Exploring Life & Business with VoyageDenver

* An article by VoyageDenver with Maya Sol

Exploring Life & Business with Maya Sol Dansie of Mayamotion Healing

Today we’d like to introduce you to Maya Sol Dansie.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

Hola mi Gente! Yo Soy Maya Sol. Before I share more about myself, I want to begin with a few words of gratitude. I am honored to be sharing my story from the beautiful lands of the Ute, Cheyenne, and the Arapaho Peoples in what is now known as Boulder, CO. As I share this, I encourage you, the reader, to not only acknowledge the lands you are reading this from but also to be curious of how you cultivate connection and honoring the original Indigenous care takers of the land and to connect with your local Indigenous led community organizations. It is from honoring my ancestors that I am able to express who I am and what I do, because little of who I am comes only from me, I have been created from the courage and wisdom of my ancestors before me. I give thanks for the opportunity to continue their prayers and be a good ancestor in the making. I will express myself from my most authentic voice that includes English, Spanish, and Spanglish – My Spanglish is intentional and a piece of my resilience, especially in institutional and academic spaces. Thank you for listening to my story.

I am a Xicana Mujer & founder of Mayamotion Healing. I am an activist, dancer, educator, and licensed clinical social worker dedicated to raising awareness and political consciousness, cultural healing, and empowering our community. I was born into the understanding that it is my matriarchal responsibility, como hija of immigrant parents, chingones, to continue their efforts and to experience community as my family and that our work comes with honor, cariño, and responsibility. ⁠

⁠ I find motivation from the children, youth, women, and families I work with. At Mayamotion, we focus on utilizing their strengths and decolonized ancestral roots to provide therapeutic interventions, reproductive justice, identity awareness, intergenerational communication, and community movement building to strengthen multicultural communities. I am dedicated to social justice work and in solidarity with women of color, people with disabilities, QTPoC, BIPOC, immigrants, Undoc/DACAmented, LGBTQ2, and other targeted communities for our healing, engagement, and activism.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?

In my own lived experience as a 1st generation, Spanish-speaking Mujer in Boulder County, I experienced a huge gap in services, visibility, and experiences that were relevant to my identity. This was true in community events, leadership positions, mental health & therapeutic services that considered Indigenous practices; inclusion to my Spanish-speaking self, and overall access to resources. As I grew, I learned I wasn’t alone in my experience and desire for change, access and representation in my community were shared and we found and cultivated a strong, intergenerational community committed to creating new systems built on authentic cultural identity formation, social and institutional change. I believe that mental healing and authentic identity formation include engaging in social justice. Mayamotion Healing is my response. ⁠

Boulder often is regarded as the ‘bubble’ with a community invested in spirituality, community, and harmony. The reality is that injustice and racism are alive and well in our community. Contrary to much belief- we have a diverse community here, only that access, visibility, and representation to our communities of Color has been missing for far too long. Many of the obstacles I have faced in my work and personal lived experience are rooted in systemic injustice and my privileges of race, education, and resources have allowed me to adapt to these very systems. My vision is that our communities not only create collective awareness of how these systems have perpetually failed us but to create new ways of operating that are inclusive and created by and for the community.

In facing the daily challenges of this work, I am consistently reminded that I am not alone. I am grateful to my mentors, Madre, comadres, Aunties, y compañeras who support my growth and development and inspire me to be brave and balance my activism with self, soul, and community care. I am committed to my healing through canto, baile, Danza, culture, and finding time with myself, my family, my love, and my community.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?

Mayamotion Healing is a comprehensive response to the most pressing mental health, social justice, and community issues that we face today. Offering services that are culturally relevant and healing-centered, including cultural psychotherapy, somatic healing, and community movement-building, Mayamotion provides intergenerational, decolonial, and holistic programming for individual and collective transformation.

Cultural Psychotherapy: “Never look for a psychological explanation unless every effort to find a cultural one has been exhausted.” – Margaret Mead

Providing individual, couples, family, and community therapy.. Sessions will focus firstly on you, centering your experience, while simultaneously identifying systems of power and environment and how they impact your life. I believe that healing, resilience, and liberation must include a political consciousness of the social and political constructions of privilege and marginalization. My therapeutic caseload is prioritized for BIPOC and Spanish-speaking folks, as well as allies willing to do the work of deconstructing whiteness.

Community Movement Building: “Without community, there is no liberation”. – Audre Lorde.

Mayamotion provides community engagement, racial justice and equity consulting, empowerment programming, curricula development, workshops, presentations, systems level strategies, policy, planning & development.

Somatic Expressions & Healing: “The body is the most reliable truth meter”.

All Mayamotion programming gives special attention to supporting people’s psychological and somatic health in the process of facilitation. Through understanding how our bodies are holding our experiences, particularly those of trauma and resilience, an essential portal to healing opens. All pieces are developed with an intentional resistance to present-day problems and expression through dance. This is a space to incorporate consciousness, awareness, breath, and movement for creative expressions. I am happy to collaborate with you on an artistic vision for a show, class, or private session. Through dance and somatic movement sessions, we can explore empowerment, identity, and the survival of sexual assault. Other themes are available upon request and co-creation.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?

I remember as a small girl, I would see my mother investing much of her time in our community. (Those of you who know her, you know this is still true to the day!). I confronted her one day, and as I had a built-up fire to pull her away from the protest or demonstration and asked, “Why do you always spend your time en la comunidad and less with tu familia?!” I will never forget my mother’s look of curiosity and love for me as if she was seeing in real-time a fast-forward version of who I’d be. She wrapped her arms around me and said, “Never forget, Mija, your community is your family”. To this day, I think about that in every part of what I do and in my own healing.

I appreciate you hearing my story. If this sparks a personal, professional or collective curiosity in working together, please reach out.

PALABRA,

Maya Sol

*This article is credited to VoyageDenver