~ James Clear.
Michelle James @2020
Posted by Michelle on October 26, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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
Posted by Michelle on October 16, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Michelle on September 01, 2020 | Permalink
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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
Posted by Michelle on August 20, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Michelle on August 19, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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For the Program Structure, Registration, and more information go to:
Posted by Michelle on August 03, 2020 | Permalink
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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
Posted by Michelle on July 13, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
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(strawberry image via Marcia Berg)
Posted by Michelle on May 27, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (2)
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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
Posted by Michelle on May 24, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on May 19, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Michelle on April 29, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on April 22, 2020 | Permalink
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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:
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
Posted by Michelle on March 03, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Athletes warm up.Improv/theater/dance/performance groups warm up. Warm-ups clear your head and get you out of habitual thinking, bring you into the present - where you can access more novel thinking, be more responcive and adaptive, and get people more genuinely connected. The time spent warming up is made up exponentially by the effectiveness of the subsequent creative process you can facilitate, and increase the chances of something new and different emerging within you and your participants.
For those of us that facilitate creative process for others there is much we can do to shift our energy to be able to meet what emerges in that person or group with the presence and creative openness of Beginner Mind. Some people use inward-focused prep rituals like meditating, centering, breathing, creative visualization, intention setting, centering music to get centered and grounded. Others do more outward-focused prep rituals like dancing, moving non-habitually, wild music, vocal/ theater/improv type activities to get energized and expansive. (I like doing a bit of both - inward first, then outward). Playing around with different ones, familiar and unfamiliar, help us expand our own creativity as we support others in cultivating theirs. Our own energy makes a difference for those we facilitate.
Michelle James©2020
Posted by Michelle on January 16, 2020 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on December 05, 2019 | Permalink
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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
Posted by Michelle on November 19, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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.
Posted by Michelle on November 14, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on November 11, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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At the core Creative Emergence is about Aliveness. It is about feeling alive, tapping into our creative selves to do and be what is most alive in us, and to use creativity to access that aliveness. When we are fully alive, we are all creative. When we feel blocked or stuck, we can use our creativity to generate more aliveness. Creativity and aliveness and interchangeable.
Rather than focus on problem solving with our minds, if we shift the focus to creating what is alive from our hearts, and the problem will shift because how we hold and see the problem will shift. When we put more energy into what is alive, then what is wrong has a chance to move. It may or may not be solved, but how we hold and see it can be different, and that opens us up to being with it differently than we have in our past.
©Michelle James 2019
Posted by Michelle on October 22, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on October 11, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on September 05, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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
Posted by Michelle on August 14, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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.
Posted by Michelle on August 14, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Michelle on August 06, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Michelle on July 31, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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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.
Posted by Michelle on July 29, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Michelle on July 20, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Inevitably, when facilitating creative process; introducing participants to a new activity, process
or framework; or asking them a question they
don't readily know the answer you get a
deer-in-the-headlights look, often accompanied
by a palpable silence.
This silence can feel awkward for facilitators. It did for me when I first started facilitating, and I used to do anything to fill it - re-explaining or over-explaining what I just said, asking them questions, asking for their questions, interjecting comments, or anything else to try to reduce the uncomfortableness in the room - theirs and mine. Until I got that this is part of the emergence process when introducing people to something new and unfamiliar for them. I learned over the years to love the pauses, and see them as fertile and alive, and an indication of creative up-leveling.
They are processing in the silence. They are taking it in. They are experiencing the dissonance and discomfort (for some) that comes with learning something new, making new connections, or taking a perceived - or real - psychological risk within a group. They are thinking, reflecting, and being with whatever you just asked. It's new so not readily available to their conscious awareness. The more experience I got, the more inner work I did, and the more I learned about the brain and its natural meaning-making system, the more I came to love these palpable "pregnant" moments of potential, before something emerged.
Here are some reflections on holding the space and be with the silence while facilitating creative process:
1. Give them the time to take it in and be with it. Hold the space. If they ask questions for clarity of your instructions or your question, clarify. Then go back to holding the space without intervening or trying to fill it. Hold the space for someone to eventually say something, or start the process.
2. Hold the space with positive intention. Have faith in them and their creativity - even if they don't. If you hold the intention that they will absolutely be able to do come up with what they need, you impact the energy in the room differently - with an inner authority - than if you are filled with doubts about whether they can do or get it. Or if they'll like what you're doing. The facilitator is there to be the strong container-holder for the participants, not the other way around. If you hold it with peace and ease in your heart, they will feel it, and it will open them up and put them more at ease.
3. Let it take however long it really takes. (Not how long you think it should take.) Whether they feel ready, or just feel uncomfortable in the silence, someone will eventually start the process. Every time. Then others will follow. That is creative process, and the "group field" at work. Jumping in too soon breaks the dynamic tension that is often needed in the creative process for something new to emerge.
4. Do your inner work to hold space with your full presence. That might include your own pre-workshop rituals to get yourself centered, or energized, or whatever you need to be able to hold space with presence. Being present mean showing up as the facilitator full-on to whatever shows up in your session, and standing in that presence for the group as they navigate their doubts or fears.
5. Delight in and support whatever does finally emerge. If it needs re-direction, or modified instructions, do it then...but build on and support what is happening - that will bring out more from the group. They're already are infinitely creative - you're just helping them remember that, and part of that is giving them the space to pause as they generate from within.
Take what resonates and leave the rest. :-)
Michelle James ©2019
Image from: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/22654108/deer-in-headlights
Look for more on this topic and others in my upcoming book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide for Cultivating Creativity
Posted by Michelle on June 06, 2019 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Love this quote. It's one of the reasons I use arts/movement based appraiches in my work - it helps us bypass the habitual-linear-sequential, left-brain dominant conscious thinking to access more our ourselves, and our creativity, insight, and intuition. By going into the non-linear part of our consciousness first, we mine the fertile playing field of our 'right-brain' imagination to get novelty and the unpredictable, then after we spend some time there exploring and unearthing, we bring it back to the 'left-brain' to make sense out of it, organize it, structure it, and create actionable steps from it. And we can discover new and forgotten parts of ourselves and bring them to life.
We're socialized to start figuring out something first from left-brain thinking. Arts-based engagement brings an added dimension of creativity to it. By first diverging with in the "right brain" then converging with the 'left brain" (in quotes because it's not exactly that binary) we discover new options and choices for our work and lives that we previously couldn't have imagined. The creative process of taking something abstract and making it concrete generates novel ideas, solutions, and directions. #creativeemergence #miningtheinnerrichness
Posted by Michelle on June 26, 2017 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I was recently interviewd by Michael Smith, President of TeraTech, on the Conscious Software Development Telesummit on Whole Brain Thinking and Applied Improvisation for Innovation, Ideation, and Creative Problem Solving. Below are excerpts from the transcript of the interview. For the complete interview, along with some techniques to apply, sign up for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit for FREE at http://conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com
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Michael: What do you mean by "whole-brain thinking" and why is that important?
Michelle: Whole-brain thinking, or the way I would describe it, is using more of our innate capacities. We were born to both think in linear/logical ways as well as holistic/intuitive/metaphorical ways. Integrating whole-brain thinking is just bringing more of our natural thinking into the workplace, for our intuitive thinking, metaphorical thinking, our capacity to see both the big picture and the details, our capacity to both think from synthesis and integration as well as sequentially, imagining and observing, being able to envision beyond what is, plus in addition to more of the left-brain/linear, proving and verifying, expanding and reducing.
It's using complimentary types of thinking - thinking both in terms of possibilities and strategies and in terms of context and interdependencies…using the visual mind and the verbal mind, not just left-brain/linear-dominant thinking only. By integrating multiple ways of thinking, and using more of our whole-brain capacities even in ways we haven't been socialized or trained or educated in the workplace to do, and by bringing more of arts-based and other different types of thinking into the workplace, it's easier to create new ideas, and create new ideas much more quickly. It accelerates the learning and creativity path that we might be on and expands the mental playing field so we have more options and choices.
Michael: A lot of organizations are pretty left-brain orientated, so how do you integrate this into a company culture?
Michelle: In some ways there's some cultural specificity around it, and in other ways it's more general. I'll speak to the more general ways. For example, resistance. Understanding that once you try to integrate new ways of thinking into any group, individual group, team, or culture, you're going to naturally have some resistance. I call it "natural resistance" because it's the same kind of resistance that you find in nature.
In nature, all systems are designed to maintain the status quo until the new birth starts to emerge. For example, the chick coming out of the egg doesn't feel the resistance of the shell until it's ready to be born. Similarly, you find that as soon as people start to integrate more whole-brain thinking, different kinds of thinking, or different types of practice in the organization, you might initially find some resistance, because there's always those trying to more maintain the status quo while others try to bring in the new thinking.
One framework I like to use is divergence and convergence. Divergent thinking is going big and wide, building on things, engaging possibilities, visualizing, seeking out what's unusual. We hear about it often in brain-storming…suspending judgment as you're expanding the playing field - expanding what's possible - but you do it for a certain amount of time, not indefintely. Then you bring it back into a convergent thinking where you're narrowing the playing field, you're selecting from the ideas, contracting, honing in, discerning, focusing, rating by criteria, making sense of…
Unfortunately, what happens is many people don't leave the convergence to go into convergence. They will get meetings and say, "All right, now let's organize what we have," but they haven't stepped out beyond their current framework to play with and expand possibilities first. When you play with possibilities, it is messy, and it might not make sense for awhile, and it can look a little crazy. Like Einstein said, "If at first the idea is not absurd, there's no hope for it," and while that doesn't mean all good ideas appear ridiculous at first, it really speaks to oftentimes the seed idea is the instinct for something new, it's messy, it's just a seed, it's not refined. It needs to be nurtured into fruition to become something viable. So before you evaluate it and start to converge, begin to explore with it, play with it, build on it, add to it…taking something beyond just convergence and adding in time for divergence.
I'll give an example of how this looks in one organization I worked with, a very large organization, where they used to have meetings that they felt the creativity wasn't their problem, but everybody was vying for who's idea was better. They started applying some of these principles and practices and giving this process lot more divergent space. They started calling their meetings "Discovery Sessions." They allowed for a certain amount of divergence time. If they had an hour, maybe twenty-five minutes was in divergence first. They started finding that they were creating better ideas, more novel ideas, more collaborative ideas…and when it came time to get the convergence, the convergence went so much more quickly because they allowed themselves some divergence first.
I would say allowing conscious time, consciously creating a space to diverge, where no one can judge or evaluate ideas, you just build on them, explore them, and expand them, before you go into the convergence where then you rate it...then you connect it to the criteria and the objectives of the problem that you have. Then, just knowing that sometimes you have to practice low-risk, low-stakes exercises, practices or games, they might seem frivolous, but by practicing low-risk, low-stakes
exercises, then that better prepares you for high-risk, high-stakes problem solving. With this practice, you become more nimble and flexible and adaptive inside yourself. That piece is connecting to, looking at new, perhaps non-conventional principles and practices to sort of break those patterns, so you begin to think differently.
Michael: Earlier you mentioned using applied improvisation and you talked about you take part in improvised plays for 10 years. I'm not sure everyone here has even attended an improv session or knows what that means. When you say "improvised plays" does that mean there's no script whatsoever for the play and the actors just make up the play on the spot?
Michelle: Yes, I'm glad you brought that up, because that distinguishes improvising, like improv theater, like you might see on Whose Line, or improvised plays like our performing group used to do which the goal, the objective, was to entertain the audience using improvisational theater principles and practices. We would use the improv principles, but there was absolutely no script. We would completely improvise a full-length play, and that's when I discovered the power of the improv principles…because by adhering to the principles and the practices of improv, you truly could self-organize and create something out of nothing, and you'd begin to learn that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, which is a big facet of Emergence.
Applied improvisation, in the way we use it in organizations, is taking the same principles and practices, but with a different goal or set of objectives. The goal isn't for entertainment, the goal isn't to be improv theater performers for people who go out on a Friday night to watch you. The goal with Applied Improvisation is whatever your business goals are: better leadership, solve problems more quickly, think more creatively, adapt, have more cohesive co-creative teams, reduce turnover, more novel ideas if you're doing product development, or any kind of development, etc.
Your applying improvisational theater principles and practices to something larger than performance. For example, in my work with organizations I don't throw people up there to perform improv because the goal isn't to teach them to be performers. I often get them working either as a whole group or with partners or in small groups using various improv practices and games, but, most significantly, embodying principles to work on real-world issues or problems they're solving or visions they're creating.
The practices are simply a way of embodying the principles, but it's the principles in action that are what's transformative. For example, "yes, and" except most organizations live by "yes, but". So "yes, and" is very good in the divergent space. Heighten and explore, allow yourself and your ideas to be changed by what's said and what happens. Those, and may more, are a big part of improvisation. You're up there and something new emerges and you have to adapt instantly. You don't fight it, you don't resist it, you just adapt to it, and you allow your character to be changed, you allow your ideas to be changed, you allow the direction to be changed. That's a real significant part of the creative process when developing anything.
Another thing about improv, because it happens in real time, you're focusing on presence over polish. Oftentimes, in brainstorming sessions or ideation sessions, people are afraid to speak up or they wait until their idea's fully formed. In improv, literally the practices force you to be so present, you have to say something, you have to say something right away, and by practicing that, you truly bypass the editor, and you become more comfortable with throwing things out there. If people have to, for a certain agreed upon amount of time in the divergent space, "yes, and" it, go with it, explore it and expand it, the first idea thrown out often isn't the best idea. It may be, but in many cases, it's just a seed idea
or it's has a messy fragment of a good idea, and by expanding it and exploring it, and "yes, and-ing" it, you give it the chance to become something new and different.
There are many more, but one other very significant part of doing a lot of creative activities and improv-based activities with people and organizations is that you begin to have a different relationship to failure and the concept of making mistakes. Mistakes become invitations to create. Mistakes are simply iterations in the creative process. They're not binary finalities, like "yes/no", "good/bad", "right/wrong". They're invitations to modify, to explore, to grow. A lot of people know that when you're prototyping, you then try it out and you modify it. One of the things that improv-based practices allow you to do is get a lot of practice in realtime with instant modification, instant trial and error, and so then you become less resistant to change, and more adaptive when you're doing it around a real world project.
Michael: Do the principles, in your experience, make a difference? Does it really make a difference whether you literally say, "yes, and" to someone's idea instead of "no, but"?
Michelle: Literally saying the words "yes, and" can be helpful at first, and is simply a good way to remind your mind to do it, but it really is more the concept of "yes, and-ing" - the concept of accepting an idea as it is offered and building, adding onto it, before you negate it, before you hone in and say, "Well, that won't work, because…" that makes the huge difference. That, to me, is the difference between generative thinking - which is connected to the divergence process, and critical thinking - which is often connected to the convergent part of the creative process.
Both are essential, but the key is not to go immediately into the critical thinking, until you've gone into some generative thinking. I like to think of it in terms of the way nature generates and creates. The branch "yes, ands" the tree, the leaves "yes, and" the branches. Nature creates generatively. Our mind is designed to create generatively, and unfortunately, we are not socialized and educated into doing that. But we have nature on our side - remember back to when you're a little child or watching kids play…someone throws out an idea, and others instantly add onto it. They start creating fantasy worlds and they're "playing pretend" and they're building on each other's story. Then all of a sudden, we go to school and we get thrust into binary thinking, so we leave our natural beautiful, multidimensional way of creating and making associations and connections, and we get into binary thinking - right/wrong; good/bad; yes/no.
People begin to associate that if you get the "right" answer, you're a good person or a smart person - so then people freeze up, afraid of saying something wrong or silly. "Yes, and" is simply a way, a tool, of getting back into your natural generative, creative self. Then, you generate more ideas, you think of them and then you can use some of the more critical thinking to put it up against, "What are the criteria we're trying to beat here? What are the objectives we're trying to create?" Absolutely. "Heighten and explore" is another big improv principle which fits into that.
The principles, it's been my experience, are what create the container for new ways of thinking, new ways of interacting, new ways of being, and therefore, new and more accelerated ideas to emerge. It allows people to be safer, to put ideas out there, so you do get the most of your teams, and you get the most of yourself.
Michael: Is this more a team or co-creative way of solving problems vs. a hierarchical way as well?
Michelle: It's very much a team and collaborative and cocreative way. It can also be a very individual way. You can "yes, and" your own thinking. Often we, in the shower or running or doing something, get an amazing idea and in that moment we get excited. Then all of a sudden, before we allow ourselves to "yes, and" each other or "yes, and" our own idea, we find all the reasons it won't work, and we start "yes, but-ing" our own creative ideas, so individually it works.
Even within a hierarchies this can work if the leaders are embracing the principles. It becomes challenging if you have a "yes, and-ing" team and a "yes, but-ing" leader of that team. I think it's less that hierarchy impacts it, it's more the way of being in the mindset and the principles that the leaders within the hierarchy embrace - that creativity is there available for anyone, no matter who you are in the organization. It always behooves a leader to be able to embrace principles and practices that will allow the most creativity to emerge from their employees.
Michael: How do the rules of improv fit in with a more conscious way of being and creating software?
Michelle: I love the improv principles because they lend so well to a collaborative work culture, a collaborative team, and collaborative groups. First of all, you don't have to agree with someone. There's a difference between accepting an offer and agreeing it, and the idea of acceptance allows an idea to be heard before you jump down on it.
You don't have to necessarily like everything about a particular person, but if we agree on some principles of engagement - that for the next twenty minutes or the next two days we'll apply them - or that we want to embed in part of our ongoing culture that we're going to do, then it creates more spaciousness and more safety for people to think of ideas.
A big part of consciousness, in general, is becoming conscious of what is in front of you. It helps you become very present. You listen more. You listen more deeply, you listen more generously, and by that meaning you're not listening for what you're going to say next, you're listening to what the person really has to say, and in that, if you are completely present, you then have so many options of how to respond. If you're present within yourself, which improv principles and practices help you access your own presence, when you're more present within yourself a well wellspring of options and possibilities emerge that you know would not have previously imagined.
You are not trapped by a pre-designed agenda, although that can be a guide and a starting point, but you're interacting with truly what's happening in the moment, whether it's in your own creative unconscious as you're generating ideas or if you're collaborating with others. By being completely present, you have access to an abundance of creativity that you don't have, if you have an idea you're going to be set on the idea, and then your only goal is to push that idea forward.
It may happen that you have a great idea and you do push it forward, but by being present it becomes much more clear if there are other options and other people can contribute better to that idea. I think presence and consciousness go hand-in-hand, and these principles are simply a way to help activate more presence in a group or a system. Another thing is, by practicing a lot of these in low-stake, low-risk environments, you begin to naturally embody it more in your everyday life.
For the complete interview, along with some techniques to apply, sign up for the Conscious Software Development Telesummit for FREE at http://conscioussoftwaredevelopment.com
Posted by Michelle on November 24, 2014 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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