Letting Go of Perfectionism: Embracing Authentic Creativity with Maria Bowler

What if releasing the grip of perfectionism could open the door to a more authentic and fulfilling life? 

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Maria Bowler, an esteemed author, coach, and retreat leader, as she uncovers the transformative power of embracing imperfections. Maria shares her personal journey of navigating motherhood during the early days of the COVID pandemic, revealing how challenges and unpredictability shaped her understanding of presence, creativity,  and authenticity. Discover how aligning internal values with external expressions can help bridge the gap between our inner desires and outward actions, making creativity a vital force in our daily lives.

In this episode, we tackle the hurdles of people-pleasing and perfectionism, especially among high-achieving women who fear that letting go will diminish their drive. Maria and I discuss how societal pressures and internalized fears can stifle true creativity and fulfillment, sharing insights on bringing authentic desires to the forefront. Through personal anecdotes, we highlight the power of embracing creativity in everyday moments, whether it's in business, motherhood, or simple activities like a walk. We also confront the resistance faced when adopting new perspectives, such as the Enneagram, and how overcoming these barriers can lead to more meaningful and genuine expressions of self. Tune in for a powerful reminder of the importance of being present and authentic in all facets of life.

Key Highlights:

1. The Performance Trap: Explore how the pressure to perform can overshadow our true selves and hinder personal growth (7:05).
2. Quality vs. Quantity: Discuss the balance between doing less and engaging in activities that bring genuine joy and energy (12:03).
3. Creative Authenticity: Learn why it’s crucial to share your creativity with those who trust your intentions, fostering deeper connections (19:07).
4. Taking Responsibility: Maria emphasizes the importance of owning our circumstances and the power we have to effect change (37:00).
5. Finding the Magic: Understand how focusing too much on tidying up can make us miss the beauty in life’s messiness (39:00).
6. Exploring the Shadows: Discover that resistance often signals the presence of informative "shadowy" parts of ourselves (56:38).
7. Redefining Productivity: Maria challenges the notion that we don’t want to do things; instead, we seek to do them differently. Releasing perfectionism can lead to a more authentic life (56:54).

About Maria: 
Maria Bowler is an author, coach, and retreat leader. She holds a masters in religion and the arts from Yale University, is a former magazine editor, and has taught creative writing at the university level. Canadian by birth, she now lives in the Driftless Region of the US with her family.

Connect with Maria:
Website

Chapters

• 0:02 Exploring Creativity and Identity in Motherhood
• 16:03 Embracing Authenticity and Creative Expression

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a somatic healing practitioner and a holistic life coach for moms, and this podcast is for you. You can expect honest conversations and incredible guests that speak to health, healing and growth in every area of our lives. This isn't just strategy for what we do. It's support for who we are. I believe we can be wildly ambitious while still holding all of our soft and hard humanity as holy. I love combining deep inner healing with strategic systems and no-nonsense talk about what this season is really like. So grab whatever weird health beverage you're currently into and let's get into it. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today I have an awesome guest, maria Bowler.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Maria is an author, a coach and a retreat leader. She holds a master's in religion and arts from Yale University, is a former magazine editor and has taught creative writing at a university level. Me and Maria dive into creativity, productivity and even talking about consistency, and she talks about coming home to herself from motherhood and how each of us, whether you think you're creative and you live creativity maybe it's in your business, maybe it's just something that you do, or, especially if you're someone who you don't think of yourself as a creative, but you're really craving more play, more fun and really having this life force that bubbles from out of you. Maria teaches us how to do that. We just have such a powerful conversation about creativity. Let me tell you the potency of this conversation, especially when we start talking about being so present and what that actually feels like. She teaches us about quality of presence.

Speaker 1: 1:56

I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode, so let's get into it. Maria, it is so good to have you here today. On the podcast I was sharing with her before we started recording that your content just kept coming up and it just was resonating so deeply and I don't think I ever connected how much creativity has been a part of my consistency or my business, or even just in my day-to-day life. It's not really something that I put a lot of thought in, and you had a quote on your Instagram that I just loved. The reason we feel so frantic to get enough done to get somewhere else is because of who we think we get to be when we get there Can you share a little bit about who you are and the work that you're doing right now in the world, your creativity in the world.

Speaker 2: 2:49

Thank you for that question and thank you for having me. I the titles I give myself are um, writer and retreat leader, and and coach Um, but my journey to get there has been very varied. What's been consistent is I've been curious about going alongside people as they sort out what is most valuable to them in their life and how they can match their insides and their outsides. We have this idea that we want to express what matters to us, whether it's in our home or in a piece of art, because I often work with creatives, but the process of getting the inside to the outside can feel really full of perfectionism and, um, why can't I do it enough? And why is it that I have the outside looking as good as possible, but my heart is like struggling and I'm feeling like I'm not there yet? It is so fascinating how that experience has shown up, no matter where I've gone. So, for example, I taught creative writing and I would find that people would struggle with matching what it is that they really want to say with the work of actually doing it.

Speaker 2: 4:30

My own journey has started with just like really wanting to be a prolific writer, and I was given all the advantages to do that I was given all the extracurriculars and I grew up in a supportive family and yet I couldn't do it.

Speaker 2: 4:49

And I could sort of perform enough on a at the school level that it looked like everything was fine, but I felt so disconnected from what it is I really wanted to create and I was like incredibly, incredibly hard on myself and that theme didn't change, no matter what room I was in or no matter who I was supporting whether it was as a coach, you know people working in their businesses. It was feeling like their process was way more painful than it needs to be. And I have been there because and it brings me to the quote that you started with because we believe that what matters is what we're doing, like we just have to just do it right or enough, and then we get to some promised land and so we focus on the doing we, we get the. Maybe this planner will do it, maybe this this morning routine will do it, and I mean, how many of us have gone through that cycle?

Speaker 1: 6:03

I was like business, motherhood, marriage, oh yeah, my home in this, looking or feeling a certain way.

Speaker 2: 6:14

Yep, but it doesn't match the experience like the inside. That that we forgot was even the the reason why we wanted to do it in the first place, wow. So I've found that I had to dig into myself. When I had my baby during the start of the COVID pandemic, and I couldn't do the outward performance thing anymore because I literally couldn't. I'd stopped and I was just there alone, um, and had to start asking myself okay, who am I being if I can't perform well enough? My baby had colic, so she wasn't easy to please.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Yeah, no, like nothing, you do Nothing. Nothing works, nothing works.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Nothing works All of the magic, all of them Like, that baby is just not happy, no matter what you do, and especially when on mother, when in motherhood you thought that your job was to make sure your baby is happy and healthy, and then you have this baby who allegedly has all of their needs met and they just cry all day. I can't do it perfectly enough to get the right result. I like to say that that motherhood is where perfectionism goes to die. Because it doesn't. Because I think there are certain areas where perfectionism can function really really well like business, perfectionism can get you really really good high regards, but in motherhood, um, I think a lot of women have the rug pulled out of them. And perfectionism.

Speaker 1: 8:05

So you're in that phase of new motherhood. What did, what was that journey for you of finding your? What did creativity in that season look like and what was it? What was it that brought you into your being? How did you start finding that? Because I think that's such a common experience for mothers where maybe their life feels like it's stopped, or maybe it feels like it's stopped, or maybe it feels like it's changed, or they feel this shift, but there's kind of this like I'm not who I used to be and I can't go back. But now, what? Now? What do I do when I can't perform?

Speaker 2: 8:39

Right, yeah, yeah, that was my experience. I had dropped out of just before the end of my second graduate degree in creative writing, like I was about to kind of finish, but then I had the baby and just felt like, okay, I just need to do this right now, not knowing that that would all happen. I mean, she's born in April 2020, so we didn't, we didn't know, but but it all kind of came together at once for me and I was stripped away from me at that opportunity to perform, and I also had no one to perform for because no one was around, and that was kind of desperately lonely too. But it was really so helpful as well, because there were people in my mind that I felt like I had to perform for, who weren't even around me, but I had, you know, old bosses, old friends, old standards that I was used to meeting, and all of a sudden, I was running on very little sleep with a kid who seemed, um, unimpressed with my efforts to please her, and so I was freed in a way, and I think we can fight against that place of like oh, the old way isn't working anymore and we can try to recreate a new version of it with the same, with the same kind of um rules for ourselves, just in a new context, with, you know, just okay, if it's not my work that I'm going to be perfect at, it's going to be like my, my I don't know a ham, my, my, uh, canning, my homemade skills, right, yeah, yeah, I did try canning. It was a failure. So we can do that. So we resist the fact that we're in a new state, or we can let that kind of dizzying discomfort be a door opening into freedom.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Like, okay, what what's left here? And for me, what what was left was I still. I still had so much to say and do, even though I had no energy for, uh, you know, putting on a happy face when I wasn't happy that I was all gone, like I just had no energy to socially perform, but I did have energy for, um, engaging with life in a way that really matters to me. I didn't know what that was going to look like in that phase, but I I found that it's like, oh, it's not that I want to do nothing, it's not that I just want to sit here, it's that I don't want to do things that give me a promise of future success, but the process costs me my soul.

Speaker 1: 12:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:03

And I find a lot of us kind of think that like, oh, if I just did less, like I just want to do less, and I, on one hand, that's true, but on the other hand, it's like, do you want to do less or do you want to do what's actually meaningful to you? Yeah, that gives you energy. You want to do less of some stuff? For sure, and you want to do less of some stuff for sure. But that's what I believe creativity is. I believe that it's that energy that bubbles up, that says like, oh, I want to engage with the world.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Yeah, but it bubbles up from inside of you. Yes, it comes from inside of you and I love. I love that like working definition of creativity, of something that bubbles up from inside of you, because I think, you know, growing up, creativity to me meant like you were really good at arts and crafts, like that very narrow, and like I've never thought of myself as an artsy crafty person, like I never felt good at it. So there's myself as creative, which also, by the way, nevermind, I'm not going to tell that story, it's going to take way too long and it's totally unhinged. Basically, I accidentally painted watercolor cats, even though, like I don't like cats, like I'm not a cat person, and gave them to my sister, who also does not like cats. So then cat people were constantly seeing it and someone even asked her will your sister paint me a watercolor cat? So I laugh and I giggle that I'm I've officially I'm very creative because people want to buy my watercolor cats. I told the story, I did it, I did it really short, okay. What I was going to say before ADHD turned on that side quest was I didn't think of myself as a creative because I didn't feel like I was good at it and I didn't realize back then, but I was very, very perfectionistic and I didn't want to do things that I felt bad at that I perceived that I was incapable of doing or that, like, compared to others, I wasn't good. And that's not a lie, like it was not. It's not my gifting other than watercolor cats.

Speaker 1: 14:08

But I remember when I started, when I started my business, I had I had never, I had never built a business. I wasn't even barely on social media. I wrote all of the time, but none of it was public consent, like for consumption for other people to see. And I remember around like a year or so, I all of a sudden looked at myself and I was like, holy shit, I have massively underestimated myself. I have underestimated how much is inside of me that has wanted to bubble out. And all of a sudden I understood myself in a way that I've never have of. I am so creative, but my creativity ran in the realm of relationships. I am so creative when it comes to boundaries and healing and emotional intelligence, like the way I'm constantly thinking and feeling into different like there's just all of this stuff that wants to bubble out for me and one of the pieces in your story that I really related to and I and I want to hear more about this. I remember I I healed a lot of people pleasing and performing before I started my business and my everyday life. But I feel like my business and being like and when I say my business I mean like openly sharing my story, starting to talk, starting to write, starting to share pieces that were bubbling up out of me.

Speaker 1: 15:32

It was very, very hard to stay in congruency between what I was creating and making sure that I was creating it from bubbling up from the inside and not responsive or reflexive or even completely filtered out because of the audience, of they right, there was this. What are they going to think? And at least in my life, I I've identified now that they was like the church body of like. It wasn't just what they could say, it's. I've been at the tables when they talked about people who say these things. I see their Facebook posts. I know what they think like Enneagram, something as simple as Enneagram. Like. I have seen the Facebook posts where they tell me that Enneagram is like a satanic cult from people who hate God and I, just when I was early on in my business, I there was this tampering down in this diluting of what was bubbling up, and I remember being terrified to heal from people pleasing and perfectionism and I see this a lot in my clients and the women I work with is they're terrified they're going to lose that bubbling up when it's performance, because all we've known is I'll do this because I know I get gold, stars and stickers right.

Speaker 1: 16:47

They were the good girls, they were the high functioners who. They took care of their parents, they took care of their family and they figured out how to be that person and to perform. And so they're terrified that if they stop performing, they won't do anything. Their lives will go slow and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, you'll get to create more, but of the things that actually matter, and whether that's like this doesn't just mean business either. I think creativity is being creative in your motherhood, in your morning, on a walk, like as silly as it sounds, this morning on my walk I went a different direction and something so seemingly subtle as walking the opposite direction around a lake changed my perspective, or leaving my headphones in the car and only listening to nature instead of music. But you mentioned something of like when you stopped performing and you allowed things to bubble up and just like that audience of they, I wonder if you can just speak more to that.

Speaker 2: 17:48

That makes so much sense and that's so powerful. And there are these voices in our head. I just really want to affirm that are that are real, like you have heard real fear, very real people. Yeah, absolutely, I had a very similar one. I once worked at a place where they? Um. I had a very similar one. I once worked at a place where they? Um the staff actively made fun of other people.

Speaker 2: 18:10

That was like part of the culture. They kept a book of someone they liked to make fun of, like near the lunch table so they could pull it out and make fun of them and so right, and that just reinforces this idea Don't be embarrassing, don't stray outside the lines, because you will Right. So this is the shift, though the they like. I have never found it to be possible to have no they in your head, but you can decide who the they is. That helps you get in touch with you.

Speaker 2: 18:53

So, for example, um, if you decide that you are going to show um your creativity, that the people that it's for are people who believe you, who think you're sincere, who trust your intentions, and only it's only for people who trust me, and that doesn't mean that they agree with me all the time or that they think I'm perfect. They don't have to think I'm perfect, but they're not. They're not standing there with their arms crossed, like that's not the audience for anything and even what. I just want to tie this to to children, though, because sometimes especially, I mean I don't have a teenager yet, but I am. I know that the days are coming when I will have an arms crossed teenager, and sometimes like I, but I have a four-year-old with a lot of feelings and opinions.

Speaker 1: 19:57

They're similar. Actually the three and four-year-olds, they're very similar to teenagers. Oh great, okay, just remember that when you have a teenager, just be like, okay, they're just like a toddler. You just don't get too emotionally attached to pleasing them and, yeah, them as like real worthy human beings, but like also don't take everything too seriously or personal and just like enjoy watching them like ride this roller coaster and then like it's fine, you just don't be dramatic about their drama and you let them have fun. You'll be great at it, it's fine. Teenagers aren't so scary. If you can do toddlers, you can do teenagers. It's great.

Speaker 2: 20:36

You're writing that down, right.

Speaker 2: 20:39

But, it Right, but it, but the belief I have about what my kid needs from me is very related to audience, because I have to believe that, even if she seems unhappy, she needs me to be me more than she needs to be pleased with me. She needs me to be whole and present more than she needs whatever it is that she's gonna like address her mood. And it's the same with you, with your people. I mean you have a baseline trust that, like the relationship is based on whoever it is that it's in your head and it could be an imaginary person, it could be just like your, your best friend, who you know just like is going to have your back. The baseline trust is that this person finds me interesting. The baseline trust is that this person finds me interesting. This person this relationship is based on is not going anywhere, and that allows you to take risks, allows you to just show up and be present, which is where what everything meaningful really comes from is just responding to what's present.

Speaker 1: 22:04

I love what you shared about motherhood. That is that's like such a foundational belief and it's it's really truly the core of what I do, is like all of your parenting. If you look at it as what you have to do, as a performance like it's never going to feel good enough. Like it, it doesn't matter how good you get and it doesn't matter how bad you feel. Like you're doing that If you're answering to the inner critic of they, which which often you you start having that in your own head as your own inner critic. Right, and it's built of all of these different people. But it brings up this piece of me where I realized that one they might have an opinion, but do I trust myself and my integrity and my gut to one be wrong? To learn to not have like beating imposter syndrome for me wasn't about like creating this ego that was unshakable. It was recognizing that if I just stay in my integrity and I don't pretend, I have nothing to hide. And that doesn't mean I put everything out there for people who don't deserve, but it also just means that like I trust myself and what I'm doing and what I'm creating, I trust myself in the coherence and the integrity of what I'm creating and I come back to this place of what bubbles up from me and my being not. What is the dance that I have to perform that someone taught me all of the right steps to, but it just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel good, and when we're looking at the audience of they I think it's you named something, and I want to hear more about this for you from your perspective, because one thing that helped me is one recognizing who the audience of they was for and then also realizing like it wasn't my job to change their minds, like they were allowed to be wrong about me. But I also remembered that, like a lot of these same people, I also knew that, like they genuinely love me and like noticing and realizing the like polarity of they can have these really strong viewpoints that might be true about me now, I don't know. But I also know that, like if I ran into them at King Soopers, they're probably going to be genuinely excited to see me and they don't actually hate me. Like the internet makes things feel so much more powerful than I think they are in most relationships. I think it's so most people are so activated in that space and it's like it's not that those things aren't still true. People still hold those beliefs. But can I trust myself to navigate and know what is mine to respond to? Like are those the people who I want to impact my decisions? That's where I was going with this. Okay, coming back when I, when I hear that audience of they, are those voices the ones that I want to make my decisions for me, or is there somewhere else that I need to be making my decisions from?

Speaker 1: 25:07

I it's not that I don't hear that inner critic.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Sometimes I hear it through thoughts and beliefs, but sometimes it's just the sense in my body.

Speaker 1: 25:14

I think that's really common for women. It's not, I think, especially if they've done a lot of therapy or coaching. Like I work with women who have done a lot of personal work and they've done the thought work. But they'll notice in their body that constriction, that resistance, that tension, and it's like that's your body responding to they. So can we come back to safety and feeling you first, not them, and then second, orienting to an audience or they that feels supportive, that feels encouraging, that's excited, like who are the people in your life who actually matter your kid, your partner, the, the people that your business is meant for, if you can attune to a different inner critic that always assumes best intent, that even if they disagree with you, they honor all of you and who you are. So I wonder if you just speak more to that, like the they, especially when it comes to creativity, of like I creating for my audience, am I creating for me? Is it both? What's your approach to that?

Speaker 2: 26:21

That's a great question. Um, yeah, so there's a couple of things in there. One is being very intentional about who the day is. If there's going to be one, you get to pick who it is. Um, who's in your mind when you set out to do something? And when you set out to do something. And and then the other piece is that if you can like, if you can just tune into yourself and have no resistance and find guidance there kind of directly and stay there throughout the whole process, great, do that?

Speaker 2: 27:01

A lot of us find that that's hard to maintain, that it's like okay, but this is going to go out into the world at some point. So that's where it's important to get really clear on okay, then who is the they, what is it going out into the world for? I mean where you can just be very clear in your imagination who gets to be in in your mental room. There there is a binary that exists in, uh, creativity circles and I'm curious if it sounds familiar which is um. Actually, I think it also maybe appears in um healing discourse in a different way, where it's like do it for, like, focus on you, just focus on you, or focus on other people, and often we swing between these two extremes. We're like it's all about me, and then the other extreme is like I'm just trying to do what other people expect me to do and the fact is we are in like I like to focus on um, creating the relationship between you and others, that that really works, so like you get to have your own intentions, your own focuses and you are in relationship to the world.

Speaker 2: 28:23

You're not a monad, don't live on a desert island, and sometimes we need to get curious about ourselves and sometimes we need to get more curious about, kind of like, how we're interacting, but it's the quality of the relationship that matters, uh, that matters. So I mean just to give an example in the um, in the creativity sphere, it's like do you create for your audience or do you create to please yourself? And it's like, yes, you, nothing that comes that, even nothing that inspires us came out of nowhere. To like fires us came out of nowhere to like we're. We're always picking things up and then having them move through us. So I find, yeah, that's how I would focus that. But that dilemma is is to think about it in terms of a relationship.

Speaker 1: 29:14

I love that you brought relationship into it, because I, as you were saying that I had this like click moment, because one of the things we I wanted to talk to you about was productivity, and one of the things that I see is that women become these production machines when there's no relationship to themselves. And I think this binary exists everywhere. Because I see this you know, I do a lot of relationship, coaching or business and what I see is women are saying I have to choose between me or my husband, and I'm like what about the relationship to both of you? Where you're pendulating between what I need and what he needs, right, like so I'm, I do somatics, and so we call it pendulation where you're swinging between the two and you're noticing, you're noticing the tension, you're noticing the conflict, not as a problem that has to have this black and white solution where somebody wins and somebody loses, but this place where you decide what, if, what, if? There's nothing wrong with either of us, no one's the victim, no one's the villain, and I don't, in in singular moments I might have to choose between me and you, but I can trust myself to feel into this place where it's like I know that in this moment I do need to choose me, and then how do I relate and choose you at the same time? I mean even in motherhood.

Speaker 1: 30:37

Think of how many women I always hate the like self-care isn't selfish because, like, I don't think it at all speaks to what moms are going through. I don't think mothers literally think it's selfish to go eat a sink or take a shower, but what I do know is that women feel like they have to choose between what they want and need and what their child wants and needs. They feel like there is. They don't just feel there was a reality to. They have a million mile long to-do list of things that they have to accomplish and produce in order to have this life they're having. But they've lost that piece of relationship and that place of creativity and I love.

Speaker 1: 31:20

Earlier you spoke to the experience of their life. It's like we've sucked all of that part out of it and we've made it into this. Here's what you have to do, and so I wonder if you can speak to that piece of you know when, when women are in productivity, when we're in, or you know whether this is in business, or how you're showing up for you know a creative project or even just in your life. Where's the gap between productivity and creativity for you? How do you bridge that gap?

Speaker 2: 31:59

I think the way that I frame productivity and a shameless plug for my book I wrote a book about this that's coming out in January, so pre-order now Um is that productivity says that um it's focused on the level of doing and it says that um it's focused on the level of doing and it says that um solve for what you're doing, or doing enough, or doing uh, better, and you know you get the optimal results. So focus on like optimizing a result. You the process doesn't matter you have basically held a result hostage from your, from like your life. So it could be like if I get all these things done, then I get to relax. So you've held that hostage until you've done all these things.

Speaker 2: 32:48

That's what productivity tells us and it and it has us kind of analyze our, our day from that kind of middle manager vantage point where we're like okay, how can I just like rearrange the widgets to get to this result? So result is separate from process and relationship isn't on the table, it's not even it's. It's actually like it's. Productivity has us kind of um really treating our life and our to-dos like objects that we're, that we're just managing and optimizing and checking off. It makes complete sense that we experienced the world this way, because this is how we've been trained to um to go about things. It's how we've been trained to get your school Um. So it's nobody's fault, but it's an entire worldview.

Speaker 1: 33:41

We're constantly sold on this. This is the magic pill that will fix your motherhood. This is the magic pill that will fix your business. Oh my gosh, as an entrepreneur the amount of stuff I see that like I'm a very smart person and I will consistently find myself being like, oh, I'm not a failure, consistently find myself being like, oh, I'm not a failure. I just like. I saw that real the other day and my animal body went oh, this ultimate goal and I have to do the right things to get there.

Speaker 2: 34:15

Absolutely so. The shift is just, first of all, to like notice that that I mean to use a matrix metaphor, to like notice that that's the matrix to-do list, or throw an organization, but to just shift our attention to um, that the, the lever to pull, is not doing enough, but our quality of presence, and our quality of presence is which is like, what way of being is what is is meaningful here? So an example is let's say you have a goal of um throwing a, you know you're, you're posting Christmas and you have all these to-dos and there's a million ways to do it right, what, what way of being, what kind of experience is it that you're actually hoping for other people to have and for yourself to have in all this stuff you have to do? We don't even ask ourself that question, we can just focus on getting everything done. But but what is that?

Speaker 2: 35:35

Is it actually? Is it not, you know, having um, everyone have the like perfect gift? Or is the experience you're trying to have one of intimacy? And if let's, for example and let's say it's what it is you really you are hosting christmas because you want greater intimacy between you and maybe your extended family. Well, now you can ask yourself how can I give myself that experience as I go about my process and throwing this thing, how can I notice where it's already happening and be it and be it. And so maybe then, if that is my lens, where I'm focusing on my way of being, that I that I really care about, which is intimacy with my people, then maybe I'm not trying to solve for, um, you know, the hors d'oeuvres being uncriticizable.

Speaker 1: 36:43

The kitchen being spotless Right. The kitchen being spotless right I? I love what you said, that the shifting attention and feeling into the quality of presence, because I think so many women in in many, many different areas of our lives and through no fault of your own, this is just. You may not have created this, but it is now your responsibility if you want to change this like there is ownership. I think so many women are caught in this trap where we are trying to make the magic. We are trying to and even like okay. So I work with a lot of women who are like they're trying to break cycles, so like on a deep level of healing. They're like I am trying to break these toxic cycles and I'm like hell yeah. And also one some of that is not your work to do, like you don't need to solve your mom's trauma, like that's her shit, let her have her shit. Yes, you're going to have to do your shit, but also so much of this is I want you so like.

Speaker 1: 37:44

One of the themes that's been coming up for me in this season is this concept of nourishing our bodies and how many women learned in life to police what they ate, and even like when we look at consumption culture, we're like you always need more. So it's like we're consuming more than we ever have and yet we're starving because we're not getting what we really need. And it's like you can be doing all of the right things, you can be making the perfect Christmas, but none of that matters If you get to the end and you say I didn't even get to witness the magic of my kids because I was there but I wasn't ever there. I hear that experience so much from women and it breaks my heart because I'm like the whole point of this is for living. The whole point of this any point of like healing abuse and healing cycles of trauma is for you to be able to taste it, not just feed your children. Yeah, I want us to be able to have healthy, happy kids as much as is in our power to do so, but that's going to come from having a woman and having a mother who had a quality of presence about her. Everything you do from that point, I think we're chasing, trying to become something, instead of realizing that, like we already are, that it's. It's available to you in an instant. It doesn't take years of healing, it doesn't take massive amounts of work and in some moments it's uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 39:18

I think, especially this turning inward and um, allowing what's in you to bubble up, because some of the things that bubble up aren't cutesy. Not to mirror, not mirror, if you will. It's not socially palatable and and yet there's something magic in it. So often we're missing the magic because we're trying to clean up the mess instead of witnessing that, like there's nothing wrong with you, you are not a project that needs fixing your life, like we have bought so hard into this consumerism culture and I don't just mean buying things, I mean like feeling like we have to be or do or have these things that it's just like it won't make you happy, it's not going to work.

Speaker 1: 40:07

I've worked with women who are much more successful in business than me and they're much more unhappy, they're more miserable, they have less time, and it's like we're constantly sold the message, as entrepreneurs and creatives, that once you make six figures, you'll have all this time and energy. And I was like how could I do that before I make six figures? I don't know I there's just this. I get so passionate about this because women are missing the point with productivity, and I say that in the most loving way of it's not that when you become creative or present that you stop being productive.

Speaker 1: 40:49

I'm more productive now than I ever used to, but I don't feel like I'm a slave to my productivity. I don't feel like ambition. Is this like anvil holding? Like over my head, like ready to drop at any moment? I'm not burning out. Balance is not perfect and it's not pretty and it often feels like massively uncomfortable, but like there's cycles and seasons and I flow with it and I wonder, like what would you speak to for women who, who they don't want to lose that productivity, but what they're missing, what they're deeply, deeply craving? How do we get more of that? What did you say? The quality of presence?

Speaker 2: 41:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:31

Attention, that's like in the moment. How do we cultivate and create that more?

Speaker 2: 41:37

You said so many good things there that I want to make sure I really highlight and speak to One of the things you said was, like you, you speak to. One of the things you said was like you, you. We are so focused on trying to make the magic and this is something that comes up with my clients a lot too I they're. Often my clients will come to me with um, decision fatigue, because they're yes, who's among us is not presented with a million decisions in a day, right?

Speaker 2: 42:06

So much opportunity, right, and this is the thing with productivity culture like productivity as essentially a worldview which is there is a right thing to do, and so your decisions take on so much weight. Oh, my God, yep, because doing is the only lever you have to pull. So, like, what are you have to pull? So, like, what are you gonna do? Um, and then so we often.

Speaker 2: 42:32

It's it's ironic that our focus on productivity leads us to be incredibly inefficient because we are spinning in in decision. We're like what's the right thing? What's the right thing? How do I?

Speaker 2: 42:42

Oh, that now I'm mentally overload and this comes up with my clients and I want to take us to this, this magic piece. I have to remind them like you don't have to create the magic, you are the magic. You, your presence, your awake kind of sitting here is the thing that makes anything alive and meaningful, and that will be the case no matter what thing you do, and you can always make another decision so you can spend less time and energy focusing on what you're trying to optimize and trust that your presence is the thing that imbues the quality of whatever you're doing. If you've ever received okay, if you've ever gone on a date with someone who checks all the boxes and you're like they're fine, but there's, there's nothing there. You don't want to be in a relationship with them.

Speaker 2: 43:49

Then you know exactly what it's like to be missing a quality of presence, like. And then you end up with someone and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel so and I don't just, I don't mean in a kind of like, oh, you're overcome with less kind of way, I mean like, oh, this person, like their, their way of being, is affecting me, like I'm, I'm moved by not what they're saying, not because they're giving me the right lines, but their presence feels really real and authentic to me. That's what I'm talking about, and it's so requires us to do less.

Speaker 1: 44:27

Oh my gosh. And I think what I love is so many of us will try to get to that by doing harder. It's like my productivity isn't working. I'm going to produce harder. I'm going to like this lever isn't working, so I'm just going to pull it faster and harder and work more. And I think that's why this is one of those concepts where I love when we get to like pull it apart because I think it can.

Speaker 1: 44:52

I think in a world that wants everything to be so intellectual and we want a step-by-step process like, okay, becca and Maria give me like a five-step process to feeling the magic and having a quality of presence, and you're like no, but it's a relationship. It's the difference of me going it's. It's the difference of you going to your spouse and saying, hey, I love you, I'm feeling. I'm feeling like our, our relationship is off and I need it to change, and your husband all of a sudden relating to you different, planning dates, doing things around the house, or you giving him a list of five things to do and then him doing it right. It's the difference between I want you to wash the dishes and I want you to want to want to wash the dishes right. But one of the ways that I've thought about it before, I always loved the show, so you think you can dance and there would be people who would perform and they'd get done and there'd be this like you did everything right, so much technical skill and it looked so good.

Speaker 1: 45:57

And I think a lot of women experience this. They're like my life looks so good and intellectually, cognitively, they're going. I have all of the good things and I should, but it doesn't actually feel that good. And intellectually, cognitively, they're going. I have all of the good things and I should, but it doesn't actually feel that good and it's and it's because they've cut off from their body. They've cut off from, like, the things that want to bubble up and, like I said in my experience, like it's not just magic that's going to bubble up messy, inconsistent humanity, like in my own experience, like the more authentic I become, the more I like sometimes old me will have a minute where I like I have a moment where I was like, oh, wow, that was cringe and then I was like well, that's me. I'm a little cringe sometimes, like I'm a little chaotic and ADHD. Sometimes I'm a little too much sometimes and that's okay, that's authentically me, and it's interesting how much productivity came not from me managing myself and like perfect time management or systems or structure. It came from like trusting myself, trusting my essence, trusting the season right Like my consistency has looked so different of. I don't need everything to look the same. I trust myself in the highs and the lows, like.

Speaker 1: 47:20

One of the things I've been playing with women a lot recently is what does health look like when you're having the worst human day? Like? What does health look like? Not with this, like.

Speaker 1: 47:33

Our culture has this happy, healthy image of like what individuals should look like, and I think especially women who are coaches or therapists or healers or leaders or mothers I think all of those are in the same category is they've been pedestalized. There's a section of you that's stripped from all of your humanity and I'm like no, I don't think you understand. You at your healthiest is still going to have all of that humanity, but you'll relate to it in a different way. You'll hold it in a different way. You'll be able to tend to it and have boundaries or connection, just in the same way that you parent an imperfect child and loving that child looks like being mean mom and having boundaries and saying no, and waking them up in the morning for school and making them eat vegetables when all they want to eat is candy. And sometimes being a loving mom is being really fun mom and taking them to do fun, magical things, like we understand this concept in parenting, well, I think.

Speaker 1: 48:35

I think some people are still trying to do all of the right things and that's why they're exhausted, going on a side path and I'm trying to bring myself back. I'm tracking, I'm tracking, yeah, to bring myself back. I'm tracking, I'm tracking, yeah. So I wonder, when we're stuck in that, I want to come back to that piece of creativity. How do we access that bubbling up from us If there's someone who's, like, disconnected from that creativity? What are some ways that you help women get in touch with their creativity, to feel it oh, I love it. You're rubbing your hands together. Help women get in touch with their creativity to feel it.

Speaker 2: 49:07

Oh, I love it. You're rubbing your hands together. I love this question because one of my beliefs is that, um, creativity is incredibly insistent and um kind of impossible to just really squash. So what I like to point out is that creativity is already coming out sideways, I guarantee you um in your life, and the best way to get in touch with it is by noticing the way it's already there and just kind of like insisting on itself. Um so, for example, um, insisting on itself, um so, for example, um, when I wasn't my least creative, most oppressed, uh, least functional, I would um create.

Speaker 2: 49:57

Well, I was really into shopping. I was really into because but that was that was my creativity really wanting to connect with beauty. Think of outfits like that. That was very creative and that was kind of the way it came out. I would also create fantastical, semi-imaginary relationships with people in my head where, like, oh, we're, like, we're going to be so close, and this is like I would basically just write fantasy novels in my head about people around me or pick fights with people like create drama.

Speaker 1: 50:41

Overthinking is creativity. Yes, I'm like that's a quote, we need it. We need it now of I'm like I tell so many people they're like how do you have so much content? How do you have all of this? Because I'm a massive overthinker with 80 on my brain, but I finally put my brain to good use. We're going to overthink shit. Let's spiral up instead of spiraling out all the time. If we're going to fake fight with husband yes, better at fighting, even if it's just, it's like come up with better responses, like I almost like forced my brain into like cool, I can't have you shut up. Yes, let's like reframe. That Is that what?

Speaker 1: 51:21

you're saying that like creativity is already happening everywhere. A hundred percent. I have never thought of it that way, the most I've never thought of that as creativity, right.

Speaker 2: 51:33

Well, I mean you did intuitively, but yeah, yeah, I mean it's. It's our ability to kind of take something from the world and want to kind of from the world and want to kind of collaborate with it to make it something that could be different or more. And because we are, I think, deeply mobile creatures, like as humans, we we actually aren't comfortable just being inert, so we can use these capabilities to kind of like well, I actually think this is maybe going to be controversial. Um, I think a lot of people have that overthinking creative energy and it gets channeled in weird places on the internet and they create like insane experience, like conspiracy theories. I'm like, oh, you have so much mental energy and that's the only place you found to channel it that feels accessible. But wow, like that could be used in so many other ways.

Speaker 1: 52:37

I, I love this and I, what I love is like, even in me, I feel all of this bubbling up of like, where are there things in my life Like I think of any problem or goal that you have and I wonder, like, what would change the relationship to it? What would make it more fun, what would be different? How can you look at it or feel into it in a different way, of like a getting to know it, not a forcing it into something? I think you know I work in the realm of healing and personal growth and so many women. They come and they're like here's the shape I want to be in. Help me force myself into this.

Speaker 1: 53:13

I'm like chose the wrong coach because, um, when we're doing shadow work, I'm not trying to get rid of the hard, dark, cringy parts of you. I want you to actually become friends with her or create a boundary with her, her, or like understand, understand or change. You can't get rid of that. Yeah, like this, like, if it's not you, we can get rid of it, but if it is you, you're going to have to learn how to relate to it instead of cut it off or disassociate or numb, and I think so often we're trying to force ourselves or our lives or our businesses or our motherhoods into this, into this shape, instead of being this mobile human being with creative choice and agency. And that's one of those themes that I've been playing with a lot lately is can you feel your choice in your agency, which I think I'm thinking, as you've been talking of?

Speaker 1: 54:13

I think our creativity is interlinked in there as well. I don't think I've thought of creativity on this big scope of it's our ability and our willingness to be able to shapeshift. It's all of our polarity and noticing that like it gets to be a lot of different things. It's like our play. It's our play and our pretending. And how many women don't know how to dream anymore because they're not allowed to think something without doing it? And I'm like no, think of like 10 different possibilities without making yourself do anything about it. Like imagination and dreaming. It's like okay, just because you dream about it doesn't mean you have to do it, but it might open up possibilities that you're not aware of Oof.

Speaker 2: 55:00

Yes, and I think that is connected to our difficulty with desire. Like I think sometimes we don't really know what we desire because we think that if we want something, we have to make it happen, and that with maybe, if I like I'm fantasizing about moving to Paris by myself and like I have to blow up my entire life, and I was like that's not what it means we don't have to take, we can connect to our desires and our shadows without, and get close enough to them that we don't have to take. We can connect to our desires and our shadows without, and get close enough to them that we don't have to take them literally as like instructions, as marching orders, but as energy when we have. I believe the same thing about our resistances, sometimes even noticing that what we're resistant to has an agenda and an energy. So, for example, like I uh, like I know that I really want to um, create a, uh, like put in a garden this year, but I just can't make myself do it. It's on my mind all the time and I can't make myself do it.

Speaker 2: 56:04

Cool, what is that? There's a part of you that says, yes, I want to do it. There's another part of you that says no, what does that no part of you want for you? What is it? What energy is there? We think it's just like a lack of energy. It's not. It's like there's something, there's like a shadowy part that might be incredibly informative.

Speaker 2: 56:31

For example, oftentimes we have a resistance that comes up because it says, like, actually that says, if you are going to take this on, then you're going to tell yourself you have to do it perfectly and I am unwilling to do this perfectly. And so it's not that you don't want to do it, it's that I don't want to do it the way that we've already always done it. That's good to know, like, if we've just gotten close enough to our resistance to find out that it has gold for us, then. But in the productivity model, resistance is always accompanied with the words how to overcome. Resistance is always accompanied with the words how to overcome, which leaves us with few options when we are kind of conflicting.

Speaker 1: 57:12

Well, actually it is relationship, but it's this dominating toxic masculine, not in the like. Masculine men are toxic in this. Like there's an energy of it's like I will force my will upon you and you have to do it. I think women are. I think women are actually really good at that. They are really really good at self-observation. They are very good at self-control. They are very good at ignoring their resistance and their inner boundaries and overriding them, which is why, even high functioners, they will be burned out, but still going, their burnout Does it look on the outside? They feel it on the inside. But you've said something so powerful about desire.

Speaker 1: 57:57

I don't remember what it was desiring something without feeling like you have to make it happen. What was it that? You might not remember your exact words, but I wonder if you can say more about that Cause. Something softened and leaned in of like, oh, I want that. I don't know if I have that.

Speaker 2: 58:17

Yeah, I think we're offered a pretty conflicted relationship with desire because, on one hand, culture tells us to to envy and consume yeah. With desire because, on one hand, our culture tells us to to envy and consume, yeah. And like you can want things insofar as you can satisfy a need immediately. But if you can't, want things that are complicated, nuanced and you have to take your desires literally. So if you see, let's say, like you don't have a child and you're, you're feeling something while watching a family play together, and then you like the default thing would be like, oh, maybe I do want a kid and oh, no, this is a problem, cause I was like, well, maybe you want a kid, maybe you don't, maybe you want a playful relationship with other people, maybe you want a family.

Speaker 2: 59:06

But we can't get close enough to these things that bubble up because we again, we think we have to solve it. We make desires like new problems to solve, but they're just. It's just energy that's informative of like something that's alive in us. Even, yeah, I mean, it gets really complicated when we ignore it for too long. Sometimes the desires get really, um, like loud and destructive or we're like, okay, now I have no other choice, right?

Speaker 1: 59:39

yeah, exactly yeah yeah, or we numb and disassociate and decide that it's too uncomfortable to desire what I don't have. And I think you know I'll keep this short because we're almost at time, but I have this. I had this theme where I kept saying and I'm pretty sure I had even coached someone on it where I was like your ability to have what you desire is tied to your ability to feel disappointment, and on some level I still think it's true, but I was being coached on it and it was interesting how we were. We were, we started playing with the energetics of that relationship and all of a sudden I was like whoa, I have some things going on with like desire that are really interesting and I still don't really even have context or language enough to share. But I love what, what you just I'm going to like have to go back to this section of like the couple little things you said with desire and just getting creative and playing with my relationship to desire and the way that I'm relating to it and the way that it's creating things in my life that like don't necessarily feel good, because I do think that you know I've done a lot of work to unhook from people pleasing and perfectionism and performance and, for the most part, like my life feels very embodied. I feel like I have a massive quality of presence.

Speaker 1: 1:01:08

But one of the things that I've been playing for or playing with is not wanting too much tamping down my desire when I when I want something but it's taking too long to get it or I don't know if I'm going to get it right. Like I look at some of my business goals and I'm like it's taking too long, I'm doing all of the right things but I'm not getting the right results. Or and it's like I can do all of the work of okay, but who told me that? And I can do all of the mindset work, but there's this still, this piece of like. Am I allowed to desire this? And you know this relationship to disappointment. So I love what you've said. There Is there. Does that bring up anything for you?

Speaker 2: 1:01:51

Totally. I mean, if something, if I desire something, and it's not happening, am I being? I mean for what it brings up for me is am I being punished by the universe? Is the universe basically telling me like that's not for you, um, or yeah, am I being? Am I being like, punished or tortured? What does it mean that it's not currently present? Yeah, does it mean I'm not doing enough? Does it mean that I'm doing it wrong?

Speaker 2: 1:02:22

You know, like doing it wrong, you know, like because, sorry, who's the problem? Is it me? Right, right, and that totally relates to the, to the disappointment thing, the, the place I go with. It is relating to desire more as an archetype or an energy and less literally, because then we can also play with how it's already present in our life. Like I might not have the literal um right now. I have been longing for a new couch for years and it has always slipped out of the budget and it's been very frustrating, and not when I think about like no, actually the reason I want the couch, like I want the energy of beauty in my home. So like how can I focus on that and cultivate that? It's not like the literal thing. That's just been what I've been playing with these days.

Speaker 1: 1:03:29

I love that and I think what's hilarious, that's exactly where my coach took it. Oh, funny, so funny, because I was like where are we going with this Cause? Oh, I love that. I'm gonna have to play with that. This conversation was just so, so much fun for me. I enjoyed this. It felt like play, it felt like creativity. I so deeply enjoyed it. Where is the best place? I mean, I would recommend people go follow you on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 1:03:57

I feel like every time your content pops up, I just like what you said of like there's, there was something about you that like I was just drawn to you and it wasn't. And I think what's? I think I want to speak to this as someone who creates. I think it's so hard to feel like someone's said this before. Some things that you have said that I'm like no one has said that before, but the things that you've said and I'm like I've heard this before, but until you said it in in your embodiment and your voice or like the language you use, and I was like I heard it and not just my head, like my body heard it, I received it, I related to it, and so you said you have your book coming. You said in January, it is ready for pre-order. It is. I am so excited. Um so your book Instagram. Is there any anywhere else to find you?

Speaker 2: 1:04:50

Yeah, um, substack is a great place to get emails from me, so, mariebowlersubstackcom. And yeah, I'd love to hang with your people on Substack or Instagram, cause there can be nice kind of interactions there.

Speaker 1: 1:05:04

Um well, thank you so much for being here today. It was so much fun having you.

Speaker 2: 1:05:08

It was so much fun having you.

Speaker 1: 1:05:10

So much fun. Thank you. Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the motherhood mentor podcast. Make sure you have subscribed below so that you see all of the upcoming podcasts that are coming soon. I hope you take today's episode and you take one aha moment, one small, tangible piece of work that you can bring into your life, to get your hands a little dirty, to get your skin in the game. Don't forget to take up audacious space in your life. If this podcast moved you, if it inspired you, if it encouraged you, please do me a favor and leave a review, send an episode to a friend. This helps the show gain more traction. It helps us to support more moms, more women, and that's what we're doing here. So I hope you have an awesome day, take really good care of yourself and I'll see you next time.