This page consists of articles and essays inspired by Barbara Bowen's insights into creativity, the creative process and related topics. Search the titles that resonate, and mine them for universal insights to help you navigate your unique experiences. Use the material now to advance your creativity and career. Call me any time to learn more about the coaching process and its benefits.


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Carl Jung and Gateways Themes

The Gateways artist coaching method employs universal themes identified by creativity psychology, notably themes revealed in the work of Carl Gustav Jung. Universal themes help to enhance creativity and career growth by mirroring an artist's inner and outer challenges. They help art professionals to meet those challenges and to reach career goals faster. Grounded in the core ideas of Carl Jung,....
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Creative Process and Tempering the Inner Critic

"When it comes to creativity, the Creative Voice is infinitely more powerful than the Critical Voice. This statement is often hard for artists and other creatives to absorb, especially if their "Critic" has been in the lead, either consciously or unconsciously. But our intuitive center is always urging us toward healthy new risk, like a lighthouse beacon calling us to reach our creative potential. On the creative path, anxieties will coexist with the joys, to be sure. But when we are called, we best surrender, or experience far worse anxieties in the refusal. Many of us must listen more clearly to our Creative Voice, truly listen. Then we must trust it enough to...
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Goal Setting and Resistance in the Creative Process

When it comes to creativity and the creative process, the word discipline can present problems. Webster defines the word in these terms: controlled behavior; a systematic method to obtain obedience; a state of order based on submission to rules and authority; punishment intended to train or correct. For many of us, discipline is like taking a dose of castor oil. Admonishing ourselves into action, we "force it down" in order to accomplish our goal...
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Creativity Explored:
The Benefits of Repetition

Why is repetition so important in creativity? Partly, it helps us to discover our personal rhythms and know them more intimately. This knowledge saves time, maximizes our energy and creativity. Repetition lubricates creativity, increases capacity, and helps develop effective working patterns that result in higher efficiency. No matter what the creative goal—a project, portfolio or marketing plan, repetition plays a key role in the..."
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Creating and Fear:
Remembering September 11th

"In the creative process, fear is inescapable. We meet its various shades upon entering unfamiliar territory. At its best, fear will act as a friend, jumpstarting dreams to create beneficial reality. But it has other manifestations too. It can stop us in our tracks. Or, when out of control, it can distort reality in harmful ways. This election season prompted me to sit with Jane Mayer’s book “The Dark Side.” The narrative winds a fact-filled path through the bowels of the George W. Bush administration’s war on terror since the tragedy of September 11th, 2001. It may seem odd to use election season to illustrate the central role that fear plays in the creative process. But then again, everything is connected. So I’m going to give it a try...
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Shepherds of the Night:
How Your Dreams Help Point the Way

Susan is dining in an airport café. A loud speaker suddenly blasts a warning that a harsh military regime is due to arrive momentarily. Frantic, Susan jumps up and begins to bury her food under the dirt floor, determined to cover her tracks. Doing so, however, it dawns on her that the food's smell is a dead giveaway, and to bury it is "an exercise in futility..."
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Creative Renewal:
Optimistic Perspectives for 2009

No matter how we approach a year--with dazzling exuberance, quiet reserve or indifference--it’s hard to escape the sense that another cycle of life has ended and a new one begun. We navigate the portal from 2008 into 2009, trying to catch our collective breath. But the passage seems clogged with the air of uncertainty...
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Collective Creativity:
President Obama and Martin Luther King

Today is Martin Luther King Day. What hardest of hearts could resist the voice of justice calling down the corridors of conscience in the satin tremolo of our American Dr. Martin Luther King? My indelible moment was underneath the Lincoln memorial with my now-deceased parents, my sister-in-law and eldest brother. It was a thin crowd that day. In stillness we stood together, watching the video footage--listening--with ten tear-filled eyes. King’s call for forgiveness on the larger scale seemed to fortify the waters of familial pardon for which we had been striving, imperfectly, for quite some time. Our family has been one of fierce love, with divergent views fiercely held...
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Creative Genius of America:
Remembering Thomas Jefferson

The creative process is the fundamental key to all innovation in every field of endeavor. We humans yearn for the quality of experience that hurls us into the unbounded world of imagination beyond the curtains of time. The act of creating gives form to the inner life, brings spirit into matter, and shapes order from chaos. So intoxicating are its payoffs that it tends to be placed on a pedestal. We glorify, even deify it, forgetting that the creative path is also full of fear, resistance, anxiety, and pure labor. We encounter thorny attitudes and behaviors in ourselves, and plenty of obstacles. These choppy waters will unsettle our existing shore. But no matter how....
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The War on Terrorism:
Where are We Headed?

In September 2001, president George W. Bush delivered an elegantly written congressional speech that stirred American resolve: to beef up security and defense, to solidify a global allied coalition, and to exact justice for the monstrous World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. We were impressed by the patriotic determination shared by all members of the chamber....But fine as the speech was, many of us are grappling with the omissions between the stalwart lines. The promising signs are not adequate to still the waves of unease crashing below the surface of our collective psyche. Our hair is on end, as NATO ventures into the supremely perilous and volatile Middle East....
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Essay on Creativity and Spirituality

The creative process is the fundamental dynamic of all innovation in every field and discipline. It can be expressed for good or ill, but this essay chooses to place focus on its positive values and connection to spirituality....
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Shadow River:
An Essay on Freedom

In the eloquent book, “The Unconquerable World,” author Jonathan Schell traces the grim and brutal history of warfare. A core notion of the book is that war has become non-winnable in the settling of disputes. Due to the evolution of nuclear weapons and the mutual annihilation inherent in their use, the reliance of politics on violent means throughout the centuries is called into question. While tracking the evolution of violence, Schell reveals a simultaneous force, moving in counterpoint to the martial system; a tradition of non-violence, born of the world’s spiritual traditions....
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