The Fertile Unknown

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

My New Etsy Art Shop is Live!

I uploaded some of my mandala art to Etsy! I will do an official launch in the fall, and still have more to frame and upload. I will eventually offer prints and paintings, but right now it has the original drawings on there.

www.etsy.com/shop/CreativeEmergenceArt

All of the mandalas on the site now are the originals. They are hand drawn with Prismacolor colored pencils and put onto round black wood frames. 10" wide, and 1/2" thick. They have both hooks and two-sided tape on back for easy hanging.

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

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

How to Think Creatively

Someone sent me this interview Massage
magazine did with me in 2016 on How to
Think Creatively. I hadn't posted it before
since it used only be available to
subscribers of their magazine, but is now public.

The full article is here: https://bit.ly/3o1yX7w

Main Ideas:

“We’re all born creative—it’s at the very core of who we are,” said Michelle James, CEO of the The Center for Creative Emergence. “We have been socialized and educated out of our natural creativity, so we tend to forget that.”

James, who serves as a creativity coach and catalyst for her clients, believes it is crucial for people to reconnect with their innate creative source, in order to live with greater balance and joy.

“The more access we have to our creativity, the more connections we make, the more opportunities we have,” she said. “At every level, working with creativity leads to a happier, more productive, thriving life.”

You Are Creative

According to creativity coach Marianne Mullen, one of the main blocks to living the creative life is a belief that only people with certain skills or special talents can be creative. Usually, this belief stems from a narrow definition of what it means to be creative.

“When you hear people say, ‘I’m not creative,’ they have been conditioned to limit their idea of creativity to something in the visual arts, such as painting or sculpting,” Mullen said. “Creativity and its expression are deeply personal—you need to define it for yourself.”

Beyond Polarities

Getting to know your existing mental landscape should help determine new directions for your thoughts, as you begin to cultivate creative thinking. Consider this process an inner exploration, where there is no right or wrong, only curiosity, observation and discovery.

“Part of not thinking creatively is the need for certainty, the need for certain outcomes,” James said. “To think habitually is to not explore, to not take any risks.

“To think creatively means you try on new ways of thinking and you modify as you go,” she continued. “It means you’re an explorer.”

Watch for Patterns

Remember to maintain that mindset of discovery, and avoid any pull you might feel to label unfamiliar thoughts as incorrect or unacceptable, simply because they’re new and different. The tendency to judge what we think as either right or wrong can cease creative thinking all too quickly.

“One of the blocks to creativity is what I call binary thinking—right and wrong, good and bad, pass and fail, black and white,” James said. “Most creative thinkers are comfortable thinking in shades of gray, which allows more to exist within them, even those thoughts that may seem contradictory.”

James calls this “paradoxical thinking” and she considers it central to the process of creative thought. Being able to hold the tension of two opposites—instead of dismissing one because it appears to conflict with the other—can allow for a third, more encompassing option.

“On one level, you might be holding two pieces of information that seem opposed to each other; for example, you need to make a living and you want to be creative,” James said. “Instead of thinking I have to choose X or Y, money or creative expression, acknowledge that it’s important to you to have both, and then assume that it’s possible.

“Creative thinking assumes there’s a third option that will allow both X and Y to exist—you just don’t know about it yet,” she continued. “Instead of choosing one or the other, look at how you might integrate the two, and allow yourself to explore that.”

As you go through the discovery process, nurturing new and creative thoughts, Mullen warns to watch out for your own inner resistance, which may stem from old thought patterns you’re looking to release.

“This would include feelings based on comparisons with others, judgments and that little voice telling you negative messages,” she said. “In order to break out from negative thinking patterns that do not support your creativity, you need to be conscious of what you say to yourself.”

On guard against any unnecessary resistance and equipped with a growing awareness of your own thoughts, you can begin to build and flex your creative muscles on a regular basis.

Dedicate Time

It may seem like one of those paradoxes, but developing a more creative mental landscape actually calls for a certain amount of structure and discipline, especially at the start. If you are committed to opening your mind to more creative ways of thinking, then consider setting aside time for creative practice.

“When you’re first beginning to cultivate your creativity, it needs time and space,” James said. “Schedule it in, and do it in a way that works for you—think of it as your creative practice time.”

For example, you might decide to devote 10 minutes each day to a different form of creative expression, from writing in a journal or drawing a picture to telling a story out loud or moving while you think.

“Make this a time when you explore creative ideas, feelings and beliefs,” Mullen said. “The point is, you are mindfully choosing to give your creativity time and space to play, explore, develop, grow and unfold.”

Question Assumptions

One powerful activity you can bring to this creative practice time is consciously questioning your own assumptions. Using various methods of creative expression, such as dance, writing, acting or painting, explore the beliefs that define your life.

“Assumptions run the gamut, from what success means and what my relationship is supposed to look like to what’s expected of me in the world and what it means to be happy,” James said. “Often, you find that something you accepted as a given actually came from someone else, whether it was parents, teachers or society—you discover it was learned, and once you discover that, you’re more free to shift your perspective.

“You can choose to keep the beliefs that resonate with you, and let go of the ones that are no longer working,” she added. “Then, you can bring in new beliefs that are more alive for you.”

Break Patterns

Another assignment to try during the time you set aside for creative expression is called pattern breaking. By doing tasks in ways you’ve never done them before, you may find that more creative thoughts begin to emerge.

“One way to do this is very simple: Write on unlined paper and use colors, because the right brain thinks in colors and images,” James said. “You’re even breaking patterns with the paper you’re writing on—with all my clients, we’re always writing on unlined paper.”

This creative act of pattern breaking can take place in so many ways. Turn on music you might not normally listen to and allow your body to move and dance freely, breaking your well-worn patterns of movement. Grab a sheet of paper and draw out, rather than dwell on, an issue that’s been bothering you.

“When you engage the brain in different ways, you have a chance at different insights,” James said. “When you begin to break patterns, you create new neural pathways and increase the connections in your brain.

“New connections allow more ideas, more aha moments, to emerge,” she added. “Again, when you begin to break patterns and think differently and non-habitually, remember to get comfortable with shades of gray, and let go of right or wrong.”

The goal of your creative practice time should be to try on as many different forms of creative expression as possible, using each method of expression to explore your own thoughts, assumptions, beliefs and patterns, as well as any pressing issue. If you stick to it, you should discover which kinds of creativity work best for you, or how you define creativity.

“Eventually, you’ll begin to find what feels really alive for you,” James said. “Don’t be limited by anyone else’s definition of creativity—what’s really alive for one person might not be for another.”

Article by Brandi Schlossberg, full-time journalist and part-time writer for MASSAGE Magazine

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

When You Facilitate Creative Process for a Group...and get Mixed Feedback

Anyone who takes creative risks as a facilitator
of creative process can relate to getting mixed feedback (not all glowing) at some points. It's part of the process of  experimenting with new things. A few thoughts on being with the places where reality did not match your hopes when facilitating:

1. It is part of the territory when bringing non-conventional - in the business sense - work to business world. People's resistance can some up if they have deep rooted pain in the past about play, dance, drawing, etc, and they may not know it is their defense mechanism to distance themselves form the original story within them. So they contract. Most of the time, there are ways to design to make it psychologically safe to move people through this, but not always for everyone.

2. You can see it as in iteration in your discovery process. You can and choose which feedback feels useful - that which you can legitimately learn from - and which to let go of. I found it useful to use feedback as an "offer" or gift to help me re-frame for the next time I do it - sometimes refining what I do, and sometimes refining how I word it, so I am clear on setting realistic expectations next time, based on the feedback. And sometimes I just accept it may not have not the best learning activity for that person or group and totally revise.

3. You are still in exploration mode, and as you go, you can refine your target audience as you start to notice the patterns of those who really gravitate to it. None of us are designed to meet the needs of all of us. Once you can accept that you - your style, personality, way of working, etc. - are not for everyone, it frees you to be more your unique self, and then attract those who appreciate your unique style and offerings.

4. Go back to those people who already are for you, and ask them if there was anything else that would have made it even better. People who are enthusiastic about your work are awesome at giving ideas for making git even better without the sting of the nay-sayers. They love to contribute in a generative way. You can even ask them if they felt there is anything you would add or change to the description.

5. If everything you do always works for everyone, with no resistance to anything, chances are they are not challenging the participants enough for a transformative experience. Most groups trying something new follow the bell curve - on one end those that easily drink it in, on the other, those that don't get or resist it, and in the "majority" are those who may bump up against, but move through, their edges. That's the Dynamic Tension of the creative process. Allowing people to have their real experience, not the one you hope they will have, is always a good thing for them...and trust they can integrate in ways you may not even imagine.

6. Finally, be gentle with yourself in the places your expectations for a group does not match the reality of what unfolds. That's part of the creative discovery process when trying new things. The fact you are "in the arena" trying new things, and not on the sidelines just playing it safe, allows you to learn and grow as you go...with awesome rewards!

Michelle James ©2020

The Unknown as an Evolutionary Co-Creative Space

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 - Taking Form

Been getting back into drawing and panting lately after 6 years. In revisiting, I found some prismacolor drawings I made many years ago that I never posted. This one come from an Emergence series...it's called "Taking Form." It's healing to be back into painting, and helps me get more clarity about what's calling to emerge at this time.

I use an inside-out painting process w my coaching clients to help them access their unique creative source to paint concepts and use for transformation as well. Painting or drawing is one way you access otherwise unconscious thoughts, creative blocks, hopes, aspirations, and inner guidance. It also offers a sanctuary to feel your Creative Self within a chaotic world. Breaking patterns leads to new insights and ideas.


Michelle James ©2020

Nature Shows us How to Create: Generative Questions to Engage the Process

Nature shows us how the creative process works...with the right conditions and nurturing our seed ideas and impulses can bear juicy fruit. Now more than ever, we need to seed life-giving ideas - not fear-based ones - for a more healthy, generative future in this level of uncertainty we are all in.

No matter how uncertain the external conditions, we have choices in what we plant for our personal and collective future. We have choice to find or make meaning out of this time. We can't know what will happen, but we can know what we are inspired to create, and start the process. We can discover what gives us a purpose, both for ourselves and larger than ourselves.

It's not about waiting until after the pandemic has "passed" - it is about finding what is alive in you to create here now, amidst the situation you/we are in. We are not going back to life-as-usual anytime time soon. Life UNusual requires us to think in UNusual ways to meet it...and move into a more generative way of living, thinking, and being. There is no going back, but we can move forward in a more life-giving way.

Generative Questions to Engage the Process

Given the constraints we are in, here are some questions to consider to start to engage the process:

• What are you inspired to create?
• How are you inspired to contribute?
• What can make this situation better for you?
• For others who are having a hard time?
• What gifts, skills, talents, and knowledge can you bring to this situation?
• Where does what you have to offer, and what feels alive in you,
  meet what the world could use?
• What problems do you see that you can help solve?
• What positive outcomes would you like to see?
• What vision do you hold for a positive, generative future?
• What is your best imagining for the future?
• In what ways might you contribute to that vision?
• What do you need to learn for that to happen? 
• What do you need to do?
• What boundaries do you need to set?
• What personal edges do you need to push - where are your growing edges?
• In what ways do you need to grow to be able to carry out that vision?

In thinking of those things and answering them honestly, you start the creative seed planting process....

By Michelle James ©2020
-------------

(strawberry image via Marcia Berg)

Whole-Brain Creative Practice: Abstract to Concrete

Abstract to concrete. This is a painting I did on a large mirror a few years ago. The focus was goals for the new year. I first painted the painting (abstract “right brain”) then starting writing out the goals (concrete “left brain”) that came to me. The goals were different, expanded, and more alive after I did the painting than they had been before in my mind. And, ironically, more clear and realistic.

When you access the visual part of your brain, you access more intuitive information less inhibited by your conscious everyday assessing editor (we all have one). By going not the visual first, then the verbal, draw upon a different part of your brain and consciousness, and get more information about what you are seeking to understand or create.

PRACTICE: You can do it with anything. Just think about what you want to create or understand, get present and "hold the question" for a few minutes, then start painting. Then afterward, look at the painting and extract out information by talking out loud about what you see (even to yourself). In doing that, you are engaging more of your brain (left and right brains interaction), and that means greater access to information. What you get will be different - slightly or dramatically - than if you try it with sitting down with your everything thinking and doing it. Try it and see. First do it before the painting. Then see what else comes to you after the painting.

This is one of the whole brain practices I do with my coaching clients around their business and life aspirations...and entering the unknown to get information about the emerging known. the process can also work for moving out of fear, contraction, or feeling frozen, as many are feeling right now.

Michelle James ©2020

Creative Cultivation: Authentic Language in Business Offerings

Business buzz words can inhibit the creative process.
Getting under the word   into story and meaning liberates it. This came up again this morning in a coaching session around marketing with one of my prolific clients who is a coach and consultant. Her amazing creative offerings - the things she's naturally designed to do and offer - were buried under business buzz words and it flattened out her message, and make her sound interchangeable with others coaches, instead of highlighting her unique approach and focus.

We used storytelling, improv, movement, and some other creative "magic" to move beyond the buzz words into what she really wanted to say...and what flowed out of her was a workshop description that is both creative with her own voice, and grounded in what her clients value. She added the business descriptions later to frame the functionality of what she offers. It was a Both-And. 

Storytelling expands how you perceive something - it gives it a larger framework of meaning, and possibility. By using storytelling to cultivate what you want to do and how, you get a deeper connection to your calling...and those who you;re designed to serve with what you offer, can feel a deeper connection to what that is...and recognize themselves as wanting it.

When making choices with your soul based-business, move away from business buzz words while generating ideas (Divergence), and into more organic natural ways of saying what you want to say. Use more STORYTELLING and other whole-brain techniques for deeper understanding, unfolding, and expanding the context of your mission. Then bring them back later to ground the offering (Convergence).

There are infinite ways to use storytelling for creative cultivation. Telling your own stories of aliveness, meaning, discovery, what you've learned, how you've helped others...they all can lead to new insights and awareness' and directions. Also, try telling future stories, or "what happens next" stories of what wants to emerge next. In doing that, you start to see possibilities that might not have been available to you.

Then, after you know the meaning and the essence of what you offer, come back and add in (sparingly) whatever business words may help contain what you offer and fit in with your marketing. Buzz words don't carry resonance for those who needs your services. Your authentic language does. But some business words can offer a container to make it accessible. Diverge first without business words, then converge with the ones that work for you.

Creative Emergence work focuses on grounding your soul's calling in the world as business (you get paid for it) offerings, and a few business words can help you do that AFTER you have tapped into the essence of your soul offerings that emerge from your creative source - the source of your creativity and your soul's unique offerings to the world.

Now is a worthwhile time on this planet to mine your unique creative riches to cultivate your offerings the world needs...with heart, soul, and aliveness...because people have huge needs right now. If ever you thought about doing something that can really help others, this is a great time, whether you do it as a business or a volunteer service (depending on your situation). Both ways help others when you are doing whats yours to do. Just keep it real. #creativeemergence #beyondbuzzwords #weneedwhatyougot

Michelle James ©2020

Creativity: Being Present to the Moment

Michelle James ©2020

Thoughts on Creating What's Next while in the Unknown

I run a group on Facebook Applied Creativity Network (open to anyone if you'd like to join) where someone asked, "What's next? How is the world going to be with this coronavirus? How are the remaining people going to relate to each other...social life?"

Kay Ross, a member of that group wrote: "I don't know how it will be. The question is: How do we WANT it to be? What kind of world/life/society do we want to design and create?"

I really resonated with her answer, and "yes-anded" it with some thoughts of my own. Because they're directly related with the work I do with my clients, I thought I would share them here:

Also don't know how it will be. I don't think anyone can know at this time, but we can make choices about what's ours to do now, even in this big unknown. We can discover where what we are inspired to do meets what is needed now, even without knowing the whole picture.

We do have agency and, like Kay Ross said, can ask what we want, and what we can design and create. Our feeling of creative empowerment comes from looking at what we CAN do in any given situation...what calls to us, what inspires us, what we want to do, what needs we can meet, what can we create, and how we can serve the situation, etc.

As far as relating, while challenging now, I imagine people will adapt as they always have to find ways of connecting - or create them - even within these unprecedented constraints. I don't think we can know what the will look like...so that means being OK (or at least accepting) being in the unknown for a while - without knowing how it will look - and creating that as we go, like in an improv. And not needing or expecting it to look exactly like it was in the past. It won't be the same. If we can accept that, and not fight it, we're more empowered to create what's next.

I have faith in the creative life force in each of us, and the universal creative life force that animate all of life (why I created my business around that)...so I have faith in humans capacity to find or create ways of staying connected until we can gather again in person, and faith in those who feel called to create new ways of connecting we don't even know of yet. We're seeing that already. That doesn't mean it’s not hard to be these isolated now (or that there is not real suffering, fear, pain, and deep loss in the world right now - there is!), but it is just about switching our focus to what we CAN do within the constraints - looking beyond what is to what we imagine can be, and discovering what is ours to do in the process. That is an emergence process. If everyone did that, I think we’d see a modern creative renaissance during and after this situation.

Sometimes our deepest fears about what will be lost (as well as the reality of what IS being lost) can lead us to create something new to meet those needs. Historically, people have always used their creativity to move beyond even the most challenging situations. That's where I put my trust when in the unknown...in the creative alive spirit in each of us that is infinitely rich with alive potential for creating new ways of engaging. So, while we can’t know what’s next, we can meet the moment and ask what we are called to do or create, and help create what's next.

Michelle James ©2020

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michelle James ©2020

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

Boundaries in Creative Process

In a creative emergence process, following the creative YES means also discovering the NOs that need to be released or transformed. Whenever we say YES to what's emerging, we often are being called to expand into being more of what we are - more into our wholeness - in order to live into and be able to fully create what's calling to emerge. In that, we may need to let go of the things, and/or how we navigate, that no longer serve us - taking stock of what needs to be let go of, modified, or kept for the new emergence (process, product, service, business, way of being, etc) to come into being. #creativeprocess #creativeemergence #creativeboundaires

Michelle James ©2019

Yes-And is How Nature Creates

I love Improv's Yes-And principle because it's how nature organically creates...one thing building on another to create something new. It's nature's creative emergence. We just need to unlearn everything that got in the way of us being easy improvisational creators and co-creators before we were "trained" into the pass-fail/right-wrong systems that stripped away a good bit of our natural co-creative playfulness, exploration, and ways of being. When we Yes-And, we have nature on our side.
#creativeemergence #yesand #creatingwhatsnext

Michelle James ©2019

Storytelling for a more Meaningful Past and Generative Future

Telling our stories, instead of only listing out events, changes how we view and experience our past (giving more meaning and understanding), and how we create what's next (giving us more possibilities). In addition to doing vision boards, writing out goals, and whatever else we do, we can think about and start to tell our emergent story, without even knowing the how's of creating it. When we start to tell the story of what's calling to emerge, we see and feel the future differently, and it becomes more tangible, and easier to live into. The juicier the story, the more alive, palpable, and accessible it becomes. 

Michelle James ©2019

Creativity is Messy

So often in our emergence process, what emerges does not fit neatly into our pre-conceived expectations. That's because the creative unconscious - the which is below the surface - contains more wisdom and information and creativity than that which is consciously known to us at any given time. So what emerges can be surprising, disjointed, nonsensical, seemingly ridiculous, or messy as it is emerges.

But don't discard it just because it's not what you thought, or hoped, it would be, or should be. Engage it, play with it, learn from it, and cultivate it out until it starts to look like something. Instead of needing it to fit our vision, we're often called to expand who we are and how we think in order to be with the new emergence.

It can be messy and scary, but it is always more life-giving and generative - and more coherent when it is done emerging - than what we originally imagined, if we let it lead us and don't cut it off because it is not exactly what we planned. If we follow what's emerging, we start to make sense of it as we go, and often find it's something that that includes out original vision or idea, and far exceeds it.


#creativeemergence #creativeintelligence #creativityismessy

©2019 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

 

Yes And is a Doorway to Creative New Worlds

The improv principle, Yes And, is a doorway to creative new worlds.
Yes And is generative, divergent, expansive, and opening.
It’s accepting the reality that’s presented AND adding something new.
Newness upon newness creates unimagined new worlds, ideas, visions,
possibilities, option and choices - in our business and our life.
We can Yes And our own ideas and creative impulses
instead of Yes Butting them out of existence.

©2019 Michelle James

The Transformative Power of Applied Improvisation

Improvisational theater changed my life. I truly believe it should be taught in every school - from elementary to higher education. The transformation I have experienced in my life and work, as well as seeing it with countless others over the years, is huge. It helped me reach a new level of freedom, comfort, and ease with facilitating (and navigating the resistance that emerges when introducing non-conventional creative approaches), and helped me changed my relationship with mistakes.

Instead of fearing mistakes - and sometimes freezing to act because that fear was so great - I learned to more often experience them as discoveries, iterations toward what will eventually work, and invitations to create something new. And I have seen powerful changes in groups - from government to for corporate to non-profit to arts-based - where they leave changed inside of themselves, and within their team interactions when they re-ignite the creative spirit already within and between them. Improvising and the tenants of improv (principles of engagement) are inherent in us - it's what was there before we got socialized, educated, judged, or traumatized out of our natural improvisational, yes-anding, exploratory natures and into pass-fail, right/wrong binary thinking. We actually have nature on our side when we improvise - and when we apply the improvisation principles and practices to our work.

Improv theater and Applied Improv (when the goal is not only performance but applications to other areas of life and work) gets us out of our evaluation-first minds and into the presence, spaciousness, and creativity (divergence) of the moment, where more options and choices open us (before we get into convergence). Because we're trained out of our playful exploratory natures, and the ways our workplaces are set up - away from the part of ourselves that trusts the unknown, likes discovery, feels free in not having everything planned out, and can hear and trust the inner voice - many of us have forgotten we are improvisational by nature...or we have limited it to only small siloed sections of our lives.

If you have a chance, give your Creative Self the gift of taking an improv class in your city. Not only is it fun (if at times uncomfortable for some at first), it can change how you move through the world. If you lead others, it can change the quality of creative output you get out of your teams. There is an Applied Improvisation Network facebook group if the topic of of interest - https://www.facebook.com/groups/appliedimprov - where there are a lot of generous people exchanging ideas and offering support.                                                                                                                                                                           

Michelle James ©2019

New Ways of Being for Creative New Results

In the quest for new results, I think we have to go directly inward into new ways of being. My take - although not necessarily linear - I see it more as interdependent and interactive:

Not to mention being more whole in ourselves!

We have all heard the saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting new results" but it rarely addresses that in order to do new things, a new internal patterning or shift is required. In order to achieve an internal shift, we can engage in news ways of being (which allows new ways of thinking to naturally emerge). Creativity, improv, storytelling, the expressive arts, meditation, deep reflection, non-habitual movement, and any kind of pattern breaking techniques are great ways to begin to engage new ways of being. 

Michelle James ©2019

Emergence Focus

Emergence is a process found throughout the natural world where the new whole emerges as greater than the sum of its parts. In improv theory, there is the concept of "Yes And" which accepts and includes that which already is, and add then adds something new. Using an Emergence-centered approach in the workplace includes the acknowledgment of problems and the need to focus on desired outcomes...AND expands beyond that to include new ways of approaching the situation, generating new patterns of solution-finding, immersion in the discovery process, as well as engaging that which is not yet known as a source of new information. Our unique Creative Emergence Process™ includes various whole brain and creativity approaches to cultivate the new ideas, thought patterns, and states of being which lead to new (and often surprising) innovations and outcomes. Emergence accepts and uses what already is - and adds a new dimension.

Creativity's Dynamic Balance

Michelle James @2019

10 Core Assumptions for a Creative Workplace

Michelle James ©2019

From Conventional to Creative Leadership

Henri Fayol was a French management theorist whose theories in management and organization of labor were widely influential in the beginning of 20th century. He was known for his 14 Principles of Management and 5 Elements of Action (referenced in left side of the graphic). They represent a paradigm that's still prevalent - yet not fully effective - in most organizations today. There's little room for creativity, individuality, meaning, and purpose amidst these ways of being. In that mechanistic model, the internal state - and creative contribution - of the people in the system can't fully flourish. The new, integrative, creative paradigm of leadership acknowledges and includes these elements AND recognizes them as incomplete - a useful as part of the whole, but not the driver.

The emerging paradigm is more BOTH/AND. I created this graphic to add balanced counterparts to the conventional elements. #my2cents. Together, these seemingly contradictory parts establish an environment for positive change and creativity to emerge. The dance of opposites - and what is in between, and emerges from, the polarities - expands the playing field for creative systems (which are living, human systems) to have more possibilities of flourishing.

Michelle James ©2019

Creativity is both a Means and an End

Michelle James@2019