The Fertile Unknown

Creative Emergence in Uncertain Times: Getting Back to Core Principles

Where there are layers of unknowns, core principles offer a port in a sea of foggy unknowns, and provide ways forward - foundations to build on, and create from. The following are just a few reminders, in no particular order. I'm sharing 7 (of many more) here today as considerations and reflections - not as prescriptions.
 
A Few Core Creative Principles
 
• Creative emergence is an evolving dance of expansion and contraction. In contraction, it is hard to see that next expansion, but just having the understanding that a contraction is a temporary state helps us better move within it. Nothing is static, and everything is in dynamic flux. Current versions of our stories often give way to generative emergent versions as we are present to them.
 
• There is always more than one right way. In any creative emergence process, it is not about one right answer, but uncovering what is possible in a sea of potential options. Binary thinking leaves out nuance, and nuanced thinking leads to more possibilities. To open the creative field is to go beyond just one or two ways of imagining something.
 
• Creativity thrives with purposeful actions. Challenging times can get us thinking about what matters most to us, and what we can do that is in alignment with what matters. When we align our creativity to a sense of purpose, we unfold a different quality of workable ideas than when we create from what we want to avoid. Brain research backs this up. We get more of what we reinforce. Purposeful actions relax our nervous systems by moving us from feeling helpless to serving. Paradoxically, we can use a sense of purpose to inspire actions, and we can also take actions to discover more of our purpose. It is not necessarily linear.
 
• Being informed from within. Our creative unconscious has more awareness than our conscious minds at any given time, and we can learn to access it and use it to help guide our decisions and creativity. We can use our inner creative selves to break “reaction patterns” (from our default zone) and turn them into new “creation patterns” (from our creative zone). So often in a creative emergent process, what emerges doesn’t fit neatly into our preconceived expectations. The creative unconscious, below the surface of our conscious awareness, contains more wisdom and creativity than that which is consciously known to us at any given time.
 
• Primary experience leads to creative empowerment. In discovery mode, we feel more free to go off script, to break our patterns. There is a certain type of empowerment that comes from knowing through discovery. Creative empowerment can't be fully experienced through "left brain" analytical thinking alone. Primary experiences goes beyond data (but includes it) into stories, and whole-brain/whole-body/whole-self engagement. The more of ourselves we can access and experience, the more empowered we feel making choices amidst the noise of the world about what we might want to create, and how.
 
• New metaphors and language replace the old. Using life-giving new metaphors allows us to conceive of situations and problems differently. Our language can keep up locked in our same everyday reality and thinking that created the problems in the first place. In an emergence process, using generative language can liberate our thinking, overcome blocks, assumptions, and connect our creative unconscious with our conscious mind.
 
• Generative questions inspire generative ideas. Generative questions are open ended, and are ones where we do not already have the complete answer. Asking "What's mine to do - no more no less - to serve this situation?" (see next section) is one example of a generative question. That question, if seriously asked and truthfully answered, narrows the field of all things possible into that which is most relevant at the given time for the particular circumstance. By asking any kind of generative question, and staying present to our insights and impulses that arise in us over time, we start to see options open up.
 
Principle-based navigating allows us to expand our stories beyond any one concept or story, and find a new place for ourselves within them. In any creative emergence, something new emerges in some way.

Designing for Creativity: Finite and Infinite Design

James Carse’s book, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, speaks to designing games which cultivate play, improvisation and engaging the unknown, creating as you go. I first read it about 18 years ago, and it is still one of my favorites. He writes:

"A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play...infinite games are unscripted and unpredictable...the rules of an infinite game are like the grammar of a living language, whereas those of a finite game are like the rules of a debate...Finite players play w in boundaries...infinite players play w boundaries...the rules of a finite game may not change in the course of play...the rules of an infinite game must change in the course of play..."

Finite and infinite games can both generate creativity. Finite games have tighter constraints. They are played w in structure. Infinite games play w structure. For example, in improv, when you’re first learning the games, you play them finitely, by the rules. There’s a beginning, middle, and end. The creativity emerges within these constraints. The seasoned improvisers play w the structure of the game itself. They discover the new structure, not just the content w in the structure, as they go. That makes it more of an infinite game.

As facilitators of creative process we can design for both. Any finite game can be adapted to become an infinite game. Try new, unplanned ideas, using whatever comes to u in the moment. Try a new variation in real time. Let them co-create rules of the game as you go, asking them to add or change a rule. It then becomes a living, co-creative game structure.

If approached w the spirit of play and discovery, it moves from binary, static “the game worked/didn't work” to a dynamic exploration of what was learned. Cultivating group creativity works best w both finite and infinite design.

Generative Questions to Inspire Your Design

• How do I design for participation and interaction?
• How do I make it safe for sharing diverse values and perspectives?
• How do I inspire contribution?
• How do I create shared understanding (even without agreement)?
• How do I make the design inclusive for all participants?
• How do I balance context w content?
• How do I create the conditions for participants to take risks?
• How do I incl. space for the unpredictable to emerge?
• How do I set conditions for a “we” space?
• How do I design for diff. learning/creating styles?
• How do I design to challenge assumptions?
• How will I partner w participants in co-creativity?
• How will I go beneath platitudes into meaningful conversation?
• How will I include check-ins & reflection time?
• How will I bounce back if the focus gets derailed?
• How will I record what emerges?
• How will I get feedback from the group?

From my book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's Guide to Cultivating Creativity
Link to book 

Designing for Creativity: Design from Your Edges, Not Your Comfort Zone

We are most alert, alive and present when we are on our own creative edges, not when we are in our comfort zone. Designing to keep ourselves on our own creative edges can help bring fresh energy into the design.

It can be as simple as trying new variations of an activity (doing it non- verbally), a new type of activity (using a poetry-centered activity), or new ways of interacting (having people change levels physically). It can be anything that engages you in your own discovery. Talking with others who have different creating styles than you about what would keep them engaged, or bring out more of their creativity, is also helpful for ideas beyond your norm and comfort zone.

Designing for your own surprise—when you’re not exactly sure what might happen, but willing to be present to follow the emergence when it does—keeps you at your creative edge. While you are the one creating the container and holding the space, this role is balanced with your own openness to what emerges. Creative facilitation is a both/and open system.

Creativity thrives between disciplined and wildly undisciplined thinking.

Creative Edge Questions

• Where do I imagine my edges might be?
• Are there times I play it small, safe, or familiar in my facilitation because
  to play bigger means a change or commitment inside of myself?
• Are there places I only go if I feel certain the group would like it?
• Are there places I wish I could go, but hold back? Why do I hold back?
• In what ways might I add something new to what I do or how I do it?
• How might I use my knowledge or expertise, and still hold space
  for something beyond what I know to emerge?

From Chapter 5: Workshop Design in my book, Pattern Breaks: A Facilitator's guide to Cultivating Creativity. Link to book

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

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

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

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

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

#facilitatingcreativity #coachingcreativity #patternbreaksbook

Creative Process: The Dance of Opposites

Creativity comes to life at intersections. It thrives on opposites—engaging the polarities until something new emerges. Polarities can seem like opposites at first glance, but they are actually two different interdependent expressions of a larger whole. When we can accommodate polarities, instead of focusing only on one right way, idea, or solution, we have a more creative ecosystem, with the different parts “dancing” together.

Creativity moves us beyond either/or to a place of both/and, where the polarities interact as dynamic parts of an expansive creative playing field, not limited to one side. Here are some“opposites” related to creative process to invite thinking about how to create, design, or facilitate with polarities in mind.

Creative Resourcefulness within Constraints

5 Types of Creative Blocks and How to Navigate Them

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

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


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

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



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

• Give them the rules of engagement

• Hybrid: give them some rules and ask for others

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


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


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


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

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


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

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

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

Creative Practice: Adapting (and Evolving)

Today's practice is Adapting. This is the final practice in this "12 practices" series (but there are so many others!) Let the vision be mutable and change over time. Balance planning with emergence. Have goals and hold them focused enough to guide the process and loosely enough for new information, insights, and awareness’ in the moment can shift them into something more alive (and often unexpected) – something that you wouldn't have known until you are in the midst of your process.

Some goals shift. Some are released entirely. And some new ones show up along the way. By keeping the long term directed and flexible both, and focusing on what’s next, you have room to move, respond, adapt within the goals, making them more accessible…and energized.

Adapting takes us out of binary, static thinking of good/bad, right/wrong, either/or and into new possibilities. “Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision, and change.” ~ Richard Branson

I heard a great term by Holacracy founder Brian Robertson that resonated with me for this concept: dynamic steering. Have the direction in mind, and let yourself adapt the goal, and your self, along the way. Improvisers adapt all the time...adapting to what's emerging in real time, and using it to create something new and unexpected.

Creative aliveness is about growing, learning, and expanding, which are are cultivated by our willingness to adapt and evolve. “Adaptability enforces creativity, and creativity is adaptability.” ~ Pearl Zhu

 

 

Creative Aliveness Practice: Discerning

Today's practice is Discerning. “An open mind must be mitigated by discernment. Knowing what to take in and what to discard or file  away for future perusal is important to one’s growth.” ~ Safi Thomas

And discernment takes practice. Discerning is the ability to know of something is aligned with your creative self and your truth. It includes the art of what to say yes to, and what to say no to along your journey. With every life-giving yes, there is a series of healthy no's to anything not on alignment with the yes. Those no's create a stronger container for what you do what to focus on.

Like the other practices, discernment starts with awareness. And asking questions, such as: Why am I doing this? Why does it have meaning for me? What feels alive? What might sound good, but does not feel alive in me? What do I need to step into to carry it out? What do I need to let go of? Is this my own thinking/feeling, or am I just going along with someone else's? What are my gifts, skills, and talents? What is not fun for me? What does alignment feel like in me?

“True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient...distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.” ~ Sinclair Ferguson

Boundary-setting helps with discernment. Once you know your boundaries, it becomes easier to discern what is yours to do, and what's not. Good boundaries protect your creative aliveness.

Discernment also requires an intuitive understanding of what feels right along your process. It includes learning to discern how you creative self speaks to you (words, images, feelings, dreams, insights, etc.), and learning what feels right in your body. Discernment is easier when we are willing to let go of assumptions, how we've always done something, and exact expectations...and open to Beginner Mind.

“Compassionate action emerges from the sense of openness, connectedness, and discernment you have created.” ~ Joan Halifax

Creative Aliveness Practice: Cultivating

Today's practice is Cultivating. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~ Thomas Merton 

Using whole-brain creative processes – drawing it, painting it, moving with it, embodying it, acting it out, dialoguing with it, dancing with it, etc. – helps break habitual thinking patterns, opens up the creative aliveness wellspring, and draws forth new insights and ideas.

This particular practice not about the entirety of your vision, but about what is calling to emerge from within you now. The moment we are in is always the most alive (That's why improv is so energizing and filled with life energy...it's unfolding in the alive moment.)

Presence is fully alive. By being the moment, we have more access to creatively cultivate what's arising in us, and access different insights than just by thinking about it alone. When we combine left-brain linear practices with right-brain non-linear practices, we can cultivate a new story, or place our situation/goal/vision into a new narrative. Every emergence is a multi-dimensional story that fits into the context of who you are, and expresses what’s unfolding.

“We were handed two extraordinary gifts...The first is a talent to cultivate, and the second is the opportunity to cultivate it.” ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Creative Aliveness Practice: Committing

Today's practice is Committing.  

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

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

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

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

Creative Aliveness Practice: Listening

Today's practice is Listening. Listen with your whole self, and whole brain...not just to words.

Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path. Share this Quote Henry Winkler
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/inner-voice-quotes

Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path. Share this Quote Henry Winkler
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/inner-voice-quotes

"Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path." ~ Henry Winkler

Pay attention to images, feelings, thoughts, ideas, surprises, seeming disconnects that come out of nowhere, impulses that emerge. Pay attention to how it feels in your body. What feels most alive? What energizes you?

You don't have to wait for it to make complete sense before you validate it. More passions are not realized because they are judged as ridiculous before they ever have a chance to evolve because they are unfamiliar.

A new emergence, like any new birth, can be messy when being born. Listen for incomplete and partial directions - not only the entirely clear and sensible answers. In an emergent creative process clarity and sense-making usually unfolds through cultivation.

Creative Aliveness Practice: Holding

Today's practice is Holding. This practice is about releasing the need for an immediate answer…or a familiar one. It is  about holding the question before rushing to an answer or “the” answer.

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now..."
~ Ranier Maria Rilke

Instead of writing down a list with the same thoughts that you always carry in your left-brain, try engaging your whole brain first. The right brain processes much more quickly than the left brain – and is not inhibited by habitual thinking. Let your left-brain take a mini-vacay.

Emergence needs so breathing room before being analyzed, evaluated and figured out. It is not about rushing into sense making. Allow yourself to indulge non-sense-making for a while. Stay in the Divergence. That's the domain of the creative imagination, and it always delivers if we give it the time and space to work it's magic.

Creative Aliveness Practice: Asking

Today's practice is Asking.  

“Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

This practice is about asking yourself what is most alive for you NOW - not 3 weeks from now or 3 years from now. It is not about the entirety of your vision and all that you can imagine – just what feels most alive within you now.

Listening to what’s alive now is like picking the lowest-hanging, ripest fruit from your tree of potential – it does have to be the complete vision. It is focusing in o what is most ripe now, and cultivating that. That will then lead to the next ripest fruit, and the next. It is am emergence process of unfolding your creative vision the way nature creates...by ripeness in timing.

Asking, “What’s calling to emerge for me now?” or "What is arising the loudest in me right now?" helps take it out of future potential (all that can be) and into the realm of the immediately actionable (what is now and next). And in the act of creating with it, what's next to focus on will reveal itself. It is a creative formation practice - shaping it into being in real time.

#asking #discovering #creativeemergence

Creative Aliveness Practice: Centering

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

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

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

Creativity Engages Both the Intuitive Mind and the Rational Mind

Michelle James ©2023

Serve, Don’t Sacrifice

 

Michelle James ©2022

2 Questions ot Ponder on Your Soul's Creative Calling

There are no guarantees when we start engaging what we feel what feels most alive in us toward our calling. We can’t know for certain the if and how and when for anything. But as we get deeper into what is ours to do, for who we uniquely are, and stay true to our authentic selves and what brings us alive, those other things eventually start to emerge along the way.

 

We can’t wait until these things are lined up to begin. We can't wait to feel secure or certain. These things show up in the journey, and not always comfortably or predictably, but we can’t know this ahead of time. We are vulnerable when we begin this process. But once we do, and if we stay true to it, we get support our of nowhere that couldn't have been predicted or prescribed.

 

On this International World Creativity and Innovation Day, what if you treat yourself to some generative, creative exploring on these questions (and/or whatever else comes to you), in whatever ways resonate with you. There are always some (or many) people in the world who need what only you can create.

Michelle James ©2022

Happy Giving-Thanks!

In the spirit of this week of Thanksgiving I would like to share three Giving-Thanks practices with you. I know this year has had challenges for most of us in some way or another. My hope it that no matter where you find yourself at this time doing these practices can help create a more aspirational and generative space within you. The first is for what already is. The second is for deepening into the meaning of it. The third is for what can be created.

 

Gratitude Practice 1: 100 Thanks

 

I learned this one over 15 years ago and still do it every year on Thanksgiving day. It's a great way to get into the appreciative space of what what feeds you positively in some way. It's very simple: just write down - preferably in one sitting - 100 things you are grateful for. Just list them off. It can be people, experiences, materials items, events, offerings, types of food, learnings, feelings, where you live, nature's gifts, podcasts, inspiring quotes, states of being, a grocery store, etc - anything that you are thankful for, no matter how large or small.

 

Doing it in one sitting helps us go underneath our everyday conscious thoughts and into finding the gifts "hidden in plain sight." At one point you may feel like you've exhausted your list and be tempted to stop, but if you commit to the full 100 chances are you'll connect with more gifts than you think about in your everyday living. It just requires presence. If you stick around to get to 100, you may find things - some even surprising - that you might not otherwise stop to think about as gifts.

 

Gratitude Practice 2: Grateful Because

 

Take 5-7 of the Gratitudes from the first list and list out the "why" for each one. It helps deepen into the feeling, the purpose, and your appreciation. it helps expand the Appreciative Field, which opens up more feelings of well-being and possibilities thinking - and extracting meaning from some things that were challenging. Finding meaning in something can be like finding the diamond in the rough. Here are a few prompts to play with. As always, make up your own versions.

 

• I am grateful for (a person) because_______

• I am grateful for (a positive experience) because it gave me_______

• I am grateful for (a challenging experience) because I learned_______

• I am grateful for (a thing) because_______

• I am grateful for (a situation) because it helped me_______

• I am grateful for (a book/podcast/class/talk/workshop) because I better understand_______

 

Gratitude Practice 3: Creative Future Gratitude

 

This one starts with doing something to get present and centered first. Whether that's breathing, dancing, meditating, or whatever it is for you, it works best if you find yourself undistracted and fully present. Once you are in a space where you won't be distracted, start imagining it is Thanksgiving week 2022, and you're writing down 3-5 things that happened in the past year (from today on) that that you are happily grateful for.

 

Rather than list them out from your head's habitual thinking (which is quicker and easier, but carries little creative "energetic weight" behind it), take time to immerse yourself in the full sensory, emotional, and energetic experience of each one of those - a luxurious indulging of your creative imagination, not a rushing through.

 

When you write it down, feel the feelings, see the sights, and feel the energy within yourself associated with each one. For example, when you're imagining it, does it feel alive, open, exciting, fun, or expansive within you? If yes to any of those, chances are it carries positive creative potential for you. If it feel heavy or contractive, leave that one off your list for this exercise for now.

 

Stay in the divergent (yes-and, non-evaluative) space even if uncomfortable. During this exercise, if other voices come in saying, "Yeah, but how will I make that happen?" "Yeah, but that's not realistic" or any other "Yes, but" message, let it go. The "game" is a Future Gratitude Imagining for what already happened by Thanksgiving 2022, so just stay with the focus of what happened in this vision - not the how. Play this game with the rule of not following any of the Yes-Butting voices. :-)

 

For example, it might be something like, "I'm grateful that my _______ (course, book, workshop, product, idea, presentation, business, brand, offering, etc) was so successful/alive/worthwhile in that it________" ...then define what that means to YOU (helped others x, brought people together, created x,  allowed me to x, allowed others to x , served the mission of x, made money, helped a cause, solved problems, generated conversations, cultivated creativity, etc).

 

Once you've done that, let it go. Don't worry in that moment about how to make it happen. Pretend it already has and all you are doing is writing out why you are grateful for it happening. When writing them, let yourself feel the real Gratitude energy you'd feel if it already happened. Then let it go. Your creative unconscious now has something to start working with.

 

Then come back to them at another time, and start imagining the how with what you currently know, and let the rest of the how emerge over time as you start engaging the process. If you start engaging with what you do know the next "how" emerges out of the process over time.

 

Happy Giving-Thanks!

 

 

Michelle James © 2021

My New Etsy Art Shop is Live!

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

www.etsy.com/shop/CreativeEmergenceArt

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

Life as Improv: Opportunity for Creative Discovery as We Go

Creativity for Staying Grounded in Uncertainty and the Unknown

In times of huge unknowns, with much we have no control over, one of the things that lightens the intensity is creatively focusing on the things we CAN control...like getting out in nature, creative arts and crafts, drawing, painting, moving our bodies to music we like, watching funny videos or comedy specials, meditating, journaling, cooking, playing games, online improv, designing business offerings, or anything we like doing that we're able to do that lightens us up. That will be different for everyone, but we do have agency and at least some things we can choose into and control in the midst of uncertainty.

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

 

Michelle James ©2020

The Pregnant Creative Moment

Michelle James©2020

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

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

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

Creative Emergence Image Series - Emergent Potential

This  is a prismacolor pencil drawing I did a few year's ago for my Emergence Series, called “Emergent Potential” - the fertile place filled with potential waiting to be created forth. It's the place within us I work most with my coaching clients - tapping into their unique, ripe, creative potential, discovering what is calling to emerge, and cultivating it out. I see myself an emergence "midwife" helping my clients birth their creative calling and offerings out into the world. #creativeemergence


Michelle James ©2020

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

When we are in uncertainty, we often first seek to go to the familiar...which is often the  left-brain dominant way of analyzing and making sense of things. I see that all the time in my work. This poster speaks to "Yes Anding" that with additional ways of knowing, intuiting, experiencing, feeling, and being to be able to solve problems, heal, make sense, and create a more generative habitable world.

It is not about the exclusion of critical thinking and analysis, it is about the INCLUSION of other ways of processing as well. Valuing rational-only thinking over feeling, the creative unconscious, and intuition keeps people disconnected. What about rational-AND thinking? We need our whole selves in order to be in connection. We need compassion. We need our creative imaginations. We need space to connect with our inner voice. We're not just talking heads, and emotions have a place in business and life because they contain passion, inspiration, and heart. Much meaningful was created with emotion in times of hardship. This is a reminder in these times, for those who resonate, to value all of your various ways knowing, processing and solution-finding.

Michelle James ©2020

Creative Emergence Image Series - Taking Form

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

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


Michelle James ©2020