Kim Hermanson's Blog, page 33

Five key qualities of creative genius

The five qualities below not only contribute to innovative programs and processes, they’re also fundamental for working effectively with others in fast-paced, highly creative environments. They draw on the capacities of both right brain and left brain, and strengthen connection with one’s own inner voice, while also honoring the wisdom of the larger collective group process.

The qualities are:

Third-space Perspective Creative thinkers can look at a problem from many different viewpoints, exploring a great diversity of options that may at first seem tangential. They are not stuck in one-way thinking. This ability to “see beyond” the ordinary takes us to a place I call Third Space.

Ambiguity Creative thinkers find and make connections between dissimilar concepts, holding incompatible subjects together until they see a relationship or pattern. Their minds are comfortable with the non-linear, which involves paradox, ambiguity and uncertainty.

Play Creative people can juggle elements into impossible juxtapositions, combine disparate elements to form new patterns, and shape wild hypotheses. The ability to play with novel concepts, taking risks to explore the limits of what is possible, are essential qualities of the creative process.

Metaphorical thinking Metaphors are a bridge between two dissimilar things. When we hold two dissimilar elements together in our mind, our thought patterns become suspended and our mind is forced to move to a new level. Yet metaphorical thinking is not something that needs to be forced. Given the appropriate supportive conditions, our minds naturally think metaphorically.

Beginner’s Mind The final quality involves being open to unexpected thoughts, ideas and solutions. As adults, it’s easy to fall into the role of expert, or at least, “been there, done that.” On the other hand, creative thinkers enjoy the state of not knowing, which some call “beginner mind.” When we’re open, when we allow ourselves to not have predefined ideas, we create space for a greater wisdom to present itself. This is the essence of the creative process.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into the deep potential of the creative, I’ve just made my Psychology of Creativity course available for sale.

Click here: https://www.kimhermanson.com/trainings/

Launch something new …and take the step that’s big enough

When people are ready to launch something new (…a workshop, a business, a creative work of art), they’ll sometimes take steps that are too small for them. This often stems from a fear of expressing their true vision. It also happens when they’re concerned about spending money on something that has an unknown outcome (…when we launch something new, we are by definition stepping into unknown territory).

For example, my client Mary wrote up a workshop description that she’d been talking about for months. She was finally launching her own work into the world…bravo! But she ended up “hedging” in the writing of it. Instead of sharing her true vision, she wrote something more conservative and restrained, something that seemed safer and more acceptable. Something that was more similar to what other people in her field were doing, rather than the original and unique work that she has to offer.

Sarah, a visual artist, took the wonderful step of renting studio space but ended up settling for a studio that was too small. In our session, what became clear is that her soul really wanted a studio that would be big enough to display several large canvases at once, so that the energies and themes would interact and play off one another. What Sarah really needs right now is SPACE. She won’t always need space, but right now, her work needs big space.

Of course, it’s great that both Mary and Sarah took these steps. But those steps aren’t going to be fully satisfying (or workable in the long run), because they weren’t big enough. Marsha moved into a small studio, and then realized it wasn’t a match for the work she was being called to do. She ultimately packed up everything and moved again. Mary had a nice experience teaching, but the participants didn’t get to see what she really had to offer because she was hiding it. She missed an opportunity to grow her own work.

I don’t want to diminish the importance of taking steps, but the truth is this: Often, when we don’t take the big step when it’s in front of us, it ends up costing us more time, energy, money and resources.

If you’re wondering about the size of the step that’s in front of you right now, please join me for my upcoming teleclass with Depth Psychology Alliance: Launch Your Soul’s Calling: Tapping Core Shamanic Energies & Guidance. December 8th, 1 – 3 pm PST. $45 includes recording of the class.

Click here to register

In the teleclass, you’ll be able to metaphorically see the vision and experience the energies of what your soul wants to create. You’ll have the added advantage of being able to work with me individually with your vision..

When we work with metaphor, we enter the sacred third space that lies beyond our mind’s perception of our work or situation. In third space, we know and can profoundly feel the deep truth of what wants to be created, and our alignment with it.

I invite you to take a pause from your busy life to feel/sense/see your own deep creative energies and how they want to move and express right now.

So your next step will be big enough for you.

When the Next Step…Isn’t Visible Yet

I once had a well-known psychic tell me, “your life is like a quilt with many different pieces. It will come together a piece at a time.”

That image has been helpful. I often get confused when I’ve finished a piece of the quilt (it’s been stitched in and there’s no more stitching to do…), and the next piece isn’t within sight.

And even though there surely must be a grand design of some sort, it often seems that when the next piece shows up, it doesn’t look like the rest of the pieces I’ve already stitched.

A truly creative life can be… puzzling.

Are you in a place where…you can’t see how the “pieces” are going to fit together?

Do you have a dream or faint inkling of Something Greater that you haven’t been able to move forward with?

Have you lost your focus and direction?

Are you yearning for deep connection with Higher Guidance?

 

If so, I invite you to join me for a special teleclass with Depth Psychology Alliance… Your Soul’s Calling on FRIDAY, December 8th, 1 to 3 pm PST.

In this experiential class, you’ll get answers, see opportunities and uncover resources that can’t be known any other way. When we’re confused, scared or disoriented, there’s absolutely nothing more important than taking time out to connect with Something greater than ourselves. More information is below.

NOTE: If you can’t make the actual event, the class WILL be recorded. You can listen and do the experiential process later, at your convenience.

 

Your Soul’s Calling: Tapping Core Shamanic Energy & Guidance

CLICK here to register

Friday December 8th 1 pm – 3 pm PST

(2 pm MST, 3 pm CST, 4 pm EST)

EARLY BIRD rate until Tues Nov. 21st: $39 includes recording

For those with a calling to do depth-oriented work, the path is rarely linear. Your soul’s gift is unique–there’s no pre-existing model or “6 Easy Steps” for how to get it out there. The process of developing and launching it is a sacred journey and those who take this journey are pioneers, creating the path as they go.

In this tele-class you will…

· See the synergy between what the world needs and what you are here to give

· Tap potent creative energies that will fuel and inspire your next step

· See inner resources & possibilities that can’t be revealed any other way

· Move forward focused and on fire

CLICK here to register

Ten lessons the arts teach…in an uncertain world

 

In today’s world and political climate, art and artists are needed more than ever. Here are ten qualities of being that they give us….

 

1. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world. Problems can have more than one solution and questions can have more than one answer.

2. The arts teach us that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties and allow us to become sensitive to nuance.

3. With art, judgment prevails over rules. We learn how to dwell in the unknown and see unlikely connections.

4. The arts allow us to learn about qualitative relationships. The beauty of a work is measured by its quality, rather than its quantity.

5. The arts teach us that in complex forms of problem solving, purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

6. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our understanding of the world.

7. The arts teach us to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help us learn to say what cannot be said. When we share what a work of art makes us feel, we must reach into our metaphoric capacities to find the words.

9. The arts enable us to engage in experiences that we can have from no other source, and through such experience… we discover the range and variety of what we’re capable of feeling and knowing.

10. The arts show us how to engage with something larger than ourselves. We’re no longer ‘small little brains’ walking around on the planet…we’re in touch with something greater.

 

Note: Elliot Eisner, professor of Education at Stanford, wrote a chapter fifteen years ago about what art in school teaches children. I’ve always wanted to expand upon what he wrote for adults, because in our violent, aggressive culture, we all need what art gives us. (To check out Eisner’s piece for children, see Chapter 4, “What the Arts Teach and How It Shows” pp. 70-92, in Eisner, E. 2002. The Arts and the Creation of Mind. Yale University Press.)

Our Hearts Determine What We REALLY See

Thirty-five years ago in an old, out-of-print book titled, Metaphors of Consciousness, depth psychologist Robert Romanyshyn shared a story about two men—a geologist and a botanist—who are walking together through a forest. They’re both walking through the same forest, but the botanist notices the flowers and trips over the rocks…while the geologist notices the rocks and steps on the flowers. There is only one forest, but the two men have quite different experiences of it.

It’s the heart that moved the botanist to be passionately curious about flowers and the geologist to be enamored with rocks. The geologist loves rocks and doesn’t see the flowers. The botanist loves flowers and doesn’t see the rocks.

So what does this mean?  Our loves and passions drive our curiosities and subsequently, what we notice. Our hearts give us the lenses that we look through in life.

What are YOU noticing today?

Truth…and healing…lie within you

Tomorrow I’m excited to be offering a special teleclass with Depth Psychology Alliance on healing. Feeling good in our physical bodies is a high priority in today’s world…with all the ongoing chaos, trauma and stress.

This class is also close to my heart because I’ve journeyed through my own health uncertainties. I’m in good health now, but last year I was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor that my ob-gyn said “looked suspicious.” She prescribed surgery and chemotherapy and I walked out of her office stunned.

Of course, I tuned into metaphor for guidance. The metaphoric image showed me I was walking through something uncertain, but I also saw myself standing on solid ground. In the image, I wasn’t standing “in muck,” there was nothing ominous hanging over my head or anywhere around me, and my body was strong and sturdy. This is the message that came through the image:

“I am walking on solid ground, fully centered in my body. I know I will be safe, even though I don’t know what lies ahead. I can move as fast or as slow as I would like. I can rest when I want to. I do not need to push. There is nothing scary around me. Only uncertain terrain.”

I knew without a doubt that I wasn’t in danger and that I could trust this message from Spirit. And so I did.

There’s only one place we can go to find out what is real…and ultimately, it’s not doctors or experts.

Truth—and healing—lie within us.

Each of us being grounded in our own metaphoric wisdom is radically important in today’s world. It’s way too easy to get thrown off…by the latest experts, doctors opinions, political pundits, twitter rants, and even conversations with well-meaning family and friends.

So if you are facing something uncertain or confusing, or simply want to gift your body with potent metaphoric healing energies, I hope you’ll join us.

More about the class is below, and here’s the link to register: https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eeogak8tf01e95e5&oseq=&c=&ch=

Healthy, Strong & Vital: Tapping Metaphor’s Healing Powers

Friday, October 27th 1 -3 pm PDT

$42 includes recording

Note: This teleclass WILL be recorded. If you can’t make it to the live event, you can still get the recording and do the experiential work on your own.

Whether you enjoy great health or you’re dealing with injuries or illness, all of us want to live life at our fullest. It’s a crazy world, and our physical bodies experience the cost of that hurry, stress, and overwhelm.

Please bring to the class whatever health concern or questions you’re currently dealing with—no topic or question is off-limits. (…and please remember that you may participate in the class anonymously. A gift of the teleclass format is that you can still receive the benefits of this work without revealing your name or identity.)

No matter what your current challenge might be—aches and pains, sexual issues, injuries, illness, instituting better habits of self-care, or simply wanting to feel more balanced and flexible—tapping the powerful healing capacities of metaphoric Source Energy will offer you healing, guidance and an energetic shift.

You will be able to see the metaphorical roots of health issues and challenges…and most importantly, what your body wants for healing.

move through the world with grace, ease and peace of mind
transform aging, illness, aches and pain
institute better habits of self-care
gain greater strength, flexibility and balance
flourish and thrive

Join us…and give your body a loving embrace.

“Not since Carlos Castenada’s books 40 years ago, have I had such a strong reaction. Kim’s work is pioneering.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, New York Times bestselling author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

To register: https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eeogak8tf01e95e5&oseq=&c=&ch=

11 universal metaphors for change that are present in all cultures

Metaphors function to stimulate and catalyze inner transformations.

These are the eleven key metaphors for change that are present in the literature of all world cultures*:

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
Moving through life events as a journey or path (or journeying toward a vision)
Returning to the source
Dying and being reborn
Unfolding the tree of our life

If you would like to uncover your own transformative metaphor, please join me for my upcoming tele-class with Depth Psychology Alliance:

Strong, Healthy, Vibrant: Metaphor’s Healing Powers Teleclass

Friday October 27th 1 – 3 pm PDT

$42 includes recording

If you can’t make it to the live event, you can still get the recording and do the experiential work on your own. 

REGISTER HERE

 

Whether you enjoy great health or you’re dealing with injuries or illness, all of us want to live life at our fullest. It’s a crazy world, and our physical bodies experience the cost of that hurry, stress, and overwhelm.

Please bring to the class whatever health concern or questions you’re currently dealing with—no topic or question is off-limits. (…and please remember that you may participate in the class anonymously. A gift of the teleclass format is that you can still receive the benefits of this work without revealing your name or identity.)

No matter what your current challenge might be—aches and pains, sexual issues, injuries, illness, instituting better habits of self-care, or simply wanting to feel more balanced and flexible—tapping the powerful healing capacities of metaphoric Source Energy will offer you healing, guidance and an energetic shift.

You will be able to see the metaphorical roots of health issues and challenges…and most importantly, what your body wants for healing.

move through the world with grace, ease and peace of mind
transform aging, illness, aches and pain
institute better habits of self-care
gain greater strength, flexibility and balance
flourish and thrive


Join us…and give your body a loving embrace.

 

“Not since Carlos Castenada’s books 40 years ago, have I had such a strong reaction. Kim’s work is pioneering.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, New York Times bestselling author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience 

“I had been suffering from skin allergies and I was not getting results from regular medical doctors. I was so surprised that this one session could lead to such amazing healing. And in addition, I’ve also lost the weight I’d gained during menopause. I’m very grateful.” ~ Lera Welch, Jungian Coach

“I’ve felt anything BUT sexual for quite a long time, and the  energies that came through in our session ‘woke me up’ in so many ways. What a gift for the sexual part of me to be alive and thriving again.” ~ T. Baker, therapist

REGISTER HERE

 

*Note: The list above is adapted from Ralph Metzner (2010). The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience. 

Kim Hermanson, PhD is an author and visionary guide who currently serves as adjunct faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is known for her skill in quickly shifting people out of spiritual and psychological difficulties into a place of profound beauty, healing and creative flow. She is the author of Getting Messy: Taking Risks and Opening the Imagination, Sky’s the Limit which received an Independent Publisher Award, and several articles with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, New York Times bestselling author of Flow. Her PhD is from the University of Chicago.

Your dance is fiercer…than the fire

It’s been a horrific fire season in Northern California and yesterday I had a speaking engagement in San Francisco where I knew that some of the participants would be evacuees from the fire. (So far the death toll is 40 and 90,000 are homeless. Wildfire has consumed people’s homes, entire communities, schools, businesses…)

I didn’t know what I would say to these people…How can I speak to men and women who right at this very moment were at risk of losing their homes? Who were not only grieving the community they loved, but also the lives of people they knew?

The message that came through in the Doorway session was for all of us, I believe. Because not only is California on fire, but the entire country has been going through crisis this year.

Your dance is more fierce than the fire. Use the fire to fuel your dance.

“I am dancing and the fire is near me. I’m afraid of it, but I know my dance is more important. My dance is fiercer than any fire. I will keep dancing even if I am consumed in flames. I will use my terror of the fire to fuel me…it will only make my dance fiercer. This is not about the fire, this is about the dance. And I will keep dancing.”

“The dance” of course, is metaphor…each of us have a dance that’s ours alone.  “Using the fire to fuel your dance” might seem naive and simplistic in the midst of a tragedy. But on the other hand, no matter what is happening in our external world, we each have a dance to express.

No matter what happens…may you keep expressing yours. Fiercely.

Healthy, Strong & Vital: Tapping Metaphor’s Healing Powers – teleclass

When I was growing up my mother always said that I was “accident prone.” Perhaps it’s because I broke my leg when I was two (by “putting my foot down” when the neighbor kid was pushing me too hard on the swing). I went on to break my wrist when I was 18 (by slipping and falling while working as a lifeguard cleaning out an empty swimming pool) and then T-12 in my back when I was 27 (via a head-on collision…I was not driving.)

When I think about all the desires I have in life, feeling good in my body is always at the top of the list. In my Doorway sessions, I’ve witnessed clients heal and transform physical challenges by tapping into metaphoric energies. I know this work is powerful. Let’s tap it.

Metaphoric work is shamanic. When we “enter into” and become a metaphoric image—like a shaman might become a snake or a tree—it brings us into a realm of powerful creative energies that lie beyond our linear minds. Metaphoric images serve as portals, doorways into a mystical realm of otherworldly energies that urgently wish to express through us. They allow us to directly connect with the deep creative forces of our world.

Why is this important? Because creativity is how change happens in life.

Our capacity to engage in this dynamic, underground metaphoric terrain gives us the remarkable ability to transform things that aren’t serving us. From resolving relationship difficulties to galvanizing a stagnating career, to healing depression, anxiety and physical ailments.

So if you have any health concerns at all, or you simply want to feel more alive and happy in your physical body…I hope you’ll join me.

The is a teleclass, so you can live anywhere in the world and participate. If you can’t make the class live, it WILL be recorded so you can listen later.

CLICK HERE to register: https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eeogak8tf01e95e5&oseq=&c=&ch=

Creating third space when you teach, train, coach or mentor

I’m getting ready to fly to the midwest to do a workshop and book event in my hometown. In honor of the occasion, I’m going to share a few words on “third space” in the teaching, training, coaching and mentoring relationship. (You can read more in chapter 6 of my book,

Getting Messy: A Guide to Taking Risks and Opening the Imagination.)

Third Space is one of the things that I find most captivating about teaching, or any other situation where a group of people come together for an intentional purpose. The philosopher Hannah Arendt called this space “an in-between,” theologians define it as a “Divine Third,” and Martin Buber called it “Thou.” When we form a relationship with something that we care about, that thing is no longer an “It.” There is a depth that is present, a sense of mystery. We are in relation with something that is “other” and it’s clear that we don’t have all the answers, we can’t figure this out ahead of time. All we can do is put whatever we have to say out there, see what comes back, and use feedback to alter course. Working with other people in this way is a deeply creative process. (And this concept doesn’t just apply to teaching or mentoring, think of relationships with your children or anyone else, for that matter.)

To honor the wisdom that is available in this third space we need to focus on creating space when we teach, train, coach or mentor. This is often hard to do because it’s counter-intuitive. When we are in a situation of teaching or leading others, it’s common to presume that our job is to “fill” the space with our agenda, information, and so on. But to honor the deeper wisdom that is present in the group or between individuals, we must focus on creating and holding that larger group space. The agenda is always secondary in importance to the space we create.

Here are some other ideas (in no particular order) for inviting third space. They seem quite simple, and I think perhaps that’s the point…

1) Create a space for yourself to be inspired. Teaching is a creative process and in order to access third space, you need to be in your own creative flow. Go somewhere where you feel expansive, somewhere you can look out on a vista—climb a mountain, hike along ocean cliffs, and so on. Stay until you feel your heart open and can breathe this expansiveness back with you. In order to inspire others, you have to stay inspired yourself. It’s a process—you may lose it for awhile, it may shift, it may be buried under your fear, and if you’ve taught something several times, you may have to work a little harder to find it. But in order to touch others, you need to be present with what it is that moves your own heart.

2) Be more interested in what the people in your group have to say than in what you have to say. Even if you’re teaching something heavily content-oriented, like how to read CT scans in a Radiology department, your students have questions, concerns, and points of interest. These questions, concerns, and points of interest are important. What you have to say is not so important. Take yourself and your own opinions, thoughts, and beliefs out of the group. If you have something you really want them to know, hand it out as written material for them to read. Your job is to facilitate what wants to happen, which doesn’t have anything to do with you personally. In order to get to third space, you need to drop not only your ego, but all of your ideas, expectations and attitudes, and teach from a place of emptiness. The English philosopher Douglas Harding calls it being “headless.” Check out his website at www.headless.org. A friend of mine believes that if you can’t do your work when you’re headless, then it’s not your real work.

3) Have a sturdy structure that gives each person equal time to share. This may seem obvious, but I believe great teachers are really sensitive about this issue and some people are more sensitive than others. There are people in your group who are shy and need encouragement and if you structure the group in such a way that they have space to share, it’s amazing how frequently they will offer the situation something brilliant, something that shifts the entire group in a deeper, richer direction. Of course, don’t push people to share if they don’t want to. Rather, have a structure that naturally gives each person equal time. It’s not true that the people who appear to have the “loudest” process need the most space inside the group. There’s a fascinating article that Jo Freeman wrote back in the 1970s titled “The Tyranny of Structurelessness.” Freeman describes in detail how in groups that don’t have proper structure, the people who are more dominant (more educated, more assertive, more well-spoken, more extraverted, and so on…) will move in to “take up” the group space. Don’t let this happen. You will definitely transform the group process if you just follow this simple principle. Alan Briskin gives a great example in his book, The Power of Collective Wisdom. In his example, it is 1966 and Cesar Chavez is holding a large community meeting with the goal of figuring out a way to reach the workers at a farm labor camp where his fledgling United Farm Workers have been barred from entering. The meeting was almost over when an old woman in the back of the room finally stands and timidly says that she knows she is “not qualified” to speak, but she has a little idea to share. This woman’s idea was what they had been waiting for.

Teaching is a great paradox. We’ve been trained to think that it’s about “leading” others, or filling up people’s heads with what we know. A friend and I often joke about how it often seems like we haven’t done anything at all. He’ll say to me, “Sometimes after a particularly amazing group, they’ll thank each other, but not me.” John Heider wrote this about group facilitators in his book The Tao of Leadership: “…their leadership did not rest on technique or theatrics, but on silence and on their ability to pay attention…They were considerate. They did no injury. They were courteous and quiet, like guests.” To reach third space, we need to remember we are guests in this experience, along with our students. What an honor.

I hope to see some of you in Dubuque!