"Struggling" and "artist" aren't two words that should have to coexist, yet we often see them together.
As an artist's transformational coach, Maria-Katharina Richters works with aspiring creatives to overcome their stress, overwhelm, or low confidence, to grow their art businesses, and support their mental health.
For Maria, art has long been a healing salve for the heart and spirit.
As an artist and artist's coach, art therapist, and Founder of The Awakened Artist Academy, Maria has spent her life and career using creativity to promote her own inner healing as well as the growth and development of others through her personalized art therapy and coaching sessions.
Like so many of us, she has navigated patches of stress, anxiety, and hopelessness. There was a time when she, too, struggled to find a balance between living life the way she wanted to and the way she thought she had to, and she understands the inner conflict that this situation creates for artists, the colorful spirits who long to paint their own futures but who feel trapped under the pressure of societal norms.
Using a combination of coaching, business consulting, kabbalah, neuroscience, quantum physics, and art therapy, Maria works with artists of all kinds to help them reach new heights of personal and professional success as they connect with the deepest parts of their souls through The Awakened Artist Academy, an online hub where she offers carefully crafted courses and programmes dedicated to providing students with the steps, tools, and support they need to kickstart their art businesses.
Maria uses her story and voice to show artists like yourself that with dedication, confidence, and a willingness to show up each day and try your best, you can turn your passion into your living, design your reality, and lay the path for generations to come.
"We suffer more in imagination than in reality." - Seneca
At 30 years old, Maria was supported by her family.
"I come from a financially secure background," Maria said. Although she once saw her family's financial contributions as "protection," she would later find that their support created a rift in her relationship with money, leading to a lack of confidence in her ability to make and manifest true w(health).
"Coming from an entrepreneurial family, creativity is in my blood, and not abiding by the "matrix" of the "traditional system" is in my DNA."
She had creativity. She worked as an intern for Vivienne Westwood. She painted often but did not realize the real-world aspect of providing for oneself through creative works due to a financially secure upbringing. As Maria cut herself off from financial support to make her way in the world, she would spark a chain reaction that forced her to confront her fears and travel the path she continues to walk today.
"Money requires work. On the spiritual level, money is earned by giving, sharing love, and dropping one's ego to create change in the world one person at a time. However, my biggest challenge was learning to love myself by facing the truth and getting to know who I was and what I was made of. This up-and-down growth process had a much greater purpose than making money; It was a healing process within me that I knew would help my bloodline for generations to come, one that would dissolve the trauma and internal false narratives that had been created.
I believe creating a business with your art is a good idea, and when you can do what you love daily rather than spend time and energy on a job you don't enjoy, you can enhance your life experience. Not to mention that creating the life you love through your skills, talents, and ultimately your art will place you on a path of self-development that you wouldn't explore if you never intentionally tried to live through your art."
By getting to know yourself and becoming the true boss of your life, Maria believes life will find ways for you to admit your truth and express your creative voice. "By answering this call to adventure, life becomes much more colourful."
"If you're not creating art right now, I believe in its ability to help your general well-being and quality of life. If you are creating art, I want to help you enhance and deepen your journey and, if desired, go full-time."
As humans, we often craft situations and outcomes in our minds; we have destructive thoughts and perpetuate our suffering when there's no need to.
As an artist, this may look like painting while thinking about rejection from customers, or believing that nobody will like your work before your brush has even so much as touched a canvas.
Much like a sculptor with clay, Maria believes in using art to take this negativity we've come to know so well and mold it into something new, something more positive: strengthened family relationships, healthy money mindsets, and, most importantly, self-love.
Your artwork and the time you commit to creating it is an act of self-love. It's a commitment to yourself, and each piece is a love letter to your talent, spirit, past, and future. There is healing in creation, and with Maria's guidance, you'll learn to amplify your personal power as you embark on your transformative journey with confidence.
At 36 years old, Maria finally feels secure in her body and mind, in her finances, and in her identity.
After taking the last several years to understand who she truly is, Maria knows that she is her own person who knows her values, understands her needs, and can speak her truth kindly and with love. Because she is grateful for all she has, she has everything she needs and is confident in her ability to create her own fortune.
Whether you're a seasoned artist ready to blurr the lines between your creativity and career, a budding creative hoping to explore and unlock new mediums, or a curious soul who has yet to develop a genuine appreciation of their work, Maria's programs, courses, and Art therapy sessions are for anyone and everyone ready to take their art, work, and life to the next level.
Ready to take your art & business to the next level?
With Master Your Ego - Master Your Life, Maria's signature program, professional artists will receive the tools and support they need to amplify their Artist Power within their Art.
You can visit Maria on Instagram @awakened.artist.academy, explore her offerings www.art-of-you.com and TheAwakenedArtistAcademy.com, and listen to the Born to Create Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
