Posted by Michelle on July 03, 2023 | Permalink
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
Posted by Michelle on December 09, 2021 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on November 29, 2021 | Permalink
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on October 06, 2021 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on October 05, 2021 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on August 30, 2021 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
It is hard to generate creative flow when you are in a contractive state. While contraction
is part of any creative birth process,
staying in that place too long becomes an energy block - it prevents the creative energy from flowing more freely. Divergence in creative process needs the open energy of expansion. When we are in expansion energy state, we think, act, perceive, respond, and create differently than when we are in a contractive (more closed) energy state.
So how do we get into a creative energy state when those around us may not be not there? There are infinite ways to engage our creativity, thankfully, but I’ll talk about a couple that involve the body. My next public online workshop is The Creative Body workshop, where we will explore many ways to engage the body creatively. We don’t need to wait for others to change our internal states - we can start anytime.
Creative Ways to Get the Creative Juices Flowing Using Your Body
Here are a couple of the many ways I play with moving energy based on my own ways of creating, and what I need that day. Try the ones that resonate for you. And definitely try modifying these in real time - as you are doing them - to get into Discovery to make your own. You may need tweaks to get them to resonate for you. We’re never limited to anyone else’s way of doing anything. :-)
Dancing the Creative Alive Energy in
Movement. Loosen up your body. Have fun in your body. Play with the non-habitual. When I start moving my body differently, my entire mood and energy shifts. I do this before every session I facilitate, and most days in some form. One way to do this is play upbeat songs you love and dance around the room as you breath our tension and old energy. I like to play songs that are silly and fun to uplift my mood, so I literally have a playlist list called “Goofy Playlist.” These are songs that help me not take myself or anything so seriously so they help me move to a different energy state. They are not necessarily songs I listen to on a daily basis - though sometimes I do that. I just know that that when I am having more fun in my body, I feel more alive, expansive, and it is easier for me to be present and creative.
Moving Non-habitually Break Patterns
I also like to move in non habitual ways - trying new moves every time I dance - to be in that “Improv” discovery state, which always feels move alive( not to mention scientists show that creating new moves creates new neural pathways in our brain). I literally do this every day. Whether I am dancing or just sitting at my desk, I play around with all kind of ways to move my body non-habitually (new for me), whih help me feel more alive, present, and awake (especially when on long Zoom days) The key is to play with it, judgement free - let it be off-the-wall and nonsensical to you. It’s abbot breaking patterns in your body movements to help break patterns in your thinking. Do what you can form where you are. If you have some physical limitations, just start small with whatever you can move. (I am not a medical practitioner so please don’t do anything against the advice of one).
Letting the Energy Move your Body - Following and Inhabiting the Energy
The mind is an amazing resource. Even if we don’t feel something at a given time, we can shift our state by putting attention on it and calling it in. Intention leads to attention. Energy follows attention. So if we intend to feel an energy, we can call it in an engage with it, we can actually start to feel it move through us. This one may takes a few times to get used to because, like with meditation, it takes time sometimes to feel the energy, and woks best when we are not distracted. Some people can access this immediately, others practice to get the energies flowing. But if you do practice it, you will be able to state-change by calling in an energy.
For example, if you intend to feel more aliveness energy, you can call it in, and start bringing your sense to it. Ask, “What does aliveness look like? (You can draw it in the abstract or just imagine it) What does it sound like? What does feel like? What does it move like? And start moving form it. As you do it, you may hear the inner voices of judgement (about yourself or about the activity itself), but keep going. Let them be there, but keep bringing your attention to the energy and the full-on experience of it as best you can. Sometimes it takes a few times before you feel anything - other times you feel it right away. The invitation is to try it…to play with it until you feel it and embody the state change.
Create a Judgment-free Zone
Remember to suspend all judgement as you play with these. Be kind to the part of you that forgot what is was like to move and play freely in your body. And to go beyond my descriptions into discovering your own “yes-ands” to this as you go. When we allow our bodies to explore without judging them, they can take us to creative places and more vibrancy. Feel free to email me and let me know what you discover.
–––––––
We’ll do a deeper dive into these and many other ways of engaging your body to bringing in more creativity, aliveness, presence, and flow in my next Creative Body Workshop on September 9. There we'll do a deeper exploratory dive into Somatic Intelligence and it's connection creative thinking, being, and moving...and using your body as a creative resource. If you are interested to learn more, click here or contact me directly.
Michelle James ©2021
Posted by Michelle on August 16, 2021 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
When we stay present In the moment, time
expands. When we fill the moment by talking only about what we already know, or about what others have said, we bury the dynamic, creative aliveness of the moment with history. We have been socialized to fill the moment with history (what we've learned, what others have said said, what are accepted assumptions) - going out of time - instead of staying in time, where creativity emerges and flourishes.
Posted by Michelle on December 14, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on December 11, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
In times of huge unknowns, with much we have no control over, one of the things that lightens the intensity is creatively focusing on the things we CAN control...like getting out in nature, creative arts and crafts, drawing, painting, moving our bodies to music we like, watching funny videos or comedy specials, meditating, journaling, cooking, playing games, online improv, designing business offerings, or anything we like doing that we're able to do that lightens us up. That will be different for everyone, but we do have agency and at least some things we can choose into and control in the midst of uncertainty.
Posted by Michelle on November 06, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on October 26, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on September 01, 2020 | Permalink
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Because it is central to my work, I’m constantly learning and reminded - and in awe of - how what we see as a ”miracle" on one level (i.e., fulfilled intentions in the most unexpected, completely unpredictable ways) is just about partnering the with unknown-yet-to-emerge as a generative, creative resource and letting that be our guide.
I experience it not as "blind faith" in the process but rather faith-from-experience in the natural order of how things are created and emerge...and letting go of outdated, socialized assumptions and ways of being that no longer serve. I'm always looking to more fully inhabit and embody the "emergence lens" (which can be a struggle at times as I bump up against my own inner assumptions that need to be transformed).
But one thing is for sure…is that you can’t discover what you already know - to stay in the discovery process means allowing yourself the spaciousness of being in the unknown. Right now, we are all in a huge unknown. We have a choice to use that for discovery. It is the nature of how things emerge that when you bring intention, heart, and purpose into the unknown, you make discoveries that are often surprising, and always life-giving.
One of the tenets of the creative emergence process is turning uncertainty into discovery. It means you don’t fill up the unknown with something familiar - or avoiding it, relying on others ideas, or numbing it - for security, but allow yourself space and time to discover what is calling to emerge from within your own creative yourself. And something is always calling to emerge if we are present…and listening. Sometimes that means using various whole-brain cultivation “tools” to access it - from drawing it to to journaling it to acting it out in the body and so much more! There are infinite ways to harvest the “fertile unknown” (I’ve seen literally thousands of variations over the past 25 years working with my clients). Different ways work for different people - because we each have out own unique creative style and language.
A place to start is just accepting that you are at the edge of what you know, and you are open to discovering what is there. Just that will start to reduce the fear of the unknown into something you do have choice over - which is engaging your discovery process. Then, stay open to impulses, insights, awareness, and dreams (they contain subconscious information that our conscious minds often do not see) that come to you. Instead of brushing something supposing off, start to connect with it in whatever way speaks to you…through images, words, energy, feelings, etc. - and you’ll deepen the insights.
Discovery turns the unknown for a dark, scary place into a rich, fertile landscape you get to explore. And with enough exploration, something new, clear, and life-giving will eventually emerge. Security comes not from being certain, or in control (which is impossible in volatile times), but from learning to experience the unknown as a creative ally - something that is generous, creative, and there for you. That "bond" strengthens over time as you practice navigating it.
If you’d like additional support in this process, or have questions on how to get started, contact me anytime for a FREE 30-minute discovery session.
Michelle James ©2020
Posted by Michelle on August 16, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
For the Program Structure, Registration, and more information go to:
Posted by Michelle on August 03, 2020 | Permalink
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
This is a prismacolor pencil drawing I did a few year's ago for my Emergence Series, called “Emergent Potential” - the fertile place filled with potential waiting to be created forth. It's the place within us I work most with my coaching clients - tapping into their unique, ripe, creative potential, discovering what is calling to emerge, and cultivating it out. I see myself an emergence "midwife" helping my clients birth their creative calling and offerings out into the world. #creativeemergence
Michelle James ©2020
Posted by Michelle on July 21, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
When we are in uncertainty, we often first seek to go to the familiar...which is often the left-brain dominant way of analyzing and making sense of things. I see that all the time in my work. This poster speaks to "Yes Anding" that with additional ways of knowing, intuiting, experiencing, feeling, and being to be able to solve problems, heal, make sense, and create a more generative habitable world.
It is not about the exclusion of critical thinking and analysis, it is about the INCLUSION of other ways of processing as well. Valuing rational-only thinking over feeling, the creative unconscious, and intuition keeps people disconnected. What about rational-AND thinking? We need our whole selves in order to be in connection. We need compassion. We need our creative imaginations. We need space to connect with our inner voice. We're not just talking heads, and emotions have a place in business and life because they contain passion, inspiration, and heart. Much meaningful was created with emotion in times of hardship. This is a reminder in these times, for those who resonate, to value all of your various ways knowing, processing and solution-finding.
Michelle James ©2020
Posted by Michelle on July 21, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person
complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?" ~ Gabrielle Roth
Good wisdom in this time when so many in the world are disheartened, dispirited, or depressed. Getting back to our Creative Self - dancing, singing, artwork, theater, improv, storytelling, writing, journaling, meditating, movement, reflecting, imagining, writing, visioning, creating in any form - helps us navigate a world disrupted (and even a world not so disrupted). Just more urgent now. It is not about waiting until AFTER the fear, pain, and chaos ends, but rather using the creative practices to help us MOVE THROUGH it...within ourselves and with each other.
It is an often overlooked part of what the world needs to transform. Among other things, the lack of whole-brain, whole-person embodied creating - and the life-generating "enchantment" it brings - in our everyday lives and workplaces leads to feeling disheartened and dis-empowered. This is not the time to contract away from our Creative Source energy in the face of a dispirited world...instead, it is an essential time to learn to CREATE from and with your Creative Self - in whatever ways you are uniquely called - to help change your experience AND the experience of the world.
There is no one right way to engage, create, or produce. There are multiple potentials and possibilities of what can be generated. And all types of creative expression can feel good and be generative. But there IS a way, or set of ways, for you that is uniquely yours - that is more alive and purposeful than others - that is embedded in your soul's purpose. I have seen this without exception in 20+ years of creative emergence coaching purpose-centered, heart-centered, soulful entrepreneurs.
In exploring the possibilities by trying out different forms of expression, without judgement or needing it to be perfect, you can access the uniqueness of your Creative Self. it is a discovery process. Your unique inner garden of creative delights does not look like anyone else's - and when authentically seeded and cultivated, will produce your one-of-a-kind juicy fruit that is also nourishing for the world. The more in trouble the world is, the more new healthy creative foundations are needed - seeded by each of us. It's so significant now to discover what is ours to do to contribute to a more humane, just, life-giving world.
It's not always easy, and takes some time, attention, focus, integrity, and self-awareness. But that's the sweet spot...where your unique creative aliveness meets the needs of the world...as it is, where it is, to naturally create a more generative, alive, healthy what's next. We all need that now. This sweet spot, once cultivated, serves ourselves, others, and the whole. That's embedded in its nature. Don't give up. Your Creative Self awaits your engagement, and it offers a possibility for re-enchantment, re-connection, and purposeful direction - especially now.
Michelle James ©2020
Posted by Michelle on July 13, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on April 29, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Athletes warm up.Improv/theater/dance/performance groups warm up. Warm-ups clear your head and get you out of habitual thinking, bring you into the present - where you can access more novel thinking, be more responcive and adaptive, and get people more genuinely connected. The time spent warming up is made up exponentially by the effectiveness of the subsequent creative process you can facilitate, and increase the chances of something new and different emerging within you and your participants.
For those of us that facilitate creative process for others there is much we can do to shift our energy to be able to meet what emerges in that person or group with the presence and creative openness of Beginner Mind. Some people use inward-focused prep rituals like meditating, centering, breathing, creative visualization, intention setting, centering music to get centered and grounded. Others do more outward-focused prep rituals like dancing, moving non-habitually, wild music, vocal/ theater/improv type activities to get energized and expansive. (I like doing a bit of both - inward first, then outward). Playing around with different ones, familiar and unfamiliar, help us expand our own creativity as we support others in cultivating theirs. Our own energy makes a difference for those we facilitate.
Michelle James©2020
Posted by Michelle on January 16, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on December 18, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
At the core Creative Emergence is about Aliveness. It is about feeling alive, tapping into our creative selves to do and be what is most alive in us, and to use creativity to access that aliveness. When we are fully alive, we are all creative. When we feel blocked or stuck, we can use our creativity to generate more aliveness. Creativity and aliveness and interchangeable.
Rather than focus on problem solving with our minds, if we shift the focus to creating what is alive from our hearts, and the problem will shift because how we hold and see the problem will shift. When we put more energy into what is alive, then what is wrong has a chance to move. It may or may not be solved, but how we hold and see it can be different, and that opens us up to being with it differently than we have in our past.
©Michelle James 2019
Posted by Michelle on October 22, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on July 12, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
As a facilitator of creative process, your energy has an impact of those in the room. It’s an often overlooked part of facilitating creativity, yet it's the most immediate, primal, and direct way of connecting in ways words and actions alone can not (like when someone walks in a room and you get a feel about them before they even say anything). Most people feel energy immediately and instinctively, before the analytical brain gets on board to think about it. Your energetic state can help draw out or hinder the creativity of others, as well as your own.
While most facilitators of creative process already have Energizer activities for participants, not all take time to prepare their own energetic field before the workshop. The energy you enter a space with, and cultivate as the day goes on, adds to or takes from participant experience. Actors, improvisers, athletes all warm-up before they preform. They don’t just show up and start performing. Similarly, warming yourself up with pre-workshop “energizer rituals” helps you not only get present, but also energized and enlivened. If you find ways of energizing yourself before entering the room - “prep rituals” you do alone before the workshop starts - that begins to create an energized container for participants as they enter. Because energy is something felt, and not thought, it is immediate, and has an impact on the nervous system of participants, non-verbally - not just their minds.
There's no limit to the ways you can generate energy for yourself before a workshop or meeting. Over the past 14 years facilitating Creative Facilitation workshops, I’ve heard countless ways facilitators get energized. I play around with different ones myself to keep it fresh in me, and to stay on my own creative edges, mostly improvising as I go with the goal of trying something new. The times I did not warm up, I noticed a difference in the group’s creative energy, cohesiveness, and output, and how I was holding their energy. I learned the hard way how important it is for me to do my own energy prep work. Some people naturally have a full-on energizing presence any time of day, and in almost any circumstance…and others of us can cultivate it consciously.
You can try it playing around with Brain Gym (Google it), dancing wildly, moving non-habitually, brain teasers, tongue twisters, acting things out, meditation and other centering practices, yoga, marshal arts, and other body-centered practices, solo improv games, etc. If you do something more meditative, try also adding in something that expands and heightens your energy, so you can hold an expanded energetic space for a group - a big part of generating risk taking and creative novelty form a group. And, if you try something that pushes your own envelop - breaking your pattern with something you normally do not do - which also engages your own creative edges, the brain research repeatably shows that enhances presence, creativity, and adaptability.
If you already have awesome activities and content to share, and they are interactive and highly participatory, you can take it to a new level if you take some time to generate your own energy before showing up. Preparing yourself energetically is like starching out like a rubber band when you are by yourself, so when you get with a group, you are energetically flexible enough to expand out to whatever emerges in the group. Research had also shown that most people in groups will either consciously or subconsciously not feel psychologically safe to out-energize a facilitator, and that can impact what and how they create. A facilitator who shows up as flexible, energized, and ready for anything makes it safer for participants to engage more enthusiastically and energetically in interactive activities, and explore their own creativity in a group and each other’s creativity as a group.
If you try something new that works well for you, or if you want to chat about some ideas for your next facilitation, please drop me a line. :-)
©Michelle James 2018
Posted by Michelle on April 12, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Posted by Michelle on January 28, 2016 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Living creativity is living paradox. It is ubiquitous and universal and also uniquely personal. It contains a balance of left and right brain, cultivating and emergence, thinking and being, reflection and action, receptivity and generativity, planning and improvisation, heart and head, left brain and right brain, mind and body, analysis and intuition, movement and stillness, order and chaos, expansion and contraction, inward focus and outward focus, capturing and letting go, individuality and connection, taking in and releasing, and structure and flow.
Posted by Michelle on December 11, 2014 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
My 2 cents on purpose today - based on lessons
learned from
years of cultivating, evolving and living my purposeful
work...
and working with others to do the same.
When we first start living into our purpose, we
notice more "synchronicities" in our every day life - those seemingly
unrelated happenings that come together in an unplanned, yet meaningfully and
uniquely relateable way for us. They often seem like an uncanny answer to
something we have been thinking about. Beyond pure coincidence, they have
USEFUL meaning...and seem perfectly timely in supporting our path.
It can show up in all kinds of ways...like you might have been wondering how to do x and then suddenly you seemingly
randomly sit next to the expert of x in the plane. Most of us have experienced
that type of thing in different areas of our lives. As we experience living
into our purpose over time, those seeming serendipitous happenings become more
of a natural flow. Meaning is always there...and it feels as if we are being led to
the right people and right events and the right time. Happenings, then, along a purposeful path eventually
become more odd when they are not "synchronistic" than when they are. Separate synchronicities just blend into daily living.
I believe this is because inspired purpose acts as a
beacon around which purposeful people, events, and situations emerge - like a homing device. That's been the experience in my
own work over the past 17 years, and what I have observed, without exception,
with other purpose-centered folks. On the outside looking in, others may interpret it
as a lucky coincidence. But it is more than luck...it's staying present to your
path, open to possibilities, and doing what is yours to do - no more, no less which can change a lot. It is not about resting on laurels, or what worked at any given time in the past, but being present to the influences and invitations of the moment.
Purpose + creativity + serving a
greater good breeds aligned
purposefulness, which is holistically generative - for your
self, for others and for the whole. "Magic" synchronicities become more of the
norm and unfold purposefully. We still need to do the work, but there is a
strong intentionality underlying it. Overtime, as we become more seasoned in
"listening in" to what is ours to do, we can more quickly choose the
who, what and why of our daily work choices.
Sometime we hear what is ours to do loud and clear, but we
resist doing it. (I've had that happen a lot). Moving through that resistance is another story...and a post for
another time.
Finding, Cultivating and Living Your Creatively
Unique Purpose
Below are just a few of many components. The discovery process always work
best with whole-brain engagement, playfulness, body-centered practices, reflection, and other juicy stuff which I have written about a lot, but is
not the focus on this post. This is a much larger - and longer - process than a blog post can
begin to cover.
Here are 4 Reflection Points for now:
Included in purposeful aliveness is meaning. What
is meaningful for you? What moves you? What stirs you? What inspires you? What challenges in
the world call to you? How do you like to contribute? What is a vision you have for a better world? What roles would you like to play? (no need to limit to just one...old paradogm was being boxed into one role - in the emerging paradigm, you can play many roles). What are the needs you see out there that speak most loudly to you? How could the world use your help? Who are you most drawn to work with? For? How could that look? Dont limit it to existing channels or structures...play with creating your own. :-)
2. Cultivating your aliveness and embodying it
over time. There are so many
way to embody it, more than we can imagine. One aspect of living into it
includes being conscious of to what you say YES to and to what you say NO. Once
you start engaging your aliveness, and extracting meaning in it, you further cultivate your purpose by saying YES and stepping up to ALL of that which it requires...and, as
significantly, saying NO to - and NOT doing - everything that is no longer
serving it. With every healthy, live-giving YES, there come a series of healthy
NOs.
Sometime the NOs are is the hardest part - to people, events, ideas, and
most often, old habits and ways of being. Committing can take a moment...but
living into it, embodying it, and choosing from it moment, by moment, day by
day is an ongoing process. It requires presence, consciousness, self awareness and breaking
old patterns...and cultivating new ones.
Sometimes it means embarking on trainings or events that have no seeming
direct relationship to your work (even though they eventually inform it). For example, I spent 5 years is a psycho-physical
healing, movement and bodywork training, CoreSomatics, and became a Master
Practitioner. I took it becuase I was deelpy curious about the wisdom of the body after a bodywork experience I had, and the training had a lot of energy for me - not knowing if or how I would even apply it. I don't have a hands-on healing practice, but what I learned
about the somatic intelligence in that training - and the ways I related it to creative process - deeply informed my work and
the design of all of my public and corporate workshops.
I bring movement and the body into everything I do, even when not a
body-centered program.
3. Creating from it.
Purpose always aligns self, others and the whole. I have
worked with hundreds of passionate entrepreneurs who have created their own
work in the world...and without exception, when each connected with his or her
purpose and sense of "calling", it was always generative, aligned
with serving some greater good. Serving something larger than just ourselves is
NATURALLY embedded in our purpose...in some way or other - often requiring us to expand our mental
framework to see that. Sharing something alive in ourselves seems to be an
inherent part of purpose.
People who create their own path
centered around their purpose discover it already has service built in.
It many, sometimes, require us to expand our belief systems of what service
means, and how it looks, not limited to conventional ideas about who serves and
contributes. It is not just about carrying what you know in
service, but also creating something that serves something larger than just you - and it does include you. (It is not about sacrficing who you are in service of others - that's not generative for the whole. It is about structuring your aliveness into an accessible purpose.
It can be anything - a service, product, a new
idea, a framework, a computer program, a business, a work of art, a way of
doing something, a design, a blog post... anything that is uniquely yours. There is a
sense of inner empowerment that comes from accessing your “creative
source” and creating from it, no matter how you do it. EVERYONE is creative and
everyone can access it.
4. Claiming your Inner Authority.
Noticing patterns
you have discovered as a result of
"working it"
gives you inner authority and ownership that's not
dependent on what others think. When we leave our socialized beliefs and enter
the juicy, messy territory of our inner resourcefulness, it can be scary. It
can be challenging to discover our true voice, the one that contains our
creatively unique purpose and expression, and weed out all of the other voices
with which we've been socialized.
There is no short cut to this.
It requires going under layers of accepted assumptions, and creating time to
listen to a voice inside of us we may not even know is there. Sometimes that
voice is loud and we get a clear vision or "aha" moment where we know
what we want to do and how, but often that voice starts out softly, and we have
to nurture it out. But it is always in there...waiting for us to engage with
it.
Once we learn how to hear it, we become
aware it's always communicating. Once we have engaged our work
for a while, we pay more attention, we can begin to notice patterns, honor our
own observances, see larger patterns at work that connect to our work, and
formulate "wisdom" form integrating knowledge, experience, creativity
and intuition in our unique ways. That is when we are less dependent on others
for evaluation, and become more centered in our own inner authority. We can
hear information from the inside out, and discern what resonates and what does
not. We question everything. We run things through our OWN "resonance
meter" to see how it feels. Does this feel right? Does it feel like it is
mine to do? It can take time to hear the subtleties of the language of
our “creative source” but once we learn its language, we begin to trust our
inner voice.
There is a type of freedom that
comes with engaging your own inner authority and crafting your
path...and it's not always easy. In fact, it usually comes with messiness,
seeming setbacks, resistances, fears and doubts....your own, and sometimes others around you. Cultivating your creatively
unique purposeful work often brings up the "shadow" as well as the
light. But being with it all, as it emerges, and making generative choices
along the way is that’s how that life-giving voice inside of us gets stronger.
Mistakes within purpose are simply iterations in the emergence process. There is no way around making mistakes, probably lots of them...and purpose allows you to learn from them, to use them. They become awareness lessons, they strengthen knowledge and resolve, and they become innovations to create something new and different.
These are just a few reflections around purpose as they came to me to share today, based on my own experiences and from coaching others who are engaging their purposeful work. Not everything may resonate with you. You may even might disagree with some of it. My hope is not to persuade you on an idea, but simply offer some food for thought or inspiration. As with everything, take what resonates and leave the rest. :-)
Michelle James ©2013
Posted by Michelle on April 05, 2013 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Last year we curated a Creativity in Business eBook asking over 30 other creativity and innovation practitioners, facilitators and leaders the same 6 questions...and got a myriad of diverse approaches, ideas, philosophies, inspirations and practical applications. Over the course of 3 years, I shared them on this blog before forming them into an eBook. I tried the exercise of answering the questions myself, and my responses are below. To download the complete book of all 32 interviews, along with applicable practices click HERE.
My take on the 6 questions:
How does your work engage creativity?
My calling so far feels like it has been to integrate the worlds of creativity, service, meaning and commerce; cultivate whole brain, whole-body, whole-person engagement and full-on aliveness in the workplace (and in life!); and help co-create - with others who are similarly inspired - new, more generative foundations upon which to develop soul-based, vibrant businesses, organizations and communities. Also, my work (The Center for Creative Emergence) integrates more “yin” practices, whole-brain and body-centered practices and ways of being into the more conventionally “yang” left-brain dominant work culture. All of my workshops and events are highly audience-experiential – with the focus being on the emergent creativity of whose in the room.
What do you see as the New Paradigm of Work?
This is a big question for me, one I have been exploring for a long time. One of the meta themes that I see emerging is that the new work paradigm resolves the paradoxes of the conventional paradigm – in values, mindsets, and ways of thinking, being and interacting. In other words, what has been considered opposites, or “either/or” choices in a limited work world view is moving into “both/and” opening of myriad possibilities in an expansive, creativity-centered framework. The new work paradigm has a a much larger playing field – our concepts of success, making a living, service, purpose, meaning, creative expression are changing. The lines are blurring…these things are not silo-ed and separated as much. Creativity is no longer seen as “woo woo” or something you engage after work on your free time – it’s right in the center of the new work paradigm.
A creativity-centered paradigm requires new foundational principles of engagement. The same rules that applied for a static, conformity-based, do-as-you-are-told workplace are very different than those of a dynamic, alive, adaptive, resilient, independent-thinking, creative workplace. I believe we have much to learn from the principles of improv theater (yes-anding, makes everyone else look good, serve the good of the whole, mistakes are invitations to create, etc.) to help us both adapt to and co-create the new paradigm. I’d love to see improv theater training as part of the core training curriculum at all organizations – it’s hugely transformative.
What do you see as the role of creativity in that paradigm?
I see it as the core. Breaking old patterns, creating new foundations, developing more generative structures, and the expressing richer, fuller, more alive aspects of ourselves require us to actualize deeper levels – and use multiple expression - of our creative potential.
What mindsets do you see as essential for navigating the new work paradigm?
A shift in core values and foundational ways of being that are more expansive, generative and inclusive. I see the new mindsets as “Yes Anding” and containing older ones, and adding a new dimension to what was there before - a developmental, emergent process.
Some of the emerging mindsets I see are moving from either/or thinking to include more yes-anding, generative thinking; moving from valuing conformity and getting it right to valuing more exploration and original thinking; not just tolerating, but actually anticipating mistakes as part of the creative process and allowing for it much more liberally than in the past; moving from seeing “failure” as binary (pass/fail, right/wrong, good/bad) to experiencing it as an iteration - an invitation to learn, grow and evolve; moving from a selling-only mindset to a service mindset; using intuition and resonance as much as logic in decision making; increased comfort in improvising; using more heart, empathy, caring, co-creation in structuring the workplace, establishing the culture and environment, and engaging our work daily; and more focus on empowerment coming from the creativity withIN ourselves to name a few.
What is Creative Leadership to you?
A Creative Leader, to me, is a leader who chooses to use more of his or her own creative potential on an ongoing basis – choosing to always learn and evolve personally as well as professionally; one who is dedicated more to exploring possibilities than being right, and more to discovery than maintaining the status quo. Creative Leaders facilitate meaning, creativity, and contribution of those he or she serves – employee, colleague, team member, customer, participant, etc.
Creative Leadership is paradoxical: strong and soft; directional and flexible; strategic and emergent; focused and open. The creative leader, to use and improv terms, does what he or she needs to serve the scene…sometimes taking a lead role, other times support role and following what is already happening….stepping up and letting go as the situation dictates. Creative Leaders welcome, inspire, and awaken the Creative Leadership in those they lead.
MAKING IT REAL
For 31 other approaches to these same 6 questions, and 31 other creativity practices, download the Creativity in Business eBook (FREE for the next month!)
Posted by Michelle on January 23, 2013 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
Steve Dorfman and Toby Marciante of We Mean Business TV recently interviewd me on creative (whole brain) thinking in the workplace. We talk about stories, improv, somatics, natural resistance, risk-friendly work cultures, generational creaitvity, discovery sessions, and more in this 30-minute interview.
Posted by Michelle on January 04, 2012 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
I am in a Facebook group and someone posted the question asking what
capacities are needed for Global Citizenship and how might they be developed. I just wrote the following stream of consciousness as a wall post there and thought I would share it here as well since it's connected to my own purpose, work with creative process and vision of an ever-evolving, more generative world - one that is co-created by each of us from the inside-out.
Some of the capacities that come to mind are creativity and imagination; holding paradox and uncertainty; consciously engaging the unknown; yes-anding, improvisation, adaptiveness; getting into the body (many cultures are much more embodied than we are) - using our somatic intelligence as a resource; re-wakening the senses; using more right-brain ways of engaging and communicating integrated with the left-brain; weaving in more aspects of the Feminine archetypal qualities in with the Masculine; empathic communication, intuition, holistic (not binary) listening - with co-discovery in mind.
Also, cultivating the inherent exuberance, aliveness, and joy in our children and reclaiming it in ourselves; expanding our capacities by breaking old patterns and intentionallly engaging practices that invite us in to more of our hearts, bodies, and and whole brains; incorporating purpose and relevance in everything we engage, among other aspects of our potential; expanding upon our existing models, theories and approaches to allow for ongoing modification and constantly inventing new ones we creating conditions for new, liberating structures to emerge; creating conditions for those in their organization/culture/system to unfold their "what's next" from within; new ways of being in addition to thinking...
By developing these and all kinds of other capacities within ourselves, I believe we can begin to transcend the edginess of the differences and can meet more as global humans. That creates the space to hear, connect and co-create what's next as global citizens using the gifts of our unique cultural differences.
Posted by Michelle on October 02, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|
I have create a new summer program - a week-long immersion into the Creative Self:
Creativity for your Calling: Engaging Your Aliveness
Do you feel you have a calling - a purpose - but are not quite sure what it is? Do you yearn to connect with and express that juicy creative wellspring you know is in you? Do you desire to move beyond the voices of fear, resistance and judgment into the voices of aliveness, meaning and passion? And do you want to have fun doing it? Then come play with us as you become more of YOU!
Your calling is unique to you and you are the only one who can bring it out into the world. A purpose, a path, an invitation, vocation, contribution, passion and/or a business, it’s your most significant "mission" in life - the call you know is deep inside of yourself just waiting to be expressed out into the world. It can be challenging to clearly hear that inner voice in the midst of everyday distractions. The good news is that your Creative Self knows how to carry it out
In this fun, soulful and wildly creative program, you will use your whole-brain and your body to answer the call. You will immerse yourself in arts-based activities, improvisation, body-centered practices, storytelling, intuitive reflection tools and other forms of creative process to hear your calling, draw it forth, and discover ways of making it real in the world. You already have your unique “signature” set of gifts, skills, experiences, and talents. This retreat will give you the chance to indulge and cultivate them. This program contains a balance reflection and action, receptivity and generativity, heart and mind; body and soul; and lighthearted play and diving deep.
By combining your unique creativity with focused intention you can:
• access and use your rich inner guidance
• awaken deep layers of your creative potential
• understand your big picture patterns and archetypal drives
• discover delicious new possibilities and directions
• connect with your "creative source" to move toward inspired expressions
and outcomes
• channel anxiety and overwhelm into productive creativity
• feel more engaged and alive in your every day life
You are vaster and more creative than you can imagine. This program is designed to have you experience the full-on aliveness of your Creative Self as you unfold, shape and form your distinctive “Calling Card” - an Action and Reflection Plan to continue the journey beyond the retreat setting. You’ll also leave with approaches you can practice at home, and ways of navigating the resistances that can show up. Creativity materials provided - just bring an open mind and heart!
Check my the Workshop page on my website for the next one
Posted by Michelle on February 26, 2011 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog
(0)
|
|
|