Kim Hermanson's Blog, page 14
August 2, 2022
It’s a myth that complex problems require complex solutions.
It’s a myth that complex problems require complex solutions.
The more complex we get, the more we’re in our heads.
The more time we spend in our heads, the more we’re focusing on the problem and making it worse. Our thinking cycles around, it goes in loops.
So when you’re confused or need a solution, try doing less.
Doing less creates space for magic. It will give you a chance to drop down into your heart where REAL wisdom lives.
Simplicity allows room for healing, depth, and creativity to enter.
August 1, 2022
Holding the stance of “the one who knows” with a student or client creates a polarity. The other person now has something to defend against.
In his book, POWER IN THE HELPING PROFESSIONS, Jungian psychiatrist Adolf Guggenbuhl discusses how therapists, teachers, and medical practitioners create polarities with clients and students when they take on the role of “knower.” Jungian analyst John R. Haule calls this polarization a “split archetype.”
A split archetype happens whenever we know “what is best” for our patient (or mother, father, student, friend, lover): “One of us is all-knowing and all-powerful, and the other is ignorant, neurotic and powerless.” In such a situation, no healing or creativity has the space to occur, because we’re mired in a fixed (stuck) position.
When we hold the unwavering stance of “the one who knows” we create a polarity. We give the other person something to defend or argue against.
Try teaching or coaching from a place beyond the archetype that I call “third space” in my book GETTING MESSY: A GUIDE TO TAKING RISKS AND OPENING THE IMAGINATION FOR TEACHERS, TRAINERS, COACHES, AND MENTORS. Click here to find Getting Messy on Amazon.
July 15, 2022
My new article on Tiny Buddha!! Our creative genius shows us possibilities the rational mind can’t see
It takes courage to follow a creative path. It takes fortitude to go against the norm and follow an inner call. It takes resourcefulness to reassure parents and well-meaning friends & colleagues that you’re not crazy or out of your mind. But when we follow the nudges that don’t make any sense, that’s when whole worlds open up. Click here to read the article.
I’m SO excited to be part of the Tiny Buddha tribe. 
July 5, 2022
5 secret gifts of the arts
Personal Growth: 5 Secret Gifts of the Arts
1. The arts give us experiences of depth and insight that we can’t get from other sources.
2. The arts teach us how to work within a material. All art forms employ some means through which inner images and visions can become real.
3. Through their capacity for metaphor, the arts allow us to say things that can’t be ordinarily said.
4. The arts teach us how to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike finance or business in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
5. The arts demonstrate the range and variety of human emotion and feeling, and help us connect with those emotions. We’re able to tap feelings and memories with art that we can’t tap any other way.
Inspired by and adapted from Elliot Eisner, 2002, The Arts and the Creation of Mind. Yale University Press.
July 1, 2022
5 qualities of right-brain learning.
HEART WISDOM. Profoundly meaningful and deep. We are connected to ourselves, one another, and the earth.
NON-LINEAR. The creative doesn’t move the way we expect it to move and answers don’t arrive the way we expect them to.
ASYNCHRONOUS. The solutions are separate from the problem.
SIMPLE. Understanding is simple and elegant. It’s not complex or overthought. (Complexity often means we’re over-thinking.)
ANCIENT. The earliest humans learned in a similarly sensory and aesthetic way…. intimately connected with their natural environment.
Learning is about making connections. A shout-out to my book ‘Getting Messy.’
Giving a quick shout-out to my book GETTING MESSY: A Guide to Taking Risks & Opening the Imagination for Teachers, Trainers, Coaches & Mentors.
Check it out at online retailers or your local bookstore. Thanks! 
June 29, 2022
Ordinary world versus a world that honors imagination
We humans are blessed with the ability to imagine a world beyond the ordinary. Let’s make good use of that gift.
June 28, 2022
Everything rests on who you are. After that, the ‘how’ is easy.
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My first teaching job was in the teacher credential program at UC Berkeley. Many of the students in the program had been teaching for years and they simply needed my course to renew their recertification.
My class was titled “Instructional Strategies” and…. I’d never taught a course before in my life.
For three years, I taught classrooms full of experienced teachers with no real techniques or “strategies” under my belt. The only real method I had was to be a learner, to try things out and learn along with the students whether they worked or not.
It worked.
Students loved my classes. They weren’t asleep at their desks. They were participating in an inquiry that was ALIVE.
I didn’t present myself to them as someone who had all the answers. My job was to be a guide, to initiate with my students a conversation about the subject of teaching.
I worked with whatever arose and I drew the wisdom out of the room.
I didn’t need techniques and detailed lesson plans.
Everything rests on who you are. Once you have that, the “how” is easy.
This is an excerpt from Getting Messy: A Guide to Taking Risks and Opening the Imagination for Teachers, Trainers, Coaches, and Mentors. Check it out on Amazon.
June 27, 2022
Would you rather be a cloud or a tree? (metaphorically speaking)
Sometimes we need to be like water, offering no resistance, moving around obstacles.
Other times, we need to be sturdy and strong.
Sometimes we need to feel our strength.
Other times we need gentleness.
Right now, at this very moment, would you rather be a cloud or a tree?
Don’t let your mind judge your response. There is no right answer. Clouds are light, free, able to move. Trees are rooted. Both qualities are important in life. They are also very different.
Your answer says something for you to know.
Whether you chose a tree or a cloud, take a moment to breathe into its primary quality. For example, I chose cloud. As a cloud, I feel WHOLE, CONNECTED, and LIGHT.
June 26, 2022
Metaphors for change that are present in all cultures.
Metaphor stimulates and catalyzes inner transformation. When we define and clarify these deep metaphoric structures, we uncover an unconscious human language. Certain foundational metaphors occur over and over again in the world’s literature. They are:
Transitioning from caterpillar to butterfly.
Awakening from the dream of reality.
Uncovering the veils of illusion.
Moving from captivity to liberation.
Purification by inner fire.
Going from darkness to light.
Moving from fragmentation into wholeness.
Journeying toward a vision.
Returning to the source.
Dying and being reborn.
Unfolding the tree of our life.
Sprouting or growing from a seed.
For more, check out another blog post on my website:
https://lnkd.in/gGtHAyD
Inspired by Ralph Metzner’s 1998 book The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience by Origin Press.
