During the first eleven months of Fellowship activities, I worked with a wide range of people with different leadership skills and experiences, studied various materials, and contemplated on the role of creativity in relation to community resiliency. I also continued to practice my own creativity as a writer and dancer. I set out to examine different types of creative processes. I began my search by responding to the programming needs expressed by the acute psychiatric unit for children and adolescents at Mayo Clinic. Through this, I came to realize that creativity and its connection to healing is deeply relevant to how I am growing as a leader. One of the most surprising points was that creativity without boundaries is a stressful experience. As a leader, I became aware of the value of setting boundaries to the creative experience in order to gain a deeper focus.

Because I am deeply energized by learning, I welcomed many new learning opportunities. I also believe in the creative process where I could explore various perspectives and information to think about big topics such as community resilience and healing. However, I soon realized that each new piece of knowledge, realization, idea, and awareness required absorption, contemplation, and processing. The more I learned, the more overwhelmed I became. Every experience, explanation, theory, case study, and idea seemed connected, relevant and important. The more I learned, the more I realized how much more information and experiences I should be obtaining. Thus I overfilled myself. Once I felt overfilled, I stopped thinking creatively. I was a woman wearing a pair of pants that was a couple sizes too small; the fabric was stretched thin and tight around my waistline. I could not move freely. During this time, I had a chance to connect with a coach, June Noronha. June generously listened to me and challenged me with the question: “What matters to you? What is the sensation of this thing that matters to you?” Looking at the messy collection of many wonderful ideas, I was not sure how to answer her question. She guided me to close my eyes and feel the sensation of what mattered to me. Behind my eyes, I saw a completely black space with no answer. Then the sensation of my Yoga practice came to my mind. The sensation of extending my stretch while breathing deeply to the point it was both challenging and fulfilling was what mattered to me. June asked me to use this sensation as a guiding principle to decide what I chose. As abstract as this approach may seem, it made sense to me. With every idea that came my way, I asked my newly-organized being to examine it by asking, “Will this work provide the sensation of Yoga stretch? or is this simply a good exercise?” Navigating a self-directed study comes with the danger of not recognizing the boundaries of my own study. As I feel my way through this journey, I have discovered what I need to feel in order to know that I am on the right path for my leadership development.

As soon as I set the boundary regarding what was to be experienced and learned, a deep focus took place. I began to see that each idea has its own unique way of being processed, but only if I allowed the idea to sit in me and trust that it will communicate in a way that my conscious mind may not comprehend. I know how to be a proactive leader who thinks ahead, make plans based on identified goals, and frequently communicate with team members, allowing them to remain on the same page. These seemingly positive qualities turned out to be my point of examination as a leader. In the beginning of the fellowship, I desperately tried to organize my learning outcomes into a logical sequence and categories. I felt pressured to organize my learning experience and identify my next step. Thus at times, I would try connecting ideas. I discovered that ideas connected by my own hands didn’t thrive. Again and again, I saw that the ideas that connected organically did thrive, and these ideas have their own ways and timing for connection. Processing is like a yeasted bread dough rising; it takes time for the yeast to raise the dough into a shape that is ready to be baked. My leadership has shifted to a process that is led and educated by realizations that occur through contemplation.

Discovering the value of my own processing has changed to the way I work with others. During my fellowship period, I experienced working with people who resist change and became defensive. I also encountered people who became insecure and passive, waiting to receive instructions from me. Collaboration is a creative process where I need to hear my collaborators’ voices in order for me to be educated. So I constantly wonder how my approach, presence or absence, could promote others to express their own voices. I made a point to continue to practice listening to everyone fully and intently. Being involved in this type of deep listening has taught me to notice and catch deeper thoughts, ones that are hard to catch.

During my fellowship activities, I learned that exploring creativity is a hard work. It opens us up and helps us understand the complexity of our beings. Participating in this process is ultimately the work of healing. The practice of creative expression is the practice of resiliency. I am applying what I am learning from the role of creativity to become a leader who allows processing to meet the solution that is right for my community. As I strive to become a resilient leader, I also came to realize that a resilient community is about allowing a shift to occur and embraces the process that allows deep engagement. It is not about searching for a solution or closure. A resilient community is a community that values the process of starting, trying, learning, shifting, and starting again.