🎙️ Getting off the conveyor belt of production with Maria Bowler
Feb 17, 2025
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Maria Bowler, author and creative coach, shares her journey from magazine editing to exploring spirituality with nuns. She discusses redefining productivity and embracing a life of creativity. Maria emphasizes seeing schedules as supportive tools, rather than constraints, and encourages parents to embrace early emotional struggles with compassion. The conversation also touches on our complex relationship with social media and the importance of nurturing tiny moments of joy in a challenging world. A fascinating exploration of being versus doing awaits!
Embracing failure and viewing it as a vital part of the creative process fosters personal growth and deeper self-awareness.
Transforming structures and schedules into supportive tools encourages authentic creativity and shifts the focus away from rigid expectations.
Deep dives
Navigating Failure and Self-Expression
Embracing failure as a part of the creative process is essential for personal growth. The speaker emphasizes the importance of experiencing setbacks and course-correcting along the way, highlighting that the journey involves trial and error. This perspective allows individuals to rethink their relationship with creativity and self-expression, acknowledging that struggles with routines and productivity often stem from deeper personal issues. By understanding these challenges, one can begin to explore their internal resistance and harness it as a source of insight and strength.
Reframing Structure and Support
The discussion touches on the significance of viewing structures and schedules as supports rather than limitations imposed by society. Rigid expectations can create feelings of inadequacy when one fails to meet them, leading to self-judgment. Instead, recognizing that structures should be designed to nurture individual growth can transform the experience of using them. Cultivating this supportive relationship helps individuals navigate their creative paths more freely and authentically.
The Importance of Being Present
Being present and attentive to one’s internal world is crucial for understanding personal creativity and productivity. The conversation highlights the tension between being focused on external expectations and nurturing one's self during creative endeavors. Engaging with oneself requires moving away from a mindset prioritizing outcomes and instead fostering a sense of being in tune with one’s emotions and needs. This presence not only enriches the creative process but also shapes a healthier relationship with self and others.
Creativity Amidst World Challenges
Addressing the feelings of guilt and insignificance that can arise in the face of global crises is a common struggle for creatives. There is a tendency to undervalue personal projects when confronted with larger societal issues, leading to burnout and self-doubt. However, embracing creativity as an essential response to the world’s challenges allows individuals to engage deeply with their experiences. Acknowledging the significance of creative work helps reunite personal expression with a sense of community in addressing collective struggles.
We cannot wait for you to hear our conversation with Maria Bowler. Maria's life has followed a delightfully winding path from magazine editor to an MA in religious studies, from years studying with nuns to creative coach. She is also who Caitlin wants to be when they grow up and, most recently, an author of the recently released book, Making Time: A New Vision for Crafting a Life Beyond Productivity. At the heart of it, Maria generously offers us tools for getting off the conveyor belt of production and into a life of being/making – a creative life that keeps us connected to reality. Our conversation came at exactly the right time.
Tune in to hear us talk about:
👤How Maria Bowler became Maria Bowler (hint: it involves "failing" a lot).
🛝 Looking at schedules as supports and goals as playgrounds (not structures we need to fit our beings into).
🍼 Early parenting emotions (and the shame that comes when we judge them).
✨ The fruitful relationship between reality and imagined futures.
🌱 Valuing the tiny when the world's suffering is enormous.
📱Our shifting relationships with social media.
🔥 Trusting what is alive in us and expanding our creative edges.
⛪ Maria's time with the Benedictine nuns and how that shaped her understanding of creativity.