Kim Hermanson's Blog, page 18

Spirals take my client on a journey into depth.

In my coaching work, a client’s deep metaphoric patterns will come through as a primary shape. Most commonly, these are line, circle, square, triangle, and spiral. (They can also show up as “no shape”–like vastness or flow, or an entirely unique shape.)

Squares (clarity and good boundaries) and circles (wholeness, individuation) show up frequently, but triangles and spirals are much less frequent. Triangles are about groundedness and vision. Spirals bring direction and focus.

Spirals take my client on a journey into depth and they frequently show up with artists and writers. If someone is being deeply pulled by Spirit into creative work, that person will get a spiral. The spiral will be moving in a clockwise direction.

(On the other hand, if the client is engaged in deep healing and reclaiming missing parts of herself and her feminine or ancestral lineage, the spiral will move in a counterclockwise direction.)

Some of the images that bring spiral energy are whirlpools, coiled snakes, growing roots in the ground, and conical shells. Receiving a spiral image is unique and special.

For more on the healing power of metaphor, check out my new book, Deep Knowing: Entering the Realm of Non-Ordinary Intelligence.

 

A focus on beauty will replenish you, enhance your work, and keep you awake.

When Dostoevsky said, “Beauty will save the world,” he didn’t mean surface beauty. He meant poetic beauty. Or as James Hillman said: “the way in which the Gods touch our senses, reach the heart and attract us into life.”

THAT kind of beauty will save the world.

No matter what you do, focusing on beauty will replenish you, enhance your work, and keep you awake and present.

For example, neuroscientist Elizabeth Gould found that natural and beautiful environments feed our brains and support the production of new neurons, while ugly, unstimulating environments stop the brain’s generative process.

In other words, beautiful environments support our brilliance. The more you satisfy your heart’s need for beauty, the more inspiration you’ll have.

Beauty is where life resides. Stay close to it.

 

Excerpted from my book Getting Messy: A guide to taking risks and opening the imagination for teachers, trainers, coaches, and mentors.

Breakthroughs arrive in non-rational ways.

All of us hold a vast reservoir of non-verbal, non-rational, non-cognitive wisdom. When we loosen our fixation on what we think, this other reservoir of wisdom has a chance to present itself.

Truly innovative solutions require that we explore beyond what we logically know.

Because breakthroughs arrive in non-rational ways.

If you want to understand more about how creative breakthroughs happen, check out my new book, Deep Knowing: Entering the Realm of Non-Ordinary Intelligence.

 

When you’re not sure what to do, just find the next note.

The composer Leonard Bernstein would complain sometimes about being dry and blocked. During those times, he’d sit for long hours at the piano and just improvise–strum chords or try a sequence of notes.

And then suddenly, he would find one chord or note that “hit.” That one note suggested the next.

Bernstein said that the whole point of composing was not to find one chord or note. It was only when they progressed to another chord or note that something meaningful was created.

So… when you’re not sure what to do, look for the next note.

Change happens when we see the next new connection.

If you feel stuck or confused, look for the next note. That’s all you need.

 

When you’re not sure what to do, look for the next note.

The composer Leonard Bernstein would complain sometimes about being dry and blocked. During those times, he’d sit for long hours at the piano and just improvise–strum chords or try a sequence of notes.

And then suddenly, he would find one chord or note that “hit.” That one note suggested the next.

Bernstein said that the whole point of composing was not to find one chord or note. It was only when they progressed to another chord or note that something meaningful was created.

So… when you’re not sure what to do, look for the next note.

Change happens when we see the next new connection.

If you feel stuck or confused, look for the next note. That’s all you need.

 

Spirit doesn’t care about credentials

I spent years trying to fit into traditional boxes, yet never fitting in, because a spiritual calling will never fit into a box. I spent more years not trusting what Spirit was showing me; feeling that I wasn’t the right person for what I was being called to do. I wanted a safe and normal life–I didn’t want to make waves, speak out, or bring attention to myself. My clients are also people who have been spiritually called and they rarely have the proper training or credentials. Spirit doesn’t care about credentials. Spirit also doesn’t care if you feel you’re too old, tired, or not ‘good enough.’ A spiritual call will haunt you until you heed its message. You are the only one who can answer your spiritual call. It’s unique, and I suggest you listen to it.

Beauty explains how the universe works.

Albert Einstein sought beauty in his scientific theories. For Einstein, a theory should not only be useful, but also elegant. A beautiful theory was one that could explain something complex in a simple and graceful way. (He said, “when the solution is simple, God is answering.”)

Einstein was convinced that beauty was a guiding principle in the search for important results in theoretical physics. As soon as an equation seemed to him to be ugly, Einstein lost interest in it. His colleague Hermann Bondi said Einstein couldn’t understand why somebody would spend any time on ugly equations. I think we could go one step further.

I think we could say that–consciously or not–beauty is how ALL of us find our most important answers. We seek beauty in our lives, even if we’re not consciously aware of that inner desire. We hunger for beauty as we do for food.

Beauty explains how the universe works. I believe it best explains how our lives work as well.

 

“If there is no feeling, there is no great art.” – Ray Bradbury

When I wrote the art book Sky’s the Limit, I spent hours interviewing the gifted artist, Nancy Cawdrey. I adore Nancy’s work and I’m inspired by her artistic process. She emphasized to me how much training she’d had.

But the women of Gee’s Bend blow the idea that artists need extensive training out of the water. Critics have hailed their work as the greatest modern art of the twentieth century.
Yet the early quilters in this community were enslaved and uneducated. None of the Gee’s Bends quilters had ever left their small, isolated, poverty-stricken rural community.

It makes me wonder, “Who is an artist?”

Is an artist someone who has training?

Or is an artist someone who’s been moved by a vision?

Or someone who’s in love with something and wants the rest of us to love it too?

Ray Bradbury once said, “If there is no feeling, there cannot be great art.” I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

Some thoughts on social media

Back in the early 2000s, before social media was an industry, I knew a woman named Carol who maintained a huge social network. And much like today’s social media, it involved constantly relaying her sexy vacations and all the fun she was having in her life.

I was in a group with Carol and one evening she let her guard down and admitted that it required a tremendous amount of her energy to consistently seek and cultivate so much applause.

At the time, she was dying of cancer. But Carol kept up the extensive social facade until the day she died.

I sometimes wonder whether she would have had more resources for her own healing if she had redirected her energy toward herself rather than others.

I have a client who has 2 million followers on Instagram. Her underlying energy pattern is of being “stuck”—she is stuck needing to maintain these people’s opinions of her. There is no downtime. No time to pause and understand what REALLY is going on with her.

Of course, not all social media is bad. I absolutely love how it connects us. I love that it keeps me in touch with people I haven’t seen for 20 years and allows me to meet new people. I love the creativity. And I love strangers’ inspirational posts, especially during these times of such worldwide crisis.

But if our personal resources and attention are being spent solely toward maintaining large social media followings, that’s an enormous amount of energy.

Living and expressing our true creative gifts requires turning our attention to our own deep knowing. It requires a focus on one’s inner life. Sometimes we need to look within. And when we do that, other people’s opinions don’t matter so much.

I’m in this business group and the big thing is how many Instagram followers one has. That’s our culture too. The more outrageous you can be, the more attention you can attract, the better. It doesn’t matter at all if you’re sharing anything of any substance or value. If all you care about is followers, you probably aren’t.

In the meantime, there’s a whole other inner world that wants to express itself through you.

 

Some thoughts about bullying

One of the deep issues in my life has been crumbling in the face of bullies. And even, crumbling in the face of aggressive people.

Maybe it’s the “awe-shucks” Iowa farm girl community I was raised in.

But for whatever reason, bullying “mean girl” energy takes me straight back to my first trip away from home–girl scout camp in the third grade. The very first night, the girls in my tent made fun of me behind my back. I was so scared and out of my element.

This all surfaced again because the new “bachelor” Clayton Echard reminds me of myself. It was interesting that the very first night, someone actually said she “hated” him. She said, “I could eat him up for breakfast.”  (And she didn’t mean that in a good way.)

Clayton Echard comes off as a very nice guy, perhaps a bit naive and not socially slick. And because he’s not aggressive, he’s…hated?

This is the world we live in. A world of bullies and people “winning.” No wonder Trump has been admired by so many. Or that The Real Housewives tv shows are so popular.

Bullying is their mojo. It’s a normal way of life.

Like there’s no other way to be.

 

P.S. This blog post isn’t about Russia. But I stand with Ukraine.