Growing Together Through Collapse
I may be an accidental grief worker, but it is my calling. From a young age, I experienced grief that rearranged me. I felt the weight of personal and existential collapse as a constant presence.
It taught me what systems could not.
Specifically, that:
🔸the body notices first
🔸small actions matter
🔸companionship invites courage
Collapse Companioning™
Like marigolds (companion plants that strengthen what grows beside them), it offers presence, protection, and partnership.
Inspired by Nature and the principles of regeneration, Collapse Companioning™ is a practice that invites us to:
🌿 listen deeply
🌿 lighten heaviness
🌿 liberate flow
🌿 leverage energy
🌿 localize healing
After serving as a collapse companion for hundreds of individuals around the world for over six years now, I am deeply steeped in this unique form of complex grief work.
Together, we can expand your capacity to stay grounded as you build robust roots and live fully despite the darkness.
For us, growing together means turning the truth of our reality into transformative expressions of human connection.
In the face of our predicament, we choose to:
SEE CLEARLY
Collapse literacy without panic.
We name what’s actually happening — without denial or doom spirals — so that you can shift your focus from fear to courageous awareness.
STAY STEADY
Nervous systems before strategies.
Regulated people regulate rooms. We build steadiness first, and then find ways to fully express the power of our presence, care, and joy.
ACT CREATIVELY
Small, visible, sometimes silly subversive actions. Tiny acts of beauty and care.
Celebrate-the-moment moves. Gasp-and-giggle disruptions that signal: we are here and wide awake together.
This isn’t therapy, coaching, or consulting.
It’s a loving, lived-experience process that opens new options.
No rushing to "solve" or "fix" things. (That's the old way.)
We talk. We notice. We imagine, laugh, plot, and experiment.
(That's the co-creative part that emerges once you're steady.)
The next steps become clear, and momentum builds naturally without goal-setting or pushing.
This is a good fit for you if you:
- see systems failing and refuse to look away
- feel grief and urgency but want to engage thoughtfully and lovingly
- prefer meaningful creative action, not abstract theory or endless processing
If you are ready to move from processing what we are facing to participation in crafting what´s emerging, I offer two ways to work together:
DOOM TO BLOOM™ - A 30-Day Collapse Companioning™ Experience
For a full month, I hold space for you daily, listening deeply, walking (virtually) with you as you seek and find clarity to craft an enticing and exhilarating path forward.
This intentional consistency creates natural momentum without rushing or setting goals.
Together, we:
🔸rewire your responses
🔸restore your agency
🔸release your grief
🔸re-engage your creativity
🔸re-invent your role as a caring human in this critical time
CO-ACTIVE ADAPTATION™ - A 3-Month Collapse Companioning™ Experience
This 3-month experience offers a deeper transformation for those who are facing extensive personal and/or professional shifts.
It is designed for those longing to align their inner and outer worlds, bringing collapse awareness into relationships with loved ones, your livelihood, and your way of living now.
In our three months together, we focus on your:
▪️source and sense of meaning
▪️capacity for marvelling and joyfulness
▪️intrinsic motivation to grow & help others
▪️personalized method for grounding yourself and offering your gifts to those around you
We start where you are, and let longing lead the way.
Which one of the following client stories resonates most with you?
¨I lost the job I had loved for twenty years. I spent months at home, watching terrible news. I hit rock bottom, fearing for myself and the world.
Maya embraced my grief, and made me laugh again. She guided me through a creative re-imagining process that led to being offered an amazing new role! I honestly believe that this experience with Maya saved my life.¨
Maria - former events producer, now director of a community-building organization
¨Due to the new administration, I was pushed out of a role that had defined me for decades. I was devastated. After months of licking my wounds, I was ready to start something new.
Maya gave me a way to see that I had options that were actually pretty exciting. Thanks to her daily words of encouragement, I put together something I am really proud of. It´s very new still, but it feels good to be offering something that is deeply meaningful and aligned with what we need right now.¨
Richard - former sustainability lead, now director of a regeneration non-profit
"As a single mother, I was fearful about my ability to raise my son in this time of uncertainty and distrust.
I am so grateful for Maya's wisdom as a mother and grandmother. She helped me see new ways to think about the future. My son and I moved to a smaller community, and I created a project that fills me with joy.
Yes, things are scary, but I have practices that keep me steady and a commitment to making each day fun and wonder-full."
Erica - nurse practitioner, now founder of a healthcare co-operative for single mothers
¨It was a bit like the shoemaker´s children who have no shoes. As a grief therapist, I found myself completely frustrated by my inability to work through my own grief.
After the passing of my partner of 20 years, I felt blocked. His whole last day was such a disaster! I had to abandon all our careful end-of-life plans, and felt such terrible guilt about how it all went so wrong.
I shared many stories of him with Maya. She pointed out that he´d had a good sense of humor, and probably would have loved the absolute circus that it turned out to be! And she was absolutely right. Everything lifted after that.
Her care for me was loving, patient, and joyful. I learned from her, and have brought some of her companioning concepts into my own work.¨
Luz - grief therapist
¨I was targeted and harrassed by a citizen upset about his taxes. Even a restraining order did not keep my family safe.
Maya helped me pour my fear, anger, and resentment into action. She offered loving support and much-needed laughter as I moved with my children from the U.S. to France. I feel safe, calm, and happy here, with a community and work I adore. My children are thriving! I am so thankful for this new life.¨
Lisa - former county administrator, now owner of a natural foods store
"Everything seemed pointless. I could not even bring myself to walk into the studio.
Maya said just the right thing that brought that hum back into my brain. I started dreaming in color again. And in just a couple of weeks, I was back at the easel, obsessed even, with ideas and flow I have rarely experienced. It feels infinite, actually divine. I am forever grateful."
Dee - painter and art instructor
"I was in a creative slump. For the first time in my life, the words didn't flow. I was losing my faith in our future.
Maya sparked serious joy, oomph, and a brilliant re-imagining of my tired business. I absolutely love my work again!
And she was my co-conspirator in crafting an updated vision of what I loved about my childhood. Now, I have a crooked-but-workable greenhouse and actual dirt under my nails. I trade my veggies for video editing, and even started singing with three neighbors who have become dear friends.
Maybe we can't change the direction of the world, but our cul-de-sac? HELL yes."
Susie - copywriting consultant for non-profit organizations
🌿WHAT WE NEED NOW:
🔶community (family, friends, neighbors and others we care about)
🔶mutual aid (to share skills and support within our community)
🔶learning (to help us imagine new ways of doing things)
🔶art (as a way of expressing our creativity and sharing with others)
🔶humor (laughter is healing, and builds trust and solidarity)
🔶joy (it keeps despair from thinking it's in charge)
🔶LOVE (it fuels all of the above)
You don’t need a master plan.
Start with a first move.
If you feel the tug of this work, trust it.
(Around here, reconnecting to our intuition is one of our favorite hobbies.)
🌿 Collapse cracks us open.
But it also reveals hidden gifts.
Let´s find the ones that are waiting for you.
Here's one:
Sign up for my weekly Collapse Companion newsletter
and get a FREE copy of Field Notes On Collapse Companioning. It's a quick read about how companioning can help you and those you serve.
This work has been germinating for years.
It sprouted when the pandemic hit.
And it turned into a lush garden that has now seeded the thriving communities of clients in over 20 countries.
Complexity calls for simplicity.
I use the term "collapse" intentionally.
It signals awareness, honesty, and the courage to name our reality without sugarcoating it.
But I also speak the beautiful language of coherence and emergence.
I am a long-time fan of Joanna Macy's work around The Great Turning, appreciate the poignant and poetic framings by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Vanessa Andreotti, and am familiar with a range of ways to describe what we are experiencing.
However you choose to talk about our current reality, I am happy to accompany you!
When the world is in confusion, the wise act with simplicity.
Lao Tzu