Helping collapse-aware people seed a collaborative future.
Welcome!
I´m Maya.
Post-doom optimist. Creative adaptation activist. Realist with a twist.
As the founder of Collapse Forward and the Doom to Bloom™ process, I help those who recognize our reality use their attention and creativity to:
🔷disrupt their despairalysis
🔷dig deep into their longing, and
🔷delve into future-crafting with eyes, heart, and mind wide open.
This unique process has transformed the lives of clients in 20 countries, turning even can't-get-out-of-bed levels of despair into:
🔷grounded gratitude
🔷rewilded imagination
🔷enlivened engagement
¨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 guided me through a creative process that led to getting an amazing new role! I feel like a different person now. I honestly believe that this experience with Maya saved my life.¨
Maria - director of a community organization
¨I wanted to make a big change in my business. But I wasn´t sure how my team would handle the truth about our climate reality and my decision to go in a new direction.
Maya supported me before and after I facilitated a conversation at our off-site. It was the most deeply human experience I have had as a leader, and paved the way for our transition.¨
Eric - owner of a flooring company
"Thanks to Maya´s guidance, all students are now engaged in multimedia ways to express their feelings about their changing world. We brought in a range of community members who offered opportunities to get engaged in meaningful service related to student concerns.
Maya´s assistance in creating our collapse-awareness program has brought a deep level of honesty and open discussion to our school community."
Rhonda - science educator at a private school
Despairalysis refers to the combined impact of our nervous system´s freeze state (designed to preserve energy) and our emotional response to climate change, authoritarianism, global unrest, and uncertainty.
You may be carrying:
🔷anger toward those who are causing so much harm
🔷guilt about your own choices
🔷grief for all that is and will be lost
🔷fear about the future
But instead of processing these emotions, you might feel numb and disconnected (the freeze), or choose to distract yourself to avoid becoming overwhelmed.
That´s understandable.
After all, we humans were not designed to deal with this continuous flood of both daily triggers and distant threats.
🔷 Your grief is a clear sign of your love for living things. (We build on this.)
🔷 You can learn how to strengthen your sense of stability despite uncertainty.
🔷 You can experience a deepening and a breakthrough that fills you with curiosity and (yes) joy.
If you´re longing to move through the messiness of 2025 in a reality-based way that feels
manageable, meaningful, and motivating,
it all starts by evolving collapse awareness beyond doom and embracing what is possible.
The Doom to Bloom™ process disrupts the swirl of anger, guilt, grief, and fear.
Together, we untangle the triggers and responses that may be preventing you from opening to what is emerging without getting lost in despair.
Next up: understanding your individual (and our collective) longing, and working toward creating what will inspire and sustain you.
Change starts from Day One, with insights that are continuous and compounding. We go deep, but stay light, recognizing the power of creativity to shift energy, spark insight, and stir action.
¨Becoming aware of our metacrisis was a rude awakening for me. I questioned everything I was doing, how I was living, and certainly how I pictured the future.
Maya´s process helped me make creative choices about my daily routine and major moves, too. I committed to big changes. Already, life feels so much richer."
Michael - former media consultant
¨I was grieving. I got to the point where I could barely look at my kids without getting weepy.
Maya helped me pour my sadness about the world into loving action. Now, I focus my attention on infusing our family life with joy. I concentrate on nurturing their ability to connect with others and create meaning. And I am bringing this same energy to my work.¨
Lisa - county administrator
¨Maya helped me to crawl out of a deep hole during the pandemic. I went to her again when I saw our systems are collapsing. I already learned from her how to shift and focus my attention, but I needed to know how to teach others.
Maya is so generous in guiding me to be a leader. She has changed my life TWICE!¨
Alma - executive director of a non-profit organization
I'm not a typical coach.
And I'm certainly not a therapist.
My background is in alternative education, trauma-informed facilitation, creative breakthrough coaching, and deep activism.
That means I can teach you in non-traditional ways how to:
🔷 navigate the emotions and physical responses that arise
🔷 break through barriers to reflection, creation, and adaptation
🔷 turn our precious attention into enlivened engagement
¨We have had an increased demand for support from those experiencing anxiety and depression related to climate and political changes.
Our participants are flocking to our collapse conversations that Maya outlined for us, and finding them helpful in developing their coping strategies.¨
Lorae - executive director of a mental health organization for youth
¨I work with those struggling with a range of acute personal crises. The tools I normally use are not very effective in addressing our collective chronic anxiety. Maya gave me a structure that helps my clients and also guides my personal responses.¨
Sara - psychologist working in crisis intervention
¨The teams of activists we train focus on collapsing systems, and that comes with challenging levels of uncertainty and despair. Working with Maya has helped our team create space for shared emotions and doing this work with a soft heart and open mind.¨
Russell - coalition-building advisor for activist groups
"What's with the marigolds?"
When I was a child, my grandmother taught me about the power of marigolds as companion plants in the garden, keeping aphids, tomato worms, and squash bugs away.
She told me, "Marigolds are friends that protect other plants."
What I offer is companioning rather than coaching or counseling, so I use marigolds as a beautiful symbol of this work.
I spent the pandemic stuck in a studio apartment in Buenos Aires during one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in the world.
And I knew there were people who were suffering terribly all over the world.
I longed to help.