Dr. Marj Barlow on Transformation (part 2: Feminism, Biosphere, Joy)

The AllCreation Podcast

A Life of Transformation: Marj Barlow, PhD., is a historically-significant therapist, global-business-change leader, and self-care advocate from Texas. Most famous for her pioneering leadership at Interface Carpets, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer, and first global manufacturer to try to reach net zero and net regenerative environmental impacts, Dr. Barlow built her success off of an identity rooted in honesty, family, Faith, science, and her own experiences. In this podcast, AllCreation exec. editor Chris Searles asks Dr. Barlow to share about being a feminist co-leader, caring more for Other-life, and achieving right transformation. This interview is part of AllCreation’s Winter Solstice collection, Envisioning Transformation.

Learn More

• MarjBarlow.com
• The Pocket Grandmother
• The Possible Woman
• Interface eco-sustainability legacy

Listen to part 1 of this interview.

Transformational Virtues Discussed

• Seeking love
• Awe
• Gratitude
• Healing
• Play
• Curiosity about positive potential

PROGRAM
0:00 Feminism: How are we doing?
10:00 The 4 levels of love:

• Eros - attraction
• Agape - true friendship
• Philia - true familial love
• Caritas - sacrificial love, giving your life for the good of others (“a calling, a joy, a happiness“)

15:00 How do you relate to the living creation?

19:00 How should religious institutions transform to achieve a better future?

QUOTES

Studying Happiness has helped me have a sense of the value of our choice-making. Everyday I get up and I say, “What is today?” And I have a sense of awe. And every person that comes into my life, I have a sense of awe. That makes it new and real and exciting, and nothing every dull or boring, so perhaps curiosity and awe are valuable attributes at institutional-identity scale.

I kind of have an inner path I follow: I prefer to be curious, rather than certain. I think that has led me to a lot of diversity... There’s not just one way, as many of the Fundamentalist sermons I heard suggested.

Most of the people who initiated (therapy in the early days) were female. It would be the mother bringing in the son, or the mother bringing in the whole family. The mother would be the one always organizing that.

(In the 1960s, White America) was very paternalistic and I had to prove that I had done right by his money and his children.
The male does tend in our species to focus; he makes a good TV-watcher! The female is more the Gatherer; she’s born to shop! That is the problem right there: Can the shoppers and the focusers get together to declare the universe needs one song?! :)
We’re not done yet. We’re still evolving.

We have the joy of being present, listening, and seeking something new.
Love that stretches and a mind that is eternally curious, that’s how I see our evolutionary drift.

The biggest change that’s on the horizon is the fact that we are hooked-up and we can communicate -- and, therefore, we can’t keep pockets of secrecy, and I think more and more are enlightened as to our environmental emergency.

I have a sense of gratitude and awe about how it all works. It’s the most fascinating thing in the world to think of Life as it exists here on this little blue, tiny planet. . . I am so in awe of the people who are learning how to be good stewards of our physical environment.

.... “Whatsoever thing thy neighbor doeth that pulleth thy chain, puncheth thy button or ringeth thy bell — that thing hath more to do with thee than thy neighbor!” :)

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Thanks for listening.
This podcast is one of seven interviews
from our Winter Solstice 2022 collection,
"Envisioning Transformation." It was pro-
duced and edited by Chris Searles. Visit
our podcasts page for more.