Facilitating Creative Process: What's Underneath How Your Show Up

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Creative facilitation means tending to our creative self.  
How we show up
plays a big part in facilitating the creativity of others. It starts with our own presence,
flexibility, and creativity before we get into the room. Facilitating creative process, especially in groups with strongly divergent views, or who are focused on deeper healing or transformation, can require a lot. The process can weave in and out of being light and fun, and challenging and demanding. It’s easier if we have built up our own resilience with awareness that there are different elements informing ourselves, and each person in the room.

Factors that inform how we create and facilitate include: our character and personality, upbringing, education, life experiences, background, culture, ethnicity, innate gifts, skills, talents, belief systems, values, habits, attitudes, stories we have about our creativity or facilitation, our health, energy, vitality, well being, challenges, hopes, dreams, aspirations, inspirations, direct experiences, insights, discoveries,our connection to purpose or our calling, our knowledge, wisdom,understanding, awareness, adaptability, resiliency, archetypal energies and drives, learning and creating styles, confidence in our own thinking and intuition, our sense of play and aliveness, our relationship to constraints, our frameworks, mental models, and worldview.

The ways these factors show up and integrate within us, and how they interact with different situations is unique to each person - part of our irreducible "creative signature." Facilitating creativity is a creative process in itself that is also uniquely our own, which emerges from the variety of these elements on different levels within us (while also having common universal patterns that emerge), and each person in the room has their own integration of these elements as well. So there is always a lot happening under the surface in any creative workshop - and that's what can make it exciting and surprising, if we anticipate, allow for, and value creative differences.

This is from Chapter 3 on Pre-workshop Preparation in my book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator’s Guide to Cultivating Creativity, where I break each of the elements down a bit more than I have space to do here.

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Pattern Breaks Video Series: Part 2

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

Click here to order the Pattern Breaks book.


Pattern Breaks Video Series - Part 1

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

Click here to order the Pattern Breaks book.


Creative Resourcefulness within Constraints

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5 Types of Creative Blocks and How to Navigate Them

5.Blocks

There are many reasons resistance show up in creative process, which can play out in blocking behaviors. These often come from conscious or unconscious reasons that people may feel inhibited, such as the fear of being wrong, looking silly, being judged, and the fear of the unknown, among many others.

Moving through these “barriers” frees them to allow for and access more of their creativity. Sometimes, it’s helpful to spend time up front acknowledging the blocks, and taking steps to move through them in real time. How you take extra time to create a lively and safe container at the beginning of the workshop, it reduces these playing out. 


Introduce principles of creative engagement at the beginning. Improv performances are more than just making things up in the moment— they are contained by adhering to the principles. Similarly, principles of creative engagement help create a safe container for people to be willing to explore and be more vulnerable in their creative explorations.

There are typically 3 ways to set up creative engagement for the group: 



• Ask the group for their rules of engagement (aka ground rules) 

• Give them the rules of engagement

• Hybrid: give them some rules and ask for others

When you ask the group for ground rules they often say what is familiar: listening, not interrupting, respecting each other, etc. These are all good, but predictable. They don’t always know how to ask for the things that support group creativity (like Yes-anding). As the facilitator, you can bring in additional rules of engagement specifically for creativity because most people don’t think about them on their own, and people tend to not break their own patterns or habits unless they have to, or are prompted.


Doing this early reduces the blocks that will show up, but when they do show up in the workshop, these are some steps to consider. A few of the ways to do this include:


1. Get participants interacting with easy storytelling about something familiar. For examples, Have them share a 2- minute story with a partner about how they used their creativity toward something that worked out well, or about something that's alive for them. This changes the energy.


2. Get into the body with a fun, physical activity. Getting into the body shakes things up and breaks patterns. This moves energy, and helps the brain think differently. And, people that are playful together feels safer with each other.

3. Recognize a creative block as a common contraction. It loses power when held as a mutable story, and not a permanent way of being. Knowing this is normal, and might arise in a creative process, helps people feel more comfortable with their discomfort.


4. Commit to moving through it. There is a big difference between letting the block take over or letting the movement through the block take over. It is aligning with what wants to emerge rather than aligning with what is blocking the emergence.

Blocks can transform more easily with pattern breaking, when taken into different contexts in fun creative ways.

For many more ideas on why blocks show up, and how to navigate through them, check out my new book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Creativity, for facilitators, educators, trainers, and group leaders. There are several pages on navigating resistance. 


Creative Aliveness Practice: Committing

Today's practice is Committing.   6. Committing

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

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

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

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


Creative Aliveness Practice: Centering

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

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

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


12 Days Creating

In the spirit of the holidays, I wrote   1
"12 Days Creating"  as a reminder
to indulge your creativity (to be
sung to the tune of The 12 Days
of Christmas). Happy holidays,
however you celebrate them!

----------

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~ Michelle James 2023

 

Flow


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

I am delighted to announce my Untitledcreative facilitation guidebook, Pattern Breaks, is now available on Amazon and other online
booksellers to pre-order. You can go to
https://amzn.to/3QDbZ65 for the book details, and to order it if it resonates with you.
 
My hope it that this guidebook reaches those who resonate with it, and can benefit in some way from it - for yourselves and for your groups. In a world where much is out of our control, we each can contribute to a better world by contributing to what we do have control over in our local world. It may small, but it is something. For some of us, that includes the groups we lead, teach, or facilitate. If that is you, this book is dedicated to you.

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

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

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

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

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


Reclaiming the Creative Wisdom of the Baby

346465533_2404837006359832_6367843878749269787_nThe baby does not judge themself, when they are first learning to walk, and they fall...a lot. They don't think they are not made to walk, that they are a failure, that they are doing it wrong, or anything else. There is no negative self-evaluation. They just get back up and keep trying until they finally make it across the room. That leads to making it across all kinds of other spaces to explore. Eventually they get into running, climbing, jumping, dancing, and so many other things that wouldn't happen if they stopped at the first falls. The same is true when starting your soul-based business, or trying something creative for the first time, or anything new.
 
What if you give yourself the same leeway you gave yourself as a baby learning to walk with anything new you try? What if you let go of thinking you are too __ or not enough __ to make it? What if you enter that mission, goal, or endeavor with an exploratory mindset? What if you allow missteps or setbacks to be pat of the natural discovery process--not holding them as failures, or assigning a negative meaning to them, but instead taking them as information and neutral iterations toward what will eventually work?
 
We have nature on our side when stepping into new territory and trying anything new...we are born explorers, discoverers, adventurers, and creators. All of us. Each in our own unique way. There is no guarantee you won't "fall" at times. In fact, it is likely you will, since that is part of the emergence process. It is messy and we learn by engaging, not be waiting til we feel we can do it perfectly.
 
The baby would never walk if they needed to know they would have do make it across the room perfectly before they started. Be like the baby we all have in our cellular memories inside of us...and take the steps because you feel called to them--or they seem fun, interesting, inspiring, or alive--without any certainty it will all be smooth and perfect. Trust that you have it in you to bounce back up if you fall a few times. It is worth it. You are worth it.
 
Michelle James © 2023

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
[email protected] • 434-995-5077

Trusting Your Intuitive Voice for Deeper Creativity

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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

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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:

Creating from Uncertainty: 11 Reminders

Uncertainty-and-opportunity-aheadThe 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

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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
IMG_3767are 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

IMG_0411When we stay present In the moment, time
expandsWhen 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 IMG_0749the 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.
 
Coaching special
Michelle James ©2020

Creative Emergence: Clear, Cultivate, Create

"Clarity is the elimination of mental clutter.    IMG_0502
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.
 
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.
 
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.

The Creative Unknown: Turning Uncertainty into Discovery

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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!  IStock-1073090380

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

IMG_9331
Michelle James ©2020


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

I feel therefore I am

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

IMG_9411"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

IMG_8215
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.

Improv posters Jan. 2020
Michelle James©2020


Emergence Space in the Creative Process

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 #newideas #newchoices #newcreations #creativeemergencecoaching #mylatestposter

                                                                   ©Michelle James