From Impossible to Elegant

By Michelle James

A few years ago I completed an intensive 5-year program in a psycho-physical healing modality called coreSomatics (at the Somatic Institute, Pittsburgh, developed and led by Kay Miller). coreSomatics is informed by depth psychology, Gestalt Psychology, the Feldenkrais Method, the Alexander Technique, other body-mind practices, and the expressive arts. During the program and since, I felt especially drawn to the philosophy and practices of Moshe Feldenkrais, the creator of The Feldenkrais Method. In describing movement — through awareness — in the body, the goal, he said, was to:

Make the impossible possible
The possible easy
And the easy elegant

It works. People practicing his Awareness Through Movement system can achieve miracles at making the "impossible" elegant. I have since come to believe this to be a universal evolutionary principle, true for all creative endeavors. We often do not get to see the elegance emerge because too often we just stop at the impossible.

When we get a vision or an impulse to innovate (which we actually do all the time if we pause to be in awareness), if we change the question of from "Is this possible?" (which often results in a no if there is no previous evidence to back up the vision) to "How might we make this possible?" (which assumes that is already possible, despite the lack of historical evidence, and we just need to discover the ways to create it forth) we are on the evolving path to elegance. •

© 2008 Michelle James

About the Author | More by Michelle James
Michelle James, CEO of the Center for Creative Emergence, is a creativity catalyst, consultant and coach to individuals and organizations. Along with designing and facilitating corporate and public creativity programs internationally, Michelle is a performer of improvised plays, an artist, and founder of the Capitol Creativity Network in Washington, DC.

01/03/08