives, skills, and talents. Explore different cultures, art forms, values and disciplines to broaden your world view and inspire new directions.

 

11. Follow creativity's natural rhythms and cycles. Allow for periods of activity/generating (yang) followed by rest and integration (yin). Sometimes the most creative thing you can do is focus, while other times is it to release focus. Follow your feeling and energy (where it generates, and when it wains) in this, not a prescription.

 

12. Cultivate resilience and adaptability to navigate challenges and setbacks. Know that resistances happen in every creative process, and find ways to recognize and move through them. Let yourself embrace mistakes as iterations toward what actually does eventually work. Creativity is messy.

 

 

Michelle James © 2024

Pattern Breaks Video Series: Part 2

As part of the book launch celebration for my creative facilitation guide book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Creativity, I've been hosting a video series with several seasoned guest facilitator friends. They each share different creative facilitation techniques and approaches, along with some lesson learned. Click here for Part 1 with the first 4 videos. Below are links to the next 3 videos, with more to come: 

Michael Margolis, founder of StoriedInc., shares a possibilities-first reframing approach for expanding the narrative in creative process. 20 minutes.

 

Sam Horn, founder of the Intrigue Agency, shares a multi-faceted creative framework for writers and facilitators to tell or facilitate captivating stories. 20 minutes.

 

Jim Smith, The Executive Happiness Coach, share a lively body-centered approach for creative embodiment, and bringing more energy into your workshops. 20 minutes.

You can watch them here, or pop over to my YouTube Channel, Michelle James Creative Emergence, and see them all there. If you subscribe to the YouTube channel, you'll be notified when the new ones come out. More to come in future posts here as well.

Click here to order the Pattern Breaks book.

8 Ways to Unlock Creativity in Challenging Times

Throughout history, times of great challenge have also always brought with them times of great creative opportunities. They are inexorably linked - crisis and opportunity. The world as we have known it is changing in so many ways at an unprecedented rapid pace. We can't sugar-coat or avoid that...but we do have agency in our response. We have it in us to adapt, respond, and create.

We may not have control of much of what plays out on the world stage, and we many need support to be with it...but we can influence our small part - in our own lives, and in the lives of those we serve in whatever way we are called to serve.

The following are questions I put together as a reminder of what we can choose amidst the chaos. I divided them up in 8 categories. These are offered as a "yes-and" to whatever else you are already doing and being, and this list not complete. As always, take what resonates and leave the rest.

1. Foundation Building. What foundations are you building to be able to navigate the tumultuous and rapidly changing times? What are your daily practices? What are you doing for your own self care? What are you doing for your creative expression? Strong foundations keep us grounded in the storms. They support our resilience, strong ideas, and purposeful actions.

2. Pattern Breaking. What patterns are you consciously breaking? What small pattern can you start with to practice? By consciously breaking patterns in low stakes, low risk ways, breaking patterns becomes more natural. So when life gives us higher stakes challenges, we can pivot more easily, and break our habitual patterns more easily to be able to meet those challenges. Pattern breaking not only helps creativity, it helps build resilience. Life will break our patterns for us anyway, so become more fluid in pattern-breaking helps prepare us for the pattern-breaks we cannot predict.

3. Aspiration Framing. What vision of story do you to hold for the present Do you hold a bleak vision for the future, or an aspirational one? Or a bit of both? If we can play with zooming out of our current story, and ply with imagining larger, more aspirational stories to live into, it can free up our creative energy to move toward the larger visions. By not denying the current story, but reframing it in a larger narrative where people can triumph over adversity (like history has shown us), we can move our creativity, and ourselves, into more generative new territory.

4. Creating. What types of creativity call to you? What can you do right now for your creative self? What have you always wanted to try but have keep putting off? Studies have shown that taking up some kind of creative endeavor in one area helps us open up more or our creative flow in other areas, and in practical ways. For example, when we take up painting, or improv, or playing an instrument, etc., it helps us them meet life situations and challenges from a more possibilities-oriented perspective. Try approaching it like a child, with no expectation (or evaluation) except the joy of creation..and see where you creative self takes you.

5. Releasing. What have you carried that was useful at some point, but no longer serves you? What stories are ready to be released or transformed? What perspectives are ready to be expanded? What limiting belief systems are ready to be shifted? What are you holding on to tightly that can be held more loosely and spaciously? Where can more light get in? Part of the creative process is letting go of what no longer serves us. And that includes for sure letting go of anything in you that tells you you are not creative.

6. Accepting. In every creative process there are constraints - things that can not be changed. We can fight them, resist them, avoid them, try to force them, or accept them. There is a huge sense of peace, and freedom, that comes with accepting constraints - there things we can't change - and creating from within those constraints. Instead of being a limitation in the creative process, the constraints can drive the creative process. All creativity needs flow and structure, and constraints are a particular kind of structure. Acceptance of what is, paradoxically, free us to create something else.

7. Taking Action. Taking action is about acting on what's there for you, and not waiting to feel comfortable in doing it. It sometimes means feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Stepping into something before you feel guaranteed everything will go perfectly and feel easy. A cornerstone of creativity is dynamic tension - the "Yes" energy of birthday something new often comes with the "I'm not sure if I am ready" energy of our natural resistance. Is there something in you that has comes to you in whispers, but you have not acted on because you weren't sure how? What if you act on that now?

8. Partnering with the Unknown. I've have written about this for over 20 years because I feel so strongly that our relationship to the unknown dictates so much of our creative lives - what we create, how we create, and how we serve. Seeing the unknown as the fertile place of creative possibilities instead of only something to fear or avoid make all the difference. (Check out my blog post 7 Tools for Navigating the Unknown.)

There is no way to not be impacted by the atrocities and polarization in our world. My hope is you may find something in here to support your own journey, amidst both the immense devastation and the immense beauty of our world. I believe so deeply in the creative spirit we have, the vast power it has for transformation. History has shown us time and again what human ingenuity can transform with passion and focus.

Michelle James ©2024

Pattern Breaks Video Series - Part 1

As part of the book launch celebration for my creative facilitation guide book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Creativity, I've been hosting a video series with several seasoned guest facilitator friends. They each share different creative facilitation techniques and approaches. Here are links to the first 4 videos, with more to come: 

 

Dr. Paul Scheele, founder of Learning Strategies. Whole-brain creative process protocol. 20 minutes.

 

Kat Koppett, founder and CEO of Koppett. The Story Spine technique in depth with variations. 20 minutes.

 

Gary Ware, founder of Breakthrough Play. 3 playful and fun creative agility techniques. 20 minutes.

 

And to kick off the book launch, I had a juicy 55-minute conversation with Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of Free Play and The Art of Is.

You can watch them here, or pop over to my YouTube Channel, Michelle James Creative Emergence, (just getting it started) and see them all there. If you subscribe to the YouTube channel, you'll be notified when the new ones come out. More to come in future posts here as well.

Click here to order the Pattern Breaks book.

Creative Resourcefulness within Constraints

Creative Practice: Adapting (and Evolving)

Today's practice is Adapting. This is the final practice in this "12 practices" series (but there are so many others!) Let the vision be mutable and change over time. Balance planning with emergence. Have goals and hold them focused enough to guide the process and loosely enough for new information, insights, and awareness’ in the moment can shift them into something more alive (and often unexpected) – something that you wouldn't have known until you are in the midst of your process.

Some goals shift. Some are released entirely. And some new ones show up along the way. By keeping the long term directed and flexible both, and focusing on what’s next, you have room to move, respond, adapt within the goals, making them more accessible…and energized.

Adapting takes us out of binary, static thinking of good/bad, right/wrong, either/or and into new possibilities. “Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision, and change.” ~ Richard Branson

I heard a great term by Holacracy founder Brian Robertson that resonated with me for this concept: dynamic steering. Have the direction in mind, and let yourself adapt the goal, and your self, along the way. Improvisers adapt all the time...adapting to what's emerging in real time, and using it to create something new and unexpected.

Creative aliveness is about growing, learning, and expanding, which are are cultivated by our willingness to adapt and evolve. “Adaptability enforces creativity, and creativity is adaptability.” ~ Pearl Zhu

 

 

Creative Aliveness Practice: Acting

Today's practice is Acting. It's not enough to imagine what can be, we have to act on our imaginings. As I mentioned before, the creative process is non-liner, and these practices do not follow one sequence. Taking action happens at different points along the creative process.

"Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing." ~ William Shakespeare

By taking action, you are beginning the validation process of what you are creating. By taking action on your vision or project, you are becoming its first supporter. How it's received can give you feedback toward evolving what you are offering, but nothing can happen without first taking action.

It can be scary or hard to try something new, or put our something publicly that has meaning for you. It is much easier to put our something that has little meaning, but the more meaning it has for you, and the more of yourself you have put into it, the more vulnerable it can feel. By taking action, it becomes easier each time.

"Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will." ~ W. Clement Stone

Action also opens up to new creative aliveness possibilities we may not have thought about. By trying something, we get to know if we like it, or what part of it we comes alive with and what part we don't, and how it connects to others.

Action moves energy. In that, it opens up our creative aliveness through experiencing that thinking alone can't do. And in the act of taking action, we discover things we otherwise would not know had we waited until we were certain of exactly how everything would go. We learn by doing most of all.

Sometimes we freeze in the face of too many ideas and options. In those cases, it is good to just narrow our focus to one part, and taking action only on that. By taking  an accessible step, that gives us confidence to take another accessible step. And after a while step-taking becomes fun, alive, and easy. Small steps lead to big transformation. Start wherever you are. Get clear on what feels alive. And then take actions that support more of that. 

"It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that we find our supreme joys." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

Creative Aliveness Practice: Structuring

Once you have more clarity – after you have diverged out and expanded the “playing field” of new, emergent creative surprises – then look at how to structure that aliveness into you work and life....how to form it, shape it, and create it into something. Structuring makes it accessible...like taking the ocean and transforming it into drinking water. It makes whatever you are creating accessible, transforming the whole into actionable parts.

It's important to not skip over the cultivating and go right to structuring it, as many strategic plans do. With that approach you can get an action plan, that is attainable, but not necessarily feeling alive. It may not give you the passion-infused life energy to see it through. Think of it as a yes-and to staying motivated through will and perseverance. In two decades of coaching passion-centered entrepreneurs, I have consistently seen that connecting to our own purposeful aliveness is the most amazing motivator. Motivation is then embedded in the goal itself, and not just something we need to use to achieve it. It’s there within us to carry us forth even when we do not feel the energy of it.

Structuring is organizing and arranging parts of something, and sometimes not valued in the creative process. Structuring is is how to be able to live our creative visions in the world.It's not enough to have the vision, and feel the energy and motivation...we have to have a structure for our creativity be expressed.

Creativity need both flow and structure - just like any new birth. In all of nature's creative aliveness, there are organizing structures. We structure speeches to give them a coherence - an organized flow - instead of talking randomly about all of the ideas. Similarly, part of creative aliveness is giving it structure to be expressed and experienced, by ourselves and others.

 

 

Creative Aliveness Practice: Discerning

Today's practice is Discerning. “An open mind must be mitigated by discernment. Knowing what to take in and what to discard or file  away for future perusal is important to one’s growth.” ~ Safi Thomas

And discernment takes practice. Discerning is the ability to know of something is aligned with your creative self and your truth. It includes the art of what to say yes to, and what to say no to along your journey. With every life-giving yes, there is a series of healthy no's to anything not on alignment with the yes. Those no's create a stronger container for what you do what to focus on.

Like the other practices, discernment starts with awareness. And asking questions, such as: Why am I doing this? Why does it have meaning for me? What feels alive? What might sound good, but does not feel alive in me? What do I need to step into to carry it out? What do I need to let go of? Is this my own thinking/feeling, or am I just going along with someone else's? What are my gifts, skills, and talents? What is not fun for me? What does alignment feel like in me?

“True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient...distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.” ~ Sinclair Ferguson

Boundary-setting helps with discernment. Once you know your boundaries, it becomes easier to discern what is yours to do, and what's not. Good boundaries protect your creative aliveness.

Discernment also requires an intuitive understanding of what feels right along your process. It includes learning to discern how you creative self speaks to you (words, images, feelings, dreams, insights, etc.), and learning what feels right in your body. Discernment is easier when we are willing to let go of assumptions, how we've always done something, and exact expectations...and open to Beginner Mind.

“Compassionate action emerges from the sense of openness, connectedness, and discernment you have created.” ~ Joan Halifax

Creative Aliveness Practice: Cultivating

Today's practice is Cultivating. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton 

Using whole-brain creative processes – drawing it, painting it, moving with it, embodying it, acting it out, dialoguing with it, dancing with it, etc. – helps break habitual thinking patterns, opens up the creative aliveness wellspring, and draws forth new insights and ideas.

This particular practice not about the entirety of your vision, but about what is calling to emerge from within you now. The moment we are in is always the most alive (That's why improv is so energizing and filled with life energy...it's unfolding in the alive moment.)

Presence is fully alive. By being the moment, we have more access to creatively cultivate what's arising in us, and access different insights than just by thinking about it alone. When we combine left-brain linear practices with right-brain non-linear practices, we can cultivate a new story, or place our situation/goal/vision into a new narrative. Every emergence is a multi-dimensional story that fits into the context of who you are, and expresses what’s unfolding.

“We were handed two extraordinary gifts...The first is a talent to cultivate, and the second is the opportunity to cultivate it.” ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Creative Aliveness Practice: Committing

Today's practice is Committing.  

"Until one is committed, there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness...the moment one definitely commits oneself a whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising to one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would come her way. Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." ~ Goethe

There is a difference between hoping, desiring, imagining, or trying and actually committing. Commitment creates a boundary for us - helping guide us on what to say yes to, and what we say no to. Without commitment, it is easy to get distracted and derailed. It is easy to leave at the first hints of discomfort, or when resistance shows up (as happens in the creative process).

It seems safer to not commit so we have a way out of things don't work out. But commitment acts as a safety net for our goals and visions. It means that when things go awry, or we feel resistance, we will find other ways or options. Our brains and creative unconscious will work with us to find options that because of the commitment. With commitment to get anywhere, if we get lost on the way, or if there are road blocks, we find another way to get because of the commitment.

There is a difference between a real commitment and a pretend one. A real commitment has meaning for us. It has to be something that has some kind of value for us. It comes from a place within us that is ready. It is saying to our creative unconscious that we are going to stay with it, even amidst the possible challenges. Commitment creates the structure for the flow of our creative aliveness.

Creative Aliveness Practice: Listening

Today's practice is Listening. Listen with your whole self, and whole brain...not just to words.

Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path. Share this Quote Henry Winkler
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/inner-voice-quotes

Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path. Share this Quote Henry Winkler
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/inner-voice-quotes

"Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path." ~ Henry Winkler

Pay attention to images, feelings, thoughts, ideas, surprises, seeming disconnects that come out of nowhere, impulses that emerge. Pay attention to how it feels in your body. What feels most alive? What energizes you?

You don't have to wait for it to make complete sense before you validate it. More passions are not realized because they are judged as ridiculous before they ever have a chance to evolve because they are unfamiliar.

A new emergence, like any new birth, can be messy when being born. Listen for incomplete and partial directions - not only the entirely clear and sensible answers. In an emergent creative process clarity and sense-making usually unfolds through cultivation.

Creative Aliveness Practice: Holding

Today's practice is Holding. This practice is about releasing the need for an immediate answer…or a familiar one. It is  about holding the question before rushing to an answer or “the” answer.

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now..."
~ Ranier Maria Rilke

Instead of writing down a list with the same thoughts that you always carry in your left-brain, try engaging your whole brain first. The right brain processes much more quickly than the left brain – and is not inhibited by habitual thinking. Let your left-brain take a mini-vacay.

Emergence needs so breathing room before being analyzed, evaluated and figured out. It is not about rushing into sense making. Allow yourself to indulge non-sense-making for a while. Stay in the Divergence. That's the domain of the creative imagination, and it always delivers if we give it the time and space to work it's magic.

Creative Aliveness Practice: Asking

Today's practice is Asking.  

“Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

This practice is about asking yourself what is most alive for you NOW - not 3 weeks from now or 3 years from now. It is not about the entirety of your vision and all that you can imagine – just what feels most alive within you now.

Listening to what’s alive now is like picking the lowest-hanging, ripest fruit from your tree of potential – it does have to be the complete vision. It is focusing in o what is most ripe now, and cultivating that. That will then lead to the next ripest fruit, and the next. It is am emergence process of unfolding your creative vision the way nature creates...by ripeness in timing.

Asking, “What’s calling to emerge for me now?” or "What is arising the loudest in me right now?" helps take it out of future potential (all that can be) and into the realm of the immediately actionable (what is now and next). And in the act of creating with it, what's next to focus on will reveal itself. It is a creative formation practice - shaping it into being in real time.

#asking #discovering #creativeemergence

Creative Aliveness Practice: Centering

Get centered. During your designated emergence time, getting centered allows you to be more present to what is calling to emerge within you. It is about having intentionality, a clarity of focus, and a presence to be able to begin to hear and connect with deeper aspects of your creative self.

Do this is whatever way feels right for you…whether you do this via visualization, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, breathwork, affirmation, embodiment, earthing/grounding, movement, a nature walk, intention setting, prayer, doodling, journaling, qigong, reflection, or however else you get centered. There is no one right way. It can be any small ritual that serves as a pattern break out of your normal everyday consciousness and centers you. It just requires some focus and boundaries for no distractions during your centering time.

I do this with my clients at the onset every coaching session, and the rituals we use vary based on who they are. Find what works for you. This is your “sacred” time. Taking the extra time to get centered in your day, or before working on your creative visions and projects, makes a difference in the depth, breadth, and personal meaning of creativity you access.

Creative Aliveness Practice: Clearing

Over the next couple weeks, I will be sharing "12 Practices for Creative Aliveness." The practices are not necessarily in a linear order,  and  you might go back and forth between them. It's not as much about a sequence as it is about engaging and responding in the moment: sometimes listening receptively, and others times creating it out actively.

Our right brain, by its non-linear nature, isn't one to follow our pre-set linear path...that's the domain of left brain. Any whole-brain creative process includes both linear and non-linear engagement. The right brain loves to imagine and create new practices as we follow any existing method or approach. If you have an impulse along those lines, go for it. As we get deeper into an emergence process, not only do new ideas and directions emerge, but new approaches for cultivating and discovering them emerge in the moment. There is an improvisational quality to each creative emergence!

Today's practice is Clearing. Give yourself space, time and attention. Consciously set aside some non-distracted time and attention. Like any healthy relationship you have, or creative project you engage, your Creative Self needs quality time to thrive. Make your creative self your most important client – even if that means setting official “creative self time” on your calendar. Just like (hopefully) you wouldn’t answer an email or tweet when with a client, give your creative self the same focused attention – it needs that to be seen, heard, and known; to be more active; and reveal its riches.

12 Days Creating

In the spirit of the holidays, I wrote  
"12 Days Creating"  as a reminder
to indulge your creativity (to be
sung to the tune of The 12 Days
of Christmas). Happy holidays,
however you celebrate them!

----------

On the first day creating, inspiration gave to me a new way to think and be.

On the second day creating, inspiration gave to me two ideas to love,and a new way to think and be.

On the third day creating, inspiration gave to to me three if-thens,
two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

On the fourth day creating, inspiration gave to me four prompting words,
three if-thens, two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

On the fifth day creating, inspiration gave to me five songs to sing,
four prompting words, three if-thens, two ideas to love,
and a new way to think and be.

On the sixth day creating, inspiration gave to me six concepts playing,
five songs to sing, four prompting words, three if-thens,
two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

On the seventh day creating, inspiration gave to me seven visions brimming,
six concepts playing, five songs to sing, four prompting words,
three if-thens, two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

On the eighth day creating, inspiration gave to me eight thoughts yes-anding,
seven visions brimming, six concepts playing, five songs to sing,
four prompting words, three if-thens, two ideas to love,
and a new way to think and be.

On the ninth day creating, inspiration gave to me nine theories dancing,
eight thoughts yes-anding, seven visions brimming, six concepts playing,
five songs to sing, four prompting words, three if-thens,
two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

On the tenth day creating, inspiration gave to me ten notions steeping,
nine theories dancing, eight thoughts yes-anding, seven visions brimming,
six concepts playing, five songs to sing, four prompting words,
three if-thens, two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

On the eleventh day creating, inspiration gave to me eleven goals uniting,
ten notions steeping, nine theories dancing, eight thoughts yes-anding,
seven visions brimming, six concepts playing, five songs to sing,
four prompting words, three if-thens, two ideas to love,
and a new way to think and be.

On the twelfth day creating, inspiration gave to me twelve dreams becoming,
eleven goals uniting, ten notions steeping, nine theories dancing,
eight thoughts yes-anding, seven visions brimming, six concepts playing,
five songs to sing, four prompting words, three if-thens,
two ideas to love, and a new way to think and be.

~ Michelle James 2023

 

My creative facilitation book, Pattern Breaks, is now available to order online!

I am delighted to announce my creative facilitation guidebook, Pattern Breaks, is now available on Amazon and other online
booksellers to pre-order. You can go to
https://amzn.to/3QDbZ65 for the book details, and to order it if it resonates with you.

 

My hope it that this guidebook reaches those who resonate with it, and can benefit in some way from it - for yourselves and for your groups. In a world where much is out of our control, we each can contribute to a better world by contributing to what we do have control over in our local world. It may small, but it is something. For some of us, that includes the groups we lead, teach, or facilitate. If that is you, this book is dedicated to you.

Order at https://amzn.to/3QDbZ65

About the book: Pattern Breaks is a handbook for navigating the world of creative facilitation. It is for facilitators, trainers, educators, group leaders, and anyone who would like to bring more creativity out of their groups and out of themselves. It provides food for both thought and action. If you would like to cultivate creativity and aliveness in your design and facilitation, this book has ideas for you.

• Bring more enthusiasm and ingenuity out of participants
• Become a more adaptive, improvisational, and resilient facilitator
• Gain more confidence and ease in navigating challenges, resistance, and the unexpected
• Actualize your unique creativity for impactful and meaningful design
• Establish environments more receptive to novelty and transformation
• Bring more fun and lightness into facilitating serious topics
• Get easier buy-in from clients for nontraditional approaches
• Cultivate conditions for emergence and co-creation
• Generate life-giving outcomes that serve the good of the whole

Pattern Breaks explores both ways of being and ways of doing. From concepts to mindsets to practical applications and more, this book provides a rich trove of ideas, principles, and practices, along with an abundance of activities, to apply before, during, and after your workshop or event. It focuses on two levels at the same time— you as a facilitator of creative process, and you as a creative individual.

Order at https://amzn.to/3QDbZ65

Letting Visions Take Root Before Exposing Them to the Elements

The new year is a popular time for people to think about what they want to create next. In the early stages of a new visions, it's a great idea to protect what's emerging (visions, ideas, plans) for the first few weeks especially. That means not sharing it with anyone, or being incredibly selective with who you share it with. Most people are well meaning, and would want to support you, but may not fully understand what you are attempting to do.

Some many not know how to hold that space for you without trying to fill it up with their concerns, ideas, advice, of fears during that delicate stage. They may not see the path laid out from where you are to where you want to be, and fear that it's unrealistic. They may ask premature questions, like, "How are you going to make that happen?" before that has unfolded within you. Sometimes they'lll try to give advice based on what worked for them, which may or many not be the way it works for you. Or, sometimes it can trigger their own fears, and they inadvertently express that in their concerns. Sometimes they may get into an evaluation state, and find the reasons they think it won't work.

There are so many ways well-meaning supportive friends and family members, and others, could contribute to an uprooting of what's emerging before you feel solid enough in it. So pick your confidantes and advisors carefully in the beginning, or hold off sharing until you feel more rooted in what's emerging. Once you are more rooted, and feel strong in your commitment  - with discernment and resilience - then sharing it can be extremely helpful. That's when other's input and ideas can expand and refine - and yes-and - what you are doing.

There's no one right way as to when to share it, what parts to share, and who to share it with, so use your best judgement. Trust your intuitive sense. Pay attention to your internal feedback. If talking with someone puts you into a defensive or  flight, fight, or freeze mode, they may not be the best person, or it may not be the best time. Not everyone closest to you may know how to be with what you are bringing in before it's more tangible. But if talking about it with someone helps you feel more inspired, passionate, alive, and excited about it, then go for it.

It is important in the early stages of a new emergence that isn't yet fully formed to protect it as you learn more about it, shape it, and cultivate it out into the world. Then, after it has roots it can withstand most anything. With all of that said, the good news is that if it is yours to do, no matter what anyone else says or does, you can of course still do it. And sometimes adversity actually helps strengthen your resolve. Most of the time, it's just easier after you feel stronger in it within yourself.

Michelle James ©2023

Serve, Don’t Sacrifice

 

Michelle James ©2022

2 Questions ot Ponder on Your Soul's Creative Calling

There are no guarantees when we start engaging what we feel what feels most alive in us toward our calling. We can’t know for certain the if and how and when for anything. But as we get deeper into what is ours to do, for who we uniquely are, and stay true to our authentic selves and what brings us alive, those other things eventually start to emerge along the way.

 

We can’t wait until these things are lined up to begin. We can't wait to feel secure or certain. These things show up in the journey, and not always comfortably or predictably, but we can’t know this ahead of time. We are vulnerable when we begin this process. But once we do, and if we stay true to it, we get support our of nowhere that couldn't have been predicted or prescribed.

 

On this International World Creativity and Innovation Day, what if you treat yourself to some generative, creative exploring on these questions (and/or whatever else comes to you), in whatever ways resonate with you. There are always some (or many) people in the world who need what only you can create.

Michelle James ©2022

You are the Designer, Architect, and Gardener of your Own Path

There is an amazingly vibrant animating life force in nature. We don’t create it - it's already there. We can co-create and co-design with it to bring out unique colorful gardens. Similarly, we have an amazingly vibrant animating creative life force within us. It already exists and in not something only certain people have or that you learn form someone.

 

Just like gardener learns how to create a thriving alive creative garden, we can learn how to create alive unique work in the world. We are the gardeners of our signature work. And like all gardeners who design their garden, we can learn to seed, plant, nurture, tend to, shape, design, and cultivate our unique work int he world.

 

You are the designer, architect, and gardener of your own path. The only question in whether you accept that role, and do it consciously. If you do, beautiful blooms of your own design can bear juicy fruit into the world.

Michelle James ©2022

Moving From What Was into Creating What Can Be

Holding on to a situation, dynamic, belief system, way of thinking/being/interacting, etc. after it served its purpose is like trying to breath life into a dead log or digesting stale food - trying to freeze or cling to something that has past. It's a waste of time and life energy, and is often unhealthy.

Instead, tune into what and who feel vital and aspirational for you now, and what is calling/inspiring you into the future, and breathe and move your life energy into that.

Lighten your load from the past to move into what is calling you in the emerging future. When one door (situation, relational dynamic, idea, project, ideal, etc.) closes, other generative ones open when we are present to it to notice it, and not trying to open old doors that no longer exist.

CREATIVE PRACTICE: Look at all the doorways you are putting your energy into and ask why? What is the purpose? How does it feed you? What/who does it serve? Does this still have energy for you? Use discernment and release the ones that are connected to guilt, habit, nostalgia (or anything else not currently alive or meaningful).

Keep - or transform - the ones that still have energy. And create new ones to follow what is most alive for you now. Weed out what longer serves. Sometimes this may require professional healing or therapy. I am not trying to belittle this letting-go process - it can indeed be challenging (and may need more work to heal and release), so do it in whatever way that works for you. Get support if needed.

Nurture what still does have energy for you. Emerge and unfold anew. Follow your heart, life energy, truth, and calling... You have this one amazing unique life that is un-reproduceable in any way from anyone else...only you can live it. Create, don't imitate. You are way too magical to not engage your own awesome creativity - your own never-before-and-never-again creative expression!

Your inner Creative Self is always there for you when you take the time to engage it. The world needs what only you can create and cultivate. The longer I live, the more I realize - and am tending to - what a gift time is. Life is short - use the gift of your time here as purposefully and enjoyably as you can.

Michelle James ©2022

NEW Workshop: Connecting with Your Creative Source

December 28, 2021 • 1:00-2:30 EST on Zoom
Register at http://www.creativeemergence.com/creativesource

 

Register Here Kick off a creative new start to your new year!   Hi all. I had a client ask me to do a workshop last weekend on Connecting with the Creative Source. It was such a joy, it inspired to offer a 90-minute version of it this month open to the public. I'll eventually turn this into a multi-session workshop but wanted to offer you a dive into it now as a way to start the new year off feeling more connected to this vibrant, generous, and unique part of yourself...and your full-on creative partner in your visions, goals, and whatever it is you feel called to create.   Over the past 20+ years I've centered my coaching around the Creative Source in our sessions as part of creating what's next - from ways of being and embodying to creating products, services, and workshops to whatever is calling to emerge. I would like to offer this part now to the public, and offering it a discounted introductory rate.    Once we have a trusting relationship with our creative source, we see options and choices we wouldn't have previously imagined; we see more openings when some doors close; we're more resilient in the face of adversity; we find inspiration and motivation more easily; and we can access creative flow states more often.   Working consciously with your inner creative source helps with: vision creating, problem solving, discerning, decision making, ideation, resolving seeming opposites, moving through resistances, expanding thinking and constructs, understanding others views...and feeling more alive, fertile, trusting, lightened up, and more empowered and confident in our own creativity, intuition, and sense of purpose. And, it's FUN!   Hope you can join us for this juicy dive into our creative selves on the 28th!    With love and hope, Michelle Register Here www.creativeemergence.com •  creativeemergencecoaching.com [email protected] • 434-995-5077

Trusting Your Intuitive Voice for Deeper Creativity

 

We've been educated and socialized to perceive/think/create/act from the mainly rational mind - what we currently see, have been told by others, or consciously know. Yes, and...the intuitive mind allows us feel into, see into, and experience that which includes AND goes beyond what we currently know and have evidence for. It's essential for next-level visioning, imagining, creating, and building.

What if you took some space and time time to treat your intuition and creative imagination to some one-on-one attention? What if you indulge yourself in exploring with it?

 

It's always there, waiting to help you in your emergence. From every day decisions to clarity around your calling to creating in new ways, your intuition is a juicy part of of your Creative Self that is always on your side, working FOR you. We just have to learn how it shows up within us, and communicates to us, which is also unique to each of us. No one else knows exactly how your unique intuitive source voice talks, but if you take the time to listen, feel, and get to know it, you will find out.

 

PRACTICE INVITATION: Let yourself explore, experiment, and discover this amazing creative resource within you. Instead of using someone else’s technique (save them for another time), try seeing what emerges naturally in you. Let go of expectations of how it should show up, and see what really does show up. Pay attention while doing the practice as well in in other, unexpected moments. Like a flash of an insight or feeling or image seemingly put of nowhere.

Just intend it and be present to it…and see what you feel, notice, and what comes into your consciousness.

 

It's natural that other thoughts, voices, and fears may show up first in your consciousness...those are just the habitual thoughts, stories, and evaluations we all carry. Let them show up, but don't spend time engaging them for this exercise. Instead, stay open to the creative voice of your own intuitive source - impulses, feelings, words, images, shapes, colors, sounds, energies, insights, knowings, etc - however it show up for you. Be patient with yourself - this is not a one-time practice, but one that needs some practice.

Over time, you will learn its voice, and begin to trust it more than you trust anything else. Because it is always is for your aliveness and best interest. It's a great partner to trust. It is intimately connected to your unique creative flow, expression, emergence...and to what, why, and how you create.

Michelle James © 2021

Happy Giving-Thanks!

In the spirit of this week of Thanksgiving I would like to share three Giving-Thanks practices with you. I know this year has had challenges for most of us in some way or another. My hope it that no matter where you find yourself at this time doing these practices can help create a more aspirational and generative space within you. The first is for what already is. The second is for deepening into the meaning of it. The third is for what can be created.

 

Gratitude Practice 1: 100 Thanks

 

I learned this one over 15 years ago and still do it every year on Thanksgiving day. It's a great way to get into the appreciative space of what what feeds you positively in some way. It's very simple: just write down - preferably in one sitting - 100 things you are grateful for. Just list them off. It can be people, experiences, materials items, events, offerings, types of food, learnings, feelings, where you live, nature's gifts, podcasts, inspiring quotes, states of being, a grocery store, etc - anything that you are thankful for, no matter how large or small.

 

Doing it in one sitting helps us go underneath our everyday conscious thoughts and into finding the gifts "hidden in plain sight." At one point you may feel like you've exhausted your list and be tempted to stop, but if you commit to the full 100 chances are you'll connect with more gifts than you think about in your everyday living. It just requires presence. If you stick around to get to 100, you may find things - some even surprising - that you might not otherwise stop to think about as gifts.

 

Gratitude Practice 2: Grateful Because

 

Take 5-7 of the Gratitudes from the first list and list out the "why" for each one. It helps deepen into the feeling, the purpose, and your appreciation. it helps expand the Appreciative Field, which opens up more feelings of well-being and possibilities thinking - and extracting meaning from some things that were challenging. Finding meaning in something can be like finding the diamond in the rough. Here are a few prompts to play with. As always, make up your own versions.

 

• I am grateful for (a person) because_______

• I am grateful for (a positive experience) because it gave me_______

• I am grateful for (a challenging experience) because I learned_______

• I am grateful for (a thing) because_______

• I am grateful for (a situation) because it helped me_______

• I am grateful for (a book/podcast/class/talk/workshop) because I better understand_______

 

Gratitude Practice 3: Creative Future Gratitude

 

This one starts with doing something to get present and centered first. Whether that's breathing, dancing, meditating, or whatever it is for you, it works best if you find yourself undistracted and fully present. Once you are in a space where you won't be distracted, start imagining it is Thanksgiving week 2022, and you're writing down 3-5 things that happened in the past year (from today on) that that you are happily grateful for.

 

Rather than list them out from your head's habitual thinking (which is quicker and easier, but carries little creative "energetic weight" behind it), take time to immerse yourself in the full sensory, emotional, and energetic experience of each one of those - a luxurious indulging of your creative imagination, not a rushing through.

 

When you write it down, feel the feelings, see the sights, and feel the energy within yourself associated with each one. For example, when you're imagining it, does it feel alive, open, exciting, fun, or expansive within you? If yes to any of those, chances are it carries positive creative potential for you. If it feel heavy or contractive, leave that one off your list for this exercise for now.

 

Stay in the divergent (yes-and, non-evaluative) space even if uncomfortable. During this exercise, if other voices come in saying, "Yeah, but how will I make that happen?" "Yeah, but that's not realistic" or any other "Yes, but" message, let it go. The "game" is a Future Gratitude Imagining for what already happened by Thanksgiving 2022, so just stay with the focus of what happened in this vision - not the how. Play this game with the rule of not following any of the Yes-Butting voices. :-)

 

For example, it might be something like, "I'm grateful that my _______ (course, book, workshop, product, idea, presentation, business, brand, offering, etc) was so successful/alive/worthwhile in that it________" ...then define what that means to YOU (helped others x, brought people together, created x,  allowed me to x, allowed others to x , served the mission of x, made money, helped a cause, solved problems, generated conversations, cultivated creativity, etc).

 

Once you've done that, let it go. Don't worry in that moment about how to make it happen. Pretend it already has and all you are doing is writing out why you are grateful for it happening. When writing them, let yourself feel the real Gratitude energy you'd feel if it already happened. Then let it go. Your creative unconscious now has something to start working with.

 

Then come back to them at another time, and start imagining the how with what you currently know, and let the rest of the how emerge over time as you start engaging the process. If you start engaging with what you do know the next "how" emerges out of the process over time.

 

Happy Giving-Thanks!

 

 

Michelle James © 2021

Creating from Uncertainty: 11 Reminders

The more uncertain the outside world,
or my own  world, the more I attempt to
lean into certain ways of being and
working to help get me through. I'll
share some here as reminders, in case
they can be helpful to anyone
having a hard time with ongoing

uncertainty. Not all things work
for all people or situations, so take
whatever is useful and leave the rest.

1. Remain directed, present to your larger purpose (your own Why), even if it has to be expressed differently than it has been in the past. A strong Why is like a tree trunk - the center - and the branches are the various forms of its expression. Some will bear fruit.
2. Create from what's in front you right now, adapting as you go (like in an improv), allowing that you don't have all of the picture. When in doubt, do what is just in front of you, one step at a time until more clarity or information emerges.
3. Say ‘yes’ to, and act on, what feels most alive and vital day by day - and say ‘no’ to what does not - as you can - claiming your own healthy boundaries.
4. Pay attention to emerging patterns in your field, as well as outside of it, and adapt what you do to new information and advances as they emerge.
5. Accept the changes - constraints - that may not be so welcome, and don't spend a lot of time begrudging them. Instead, do what you can to create from within those constraints. Much novel creativity has emerged form unwelcome constraints.
6. Engage supportive people on or offline. Being able to share your creative ideas with a trusted friend or colleague reduces stress and enhances creativity. Having trusted people with whom to bounce ideas around can keep you going at times of self doubt. Or work with therapists, healers, coaches, bodyworkers, fitness trainers - whatever you need for your mental and physical well-being. You don't have to go it alone.
7. Practice the art of Reframing. Reframing how you perceive something, and how you hold it conceptually and energetically in your mind and body, can make a huge difference in how you move through it. I.e., Instead of seeing a constraint as a block, you can see it is an invitation to discover something new - that can reduce judgement and open new possibilities. Instead of seeing a situation as an either/or, you can hold it as a both/and - that can open new ways of engaging it. Instead of thinking there's the one right way or solution, you can assume there are multiple paths that work - and that can change how you approach it.
8. Use the time to get clarity about what you can get clear on and influence, and focus on working and designing more from there. It helps you feel more empowered when you have a sense of what you can influence in your world, and act on it.
9. Let the process be messy. Creativity is messy. Exploring and experimenting can be messy - ask any artist or scientist. Allowing time in the messiness of divergent space, indulging in the exploration time, can be a juicy time of discovery if you let it. Give yourself time and space to play with things that might not work out exactly as hoped, and play some more until you start to see new patterns emerging.
10. Create mini-aspirational stories to live into. It's helpful when we have a motivational story to aspire to. They serve as beacons to keep us in the direction of our passions, structured and expressed. In times of immense rapid change that story is likely to need edits. We can create smaller mini-stories, editing them in real time as we go to get more insights and ideas. Create the next chapter of your vision as you go, instead of going for the whole book.
11. Get in your body. I do this every day for my own sanity. Try adding body-centered practices that ground and energize you to your daily practices. When we are more fully in our bodies, and more flexible, we're more present and resourceful. For an abundance of ideas on that, check out the free online Somatic Expeditions event stating later this week - chock-ful of somatic practices to help you stay centered, vibrant, and creative in this wild world.

 

In times like these, I think in terms of “entry points” – what I know now and what is next. And then let that "next" inform the following "next." Emergence works uncertainty: we can know the direction, but not all of the details. They shift and change over time. The unexpected happens. Evolving technologies and social systems, and our own internal drives, inform and expand our vision along the way. There are ways of doing and being that can support that process to make it more live-able and generative for us.

 

The 11 ideas are what came to mind today as I wrote this. What other mindsets, reframes, and practices would be helpful to you? Start mindmapping them, or writing them out in your journal - whatever works for you - and see what else emerges.

 

Creative energy is the most transformative energy there is – it has the power to change all situations - history has shown us that. It's not always easy, but it is always possible. Your infinitely creative, resourceful Self has got this!

Michelle James©2021

Image credit: Dave Bayliss

Creating with What's Calling to Emerge

When we learn to hear our creative self,
we get in touch with what we are designed
to be and do. Embedded in each of us is a vision and blueprint for our unique work, expression, and fruition in the world. Creative Emergence is about cultivating our own unique creative "soul signature" - creating the conditions, and doing the work of bringing it into fruition in the world.

Unlike the acorn becoming the tree just by being, humans have some doing (action/creation/cultivation/exploration) - and un-doing (letting go of unhelpful programming, beliefs, habits, and fears that can get in the way) - to live into their vision. When you listen in to the aliveness of your creative self, you find that you are always being called into something ready to emerge...you own "what' s next."

Each creative emergence process is about both stepping up and letting go, active creation and passive reception, and learning to co-create with your own inner creative source to bring out the work you are designed to do - and only you can do in the unique way you do it.

Image credit: Acorn Dream, 2021, by artist Alex Grey

Synchro-tunity: A Creative Inflection Point

Synchro-tunity is where synchronicity (unpredictable events that are somehow seemingly connected) meets opportunity (new possibilities opening up.) This inflection point is a place from which we can create what’s next. When we pay attention to what’s emerging, and we’ve prepared ourselves for the current moment, then we can recognize and step into new possibilities that were previously unavailable for us.

It's about setting intention, preparing ourselves, paying attention to signals from a variety of places and sources,and taking ripe (timely) actions on those. #applieddiscovery