Her Story
About Maria
I opened my business officially in September 2025, though I've been involved in coaching and wellness for about seven years. What inspired me to get into this field was the lack of mental health care that's become available - there's waiting lists of up to a year or more for somebody to see a therapist, and veterans have the same issue where they're trying to get help and they're waiting a year for appointments for mental health. I work with a lot of domestic violence victims and veterans and people who have trauma, so I've become a certified trauma-informed life coach and a certified root cause therapy practitioner. Root cause therapy is a neuro-linguistic processing modality that's similar to hypnosis, but you're awake and functional and cognitive and coherent, and it provides feedback where you use your words and your brain, and it helps retrain your thought processes so that when you get in those negative loops, you can pull yourself back out of them and be more positive, and it helps you to achieve your goals. I have in-person meetings and Zoom meetings, and I use worksheets to help clients with self-discovery. I help people discover what they want to change in their life and how they want to proceed. I run about six workshops a month that we can do either in person or on Zoom - we do one for trauma, one for self-love, and two for veteran support, and the veteran support is veterans-led while I assist with some of the consulting and helping them with content.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Maria
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The biggest piece of advice I've received throughout this journey is to be true to yourself, learn to love yourself, focus on your wellness, and be good to others. These principles have guided me both personally and professionally, especially in my work helping others overcome trauma and build better lives for themselves.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The most challenging part of my work is actually getting people to want to change. People are aware of what's wrong with them, and they're afraid to release that energy, they're afraid to make the changes, and basically getting somebody to take the first step is the hardest part. I can rephrase it like getting people to understand that they're worth it and that they have enough value to take their first step to make the positive changes in their life. People are afraid to reach out for help - they're afraid they're going to be judged, they're afraid they're going to be mocked, they're afraid their colleagues may find out, and they don't want to get the help. They don't want people to know what they're struggling with, and they suffer. This is why the suicide rate is so high. I'm working very hard to stop the stigma of mental illness, because when we think of mental health, everybody automatically goes to mental illness. Nobody really thinks about mental wellness. There's a lot of countries that establish this, where when you go to your primary care physician, they encompass mental health and mental wellness and focus on things that we need to do to build resilience, such as healthy lifestyle habits, healthy eating, focusing on exercise, stress management, meditation, which are things that are addressed in other countries but not in the United States.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
My top values in my work life are helping people and making sure that people are okay. People's well-being is my top value right there. Confidentiality is of course extremely important, and I'm also focused on getting the word out to the public. I want to stop the stigma of mental illness, because when we think of mental health, everybody automatically goes to mental illness, and nobody really thinks about mental wellness. I believe in helping people understand that little things are self-care, and I work to make sure people can develop enough self-love or self-care that they would want to be better and live a better life.
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