Welcome to my world
I am Maria, a Mom of 3 free spirits, Trauma informed EFT & Somatic Practitioner, Emotional intelligence Coach, ECE and passionate Youth & Family advocate.
But the real teachings came through my own lived experiences and over 20 years doing the deeper, generational healing work for myself….
Since I was a young Child I always had a longing to be a Mom, and work with Children. I was a natural nurturer, always drawn to the unconditional love, curiosity and creative imaginations that would flow from these smaller Humans.
In 2001, I got my wish and became a Mom for the first time. I was young compared to most, yet so excited and ready. I knew this was an opportunity to change my career path and learn all that I could about Child Emotional & Social Development.
My new journey began with my baby in tow working in Early Years Education, which led to further studies to become a Pre School Teacher and later into Childhood trauma. I opened my own Childcare Program within a few years, caring for Children from 6 Months up to 11 years of age, for over 10 years, which I loved with a passion. During this time I worked with children with additional needs, Teen Parents, and High Risk Vulnerable Families covering Childhood Trauma work. This deeper work made a huge impact on me, and the seed was planted to find a way to support Parent’s and Children, Mentally and Emotionally on a bigger level.
MY STORY
I have walked my own Mental Health journey, not just got the Certificate's…
The best Practitioner’s I have ever worked with both personally and professionally, have lived through a lot of trauma and felt deep paralyzing emotions, and learned to be comfortable feeling them all. They didn’t just read the knowledge from books and memorize it, they held empathy and understanding that came from deep within. It touches differently and very quickly feel safe and seen. At the start of my career I vowed I would always be a Practitioner that continued to be in self responsibility for my own continued healing and growth so I could show up fully and completely for my own family and clients.
Back to the big life change…..
Aged 34, me, my husband and 3 Young Daughters made the big move from the UK to Canada and landed in Beautiful British Columbia. We always had this urge to make a lifestyle change as we loved the great outdoors, so Canada seemed like the perfect destination. Yet I felt completely torn leaving our beloved families and community behind, and taking our Girls away from everything they had known to a new land where we knew nobody. At the same time my intuition screaming ‘live with no regrets’ after recently loosing a young family member. We decided to give it two years and enjoy the adventure.
It looked like the perfect life on photo’s but behind the scenes for myself the emotional struggle grew big. Within a few months I plunged into darkness. Some familiar unhealthy cycles of Mental Health struggles and addiction patterns returned with intensity, this lasted some time putting a huge strain on all areas of my life, including a pause in my Career. My faith in the healing tools I had relied on in past traumatic times felt so far away as I had stopped the practices that I knew in all the distractions of moving.
As I became more socially withdrawn and internally disconnected from my own Children and husband, physical sickness began to amp up. The guilt and helplessness were something that I never, ever wanted to experience again.
Whilst in the dark I had a tiny spark of determination to reach the root of this vicious cycle for good. The deeper inner child work I had done years earlier planted the belief and possibility seed, it just had not been tended to in all the chaos and me giving every part of myself to my family - I had emotionally and physically exhausted myself in the process of moving which created the very thing I was trying to avoid. - Disconnection!
That’s when I made the decision that these paralyzing, sabotaging cycles and behaviors would not be getting passed down to my Children…..enough was enough!
“Your like this because Mental Health clearly runs in the family”
my late teens after I started to experience crippling anxiety, depression and began binge drinking, I tried a few different Counsellors that practiced regular talk therapy. They could not relate to me, in fact I often felt like I was their entertainment as they would ask me a million questions about myself and family history but never gave me any guidance other than “Your like this because Mental Health clearly runs in the family”. That was basically it. Hearing these things at a young age very nearly cost me some of my most precious relationships. I was angry and just wanted to blame. I had high awareness of behaviors and unhealthy patterns but no tools or guidance to help take this ‘charge’ out of my body that was feeding the anxiety, weekend binge drinking and crippling lack of self worth. There was no encouragement for me to be in self responsibility and learn to help or understand myself. Just a lot of blame and putting ‘labels’ on human emotions.
Enter the Holistic Health approach through a trauma informed lens. Generational healing. Subconscious Mind & Body work, also known as somatic therapy & deep teachings through energy psychology.
This is when everything began to change and hope truly returned. Even though I had tried hypnotherapy and mind/body connection work in my younger years it wasn’t combined through a trauma informed lens and I had not addressed the generational wounds that I still carried….there was more work to do!
I began to study how and where we store trauma in the body along with advanced EFT, Somatic therapy, the subconscious mind and energy psychology more deeply, adding in reiki, breathwork and spiritual work to create my own technique that allows us to heal the inner child and clear generational trauma at the root level. When we can get to the root, the ‘symptoms’….such as strained relationships, addictions, anxiety, PTSD, procrastination, depression and physical dis-ease can go away permanently and we build immense trust back in our bodies.
Up to 80% of Emotions are impacted and felt in the body. Working with the advanced techniques, not only changed my current feelings of guilt, anxiety, shame, and frustration fast, I also began to let go of old belief’s and negative habits like emotional eating, over drinking, self doubt cycles and my Physical Health began to improve at a rapid pace. I finally felt a genuine sense of happiness and hope return and my relationships dramatically improved.
I had found ME again!
Bringing this work first to Parents and then Children at an amazing Mindful Pre School a few years later showed me how impactful it truly was. We watched these tiny humans learn to understand their emotions, using the tools to self regulate and communicate their feelings with ease. The feedback from parents often brought us to tears and very quickly I knew this work had to be shared far and wide with more Families, Teens and Educators.
Having Teenagers myself and always a houseful of visitors, kids always opened up to me and shared their problems. Many of the struggles shared validated over and over that the old ways of helping our Mental Health were not working, there was a missing piece and I continue to believe with the results I see the Mind Body Connection work and emotional intelligence is it.
As the word spread, more teens, young adults and their Families found me, this is how Calm Connections was founded and the growing Teen Tune In Programs.
As a Parent I believe when we have tools to help our Children Mentally and Emotionally it not only empowers them it empowers us and deepens that trust and connection making us more conscious in our Parenting.
My own pain and struggle ended up been one of the biggest blessings of my life. It led me on a path not only to my own healing but gave me this opportunity to help Families and Individuals experience true emotional freedom, connecting and communicating with themselves and their loved ones at a deep powerful level.
No matter if we are 6. 16, 46 or 86 we all want to be ‘heard’, ‘seen’ and understood without judgement or expectations. This is the 3 core Human Needs that my work is created around. Applying this with my own powerful technique of breaking down unwanted generational patterns through the Subconscious Mind & Body the transformations that happen are not only huge but lasting and those changes ripple out far and wide to loved ones, especially our Children.
Helping Families to connect at a deep heart level is what lights up my soul!