The Fertile Unknown

The Creative Source

My short reflection on, and homage to, the Creative Source -                  
the creative, life-giving, mysterious, generative source within
us that gives birth to all things creative and emergent...
filled with new potential, dreams, directions, expressions
and creations (posted originally in 2013):

The Creative Source

Inside us there is a spacious fullness, a coherent wildness...
The kind of power that doesn't always display
its full plumage in grand revelry.
Instead, one of swimming silently-boldy
throughout the ether waves
Creating its own energy currents...
Calling, leading, guiding, emerging.
It is the source, within, of full-on aliveness,
generativity, creativity,
and your pristine uniqueness.

Creative source energy moves and meanders and twists
and turns and spirals into itself through our Selves.
It is spiraling dynamics embodified.
It is hide and seek, the seeker and the sought,
yearning and satiation all at once.
It beckons, but does not beg.
It captivates, yet holds no captives.

It thrives on your realness to reveal its true nature.
It is ever-generous and forgiving.
It mourns and rejoices simultaneously,
as it unites and differentiates...and unites again.

The creative source is
bonding, binding, bounding, boundarying,
unbinding, unwinding, unraveling,
restructuring, reorganizing,
deconstructing, disorganizing,
pattern breaking and new pattern making.

It is both the riddler and the riddle...
The one-eyed gypsy dance of converge and diverge,
where what is isn't, and what isn't is.
(The other eye faces inward).
It leads the inside-out, outside-in dance of creation.

The creative source is at once yin and yang,
gentle and strong,
humble and bold,
nurturing and activating,
behind-the-scenes and front-and-center...
throwing streamers, lighting sparklers
to celebrate your uniqueness.

But it will settle for nothing less.
You must be you.
Stay in your ground and
no one, no thing, no way
can make you less than!

The creative source is mutable, fluid,
stable, hard, soft,
transactional and transformational.
It is honoring, sobering, intoxicating,
lifting, holding, releasing.
It is un-languaging and re-languaging.
First, it asks, break some rules.

The creative source can draw forth
the whirl in a dervish,
the bloom in a passion,
the fruition in a dream,
and the purpose in a soul.

It is serious, but does not take itself seriously.
It comes alive with play and fun and the delightful unexpected.
It gets top billing at the Cosmic Comedy Club:
"Take my life...please."

The creative source is not asking us to be filled,
but rather to feel - and engage - how full we already are.
Here. Now.
It is the inflection point where the past, present,
and future meet and tryst...
and, as if by magic, a new creation is born!

The creative source catalyzes resplendent
deepening, ripening, opening, furthering,
recognizing, rearranging, aha-ing, relationshiping,
connecting, embodying, and aligning.

Birth, death, rebirth-
the spiral unfolds.
Truth bursts forth,
shakes itself off,
and settles in to, ahhh,
its own rightful space.
Higher order has organized
and breathes a sigh of relief.

The creative source is in itself a parallel universe.
It is human and divine,
generous and claiming,
shielding and revealing,
It is large and small,
epic and mundane,
reality and fantasy,
universal and unique,
gathering and fraying,
stillness and cultivation,
mystery and revelation.

It offers us an inner authority,
a knowing, and a beacon
to sustain and inform us
amidst fears and doubts,
hardships and crises...
our own or others.

It is the place within us
where life is ever-seeking and
ever-generating more life...
filled with infinite creative potential
just waiting to be cultivated.
It contains the meticulous balance
of flow and stucture for all of our creations.

Just show up, let it lead.
It will meet you at your dance.
It's game.
It will swing you and dip you,
into your very Self.
It will kick up your heels
yet be there, sturdy and steadfast,
to catch you.
It will meet you in your pain
It will meet you in your joy.
Just show up - fully - from wherever you are.
It wants and needs to partner with us.

The creative source is not the answer,
it contains the question to the Universe,
"Who am I?"
It is a knowing, a wondering,
a paradox, and a circus.
YOU are the main attraction.
Step right up.
The world needs your uniqueness. :-)

The creative source is both speaker and listener--
the hearer and the heard.
It washes through the crevasses
of dried up hope and habit
until it becomes fertile,
alive, breathing potential.
I am. We are.

It allows the unique Being in me
to be with the unique Being in you.
Namaste.

By Michelle James ©2013

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

The Creative Unknown: Turning Uncertainty into Discovery

Because it is central to my work, I’m constantly learning and reminded - and in awe of - how what we see as a ”miracle" on one level (i.e., fulfilled intentions in the most unexpected, completely unpredictable ways) is just about partnering the with unknown-yet-to-emerge as a generative, creative resource and letting that be our guide.

I experience it not as "blind faith" in the process but rather faith-from-experience in the natural order of how things are created and emerge...and letting go of outdated, socialized assumptions and ways of being that no longer serve. I'm always looking to more fully inhabit and embody the "emergence lens" (which can be a struggle at times as I bump up against my own inner assumptions that need to be transformed).

But one thing is for sure…is that you can’t discover what you already know - to stay in the discovery process means allowing yourself the spaciousness of being in the unknown. Right now, we are all in a huge unknown. We have a choice to use that for discovery. It is the nature of how things emerge that when you bring intention, heart, and purpose into the unknown, you make discoveries that are often surprising, and always life-giving.

One of the tenets of the creative emergence process is turning uncertainty into discovery. It means you don’t fill up the unknown with something familiar - or avoiding it, relying on others ideas, or numbing it - for security, but allow yourself space and time to discover what is calling to emerge from within your own creative yourself. And something is always calling to emerge if we are present…and listening. Sometimes that means using various whole-brain cultivation “tools” to access it - from drawing it to to journaling it to acting it out in the body and so much more! There are infinite ways to harvest the “fertile unknown” (I’ve seen literally thousands of variations over the past 25 years working with my clients). Different ways work for different people - because we each have out own unique creative style and language.

A place to start is just accepting that you are at the edge of what you know, and you are open to discovering what is there. Just that will start to reduce the fear of the unknown into something you do have choice over - which is engaging your discovery process. Then, stay open to impulses, insights, awareness, and dreams (they contain subconscious information that our conscious minds often do not see) that come to you. Instead of brushing something supposing off, start to connect with it in whatever way speaks to you…through images, words, energy, feelings, etc. - and you’ll deepen the insights.

Discovery turns the unknown for a dark, scary place into a rich, fertile landscape you get to explore. And with enough exploration, something new, clear, and life-giving will eventually emerge. Security comes not from being certain, or in control (which is impossible in volatile times), but from learning to experience the unknown as a creative ally - something that is generous, creative, and there for you. That "bond" strengthens over time as you practice navigating it.

If you’d like additional support in this process, or have questions on how to get started, contact me anytime for a FREE 30-minute discovery session.

Michelle James ©2020

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

9-week Immersion Program! 

CREATING WITH PURPOSE:
New Foundations for

Creating and Producing
What's Next in an

Uncertain World Using

Whole-Brain,
Whole-Self Creativity

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Who is this for?

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

 

Why?

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

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

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

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

How? The Exploration and Experience

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

Leave with:

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

 

Includes:

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

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

• Bonus 2-hour Follow-up Integration Session

Schedule

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

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

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

Our Creative Uniqueness informs our Creative Service to the World

We are all needed to create more hospitable, loving, humane world. And, we are not all designed to contribute in the same way. We each have a unique set of gifts, skills, talents, drives, understandings, learnings, and experiences that combine together to create our unique signature offerings/contribution to the world. Whether you work for yourself or someone else, this creative "soul signature" is uniquely yours.

It takes some conscious effort to detach from the belief systems, fears, and judgements (in yourself, and in the world) that no longer serve you, and (re)establish connection to your own "creative source" - the life-generating, source of meaning, purpose, passion, and creativity within you - which contains the unique creative gifts of your soul. We are the ones we've been waiting for, and now is the time we've been waiting for.

For some, that means joining or leading a movement or cause. For others, it means working in the front lines...or creating new systems or structures...or creating in the arts, business, education, technology or science...or in coaching, facilitating, healing, teaching, or serving others...there are as many ways to be of service as there are people who need what you have to give.


Michelle James @2020

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

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person
complaining of  being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?" ~ Gabrielle Roth

Good wisdom in this time when so many in the world are disheartened, dispirited, or depressed. Getting back to our Creative Self - dancing, singing, artwork, theater, improv, storytelling, writing, journaling, meditating, movement, reflecting, imagining, writing, visioning, creating in any form - helps us navigate a world disrupted (and even a world not so disrupted). Just more urgent now. It is not about waiting until AFTER the fear, pain, and chaos ends, but rather using the creative practices to help us MOVE THROUGH it...within ourselves and with each other.

It is an often overlooked part of what the world needs to transform. Among other things, the lack of whole-brain, whole-person embodied creating - and the life-generating  "enchantment" it brings - in our everyday lives and workplaces leads to feeling disheartened and dis-empowered. This is not the time to contract away from our Creative Source energy in the face of a dispirited world...instead, it is an essential time to learn to CREATE from and with your Creative Self - in whatever ways you are uniquely called - to help change your experience AND the experience of the world.

There is no one right way to engage, create, or produce. There are multiple potentials and possibilities of what can be generated. And all types of creative expression can feel good and be generative. But there IS a way, or set of ways, for you that is uniquely yours - that is more alive and purposeful than others - that is embedded in your soul's purpose. I have seen this without exception in 20+ years of creative emergence coaching purpose-centered, heart-centered, soulful entrepreneurs.

In exploring the possibilities by trying out different forms of expression, without judgement or needing it to be perfect, you can access the uniqueness of your Creative Self. it is a discovery process. Your unique inner garden of creative delights does not look like anyone else's - and when authentically seeded and cultivated, will produce your one-of-a-kind juicy fruit that is also nourishing for the world. The more in trouble the world is, the more new healthy creative foundations are needed - seeded by each of us. It's so significant now to discover what is ours to do to contribute to a more humane, just, life-giving world.

It's not always easy, and takes some time, attention, focus, integrity, and self-awareness. But that's the sweet spot...where your unique creative aliveness meets the needs of the world...as it is, where it is, to naturally create a more generative, alive, healthy what's next. We all need that now. This sweet spot, once cultivated, serves ourselves, others, and the whole. That's embedded in its nature. Don't give up. Your Creative Self awaits your engagement, and it offers a possibility for re-enchantment, re-connection, and purposeful direction - especially now.

Michelle James ©2020

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

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

Taking Back our Creative Power

Taking back our creative power starts with owning the choices we make…not waiting for other people’s choices or situations to give us permission to move forward…and not using other people or situations as an excuse to not follow our own inner call. It means following our aliveness, not our fears - moving through the fears as they emerge…taking time to discover what’s ours to create…and then cultivating it over time, like a garden - watering what we want to grow, and weeding out what’s no longer healthy…using our time and energy toward what we want and feel called to create.

Now is always the right time to begin - from exactly who and where you are. Many people use their creative energy toward fixing a problem to get back to the static status quo…choosing what feels comfortable and known to what feels most alive and engaged the unknown. In creative emergence immersion, we focus on moving beyond our familiar static status quo to create our dynamic life-giving what’s next. It’s messier, and sometimes less comfortable, because it means bushwhacking through the jungle of our own unknown - our yet-to-be-cultivated creative territory. But it’s alive, and vibrant, and offers the unique creative life expression that only you can give.

In that, there are explorations to be had, insights and ideas to incubate, creativity to cultivate, priorities to align with, choices to make, and boundaries to set. Sometimes its easy, sometimes not. Sometimes its fun, sometimes not. At times there is natural resistance in the process. But it is alive, it is uniquely yours, it’s full-on engaging, and it serves the greater good in some way. That’s organically built in to holistically generative work.

Taking back our deeply sourced creative power is a choice we can make at any time without even knowing how to do it. The HOW unfolds over time as we engage the creative process. #creativecultivation #creativeemergencecoaching

Story-hopping: Meaning Making is a Creative Act

Making meaning is a creative act. It takes us out of the static, binary thinking of good-bad/right-wrong/pass-fail and brings us into an upward dynamic growth spiral of more possibilities. It allows us to break old patterns and create new ones. Whatever we can find meaning in transforms it. Meaning making something we can do any time with conscious intention and attention...and it in turn creates a flowing, yet focused, channel for more purposeful creativity to emerge.

One of many ways to make meaning is through storytelling...telling a story of something (an event, a person, a vision, an object, a process, a situation... anything! - past, present, or future) can help extract the meaning from or about it. Then you can apply that meaning to your life, work, and business offerings...you can use it for deeper understanding, for releasing something that no longer works, for stepping up to something new to create...

And we can use it to move and level-up from one story context to another...Story-hopping to the next level. I.e., transforming what could seem like a victim story at one level into an empowerment story at the next level can happen by looking at it through a new, different, and more expansive context than we were seeing it.

When we combine storytelling with up-leveling - hopping into a larger, more generative framework from which to view the story (and create new parts to it) - the meaning we extract from it changes. It can transform the story we have held from being a creative energy drainer to a next-level creativity generator...among so many other possibilities.

Our creative source and imagination can create, or re-create at a new level, any situation or belief to better serve what is calling to emerge in our work and lives. We just need to play with engaging it, exploring, and experiementing until we land in the new stories, and the meaning, that feel alive and right for us. What stories about your work, or other areas of your life are you ready to release? Transform? Reframe? Hop into at a new level?

Michelle James ©2020

Staying True to What's Yours to Do

Michelle James ©2020

Facilitating Creative Process: Preparing Yourself before the Workshop

Athletes warm up.Improv/theater/dance/performance groups warm up. Warm-ups clear your head and get you out of habitual thinking, bring you into the present - where you can access more novel thinking, be more responcive and adaptive, and get people more genuinely connected. The time spent warming up is made up exponentially by the effectiveness of the subsequent creative process you can facilitate, and increase the chances of something new and different emerging within you and your participants.

For those of us that facilitate creative process for others there is much we can do to shift our energy to be able to meet what emerges in that person or group with the presence and creative openness of Beginner Mind. Some people use inward-focused prep rituals like meditating, centering, breathing, creative visualization, intention setting, centering music to get centered and grounded. Others do more outward-focused prep rituals like dancing, moving non-habitually, wild music, vocal/ theater/improv type activities to get energized and expansive. (I like doing a bit of both - inward first, then outward). Playing around with different ones, familiar and unfamiliar, help us expand our own creativity as we support others in cultivating theirs. Our own energy makes a difference for those we facilitate.


Michelle James©2020

Emergence Space in the Creative Process

 #newideas #newchoices #newcreations #creativeemergencecoaching #mylatestposter

                                                                   ©Michelle James

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

Creativity Comes to Life Where the Known Meets the Unknown

No matter what challenges we face, or what our current circumstances, we can meet them with discovery and empathy (and kindness for self and others), and become more empowered as creators. By acknowledging our feelings and fears, and opening up to allow for new ways of approaching old and new situations, and then doing the work, we start to gain inner creative ownership and empowerment.

Once we feel that and own it, we meet up with future situations and challenges differently than we had in the past. It just needs us leaving the comfort of our known - with compassion for ourselves as we muddle through - and playing with new possibilities...exploring what emerges in real time...not rushing it to fit into what we already know, but staying open to expand into what we're discovering as it unfolds. Live in the questions for a while...
#creativeemergence #empoweredcreating

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

 

Creative Discoveries for Inner Authority

Often in an emergence process, people come to a point where they fear they have nothing of real value to share. So they retreat and stay in or re-box the familiar, or they create sudden distractions, or they copy and use others ideas - anything to avoid that uncomfortable feeling of coming to the end of what they know, or feeling like a "fraud," or like not enough.

But if they start (with kindness to themselves) getting curious, start really exploring beyond that fear, and start doing the hard - and fun, and rewarding, and magical! - work of going into that unknown space, getting curious without judgement, asking inward and cultivating whatever emerges, they will begin to see - and deeply know - the places they are completely and totally unique, the unique set set of gifts, experiences, talents, skills, patterns, and ideas they bring, the ideas that emerge from WITHIN, and the trajectory of their soul's work. It is a discovery process - there are no short cuts.

If you stay with the curiosity, fascination, and discovery process (both before, after, and during the work you are doing), you can't help but make your own unique discoveries (about yourself and your work, your clients, patterns within your work, etc.) and you begin to own your knowings. It's not the arrogant ownership of someone trying to be impressive. And it's not the apologetic ownership of someone not really valuing what they do. It's a neutral ownership - an "it just is what it is" ownership - of someone who has gone through the work of real discovery...and actually discovered some juicy things.

You can go into your own infinite creative wellspring and discover what's yours to discover...and that becomes your knowing, your empowerment, and your unique gift to the world.
#my2cents #creativeemergence #therearenoshortcuts #youareworthit

©2019 Michelle James

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

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.

Characteristics of Creative Organizations

Michelle James@2019

10 Creative Emergence Reminders for Volatile Times

 

Many people are going through what feels like accelerating challenging times now. There is much

happening in our world beyond our   control…and…much more that we can control than we think. This post is a reminder of that…that it is not about living in a world where there are no constraints (i.e., social, relational, political, familial, health, financial, etc), but finding and applying your own purposeful creativity WITHIN those constraints.

 

Sometimes it’s the constraints that offer us what will one day become out greatest learnings and potential for growth. The following are a few points that came to me, when working with recent coaching clients, that I thought I would share with you to use as food for thought. They will be part of a larger, more detailed writing in my certification program and coaching guide, but wanted to share a few of them with you now in case they could be helpful now. As always, take what’s useful, and leave the rest.

 

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10 Quick Creative Emergence Coaching Reminders

 

1. Your inner Creative Source is a life-generating-life part within you that is always for your holistic generativity - your highest aliveness at all levels. It's invitation is to get connected to it, and stay connected to it, because it has no other agenda than your highest aliveness, thriving, and expressionl. At any given movement you can listen to the voice of fear, doubt, worry (which may have validity at times), or the inner creative voice. The Source voice in never judgmental and it’s not tough love - it’s unapologetically life-giving and generative. It may mean slowing down, letting go, and listening in to hear it, though - giving it space, time and attention.

 

2. No matter what circumstance you find yourself in, there is a part of you that knows what is yours to do to navigate it. Asking “What’s mine to do, no more no less?” allows that part to become more internally empowered, with more choices and options; and, not force or coerce a situation or person down a path that is not generative for you or them or all involved. No matter how much influence someone else seems to have over you now, you have the empowerment to discover what’s yours to do within that situation. Do your part…and let the natural, animating life force  (Universe, God, Creativity, Time, Flow, Spirit, Nature, Creative Unconscious, etc - whatever you see it as) do its part. I.e., plant the seed, water the soil, give it sun...then let go and let the animating life force help it bloom.

 

3. At any given time, we’re being invited to go beyond our current construct (set of beliefs about anything - ourselves, our lives, others, how the world works, etc), and up-level into a larger, more inclusive framework that may or may not be familiar. Allowing ourselves to move beyond our current beliefs and constructs (inner map of things) and into what Life is really showing us at any given time frees us to navigate our calling. Get centered, ask, call it forth, dance it forth, draw it forth, pray, meditate - whatever feels right for you - then receive. Just don’t box in how what you get needs to show up…instead, watch for clues, feelings, impulses, signs, synchronicities, dreams, intuitions insights, a-has, and messages in all kind of ways. Ask for clarity…then let go and pay attention, letting your creative unconscious work with you, making the unconscious conscious. Just be present...and open for the unexpected.

 

4. Forgive your resistances, procrastination, back-tracking, divergences, missteps, or other judgements about yourself you feel you may be doing to sabotage. Sometimes there is great wisdom in that “sabotage” that we can’t see at the time. Just like in nature, emergences have right timing, and sometimes there are other foundational things we need to learn on the way, that we don’t know about until they occur. And always, there is a pay off for all choices we have made. (In the work I do with my clients, the most common pay off is staying in the familiarity and comfort zone of the known - “the devil we know”). Be gentle with yourself as you locate the pay off. That gives you options of how else to proceed, or something else that you may need to heal, move though, cultivate, or be with for a while first. The key is not to jump into evaluation. There are times of contraction in every birth, times of resistance, and times of “ two steps forward, one step back.”

 

5. Be conscious. For whatever you DO really need, if you become conscious and aware of it, you won’t just act out of the contractions without consciousness. If you have to make a tough decision, don’t make it out of fear or hope…get conscious of your inner voice, and see where it guides you. Being conscious and aware is our friend in tumultuous times. It gives us choice and possibility.

 

6. This work is not about being fearless…it is about feeling the fears, doubts, questions, wonderings…and doing it anyway. Moving forward anyway, without any guarantees. Inspired guidance will not make you guarantees that fits into a smaller consciousness of yourself….it always invites us into a larger consciousness of ourselves You get that expansion - living into it - during the journey, not before it. The comfort-with-discomfort emerges over time and often through moving through contractions. We get to feel more connected to our inner voice and out path as we walk it, not before...each step of the way.

 

7. Your soul’s true work is never just about you. It is always also about those whom we serve. Whatever you are called to do by your inner Creative Source has embedded in it a greater call - ways that others will benefit by your service. When you go into doubts, it can be helpful to think of them - makes it easier to keep going when focused on those who could benefit from you doing your work.

 

8. With every healthy YES, there is a series of healthy NOs. What you say NO to is as important as what you say yes to in any emergence process. With every yes to something new, adjustments usually need to be made - some of which can be tough. There usually needs to be boundaries set somewhere. Healthy, life-giving boundaries are a friend in an emergence process. Every emergence has its own set of flow-and-boundaries integration to accompany it.

 

9. You are infinitely amazingly creative and unique already! You have a path no one else in the world ever has or ever will. You have a unique integration of gifts, experiences, ideas, hopes, dreams, visions, hardships, hurts, strengths, challenges, skills, learnings, and wisdom that no one else ever has or ever will. We all need you to use all of those things to create your unique offering to the world. No else else ever can. It is your great gift and the world’s great privilege to receive your offering.

 

10. I love this quote by Angeles Arrien in the forward to Gabrielle Roth's Maps to Ecstasy: The Healing Power of Movement.: “In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? Where we have stopped dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, or finding comfort in silence is where we have experienced the loss of soul. Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves.” No matter what you go through or what you need to do for your soulful work/business, using dance, movement, art, creativity, storytelling, crafts, writing, and silence (emergence space) will help you get more clarity, feel more alive and connected, and better able to be resilient in challenging times. Creativity in any expression generates more creativity.

 

Cheers to your creative uniqueness, and you unique offering to the world! You so got this!

 

Michelle James©2018

Creative Emergence Coaching, Facilitating & Training

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

image from fitnessandwellnessnews.com

As a facilitator of creative process, your energy has an impact of those in the room. It’s an often overlooked part of facilitating creativity, yet it's the most immediate, primal, and direct way of connecting in ways words and actions alone can not (like when someone walks in a room and you get a feel about them before they even say anything). Most people feel energy immediately and instinctively, before the analytical brain gets on board to think about it. Your energetic state can help draw out or hinder the creativity of others, as well as your own.

While most facilitators of creative process already have Energizer activities for participants, not all take time to prepare their own energetic field before the workshop. The energy you enter a space with, and cultivate as the day goes on, adds to or takes from participant experience. Actors, improvisers, athletes all warm-up before they preform. They don’t just show up and start performing. Similarly, warming yourself up with pre-workshop “energizer rituals” helps you not only get present, but also energized and enlivened. If you find ways of energizing yourself before entering the room - “prep rituals” you do alone before the workshop starts - that begins to create an energized container for participants as they enter. Because energy is something felt, and not thought, it is immediate, and has an impact on the nervous system of participants, non-verbally - not just their minds.

There's no limit to the ways you can generate energy for yourself before a workshop or meeting. Over the past 14 years facilitating Creative Facilitation workshops, I’ve heard countless ways facilitators get energized. I play around with different ones myself to keep it fresh in me, and to stay on my own creative edges, mostly improvising as I go with the goal of trying something new. The times I did not warm up, I noticed a difference in the group’s creative energy, cohesiveness, and output, and how I was holding their energy. I learned the hard way how important it is for me to do my own energy prep work. Some people naturally have a full-on energizing presence any time of day, and in almost any circumstance…and others of us can cultivate it consciously.

You can try it playing around with Brain Gym (Google it), dancing wildly, moving non-habitually, brain teasers, tongue twisters, acting things out, meditation and other centering practices, yoga, marshal arts, and other body-centered practices, solo improv games, etc. If you do something more meditative, try also adding in something that expands and heightens your energy, so you can hold an expanded energetic space for a group - a big part of generating risk taking and creative novelty form a group. And, if you try something that pushes your own envelop - breaking your pattern with something you normally do not do - which also engages your own creative edges, the brain research repeatably shows that enhances presence, creativity, and adaptability.

If you already have awesome activities and content to share, and they are interactive and highly participatory, you can take it to a new level if you take some time to generate your own energy before showing up. Preparing yourself energetically is like starching out like a rubber band when you are by yourself, so when you get with a group, you are energetically flexible enough to expand out to whatever emerges in the group. Research had also shown that most people in groups will either consciously or subconsciously not feel psychologically safe to out-energize a facilitator, and that can impact what and how they create. A facilitator who shows up as flexible, energized, and ready for anything makes it safer for participants to engage more enthusiastically and energetically in interactive activities, and explore their own creativity in a group and each other’s creativity as a group.

If you try something new that works well for you, or if you want to chat about some ideas for your next facilitation, please drop me a line. :-) 

©Michelle James 2018

The Creative Yes