Chaos and creativity, with Maria Ana Botelho Neves

Summary

In this episode, Maria Ana Botelho Neves shares her experiences with chaos, trust, and regeneration amidst Portugal's storms and wildfires. Discover her insights on time, nature, and creativity in this inspiring conversation.

Topics

• Chaos and storms in Portugal
• The concept of Kairos and Kronos time
• Regenerative agriculture and food forests
• Trust as a key element during crises
• The Casa do Tempo project and time consciousness

Chapters
00:00  The Impact of Storms in Portugal
04:27  Casa do Tempo: a Vision of Regeneration
10:17  Fear and Chaos: a terrible cocktail
12:00  Chaos as the fuel for creativity
15:36  The importance of trust and humour
21:31  Regeneration

Keywords

chaos, trust, regeneration, Portugal storms, time management, nature, resilience, food forest, self-worth, adaptation

Guest Contact Details:
Maria Ana can be contacted via https://acasadotempo.pt/  or by email on mbseven.man@gmail.com 

Thanks to Jacopo Lazzaretti for the intro/outro music:  https://jacopolazzaretti.bandcamp.com/album/secret-love

For all contact details (including our Associates) and useful self-worth resources, see www.SelfWorthAcademy.com

Transcript

John Niland (00:00)

Welcome to Self Worth in Times of Chaos. And my guest today is no stranger to chaos and no stranger to transition. Her name is Maria Ana Botelho Neves, which it takes a while to learn to say that, but that is her name! Maria Ana lives in Portugal where she has started a fascinating project, which I'm sure she'll talk about before the podcast is over. Welcome Maria Ana

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (00:26)

Thank you very much, John. It's a pleasure to join you in such a fascinating topic.

John Niland (00:33)

Well, let's begin with the chaos and then we'll come to some interesting projects, one of which is very close to your heart. Tell us a bit about the chaos of this year and the storms in Portugal and what that meant for you.

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (00:49)

Luckily, it seems to be over, but I'm now prepared and well equipped for the next. ⁓ As we are told, we will experience more. ⁓ when we had the storms end of January, beginning of February, Kristin visited Portugal in a furious way, and it caused a lot of ⁓ disruption, very serious disruption.

At all levels, ⁓ one minute to the next, there was no more communications, no power. The roads were blocked. The trees were falling. Where I am, we just had houses without roofs and on and on and on. And this was something that nobody could prepare for it. Of course, there are cultures and countries that

are very aware of this, but Portugal is not the case. We have the saga of the wildfires for some time, but not storms of this caliber. Suddenly you realize, ⁓ my God, we have no power. We can't make access to anything, which most of our lives depend on ⁓ Wi-Fi and access to online.

We couldn't plug a computer or a phone, ⁓ and you feel your hands and your feet are completely tight. Worse is that it arrived when I was also experiencing ⁓ inner chaos, which the two things together was, ⁓ how do we call it, a revolution.

John Niland (02:43)

Hmm.

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (02:45)

⁓ it's, it's very, very hard. first I couldn't make decisions and living on my own in the middle of nowhere in a small village and, ⁓ with a lot of responsibility and totally unable to make decisions, affects you, affects you, you feel about where you are.

⁓ I started question, what have I done? Why am I here? What is all this about? ⁓ And then I had at the same time, the building works in the place where I am. And of course, everything stopped. It was already delayed. ⁓ All the builders team disappeared.

And they would not come back because they had to fix the roofs and the walls and everything of everybody else. And I had to be fair and say to the builder, look, if there is a single person in the region without a roof and their all this rain, because it didn't stop, it was so much. Don't come and do my works, just go and help them.

There's no way my priorities are more important. But of course, I'm at the same time making a business decision that I'm going to postpone another month before I can open my new place and project, which is already delayed.

John Niland (04:27)

We might come back to the chaos, Maria Ana but let's just for anyone who has wandered into the conversation, let's talk about the new project briefly because it'll give context to much of the rest. Tell us a little bit about what you are constructing in the Casa do Tempo

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (04:47)

So it's called Casa do Tempo, the house of time, and it starts with a consciousness that ⁓ time, we are misunderstanding time and mistreating time in our lives ⁓ just because we became, as a civilization or era, ⁓ totally ⁓ dependent on only one dimension of time, chronos time.

the machine time, the time that is linear, and you can measure it. However, about 20 years ago, found, I was doing a Masters in London, and I found that there are other dimensions of time, such as Kairos time. Kairos time is the social time, the time of moment. We experience Kairos time when we, for example, there are many others, when we...

start doing something we really love and we ⁓ disconnect from clocks. And suddenly, either the time expands so much and you think it has been a week and it's only one hour, ⁓ or when ⁓ we stop controlling time and we have to go from one place to another. And we've done that many times.

And suddenly, okay, I'm just going to let go. And we arrived much faster than we are controlling. And I did those experiments in London 20 years ago. ⁓ Casa do Tempo wants to bring back Kairos time, Aeon time, as well as Kronos time and connect this with nature, where I'm building with time.

and nature, a food forest. It's in the heart of this project. And the goal for the food forest is that one day we will have pure ⁓ nutrients, which are not just very good to eat, much better. We're not eating poison and manipulated foods, but it's also extremely good for our health.

Maybe my food forest will become also my pharmacy, not just for the kitchen, but for any disease. But it's a long journey to learn. The other side of the project is the house, casa. The house is here, is small and very minimalistic. And it's here to host and receive small groups of people.

who wants to join a program, a course, a retreat. It might be on well-being, it might be on food, it might be on temple time, or on creative activities or knowledge experiences. And this is all to connect it, and that's the basis of all this, to regeneration.

To have good food, we need to regenerate the soil. Most of the time is dead because of so many chemicals and fertilizers, et cetera. We also need to regenerate ourselves and this dimension of time. As an example, why is so many people suffering from anxiety? Cause we live in a year that is only

connected with chronos time, machine time, linear time. But if we embrace the other dimensions of time, the anxiety disappears. And that's the regeneration we will achieve here.

John Niland (09:00)

So to get back into the story, into this fantastic project, into this very ambitious vision ⁓ around Casa de Tempo, blows in from the sea, hurricane or a storm, whatever it was, ⁓ Kristin along with about four others I seem to remember in about a three week period here in Portugal, causing all kinds of chaos to your building project, to your own thinking.

⁓ And as you described, you have this inner chaos mirrored in the external chaos with all of the difficulties of making decisions, etc. around that. What other practical difficulties did that chaos bring?

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (09:49)

Well, think about 5 a.m. All my window shutters were like mad. It was like if I was in a mad world and I was in bed and I suddenly, oh my God, I was ill prepared. I didn't realize that this thing was coming. I went outside in the garden and I saw the tiles of my roof flying. And I was like.

my God, now will I stay here? Do I need to do all these things? I'm on my own. And this triggers fear. And chaos with fear is a terrible, terrible cocktail. ⁓ Because fear paralyzes you and the chaos propels you into action. Now I'm a crazy person.

in the middle of nowhere, tiles flying, God knows, big walls on property falling because a mass tree fall on the wall. ⁓ you just ⁓ think, ⁓ I don't know, it's collapse. It's the total collapse. At the same time, I have to admit, it's a little bit exciting.

I wouldn't tell this to many people. Oops. This is a podcast.

John Niland (11:19)

Careful.

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (11:21)

But there is still a little rebel and child person inside me. so when everything is so crazy, you just feel, ⁓ I in Alice in Wonderland? The rules of my life are not here. And ⁓ what would I do if I was Alice?

kind of thing. What will appear now? Will I see crazy creatures?

John Niland (11:58)

Net.

You know, let's be honest, chaos is a bit exciting. You know, at least for some people, chaos is very exciting because you never quite know what's going to happen next. It certainly fires up the adrenaline. And, ⁓ you know, for those who hate routine, very often chaos is a welcome break.

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (12:21)

For me, it's the fuel. It's the fuel in my life because I'm a very creative person. I need creative stimulus and I need to be engaged and involved in creative projects. ⁓ chaos is, I think, the engine that makes creativity happen. I had many, many years of a career in innovation, for example. You can't...

do ⁓ proper innovation, you can do incremental innovation, right? It used to be yellow and now it's pink. But I don't think that makes a difference into the world. But big insights, big discoveries, ⁓ breakthrough moments, they come from a collapse or a big ⁓ chaotic. ⁓

And for me, chaos all my life has been a big engine. Of course, you pay a price. example, Brunel University, where I did a master's in strategic design to 2006 or 2007, I suddenly had a label in my life because I became a member of staff.

John Niland (13:30)

Let's

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (13:48)

And I suddenly got a label in my life that I was a troublemaker. It's a price of being a chaos passionate person. ⁓ Most people ⁓ around me in that job, they like order. They like to follow procedures. They like certainty, et cetera, et cetera. Well, for me, a place of knowledge that

doesn't have that element of creativity. And I was in the school of design, of course. ⁓ It's not gonna leave. It becomes dead. There's no spark, no life, no nothing. ⁓ So a label like that, it's a big price. Another price you pay if you're ⁓ truly a chaos person.

is that you alienate people. There were people who I used to work and loved to work together until they got tired of my chaotic nature ⁓ or way of thinking. And then one day they say, I had enough, I can't cope with all this, et cetera. The same way I told Kristin the storm, I had enough of this storm, I can't.

live like this, my food forest is underwater, go away. And trust me, I had this conversation with Kristin, what is that came after?

John Niland (15:20)

Yeah

I believe you.

Yes, in those weeks there was a parade of five of them, if I remember correctly, one after the other. Although Kristen was definitely the worst. So how has your relationship with yourself evolved throughout all of this chaos?

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (15:44)

Well, first, let's acknowledge it's not easy to be myself. I am addicted to ideas. do, I like, I'm more and more a doer. I used to be more a thinker. So I need action. I need to be engaged and doing things and making discoveries every day.

time to time, and especially in peak times of chaos, I have moments where I nearly say, I need to give up of being myself. I can't cope with this person. ⁓ But on the other sides, I love being myself because I activate so many things and I so much enjoy looking at all this around me.

One of the things that because of what I went through with the recent chaos made me more conscious that trust is a key element. And although I nearly paralyzed, there was nothing we could do. No power, no communication, nothing, nothing. I started to say, okay.

but I'm here for a reason. So let's trust that. Also trust others. There are people around and they also going through things, connection with the others with trust and then trust the universe. I don't believe Kristin came to destroy us. Maybe there was another reason, but...

Trust that everything will be alright. ⁓ Just that sentence, it will be over and everything will be alright, made me feel much, much better. And the other thing, which I think is also ⁓ something that came from the work ⁓ in self-worth and all that, was the humor.

and started to look, there must be something hilarious around that I need to know and connect with, and then laugh at it. And it did work. It did work. There were moments where you could just think, no, I'm going to give up all this. But then, no. With humor, all the drama disappears.

John Niland (18:41)

great line. humor all the drama disappears.

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (18:45)

Yes.

And then of course, ⁓ speaking with neighbors, for example, nobody had wifi, but someone said, ⁓ you know, Starlink. And now I have Starlink together with the fiber optics, just because I don't want to go with the experience of nothing. ⁓

The other thing was from another chaos in 2017, I was living in the mountains in Portugal, not too far from here, maybe one hour, and the wildfires came. And I was the only resident in a remote village. I was the manager of this eco village. And of course, no power, no communications. But in my car, there was radio and with the radio, I

could at least have some information. So when I moved here, one of the things I bought was the transistor, the transistor, all times, which I have in my kitchen and which always works. And if there's no power, there are batteries in it. ⁓ And it's,

Fantastic, because you could follow everything that was happening despite no Wi-Fi. And I think the ability of living in different times at the same time, such as, yes, I have my computer and my Wi-Fi, et cetera, but I also have a radio. And many people don't have the transistor anymore, and they were isolated.

John Niland (20:36)

Hmm

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (20:37)

You know, of course we would not have television because there was no power. Yeah. Right. And my television is cable is from fiber optics. So there was no, I find no fiber optics, et cetera. This thing of being in parallel ⁓ worlds at the same time, not neglecting the old wisdom, the old knowledge, the old.

technology. It's what I'm doing with the food forest. Although I'm not bringing new innovation into the food forest, I'm regenerating with the wisdom and the knowledge embedded in the very old methods.

John Niland (21:30)

The word regeneration has come up a few times today. It's just come up. It's come up in the context of regenerating soil. I have definitely talked to you in the past about how it applies to regenerating people and professional identities. Can you say a bit about regeneration? It's obviously a very ⁓ important ⁓ objective of Casa de Tempo.

Maria Ana Botelho Neves (21:56)

Yes, yeah. How would I, I'm not an expert, I'm just discovering all this. But, so we start with life, everything is life and energy and that's where we came from. And bit by bit with our technologies and knowledge and practices, we started to remove.

layers of life. ⁓ In nature, it's easier to explain. Most people here work against nature. There is anything from insects to plants that are invasive. And the way to deal with this is, we put a little bit of poison and it dies. And I'm like, I don't want anything to be dead. And the more we do this, the more

is the soil. a point, it doesn't have any more the conditions to bring life back. So, the regenerative nature of this is opposite to that. We have to nurture the things we believe we need as well as the ones we think we don't because they play a role. They are

connecting things like the moles are eating all my beetroots. And I'm not happy with that. But what my mentor of the food forest said is plant many more. So some will be for the moles and some will be for you. And the moles are doing some work. They open tunnels underneath that sends oxygen to the plants and that micro

beings in the soil. So the regenerative approach is when we're not here to extract, we're here to create conditions for life to come back. And I think it's the same with people when you work with people is not limiting our consciousness or our knowledge or our

⁓ Even intuition, for example. What have we done to intuition?

John Niland (24:29)

What a great way to bring this to a conclusion. Maria Ana, this theme of regeneration, it sounds like it's something we might be back to. Thanks for joining me today.