Michelle James

Just 2 spots left! Earlybird discount rate thru tomorrow at midnight. creativeemergence.com/receptivity 6-week creative program. Feb. 26-Apr. 3.Fridays weekly 3:00-4:15pm EST. Diving into 9 Dimensions of Receptivity + whole-brain creativity...

ReEarthing the Human Mind by Julie Brahms kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/re-… "The most significant changes will be in our mind—perceptual and internal. The external result, meaning how that culture will behave, will unfold from there. Each of us will be part of what that new way looks like."

NEW CREATIVE PROGRAM! This 6-week immersive experience is for for leaders, facilitators, coaches, and practitioners who have to stay steady in unsteady times. creativeemergence.com/receptivity You're someone others rely on. You have to show up fully resourced for those you serve. But who, or what, do you rely on when the world feels destabilizing? In these volatile times, it's easy to feel our well run dry. I was feeling that way, so returned to immersing more intentionally in a variety of creative "receptivity" practices for myself and my clients...and that's been transformational. It's not about feeling good all the time, or bypassing, but being present and resourced for ourselves and others. Receptivity is an often overlooked, yet essential, leadership capacity that strengthens discernment, creativity, and aligned action. It's the foundation of resilient leading, living, and creating. In this programs, we'll explore and cultivate 9 dimensions of receptivity so that clarity, responsiveness, and inner alignment become more reliable. This program may be for you if: • You're feeling like external chaos has unsettled your focus or sense of aliveness • You value your intuition, but rarely give yourself the time or space to truly engage with it • You desire to feel more consistently nourished and resourced from within • You want to make choices, take actions, and create offerings aligned with your values, wisdom, and aliveness Receptivity is a part of refilling our wells and part of sensing into what's emerging as you go. It's such a huge part of the emergence process that it felt like it needed to it it's own area of focus. This program uses an original 9 Dimensions approach to receptivity using multiple "creative languages" to form a more resilient inner ecosystem. In this creative program, you will explore and experience: • 9 Dimensions of Receptivity: what they are and how to engage them • Whole-brain approaches to receptivity via different creative languages: verbal, visual, imaginal, intuitive, somatic, energetic • Connecting with the creative intelligence of what's emerging • Conditions for receptivity • Coaching • The power of supportive group field This program is designed to experientially strengthen our capacity to receive - ideas, guidance, nourishment, support - both from within ourselves and from life around us. This program is less about doing, and more about being. The "doing" is more of a spacious receiving: yielding instead of forging ahead, listening instead of asserting, feeling into instead of figuring out, savoring instead of rushing, and making space for knowings to emerge. We begin February 27. 3-4pm EST. We meet weekly for 6 weeks. Early-bird pricing through February 20. Spots are limited. This is a small group for maximum attention, connection, and support. If it resonates with you, hope you can join us. More details & registration link: creativeemergence.com/receptivity Questions? Contact me anytime.

New Inner Parts Program! conta.cc/4qxENNI I had such a rich time w such an awesome open-hearted group in the Holiday Inner Parts Workshop that I decided to offer a deeper deeper dive into w a program in January. This is a unique, whole-brain approach to parts work. Space is limited for maximum attn & engagement.

lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/4ulkd7Y When Walt Whitman said, “I am large. I contain multitudes,” he wasn’t kidding. Each of us has multiple parts & when we work with them they become a source of support & creativity. In this workshop, we’ll focus on just a few key parts - your Inner Support Team - using creative process to help these parts become a foundation for moving into 2026...catalyzing a small number of powerful parts to support your aspirations. #creativeemergence

My latest mandala inspired by our first snow here this year #handdrawn #prismacolorpencils #originalart

My latest mandala #handdrawn #coloredpencils

I have a client who leads an org. team focused on shifting their team norm from thinking and interacting more mechanistically and conventionally to engaging more co-creatively, organically, non-linearly, and "humanly." One of the things they started doing is getting their team to regularly engage in whole-brain practices together at their meetings, and it's shifting the way they interact and collaborate together. Many of our organizational systems and practices were established from principles and values steeped in more left-brain logic, reductionist, linear-dominant, and analytical-centered thinking with rationality as a core value. They produced mechanistic systems that ignore our organic ways of being human - ways which include conceptualizing, contextualizing, feeling, sensing, and interconnecting. Storytelling, visual mapping, movement, theater, music, art, creative thinking and sensing techniques, and other whole brain processes are about: • weaving seemingly disparate elements into a larger context and extracting relevant data, patterns, and connections from the larger context • integrating linearity (stages & steps) w non-linearity (context & milieu) for larger perspectives and possibilities • engaging both what is known and what is unknown, and emerging Whole brain/whole-person integration methods involve embodied understanding, direct experience, and purposeful implementation within the larger context of being human first. Research shows that when developing new innovations, services, and offerings, you get more novel ideas using whole-brain conceptual thinking than left-brain only thinking. When leading a team or group, you get more safe feelings and bonding. Whole-brain thinking (incl. feeling, embodying, sensing, visualizing, imagining, intuiting) engages a larger context, so it produces more coherent, inclusive, and human-centered ideas than left-brain thinking alone produces. The more whole-brain integration, the better we think and perceive. This often means the willing to break our patterns, feel the discomfort of unfamiliarity, and questions core foundational assumptions.. Questions to consider: ~ How might you bring in more whole brain practices into your leadership, facilitation, and/or meetings? ~ What patterns in your thinking or work no longer serve you or your team? ~ What is something new you've always wanted to try but have kept putting off? #wholebrain #creativefacilitation #creativeleadership

You're invited to the Giving Thanks Feastival! Nov 26. 11:00am-12:30pm EST. It's free to participate. lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/LCCaZeH For several years a coaching friend and I had an annual ritual of setting aside two hours each year the day before Thanksgiving to explore our gratitudes from the previous year. I always left our calls in an expanded, spacious, appreciative energy, and with renewed hope. With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I would continue this pre-Thanksgiving day ritual with a space online for pausing to create a gratitude "feastival" for anyone who resonates, and is available. The 90-minute Online Feastival Experience: • An opening practice to create a trust-centered gratitude field • A lightly facilitated gratitude engagement process • A debrief and closing ritual at the end Each person will have an opportunity to share. Bonus: A Free Whole-Brain Gratitude Practices PDF! Even if you can't make the online event, you can still get this free PDF. It has several practices in there we won't be doing in the session for you to do on your own. Click here for the free Feastival and the Creative Gratitude Practices PDF. lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/LCCaZeH

Next Online Mastermind Group start Tuesday! creativeemergence.com/mastermind How many times have you taken a workshop and got great ideas, and were filled with energy, only to go back to your habitual ways a few days or weeks after? This 8-week program supports you in staying focused - in an easily distractible world - on what you are creating next in an ongoing way until it becomes an embodied new pattern or habit, and you are far enough in to your next chapter to keep the momentum going. Plus, it's fun and a great bonding experience! Space is limited for maximum support. This is for you if: - You're feeling ready to enter a new phase of your work or life, but not sure what that will look like. - You still have so much inside of you (dreams, gifts, talents, aspirations) that you have yet to let out. - You resonate with creative approaches. - You have something that's yours to create and offer, even in an unsteady, unpredictable world. - You want a generative start to your new year In this Mastermind group we engage our whole brain and multiple dimensions of creative process for practical, focused results.

Sept 6. 10-4:30pm EDT in Northern VA. creativeemergence.com/storytelling3 An in-person transformative workshop for those in a work or life transition and ready to start creating your next..but might you not be sure what that is. Working consciously with our stories helps us extract opportunities from challenges, express more of who we are, and create next steps, even with a lot of unknowns. Leave with an emergent navigation process when the path isn't clear that you can use beyond the workshop setting, insights and practical next steps for your next chapter, a Story Playbook, more trust in yourself & the initial stage of your next. creativeemergence.com/storytelling3

I recently found out the first stage of a chick's birthing process is called pipping, where it breaks the shell and starts making a hole with its egg tooth. The chick then uses its egg tooth to break the shell in a circular pattern in the egg called zipping, for basically unzipping the shell in preparation to hatch. Then it goes into hatching, where it pushes off the shell to emerge out into the world. Apparently the time between pipping and hatching varies and can take up to 24 hours or more. It's laborious for that newborn, but important. The natural hatching process helps a chick to develop its muscles, lung function, blood supply, and get vital nutrients from the yolk. Removing the chick out of the egg before it has completed the process can cause lifelong problems for the chick - like taking a butterfly out of its cocoon. Similarly, it seems important to be discerning about what what we keep for ourselves to slog through in the creative process, even when it takes more time and is uncomfortable. Laboring through the messiness of the creative process can have real value not just in what's created, but in what we discover and how we grow or transform during the process. #creativity #emergence

Latest mandala drawn with colored pencils #handdrawn #originalart #meditativeart

Latest mandala drawn with colored pencils #handdrawn #originalart #meditativeart

Honored to be a guest on the Create and Grow Your Brain Capital podcast. In this episode on Cultivating Creative & Cognitive Flexibility we explore using applied improv for navigating uncertainty, tapping into creativity, leading with agility, and more podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epi…

FACILITATING CREATIVE PROCESS STARTS WITH RECEPTIVITY. Introducing creative activities to a group includes creating an environment of receptivity w them - getting the group out of resistance and into receptive mode. Enhancing receptivity starts w psychological, emotional, and physical safety. 1. Psychological safety, in this context, means people feel psychologically safe enough to fully engage in the experiences; to not be publicly embarrassed in a creative activity; to feel safe enough with potential discomfort to contribute to the group; to feel free to experience what they really experience; and to feel they can share what is true for them. 2. Emotional safety is feeling free to feel whatever feelings are there, and knowing that all feelings, not just thoughts, are welcome—including not liking an activity you facilitate. It’s about meeting them where they are, and letting whatever the feel about an experience to be OK. People have different reactions to activities based on who they are. Addressing this at the beginning of the session decreases resistance. They tend to dive in when they know they don’t have to pretend to like it, and feel more free to be themselves. They almost always find it way more enjoyable than they imagined. 3. Physical safety needs show up particularly when doing physical activities, or activities where there is a lot of energy. I facilitate a lot of interactive movement activities. Some people have physical challenges - obvious or not - and there are always ways to get everyone involved. Before physical activities, let participants know it will be a high-movement activity, and that for whatever reasons some people may have challenges, so the invitation is to do their own version within whatever range they can move. That does not single anyone out. By addressing this up front, a participant who is physically limited in some way can still fully participate and feel included. These 3 together create an experiential lab for low-risk, low-stakes practice to prepare for high-risk, high-stakes real life situations. #safecontainer #patternbreaksbook #creativefacilitation