Our Founder
After surviving a serious car accident in 2001, I spent the following 10 years battling chronic pain, extreme fatigue, and a weakened immune system. During this time, I visited dozens of medical specialists in the hopes of figuring out what was wrong with me and for them to just ‘fix’ the problem. All I desperately wanted was just to feel better.
I was so overwhelmed by the struggle to be a good mom, a supportive wife, maintain the household, run a busy interior design firm, and heal my physical body that not only did my physical health start to deteriorate but so did my emotional and spiritual health. In addition to my diagnoses of fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and celiac disease, I was also diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. It was truly the loneliest and most helpless time of my life.
Coming from a very science-based background, it wasn’t until I exhausted the medical system that I decided to take the leap of faith towards exploring alternative holistic care. There had to be someone or something different that could help me.
As I started to explore this new path of care, I simultaneously experienced one of the biggest a-ha moments in my life. One day while googling my ailments, as I did on a regular basis, the word SOUL popped up on the computer screen. I sat there staring blankly wondering what that actually meant. I always thought the idea of the soul had either a “woo-woo” or religious connotation so it was nothing I ever gave a second thought about. Through further exploration, as something kept nudging me to dive deeper, I soon came to discover that this was actually the missing piece to my puzzle.
We as human beings are not just our minds and our bodies, we are our souls. In not listening to the callings of my inner truth, my soul, I now know that this was probably the biggest piece to my years of un-wellness. The accident was just the initial wake up call.
From that moment forward I began to live my life authentically. I started to connect with what I truly wanted to do with my life, who I wanted to be in a relationship with, and how I wanted to show up in the world. This internal shift, combined with a new found paradigm of care, began to alter my world.
After years of isolation, I started to feel strong enough to re-emerge into the community to seek the support and connection that I needed. This propelled my healing to a whole other level. My energy started returning, the deep exhaustion became less consuming, and my immunity started strengthening. My body no longer ached incessantly and I had clarity in my thoughts and memory for the first time in years.
As I began my slow recovery from years of un-wellness, I felt called to support other women, teens and children on their own healing journeys. I left my design practice, and began working at the Calgary Distress Centre and the Calgary Women’s Centre. I then went to obtain my professional designations in Life Coaching, Lymphatic Drainage Therapy, and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.
Sometimes the worst experiences in our lives have a mysterious way of leading us to our true calling, and to who we are meant to be in this lifetime. What I now know for sure, is the “why” I have created Maliya. There is no one doctor, one practitioner, or one modality that can “heal” you. Healing is a result of a collaborative effort of multidisciplinary practitioners who are there for you unconditionally. It is brought about by compassion and connection within a community, and some deep, introspective work exploring the depths of your soul.
We all have truths that are needing to be spoken, and in a space of safety, love and compassion, we at Maliya are here to support you towards living authentically from that place.