The Fertile Unknown

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 michelle@creativeemergence.com • 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

FREE Somatic Expeditions virual event with 25 Somatic Practitioners - Oct. 6-10

I'm delighted to have been invited to be one of the guests in this Somatic Experience Event online. During this FREE five-day virtual event, I will join host Ahni Bonner and 24 others to delve into exciting and innovative applications centered in body-based awareness. The work is inspiring, purposeful, and fun and I’m excited to be part of it. Th world is changing, and more people are valuing and (re)connecting with their body's innate intelligence. What does that mean, and how does that look? Join this event to discover many ways people are embodying the answers those questions.

 

Somatic Expeditions is a series of conversations and practices with 25 somatic-awareness practitioners of various types. Journey through the body into expanded awareness to connect with what’s alive and create new possibilities! Connect to your body/mind for clarity that is vital, energizing, and transformative. October 6th-10th.

 

Click this link register for FREE:

Somatic Expeditions

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

NEW Creative Body Workshop! September 9th

NEW Creative Body Workshop on 9/9! 10-12 EST on Zoom.
https://www.creativeemergence.com/creativebody/

Many of us are sitting in Zoom calls, or at our desks, for much of the day. It can be energy draining, and we can lose touch with our creative flow. I take frequent "pattern breaks" to get in my body in energizing and enjoyable ways to be able to stay "on" with the work I do. When I take the time to move differently, it opens up my more of my creative energy, focus, and resourcefulness. I do body-centered practices every day to keep me present, engaged, and co-creating with my clients. It's been a life-saver for me doing all my work online these days, and I would love to share some of the practices for you to do yourselves or with those you coach or facilitate.

 

Your body is an amazing creative resource. It has it own creative intelligence. Using your body in ways aligned with this natural intelligence increases adaptability, creativity, and resilience. When you move and embody in new ways, new perspectives and thinking emerge. Breaking patterns of movement and opening to new ones create space for novel ideas and insights.

 

This highly interactive workshop integrates different interrelated body-centered modalities that work together toward a cohesive whole. The convergence of somatic philosophy and techniques with other creative practices help you experience a deepened awareness of, and connection to, your body intelligence and unique creative expression. We explore and experience using our bodies to overcome blocks to creativity, create new visions and solve problems, feel more empowered, generate feelings of aliveness, hopefulness, and more ease of movement, and more.

For more information or to register, go to: https://www.creativeemergence.com/creativebody/

Cultivating Creative Energy Using Your Body

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

Using the Moment for Creative Insights

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.

The more we cultivate presence, the more we deepen our relationship with the moment, the more it provides - insights, ideas, creativity, solutions, aha's, guidance, peace of mind, an expanded framework, etc. I've learned this over the years through improv theater, meditation, being in nature, expressive arts, contemplation, etc. that when I engage in these practices, I live more connected to the moment and feel more access to creativity, meaning and motivation. When I get caught up in the daily grind without consciously giving myself the space to pause and engage presence, I lose that connection and feel the loss. Luckily, the moment is forgiving, and always here.

It's about clearing out the mental clutter so we can be present to what wants to emerge from our creative unconscious. Our creative unconscious always has more information and possibilities than anything we consciously know. The moment offers us more options, choices, and possibilities when we become fully open and present to it. It contains next-level possibilities that we don't always see from our habitual thinking lens. It's what allows something to seemingly emerge out of nothing. Presencing to the moment is a bridge to our creative unconscious that contains next-level answers, visions, and directions.

CREATIVE PRESENCE PRACTICE: Take a pause to breathe out anything that is on your mind (plans, worries, fears, to-do's, concerns - knowing you can come back to them after the practice) and breathe in the current moment. Really feel the moment expand as you breathe it in. Then bring your intention - whatever it is you want to envision, create, or solve (project, workshop, product, idea-generation, solution, situation, etc.), and be with it, expanding the feeling of the moment...and being present to what emerges. Like with any meditation or creative practice, it may take a few times before you get the clarity, but it will deliver if you stay present to it. Have paper on hand to write out or draw what emerges into your consciousness, so you don't lose the insight.

 

Michelle James ©2020

Valuing Intuition in the Creative Process

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift
and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors
the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

― Albert Einstein

We've been generally educated and socialized to see reality/create/act from only the rational mind - from only what we currently see or consciuosly know (and it times of challenge, when people contract, that becomes louder). But the intuitive mind allows us feel into/see into/have knowings into that which goes beyond what we currently know, have evidence for, or can be proven - in our own lives and in society.

 

The intuitive mind allows us to leave the confines of "space-time" and go into the world of our yet-untapped possibilities - our emerging-future selves - and bring the knowledge it carries back into the present. It allows us to access more and varied ways of knowing and imagining - from much more deeply in our creative unconscious - and it bypasses the conscious editor, who carries a lot of limited stories and assumptions about who we are, who others are, why we are here, what's ours to do, etc.

The intuitive "right brain" information we get is direct and immediate, and sometimes abstract (colors, feelings, shapes, a-has, awareness', knowings, glimpses, words, energies, sounds, surprising connections, etc) - and it's the job of that rational mind to unpack it - to mine its riches - for next-level information...and often transformation. The rational mind is supposed to carry out the insights of the intuitive mind, not block it, keep it down, discredit it, and treat is as "woo-woo" like is done on most of our current systems.

So if you get an idea or intuitive feeling out of "space-time" (something that does not fit into your current knowledge or information system, or may not make complete sense to your current self), don't be quick to discard it just because it's unfamiliar, incomplete, or disjointed. Honor it, and bring the rational mind on board to explore and engage it, and see what it has to tell you.

Creative Emergence is all about that future what's next showing itself into the present...where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and can not be predicted by what the rational mind knows alone, since there is no existing evidence yet for what the emerging future carries - outside of the hints from the intuitive mind. And connect them with the rational mind. That's the "Both-And" sweet spot of next-level creative thinking and being...and the sweet spot of cultivating our sacred calling in the world. For that, intuition is the sacred gift indeed. When we value it, we can experience the creatively unique ways it wants to engage with us.

Michelle James ©2020

Creativity for Staying Grounded in Uncertainty and the Unknown

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.

While that may not change what's happening outside of us in the world, it can help shift our energy and internal state to feel more solid, grounded and centered within it, especially in periods of long-time unknowns. Instead of just waiting for the unknown to pass, we can use it to focusing on what we CAN control and create that is alive for us helps to better be with the things we can't control, or being with long time unknowns. We can change our energy and our way of being with it.

 

Michelle James ©2020

Creative Emergence: Clear, Cultivate, Create

"Clarity is the elimination of mental clutter.   

Agility is the elimination of physical clutter.

Tranquility is the elimination of spiritual clutter."
~ James Clear.

Yes! And...Emergence is when someone new and unexpected is born in its place. Once the clutter is gone, the emergence has space to bloom in ways we can't imagine from our cluttered, contracted consciousness. As you eliminate unnecessary clutter, if you also actively (and creatively) cultivate that which is calling to emerge, it helps further clear out what no longer serves. Both and at the same time. We often know how to clear out clutter, but the fear of the unknown keeps it in place, so if we start engaging our emergence process as we clear out, the letting go feel safer and easier...and the creative magic that is in you, underneath the clutter, can shine forth...and you can shape, form, and create what's next. Clear AND Cultivate to consciously Create what's next. 

Michelle James @2020

2 FREE Juicy Creative Aspirational Online Events in September!

Creativity, Frameworks, and New Possibilities: Two FREE Online Aspirational Events this Month Exploring a Generative "What's Next"

I'm delighted to be one of the speakers in both these online events focused on a more hopeful, positive, creative future! With the world as it is, we can all use some inspiration, hope, support, and aspirational explorations and visions of what can be possible - along with applicable practices you can start right away. We all contain the seeds of creative change we've been looking for to birth healthier new foundations...and we all need each other.   The Magnificent New Normal Speaker Series September 14 - October 24   How do we want to respond to the calling of our collective future? This series is an exploration in making generative, impactful choices for yourself and others.   With one interview/day for 40 days, this series offers daily infusions of hope, wisdom & opportunity to inspire transformation and propel civilization forward in this new, emerging reality. Forced out of familiar patterns, we have the chance to make creative new choices for moving forward. This series engages creative visions, principles, and hand-on practices for a generative, creative, hopeful post-pandemic civilization.   A diverse array of other speakers include Dr. Bruce Lipton, Matthew Fox, Lynne McTaggert, the singer Jewel, Lynne Twist, Alberto Villodo and many others, each coming from a different lens and framework. Magnificent New Normal FREE Registration     Creativity and Culture Online Conference September 19   This conference is designed to provide a creative space for stimulating conversations between academics, educators and entrepreneurs with a deep interest in developing a creative economy, and more creative, generative, prosperous future. This year's themes are Presence, Emergence and Impact.   Following the conference, there will be an opportunity to remain in contact with the speakers and other conference attendees through monthly online follow up sessions to continue creative conversations which may lead to collaborative projects and creative business opportunities.   An international group of other speakers include Frijof Capra, Terry Tillman, Talmud Bah, Susan Sharp, Paul Z Jackson, Siddarth Agarwal, and Linda Naiman among many others. Creative Culture FREE Registration

The Creative Unknown: Turning Uncertainty into Discovery

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

NEW Program! Creating with Purpose: New Foundations for Creating and Producing What's Next in an Uncertain World

9-week Immersion Program! 

CREATING WITH PURPOSE:
New Foundations for

Creating and Producing
What's Next in an

Uncertain World Using

Whole-Brain,
Whole-Self Creativity

9-Week Immersion Deep-dive into Creating from the Inside-Out With Meaning, Purpose, and Heart for Tangible, Applicable Outcomes to Meet the Needs of Today's World - and Your Own!

Discover, Design, and Develop What’s Next in Your Work or Life 

Where Purpose, Creativity, Your Uniqueness, and Tangible Outcomes Meet

People with a strong sense of purpose find opportunities others miss. The internal sense of purpose and meaning anchors and grounds us to better weather the external storms. When we discover and feel connected to what is ours to do - what we are uniquely designed to offer - it acts like a compass in a volatile storm or uncertain fog. It then becomes not certainty that gives us security, but meaning. In these times, many people are feeling called to take positive action. This program focuses on strengthening your inner compass, being intentionally directed, and producing something tangible from it (even if you have no idea what that will be when we start).

New Foundations: Using Transformational Creative Principles, Frameworks, and Practices

In this workshop, we will explore and experience some of the foundations - constructs, frameworks, ways of being, and principles - that establish the conditions for purposeful creativity to emerge. We'll use creative whole-brain, whole-being-engagement approaches, and actualize our unique Inner Creator, to craft and carry out what we're called to create and contribute. This is not about just knowing it cognitively, but embodying the ways of thinking and being to draw it out into the world.

 

Use the Creative Resources within you to Create New Directions,
Offerings, Projects, Products, Services, Workshops, Programs,
or Thought Leadership in your Work, Cause, or Mission

Who is this for?

Entrepreneurs, leaders, educators, coaches, consultants, change-makers, healers, creators, pioneers, social transformers, and anyone who wants to contribute and create a more life-giving what's next for themselves and others. This is an intensive immersion program. It is for those who are truly committed to themselves and their process, and to showing up for each other in a safe, supportive space.

 

Why?

•  You want to purposefully create what's next in your work/mission
•  You were clear before, but now feel a little like a deer in the headlights
•  You have a sense about what you'd like to do, but need it further fleshed out

•  You want to do something that matters to you and serves others

•  You know what you want to do, but feel inner "blocks" or fears around it
•  You want to develop your signature process and offerings
•  You have a sense of purpose, but not sure how to move forward with it
•  You want to carry out your work/mission in a way that fits who YOU are

•  You want to bring more of your hopeful energy amidst the chaos
•  You want to actualize your unique creativity in your work/calling/mission
•  You want to find a peaceful inner creative sanctuary within you
•  You want to move beyond self-imposed limitations about what’s possible
•  You're seeking what is yours to do here, now, and in what's next
•  You want to move forward authentically and with confidence
•  You want to cultivate and apply your gifts, skills, talents and experiences toward something purposeful

How? The Exploration and Experience

It's so important to take care of and ground yourself - taking "your own oxygen" as you discover your ways to support and contribute to others to come from a centered place. This deep-dive program focuses on both your inner landscape (being) and your external expression (doing). It contains a balance of left and right brain activities, crafting and emerging, thinking and being, reflection and action, and structure and flow, and mind/body/heart/soul creativity. We’ll use the Creative Emergence Process with an integration of storytelling, improv, the arts, imagination, movement, body-centered practices, reflection tools, ritual, depth psychology/archetypes/mythology, systems thinking, and structured creative solution finding approaches. By working on releasing what no longer serves, creating new foundations, and expanding what is most generative, the external expression of our work changes.

Leave with:

The next evolution of your work or personal project, approach, product, service, process, offering, program, concept, or model; a sense of purposefulness and meaningful contribution; a self-designed structure for applying your unique gifts, skills, experiences and talents toward something that inspires you; and practices to use beyond the workshop setting to stay in your creative flow.

 

Includes:

• Five 3-hour virtual interactive workshops with the group, each building on the one before.
  (there are super engaging, creative, and interactive - not lecture format - we will take 2 short breaks)
• One 90-minute personal Creative Emergence coaching session
• A course materials and resources list (for various creative projects we'll do)

• Engaging whole-brain and somatic assignments and practices to do in between workshops
• Ongoing support throughout the program

• Bonus 2-hour Follow-up Integration Session

Schedule

When: 5 Fridays, over the course of 9 weeks – 1:00pm to 4:00pm EDT (10:00-1:00 PST). 8/28, 9/11, 10/2, 10/16, 10/30. Individual coaching sessions will be done in the break between the 2nd and 3rd workshops  If you have to miss a workshop, we'll do a personal Zoom call to catch you up. Bonus 2-hour Follow-up Integration session 3 weeks after the course is completed to further integrate the learnings. 

For the Program Structure, Registration, and more information go to:

http://www.creativeemergence.com/creatingwithpurpose.html

Creative Emergence Image Series - Emergent Potential

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

We Need More than Thinking-Only to Create a More Life-Giving World

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

Creativity for Re-enchantment, Reconnection & Purposeful Direction in Tough Times

"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

Creativity: Being Present to the Moment

Michelle James ©2020

Facilitating Creative Process: Preparing Yourself before the Workshop

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

Emergence Space in the Creative Process

 #newideas #newchoices #newcreations #creativeemergencecoaching #mylatestposter

                                                                   ©Michelle James

Beyond Problems with Creative Aliveness

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

 

Choosing Aliveness Over Habit

Michelle James @2019

The Energized Facilitator: Getting the Most out of Creative Process Facilitation

image from fitnessandwellnessnews.com

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

Creative Play: Not Just for Preschool

Image via "Mind in the Making" Facebook page

 

Yes...and...true for all people of all ages! Sometimes when adults who have lost touch with their creative side (that everyone has naturally) start reclaiming their adventurous, exploratory, non-obedient, moving, creative selves they feel like they're back in pre-school (I hear that a lot facilitating creative process in orgs.) because it's the last time they remembered having that outside-the-lines freedom. But that feeling fades when they get it back in their bodies and get that to be in motion, discovery, and their unique creative expression.

 

People will sometimes say, "I feel like I am 5" (or 8 or 10 or 3 or "in kindergarten" - some young age) when first getting back into an improv or drawing or movement activity as an adult. I've discovered, after hearing hundreds of creativity stories* over the years, that usually that age/time period corresponds with the last time that particular person remembers having creative freedom. Something happened around that age (whether by a teacher or parent or someone in authority) that shifted them out of their natural creative flow. If they say, "I feel like I'm 5" and you ask why not 6, they'll have a story to share. Once located, they can change how it plays out moving forward.

Yes, this poster has an important message for teachers, and anyone involved in the formative years of children...AND...it is true for all of us. It's never too late to re-engage with your whole body, whole brain, and whole self.

* In certain workshops, I have participants share their life's Creativity Stories - a 2-minute story about their creativity, whatever the means to them. (Sometimes I have them do this non-verbally, depending on the group and the workshop - more details on that activity coming in my book). 2 minutes means they get to the essence pretty quickly. I've been doing that for about 15 years, and one common pattern in every story (at least for pre-millennials) it that is has a time in it where their creativity was squelched by someone or something outside of themselves. It was never that they just decided on their own to stop creating, or that on their own, they though they not creative. Each story has a time when something challenged it. What happens after that varies for each person, but each has a time when their natural, organic, beautiful creativity was challenged, held back, negated, judged, blocked, punished, threatened, made fun of, etc. The younger generations grew up in a digital world where creativity is more expressed and valued, so they did not all necessarily have that same challenge. Some did. And many people they work and collaborate with did.

Creativity is Living Paradox

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.

It's not Magic, It's Your Creatively Unique Purpose

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.

Purpose and Synchronicity

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:

1. Discovering your aliveness. What gives you juice, energy, engagement and meaning. Aliveness has many expressions: What's fun for you? What energize you? What do you like to play at? Tinker with? Explore? What engages your heart? Your mind? Your body? Your soul? What do you do because it's "so you"? How do you shine (or want to shine)? What captivates your whole self, not because it is interesting  or cool to others, but because it is compelling to YOU? What triggers your curiosity? What did you love doing, being, feeling at any point of your life or now? What did you love doing, being, feeling at any point of your life or now? What does "Alive" feel like for you? How do you get that experience?

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. :-)

This is an ongoing process, not an event. It is not about sitting down one time and listing it all just once. It is a deeper day-to-day reflection, and it changes over time. Start with where you are and what you know...and see what emerges as you engage it on and ingoing basis.

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

Creativity-Centered Work Paradigm

Image source: Fotalia

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  

Image source: The Agency Post

What is one practice that people could start applying today to bring more creativity into their work or work place?

Transforming uncertainty into discovery. Once uncertainty is no longer something to be avoided, you can use it as a creative resource. It goes form being intimidating to being fun…and can lead to surprising creative breakthroughs. Here is an exercise to get started in making the unknown your BFF.

Research shows that moving differently creates new neurological pathways that free up the brain to think differently - an essential ingredient for innovation and new solutions. Moving in non-habitual ways requires the brain to be used in non-habitual ways which then leads to novel thinking. (i.e., improv theater groups use movement warm-ups to get out of habitual thought patterns and get fully present to create).

I created a workshop activity called The Creativity Walk which has many variations. In it, participants walk, move and nonverbally interact in myriad ways, each one designed to have them experience the conceptual framework of a certain states of being related to aspects of the creative process. One is discovery.

The Discovery Walk

In this practice, participants are asked to walk around and engage from a place of certainty, a place where they know the answers. Without exception, inevitably chests pop up, walks become linear and directed, bodies straighten up, eyes focus ahead, etc. Not too much interaction as people move around the room in a rapid, straightforward pace. Focus, yes. Newness, no.

Then they are asked to walk form uncertainty, a place where they do not know the answers. Bodies shrink, movement slows or stops altogether, eyes dart around or look down. Almost no interaction. There is a feeling in the room of fear, trepidation and judgment as they look like deers frozen in headlights. The energy is stagnant. Neither focus nor newness surfaces.

They are then asked to transform that uncertainty into discovery. They are told they still do not know the answers - still in the unknown - however, they now experience it from a state of discovery. Suddenly, the entire energy of the room shifts and awakens: they look about thoughtfully, they are fluid in their movement, they explore their surroundings with all of their senses, they are content, alert, curious and present. They look at each other. Movement goes back and forth from linear to non-linear as they keep moving ahead. There is a sense of contentment, ease, and a feeling of openness. Connections are made. Newness is possible.

There is a noticeable visceral difference between openness of the discovering unknown shut-down stuckness of the fear-based unknown. In both cases, we are with the unknown. In the former, we have possibilities open to us. Once felt in the body (embodied), it is much easier to re-access that feeling later when faced with uncertainty in real work and life situations. Discovery is instant empowerment.

You can do this as a team or group, or by yourself in a room. The key is to really feel the discomfort of static uncertainty in the body, and then let it transform into the dynamic openness of discovery. By consciously practicing transforming that which we do not know into a discovery process, we can more easily move through the fear of not knowing amidst the uncertainty around us on a more consistent basis.

~ Michelle James ©2012

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!)

Bringing your Whole Brain to Work: We Mean Business TV interviews me

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.

 

 

 

 

 

Co-creative Global Citizens

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.

Creativity for your Calling: Engaging Your Aliveness

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

Thrivable Interviews Me on Yin/Yang of Creative Emergence

Todd Hoskins of Thrivable.net interviewed me
on the dynamic balance of the yin and yang of creativity and emergence in the workplace. You can see this interview and many others on thrivability on their blog: http://bit.ly/fI2mRF

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Todd Hoskins:  Michelle, you lead conferences, workshops, and do coaching around facilitating creativity in business. How do those in business organizations, beyond the design team, work towards fostering creativity?

Michelle James:  The most effective and meaningful changes I’ve observed have come from both embracing creative practices and also establishing new foundations: generative principles of engagement, expanded mind sets, new frameworks, and entering into a “co-creative partnering” type of relationship with each other, and with the unknown.

For example, weaving improv-based principles as the rules of engagement in meetings can transform both the energy and outcomes. One client transformed their meetings – which were either boring or contained continual battles for whose idea was best – into Discovery Sessions just by setting three of the improv principles as the foundational container for each meeting: yes-and, make everyone look good, and serve the good of the whole. Their once dreaded meetings, where little got done and all felt drained, became lively, co-creative sessions where new and different ideas and applications emerged in the meeting itself by just adhering to new principles of engagement. People began building on each other’s ideas instead of only defending their own.

Another example: an aspiring entrepreneur may have three different passions or business ideas and believes he or she has to choose one. By engaging emergence by conscious pattern breaking, whole-brain and somatic creative techniques, and deep immersion into the question, a new and completely unexpected pattern can emerge that reveals a coherent structure that could not have been predicted before that exploratory deep dive. A new coherent business structure can emerge that contains what is most alive and relevant of the three previous ideas, along with surprising new qualities.

I have seen this so many times with entrepreneurs who are creating a business that doesn’t fit neatly into a current business model, my own business included. One level of thinking’s either/or question becomes the next level of thinking’s both/and solution. It often requires hanging out in “not knowing” for part of the process.

Todd:  How is emergence related to creativity?  What does it look like when it happens?

Michelle:  I’m not sure how to do that question justice in a few sentences without it either being vague or too reductive, and there can be many different answers. After years of working with it, It’s still hard for me to define because I see it as a universal process linked in to how life itself works – and myself as a life-long student of that process. Creativity, for me, is both means to cultivate the emergence – using creativity practices to engage emergence – and the outcome of an emergence. That’s why “creative emergence” resonates with me – the terms are so intimately linked. Creativity generates emergence, and emergence produces creativity – the whole process is an ongoing creative, emergent feedback loop.

A creative, emergent process requires navigating the dynamic balance of listening and choosing; knowledge and discovery; stepping up to create, and letting go to receive – in other words, doing what is yours to do, and letting the self-organization of emergent creativity do its part. Like midwifing any new birth, there is a natural trajectory already happening…and…there are things you can do to help facilitate a healthy birth, and then clean it up and make it accessible to the world.

In groups, you can see this emergence in action in highly functioning improv theater groups, jazz ensembles, sports teams, etc…and in co-creative work teams that have trust at their core. Often the emergence happens after the “efforting” is released. Something takes over that is greater than any individual’s agenda that has an intelligence of its own. The group “field” produces something unexpected that emerges from the interaction of its members – whether it’s comedy line, a piece of music, a new strategy or business, a world changing idea or the next iteration of solution. In a group, emergence has the after-effect of “Look what WE did!” Something new was created that no one could expect, and each person sees how they needed the others in order to become something beyond any single person’s vision or agenda.

Facilitating emergence in an organization is partly about creating the conditions that allow people to contribute more of themselves than just their job description…to bring their unique creativity out in service of the vision, the team and the organization. People buy into what they help create. To bring out the creativity requires leaving the “control” mindset, and trusting in the natural self-organization of the creative process, while also creating boundaries for that creativity to emerge. One paradox of emergence is that flow needs boundaries.

For both individuals and groups, one activity to practice engaging the unknown is to ask the question, hold it without rushing to answer, then get the right brain involved and start drawing it – with NO recognizable pictures or symbols. Just draw the “energy” as you feel it moment by moment – colors, lines and shapes. This can be uncomfortable at first for some people because all the inner voices of judgment and the fear of the unknown can show up – and it is unfamiliar. Allow yourself to not know what it is. Get in the practice of not knowing…and just keep drawing.

With practice, it actually becomes liberating. Research has shown the right brain processes more quickly than the left. And it expresses differently, so working this way can be like learning a new language at first. If you rely only on images you already know, you’re still letting the left-brain dictate the process. After allowing the right brain’s expression, THEN go back and bring in the left brain to try to find meaning through inquiry into the abstract drawing. It’s amazing what patterns and practical, concrete insights emerge just from diverging into the abstract unfamiliar first before converging back into the familiar.

Resistance often show up in the creative process, and it’s temping to turn back to what’s familiar. The act of moving through the discomfort of the contraction of resistance gives more power to the expansion of the new emergence – like the chick’s beak, which gains its strength by having to peck through the resistance of the shell as part of its hatching. The status quo wants to maintain itself; the new birth wants to come forth…and both are essential parts of the dynamic tension within the creative impulse.

Todd:  What other tensions and paradoxes are in the process of emergence? How can an organization move from either/or to yes/and, allowing for these tensions?

Michelle:  Included would be the dynamic tensions/interaction between divergence and convergence, the yin and yang archetypes, planning and improvising, stillness and activity, reflection and action, logic and intuition, using both what is seen and unseen, directing and unfolding, incubating and birthing. There are many more. The creative emergence process itself is paradoxical – what seems opposed or disconnected at one level emerges into something new at another level.  It is learning how to not see these aspects in conflict and to welcome the dynamic tension as a gift of creative process. And, of course, it can still be challenging – and messy – like any new birth while it’s happening. It can feel exciting and energizing at times, and painful and doubt-ridden at others.

Creativity contains both “yes-and,” which is expansion and divergence, as well as “either/or,” which is contraction and convergence. The key is to expand the playing field by diverging (yes-anding) first, before starting to organize and focus on convergence (discerning). I believe organizations need to create space, time, a value system, and set of practices that more explicitly embrace divergence. We need to infuse that into the company culture at every level. The need for exploration without judgment is significant before going into strategizing – it informs new structures. Discernment is necessary in the creative process – we just need to give more time to divergent practices to generate more novelty first before going there.

Todd:   With the yin and yang, what have we been missing within culture and organizations?

Michelle:  Culturally, we have been out of balance. We have focused mainly on the creative yang archetype: outward-focused, production, efficiency, results; forging ahead, focused, driven, goal oriented. When in balance with the creative yin archetype these can be healthy parts of a larger co-creative whole. But we have left out the yin as “too soft” or even “woo woo” so we have experienced a predominant work culture of the yang out of balance. Without the yin for balance, we experience the shadow side of an out-of-balance work culture: cut throat, uncaring, stressful, back stabbing, lack of work/life balance, fear-based, driven to excess or striving to keep up, trying to impress, lack of feeling safe to explore or take creative risks, binary thinking (success/fail, right/wrong), disconnected, etc. I believe many of our challenges in the workplace stem from our over-emphasis on the creative yang and our de-emphasis, or sometimes complete rejection, of the creative yin instead of integrating them.

Creative organizations need both. The yin is relational and includes incubating, being with, integrating, supporting, and yes-anding. More than just left-brain linear thinking, the yin is about engaging embodiment and somatic wisdom, intuition, right brain, non-linear practices. It is experiential and whole-person. It more than just talk, and more than just action – it is a connection to what is most alive in ourselves; a connection to our stories, our inner voice, our senses, our bodies and our hearts. Actions and interactions that emerge from an integrated connection to the yin archetype look different than the actions we’ve seen come form its absence. The yin and yang archetypal energies need each other for generative, whole-systems, meaning-filled creativity.

This integration is something I have been deeply committed to in my work for a long time. Some years ago I created a program on “Creativity and the Yin/Yang Archetypes” about the integration of both for a more engaged, alive, creative workplace. I found – and still do – it’s easier to facilitate and apply it than to talk about it because it needs our whole brain, not just left brain, to engage it. We’re in a time where more whole-brain practices (improvisation, visual communication and thinking, ritual, storytelling, embodiment, movement, etc.) are being brought into the business world all the time.

We are also seeing more focus on meaning, calling, passion, aliveness, empathy, finding your voice, deep listening and internal motivation. Our metaphorical landscape is expanding to include more yin-centered metaphors. By infusing more yin practices, language and foundational ways of interacting into the yang workplace, it becomes holistically generative. The creative yin and creative yang are deep, archetypal patterns which, working together, allow exponential levels of creativity to emerge.

Todd:  You’re producing your second Creativity in Business Conference in October. How does the mode of your conferences, retreats, and workshops reflect the purpose?  How does the form follow function?

Michelle:  I believe the most dynamic, alive, creative organizations and individuals are those most in dynamic balance with yin and yang creativity. The intention of my work is to have my all my workshops, events, and coaching session reflect that balance of rich content and whole-brain/whole-being experience; mind and heart integration. They all use multiple dimensions of creative process and they are based in life-giving principles of engagement.

At our conferences, we use improv principles as our guidelines of interaction for the day. At our creativity network, presenters commit to doing something new to be on their creative edges. I also constantly create new activities, offerings or programs to keep and me on my own creative and evolving edges. My passion, among other things, is to create structures and conditions to support the balance of learning, wisdom, real-time creativity and emergence that supports aliveness, generative connections and serving the greater good. Part of living that mission is to imagine it, try it, get feedback, and modify. They do not all play out as hoped – some better, some worse – but they all contain seeds of learning and new growth.