On feeling qualified, well received, and ready (or not): Listener Q&A 1

What do you do when your work has nowhere to go? When the credentials keep accumulating and you still don't feel like enough? When the scroll takes you under and you don't know why you went in?

In this first Listener Questions episode, Maria is joined by her producer, Carin, to answer real questions from real people who are trying to make things, live honestly, and not lose themselves in the process. 

Carin brings the follow-up you needed someone to ask, the real-life example that grounds, and the reminder that the questions in this episode are more connected than they look. 

You want to be in relationship. With your work, with the world, with yourself. This episode is about what gets in the way of that, and what you can do today.

In this episode

• Why wanting an audience isn't ego and what it actually is

• What autoregulation has to do with your screen time problem

• Why getting the credentials, the agent, the gallery slot won't scratch the itch and what might

• On finding form without a map

• Whose voice is telling you you're not enough yet?

Waypoints

[00:01:00] — The photographer with a full hard drive

[00:13:30] — On gatekeepers and house shows

[00:16:30] — I need more qualifications before I can start

[00:28:00] — The scroll problem

[00:35:00] — How do you meet the form of your art?

Resources

• Secret invitation

• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

• Kate's episode of Make Human — referenced for its "most epic complaint story"

• The Dunning-Kruger effect 

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