Architecture is revisioned through Susanka's Not So Big concept, design which starts with the wants and needs of owners. "Masculine" vs. "Feminine" struggle archetypically with house design. Gendlin's Focusing, and Active Listening look for compromise in designing from the inside (unique wants/needs/functions) out as well as the outside (site, location, artistic vision) in.
Kay Redfield Jamison studied the relationship between creativity and madness. She terms manic-depressive, or bipolar, disorder "a terminal illness," e.g., if not treated with appropriate medication and/or psychotherapy, ending in death. Did Michael Jackson and other extremely creative people who died prematurely from addiction, suicide, and reckless living suffer from manic-depressive disorder? Is there a way to treat the "super-human" energy of creativity without dimming its spark?
Creativity comes from inside, from articulation of The Creative Edge, the "something-more-than-words" experienced as intuitions, gut instincts, the vague, blurry "feel" of "the whole thing." Creative Edge Listening and Creative Edge Focusing are self-help skills that facilitate exploration of the "not-yet-known. Applications at home and work, alone, for interpersonal conflict and for creative problem solving in organizations.
Intuitive Focusing, based on Gendlin's Focusing, is a six-step self-help process for going deeper into vague, bodily-felt discomforts, intuitions, gut instincts legitimated by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. When just-right words and images are found for the "bodily-felt sense" of issues and ideas, "Ahah!" experiences, transformation, paradigm shifts follow. George Soros uses something like Intuitive Focusing in deciding when to rearrange his portfolio. Focusing can be used for problem solving at home and at work. A child's first exploration of a Christmas present makes a good visual image of this "going deeper" into the "implicit" information held in the "bodily-felt sense.
Photos of Yellowstone mists, mud pots, steaming cauldrons, geisers are used to illustrate the ever-changing nature of the psyche and the Intuitive Focusing process, a simple self-help skill for "sitting with" this teeming creativity and finding words and images which allow a techtonic shift, an Instant "Ahah!" of insight and creative problem solving. The Creative Edge Focusing Pyramid allows the use of Intuitive Focusing at home and at work, alone, in conflict, for group problem solving.
Intuitive Focusing involves noticing that there is "something more than words" inside and making the decision to stop, pause, and spend some time "sitting with" this "intuitive feel" until it is allowed to open and "carry forward" into new actions steps, solutions and ideas. Here, a cat models this "sitting with."
Photos of lotus flower unfolding (in Arkansas!) are metaphor for the gentle opening from potential to actualization that comes from Intuitive Focusing.
Creative Edge Organizations encourage creative, innovative problem solving from each individual's fresh, intuitive, right-brain thinking by teaching Intuitive Focusing and Focused Listening as basic skills of "emotional and social intelligence." The exchange of Focusing/Listening turns builds feelings of "buy in" and "community" while encouraging innovation, creativity, and diversity.
Winged Migration video and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis music both create transcendent, transformative spiritual experiences, moments of stepping out of the "every day" into the Sacred.
Instant "Ahah!" Mini-Manual Complete Focusing Instructions Manual (17 pages) "Ajas" Instantaneos Mini-Manual CREATIVE EDGE FOCUSING(tm) SELF-HELP SKILLS FOR HOME AND WORK Creative Edge Focusing (www.cefocusing.com ) teaches two basic self-help…