Kim Hermanson's Blog, page 23

Ultimately, our own creativity is the only thing that will renew us.

Ultimately, our own creativity is the only thing that will renew us.

Five Ways to Boost Creativity:

1. Embrace what you love
2. Stay curious
3. Remain connected to what feels true
4. Be open to fresh possibilities that invite you to think in terms of a larger whole.
5. Develop the ability to decipher what speaks to you.

For more ways to ignite your creative brilliance, download the 8 Steps for Inspired Breakthroughs with the Power of Metaphor on my website.

It’s counter-intuitive, but opening up space is more important than filling it.

It’s counter-intuitive, but opening up space is more important than filling it.

Many who teach, train, coach, or mentor focus on content and strategies, but it’s the opening of space that’s transformative.

When we focus solely on content, learning becomes static. We have no room to let the wisdom under the surface reveal itself.

Today, shift your focus to the space.

If you want to discover Third Space with your students, clients, employees, or community, I invite you to check out Getting Messy: A Guide to Taking Risks and Opening the Imagination for Teachers, Trainers, Coaches, and Mentors. 

Space under the surface

Space under the surface.

Have you ever found yourself saying, “I feel inspired around her” or “I get amazing insights in that person’s seminars” or “I don’t know what you said, but it shifted everything.”?

Those are examples of how we (perhaps unwittingly) create space for others’ growth.

Magda Cragg said her husband, the poet Lew Welch, “made space around you so you could grow.”

Magda was putting words to something that generally goes unnoticed.

While it’s difficult for us to see this kind of space, when we experience a lack of space for our growth, it’s quite noticeable.

For more about this “third space” and how we can create it for others (and ourselves!) …. check out Getting Messy: A Guide to Taking Risks and Opening the Imagination for Teachers, Trainers, Coaches and Mentors

“The role of imagination is to awaken, to disclose the ordinarily unseen, unheard, and unexpected.” ~ Maxine Greene

Imagination allows us to break through habitual ways of perception and patterns of behavior. It lets us see the world as if it could be otherwise.

Our imaginations offer us space.  When you open your imagination–when you see beyond what you currently know–that feeling of spaciousness will feed you. Your world is now bigger.

You could think of the imagination as breathing room for the soul.  

Maxine Greene said, “The role of imagination is to awaken, to disclose the ordinarily unseen, unheard, and unexpected.”

Shamanic images are alive. You can feel them.

When I work with clients, I guide them on a short inner journey to receive an image that will change their life.

When I first started working with clients, occasionally someone would share an image that their thinking mind had manufactured. They didn’t want to see what Spirit had in store for them.

Because I’ve been working with the intelligent field for so many years, I can tell when an image has come from the thinking mind–it has no vibrational frequency.

There’s an energetic feeling sense of “nothing there.”

Have you ever stood next to a dead body? After my father passed, I stood next to his body at the funeral home, desperately wanting to get one last sense of him.

But there was nothing there. No life, no vibration, no pulse.

That’s the way manufactured images are. They have no life. (Of course, I can tune into my father’s presence in other ways, but it’s no longer available to me through his human body.)

Shamanic images have an energy and a vibrational frequency. 

Just as we humans carry gifts that can’t be seen on the surface and just as we can’t really know a human by merely looking at him or her, shamanic images carry gifts that can’t be seen on the surface. To uncover those gifts, we have to perceive the image in a different way.

I start by getting a sense of how the image occupies space. Instead of LOOKING AT the image, I BECOME it. Becoming the image takes me beyond my linear mind into a powerful field of shamanic energy.

Becoming the image makes absolutely no sense to the thinking mind and many of my clients have difficulty grasping this idea. For example, if the image is a cave, the person will typically visualize themselves inside of the cave or next to it, because that’s what makes logical sense.

Looking out the window right now, I see a white truck. To work with this image shamanically, I don’t see myself sitting INSIDE of the truck. Instead, I notice what it feels like to BE the truck. I have a metal body. I notice that my engine is located in my front end and it’s much heavier than my back end. I notice that my body is resting on the chassis and that I’m dependent on my wheels for movement.

Let’s say you receive an image of a castle. You might naturally start by noticing the features of the castle—its doors, walkways and other features. But to work with an image’s shamanic powers, you want to start by working with its shape. In fact, don’t even see it as a castle. For right now, it’s a 3-dimensional blob with an outer edge and perimeter.

Feel how big you are, feel how you take up space. Notice whether you feel solid or rigid or tight, or whether any part of you feels fuzzy or unformed.

All healthy humans have good boundaries and when we’re working with an image that has form (a castle has form, the ocean doesn’t have form), I want to know what its boundaries feel like. Do I feel like I have “good form?” If not, an issue with boundaries is revealing itself.

Let the image be as big as it wants to be. Just as we humans want to grow to our full size, images also want to be their full size. Notice whether any part of the image feels closed or shut down.

Because the image is alive, we can feel/sense for any movement. The image might want to stay put and be still, it might want to rest into the ground (or whatever is beneath it), or it might have another direction it wants to go.

What do you notice?

When we work with shamanic images, being a beginner is absolutely necessary. We DON’T KNOW what the image wants to share with us and whatever it is, it will be a surprise and not what we think.  For example, a client saw herself standing in a rectangular hole in the shape of a coffin in the ground. Of course, her mind freaked out when she saw this, but the energetic qualities of this image were quite the opposite of death. The message was about allowing herself to be planted in the soil like a seed. She was on a path of fresh, organic growth.

A shamanic image will feel expansive. Even if the message of the image is to grieve, there will be an expansive feeling of deep peace. It will feel like a deep “ah” as you finally allow yourself to settle into truth.
 

Psychology of metaphor course syllabus

The syllabus for my Psychology of Metaphor course is below. Click here for more details on the Books and Courses page.

Metaphors form the foundation of our thinking in everyday life. They are the primary tools for personal growth and social change.

In this course, our first task is to become conscious of how we use metaphor and the ways in which metaphorical thinking shapes our everyday realities. Then we move to a deeper level of analysis–investigating the rich ways in which metaphorical images and “seeing life as a poet” enriches and enhances our relationship to ourselves, other people, and the world around us. In ancient Greek, the word metaphor means “a transformer.”

Metaphor allows us to see at a deeper level of understanding, enabling us to see possibilities and potentials that we wouldn’t ordinarily see.

Unit 1: METAPHOR IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Unit 2: METAPHOR AS AN AESTHETIC WORLD

Unit 3: METAPHOR AS CREATIVE PROCESS

Unit 4: METAPHOR AND THE NATURAL WORLD

Unit 5: THE METAPHORIC MIND

Unit 6: METAPHOR IN TEACHING, RESEARCH AND COUNSELING

You can purchase the license to teach this course to your own adult students, clients, or community. It includes handouts, class activities, references, and supplemental resources.

By the way, if you’re interested in incorporating metaphor into your current practice or helping others do that, you will not find this material anywhere else. Much of it is based on writings that are out-of-print and inaccessible to the general public. I’ve taught versions of this course at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and Meridian University.

 

Psychology of Metaphor Course Syllabus

The syllabus for my Psychology of Metaphor course is below. Click here for more details on the Books and Courses page.

Metaphors form the foundation of our thinking in everyday life. They are the primary tools for personal growth and social change.

In this course, our first task is to become conscious of how we use metaphor and we the ways in which metaphorical thinking shapes our everyday realities. Then we move to a deeper level of analysis–investigating the rich ways in which metaphorical images and “seeing life as a poet” enriches and enhances our relationship to ourselves, other people and the world around us. In ancient Greek, the word metaphor means “a transformer.”

Metaphor allows us to see at a deeper level of understanding, enabling us to see possibilities and potentials that we wouldn’t ordinarily see.

Unit 1: METAPHOR IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Unit 2: METAPHOR AS AN AESTHETIC WORLD

Unit 3: METAPHOR AS CREATIVE PROCESS

Unit 4: METAPHOR AND THE NATURAL WORLD

Unit 5: THE METAPHORIC MIND

Unit 6: METAPHOR IN TEACHING, RESEARCH AND COUNSELING

You can purchase the license to teach this course to your own adult students, clients, or community. It includes handouts, class activities, references, and supplemental resources.

By the way, if you’re interested in incorporating metaphor into your current practice or helping others do that, you will not find this material anywhere else. Much of it is based on writings that are out-of-print and inaccessible to the general public. I’ve taught versions of this course at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and Meridian University.

 

Psychology of Metaphor Course syllabus

Hey folks,

So many of you have been interested in my research work on the psychology of metaphor, and so I’ve included the rough syllabus for my Psychology of Metaphor course below.

I’ve taught versions of this course at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and Meridian University.  To get more details, it’s on my Books and Courses page: Psychology of Metaphor Course.

Unit 1: METAPHOR IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Unit 2: METAPHOR AS AN AESTHETIC WORLD

Unit 3: METAPHOR AS CREATIVE PROCESS

Unit 4: METAPHOR AND THE NATURAL WORLD

Unit 5: THE METAPHORIC MIND

Unit 6: METAPHOR IN TEACHING, RESEARCH AND COUNSELING

 

You can purchase the license to teach this course to your own adult students, clients, or community. It includes handouts, class activities, references, and supplemental resources.

By the way, if you’re interested in incorporating metaphor into your current practice or helping others do that, you will not find this material anywhere else. Much of it is based on writings that are out-of-print and inaccessible to the general public.
 
 

Psychology of creativity course syllabus

Hey folks, A lot of you have asked about my Psychology of Creativity syllabus. I’ve taught versions of this course at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and Meridian University. The outline of the syllabus is below. To get more details, it’s on my Books and Courses page: Psychology of Creativity Course.

Unit 1: CREATIVITY & EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

Unit 2: IMAGERY & SYMBOLIC EXPERIENCE

Unit 3: THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Unit 4: THE MAKING OF CREATIVE GENIUS

Unit 5: THINKING LIKE AN ARTIST

Unit 6: TEACHING, RESEARCH & COUNSELING

You can purchase the license to teach this course to your own adult students, clients, or community. It includes handouts, class activities, references, and supplemental resources.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Psychology of Creativity Course Syllabus

Hey folks, A lot of you have asked about my Psychology of Creativity syllabus. I’ve taught versions of this course at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and Meridian University. The outline of the syllabus is below. To get more details, it’s on my Books and Courses page: Psychology of Creativity Course.

Unit 1: CREATIVITY & EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

Unit 2: IMAGERY & SYMBOLIC EXPERIENCE

Unit 3: THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Unit 4: THE MAKING OF CREATIVE GENIUS

Unit 5: THINKING LIKE AN ARTIST

Unit 6: TEACHING, RESEARCH & COUNSELING

You can purchase the license to teach this course to your own adult students, clients, or community. It includes handouts, class activities, references, and supplemental resources.

Let me know if you have any questions!