Maria-Katharina Richters is a Certified & ICF ACC Accredited Artists Transformational Coach and Art Therapist. Despite her naturally creative spirit, Maria lost the connection to her art as a teen, burying her anxieties and insecurities with years of addictions and difficulty knowing herself. After years of this cycle in 2009, she required the tools that would help her remember her power and win a renewed and deepened spiritual connection within herself changing her life around and in 2017 founding Art of you Coaching & Art Therapy, the Awakened Artist academy and the Born to Create Podcast, helping artists & artists to be to awaken their artist power & cultivate confidence in all areas of their lives.
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better. (Feel free to share your hobbies, your passions, your family life, your pets and anything that makes you unique.)
Thank you Angelika! So, a little bit about me, I was born in Hamburg, moved to Spain when I was 11 and later to London with 19 years of age. My mum still lives in Spain, and I feel as home to Spain as I feel at home to the UK and Germany. My mum brought me up as a single parent, since my dad and her separated when I was 3. I grew up with a lot of contradictions, abundant living and yet basic, a house without electricity and central heating in a natural park in Spain, and then the other side of the family in Germany who built an empire and living a luxurious life. My mom was always very down to earth and didn’t buy into a luxury lifestyle beyond what was most important, love, nature, health and conscious living. So, I was born into a financially stable/wealthy family in Germany, but grew up within a community of hippies, free thinkers and self-employed artists, doing their thing, in Spain, people who didn’t want to take part in a 9-5 environment or a so-called rat race and contributing to capitalism.
By living in 3 countries almost simultaneously my whole life, I got to know and meet a variety of people from different backgrounds, upbringing, cultures, and I was curious and excited to meet all of them. I never saw myself or categorized myself from a particular ‘class’, a narrative that was intended to be put into my constant awareness and wanted to get to know the ‘real’ people of the world. I wanted to move out of a ‘protected’ place and into the rawness, so I was faced with a lot of individuals throughout my life who were struggling with some sort of mental health episode or addiction. I liked to live on the edge and always used to and was excited to push my boundaries, also a lot of it was escapism and a need to get to know myself, but as well I always wanted to gain those experiences, and I remember saying in my teens, ‘so I could help people better in the future’.
This has helped me to gain a lot of experience of the human psyche and understanding of what drives a human being and how it connects to their story and personal journey of transformation. What I always could see was the talent in people, I could just see it when they couldn’t, that is why today this is what I am doing as my life’s work. This made me a person of support and guidance for a lot of people that got to know me, and I always felt older beyond my years. I know now that I am a self-diagnosed autistic/adhder, and a lot of my life choices now made sense.
My family has been great on one side, yet I also was confronted with a lot of mental instability in my family, so the recent years between 2009 and 2020 I did a lot of healing of generational trauma in our family tree and was able to grow so much in love and in the love towards my family, being able to help just by effect of having helped myself. Fast forward many years now I live a very quiet and exciting life in Hamburg German, that is based on creation, rather than ‘destruction’, with my three dogs and fiancé, who I have been together with for 10 years this year, and we are at a crossroads right now, probably moving back to the UK and to Spain, for the sun and our families.
I love to make music, to paint, to learn and grow. Astrology is another big passion of mine. My partner and I go to spinning at least twice a week early in the morning for the feel-good factor and I also do yoga and HIIT, which I love, it makes me feel so good. I am first a creative at heart and vibration, I love to paint, and I love to make music currently studying electronic music production, I Dj’d since 2017 and this has been a long time coming. As I said I grew up in Spain in a, you might say ‘Sannyasin neighborhood’, which consisted of artists and free thinkers with occasional outdoor parties and raves, which I have been observing from a very young age, and I was intrigued by the DJ's channeling their techno, minimal and psychedelic music since I was 5 or 6 years old.
My Mum, being a psychologist inspired by her own challenges in her childhood decided to move to Spain as a reaction to wanting to live a more authentic, free and ‘connected’ life and to be honest because of the more laid back and sunny warm lifestyle, which I get, and because she met her then boyfriend Thomas who lived there, who became my stepdad. He was an artist and a full-on hippie from the 60s, also neurodivergent, as are all people around me, who came over to Spain from Germany just before the wall was fully constructed in East Germany, he taught me spirituality and the illusion of the world we live in, sharing about quantum physics and spirituality. Through him I learnt how to paint with oil, and he taught me Photoshop. He was always creating, in nature, his sculptures, the garden, built all the houses from scratch with natural stones, and created the decoration for the outdoor parties with trash, very creative. Most of his time outside of creating he spent time meditating, doing yoga and painting.
I have my creativity from my mum who is an incredible musician, empathic to the T and highly sensitive with psychic abilities that allowed me to tap into my spirituality and psychic abilities from a young age, learning about my own intuition and having music in my every cell. Because she is a psychologist and I was always interested in psychology I learnt so much from her from a super young age, always asking questions and being heard and listened to by her. My dad also is a musician and artistically gifted and very sensitive, he is a visionary and always believes in his projects he creates. I got a lot from them all, genetically, by experience and by influence.
My grandmother, who was very close to me, was also artistic, had a very good eye for aesthetics and was a healer, she was a very sought for homeopathist in her area in Germany, because of who I grew up with solely with Homeopathy instead of school medicine and hospital visits and I feel very blessed for all of them and what I have been taught. I later moved to London UK when I was 19, because I wanted to get out of the small town in Spain and experience the world and I also needed to get good guidance and focus to bring out the best in me since I was failing all my subjects at school, skiving school and starting smoking at 13, drugs at 16.
The creative school I went to in the UK, Hurtwood House, had an expansive art department and a structure within the boarding school that allowed me to get good grades and build my portfolio and build myself back up. I was unsure what I wanted to study, I was between acting and art and I chose art, however after the foundation course at Kingston University I chose to study fashion design. With a lot of work, I graduated in 2013, which included 2 years of failing and repeating the years. I created my Fashion Label Tinkilove while still at university and created a Cap Brand Capturelove, which continued for another 3 years until I decided to turn to what truly mattered to me, people and art.
Your business Maria-Katharina Richters, Art of You focuses on helping people to be their best version. How did it start? Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Art of You and everything that followed was really derived from my own seeking of becoming a better version of myself which was important and crucial for me to do at a certain stage. Becoming the best version of yourself is not just a cliche ‘lovely thing’ to do because it is trendy, it’s truly about growing from the inside out, which doesn’t feel pretty or comfortable, it’s about getting deep into the dirt and planting a new seed, then nurture it over time. Back in the day I was very much focused on ‘outside in’, which meant that I was so focused on what other people thought of me and ‘needing’ that approval to make decisions or feel worthy, which got me stuck and spiraling downward.
Art of You is about revealing who you are at your deepest core and at your deepest core you are creative and full of love and revealing that, brings you a joyful prosperous and healthy life on all levels. It is about revealing the masterpiece that is already within you because you are a work of art.
What kind of audience does Maria-Katharina Richters, Art of You target?
Art of You is for artists and creatives of all kinds, musicians, painters, writers, illustrators, filmmakers, actors, as well as creative business leaders, the ones who want to magnify and amplify their impact, their artist power and deepen the connection to themselves and accelerate their purpose, be that in business, which It usually is when you start working holistically, or in their personal life. And it is for people who feel a desire to heal something in their life, be it their relationships, their feeling of self-worth, their mental or physical health and become the creator of their lives through the power of art. Art of you consists of my Coaching and Mentoring services, Art therapy services and Coaching Supervision for Coaches. What are your current goals of Maria-Katharina Richters, Art of You?
My current goals are to nurture and educate my audience on their artist power and for that inner healing and desire for soul growth to be fully activated within my audience and future clients.I am working right now on a few different projects, the Artcountability Group, to help artists with a more restricted budget to be accountable with creating art and an art business and reflect on their goals and challenges in an environment where they are heard and coached, An Art Group on zoom where we create art together in our own time, to be self-accountable and actually do the work, and then I am soon releasing again openings for my Signature Awakened Artist Program to amplify your artist power for high achieving artists, who want to deepen their impact, magnify their reach and accelerate their purpose with their art to be more free and fulfilled in their business and life and many more offers I have coming up.
I am also working on a 12 Step Coaching Course with weekly art healing sessions to fully align oneself to one’s soul and ultimate health and wellbeing in life as well as healing relationships, a powerful 12 week course that changes life’s.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and Maria-Katharina Richters, Art of You in the future?
I have big visions for Art of You, I want to deliver the power of art and mindfulness into creative businesses around the world, to create a more mindful and aware business industry. I am currently doing a certification in Business Coaching and Consulting at Evercoach by Mindvalley because I want to be best equipped to serve and lead business leaders of the world, because ultimately their businesses influence the population and I feel a big responsibility and passion to introduce mindfulness through art within a business consulting environment to bring out the highest potential of the business for the benefit of everyone involved.
And what is really close to my heart is, I have a long term plan for my online teaching platform, The Awakened Artist Academy to be globally a source for people all over the world, to learn more about themselves in a creative way and to nurture the creativity of the people around the world so that everyone’s inner artist thrives, this is for me the ultimate goal, as ones creativity activated means true healing from the inside out.
Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?
My life partner Kris and my mum, because the love I have from them, helps me to always be reminded of why I need to grow my soul, every single day and my kids of the future, who have been within my conscious awareness since I was 21 years old, they have helped me for the love for them to get myself out of my darkness as fast as I could, so I can allow them to have a life as trauma free as possible, protected and in balance for their best possible start in their life.
What is your work inspired by?
My work is inspired by spirituality, meaning, making choices through the soul, the heart rather than the ego, the fear-based self, and therefore being in energetic unison with that which you want to create, while it being of benefit to the people and the world around you. By giving to yourself you give to others. I am inspired by astrology, which has guided me and helped me make the most out of current energetic openings, and Neuroscience, quantum physics as well as the awareness of Neurodiversity, and learning about the creative brain and art plus my background in alternative healing through the influence of my grandmother who was a homeopathist and my mum being into conscious and healthy foods from a young age, understanding the benefits of it early on. I am inspired by the need in the world for people to look at health in relation to their psyche and their souls journey and desired transformation in this lifetime and am in love with learning about psychosomatic teachings, how the body communicates what it needs or what it is lacking and it all being a message to your necessary healing and learning in this life, these are all things that inspire and influence my work.
I guess what most inspires me is seeing the shifts and changes I was able to make not just in my life, by being aligned in my actions to my soul, but also to the people around me, truly making the most out of every relationship I have, by giving love and sharing this consciousness I learnt, that helped me to save my life and contribute to the positive in the world. When IU see how much work there is to do in this world, that is what inspires me and that work starts within myself of course. If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
A lot of people have misconceptions about what coaching or therapy is, the stigma around it and I also would love for people to not be scared to talk to a coach, without feeling worried about them wanting to ‘sell them something’. This for me is not what coaching is, because coaching is about the client, that is why a coach starts to get into the industry, to help and selling isn’t bad, it’s great, but if it is taking over the industry where everyone is trying to sell you something, without being genuinely interested in you personally, how does that contribute positively to the industry? These are just thoughts and not truths by the way, I just reflect on that. I am very approachable and generous with my time, and not to the extent that I used to be in the past, from a consciousness of fear, where I would people-please, but from a place of giving.
I think coaches are people and a coaching relationship is about the relationship between the coach and client. For me this is a spiritual thing, and don’t get me wrong business is very spiritual, but I don’t want people to be getting the wrong idea about coaching being all about the coaches or the clients making money but there is a whole emerging and cathartic process in coaching that isn’t shown enough. That is why people must try it or receive some sample coaching or just genuine conversations to help them understand what coaching is and can do.
When you are a coach, you became a coach because you genuinely wanted to make a difference and because you love people and want to help them, again not from a place of ‘not knowing yourself or your boundaries’ but from a place of trust and giving. I find that giving to people must come first before asking for something. I much more enjoy creating a relationship with my clients and have conversations with them before they engage in a coaching relationship with me, because it is about them.
I feel that a lot of stigma has been created about coaches, where it is heavily based on making the next 100k and a lot of coaches on LinkedIn for example that just spam you, without genuinely being curious about you as a person and taking the time to get to know you and your challenges and for me, this way of approaching clients is not something I personally vibe with, because to me it gives the message of the coach not really caring about you, but caring about making their business a success. Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t care about my business being a success because I do, but from the inside out, not from a place of worry or fear or making it about me.
It’s a fine line and a grey area, discussing this into more detail would probably be best to fully explain what I mean, because what I am not saying is ‘forget to give to yourself’, quite the opposite.
I think everything is about consciousness. One and the same thing, one and the same sentence can have the same words but a completely different consciousness. The consciousness I am coming from is from a place of love and trust and abundance.
So what I would change I guess is seeing more people feel more invited to approach coaches freely and feel more open to talk to them without being reflected back a sales conversation in the same call, as well because it might help them see what coaching really is, it is not giving one formula you give to each and every one, it is a conversation where the client is allowed to have the space and time to really dig deep into their consciousness and help them make better choices and shift patterns that were hard to shift before.
Same with therapy, the stigma around therapy, that it is for people who are broken is not correct, people going to therapy are first of all courageous for doing the step to go and look at their internal life and are ready to process and resolve things of the past and the here and now, but secondly they notice fast how beneficial it is to speak to someone and how it isn’t this thing that means ‘ you are not ok’, far from that.
So, more education on that is greatly appreciated. Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
I remember sitting in a smoking area of a club I used to go to a lot, which started as fun and led me to a place that was not so fun, I was clearly depressed, and I noticed that morning, which was a misty grey morning, how I didn’t feel my soul anymore, even my anxiety was gone, and I reflected, because I didn’t even feel guilt anymore, which for me, despite of it being an uncomfortable feeling I lived with for so many years, it wasn’t there anymore, like the life was sucked out of me, my soul dimmed, it got me concerned, because deep down I knew who I was cognitively and I knew what was right and what was ‘wrong’ and it got me thinking. Wrong for me was knowing that I am wasting this life because of fear and am not being a channel of light, but rather a grey black cloud.
While people around me in that moment, also clearly not in a good place but still in a ‘party’ mood to suppress and escape their reality, I thought in that moment, ‘ I remember the time, when I was worried I would not graduate university and was caring to do well and had missions of the future, I saw myself speaking in front of people about overcoming challenges and being an inspiration, and right now I just did not care, I cared about nothing, I realised something is deeply wrong’.
It was the memory about what was most important to me, caring about people and the reflection of noticing myself not being a positive influence, but an influence that would make people worried or sad about me and remembering my once very happy and giggly nature with a purpose, passion and zest for life which was now gone, that reminded me of the tools I once learnt at the Kabbalah Centre.
The awareness of Kabbalah and what it taught me, about the self, the ego and the soul and restricting instant gratification in order to nurture the soul and live a fulfilled life from the inside out and especially the teaching of the tool the ‘proactive formula’, a formula to help you use every moment in your life to ‘choose’ your thoughts and actions with the awareness of the challenge being brought to you by the light in order to grow by restricting the bodily addictions/reactions, to be more love and shed fear, was the moment that changed my life forever.
This was sometime in the beginning of 2011. After that last 3 day ‘bender’ as you’d call it, I cut myself off the clubbing environment I was in, the people I was involved with and heavily restricted on my addiction problem. It was very hard, I asked for help to my mum, left the city for a while and just engaged in therapy, making music, running, exercise and healthy nutrition.
It wasn’t a straight line from then on, but it was the start of me climbing a big, tall and steep mountain, which took me years to climb, but I never gave up or looked back. I knew that where there was a fear, I would walk straight through the fear, I spoke my truth, I finished my university despite of one family putting me down for it, saying I wouldn’t make it, I worked on the relationship to my mum and my grandmother, I stood up to them and loved them where before I wouldn’t say anything, or would be scared to say what I felt, and then would feel resentful to spend time, I would dare to dream and I would engage in creativity, which is ultimately what fulfilled me from within and which was my saviour in my life.
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