Maya Kalaria

Background

About Maya Kalaria

Maya is an author, intuitive astrologer and educator. She is also the co-host of The Decolonial Podcast. Her wide-ranging professional background includes mental health work with young people, domestic abuse work with women and children, solution-focused hypnotherapy and retail management. Born in multicultural London to an Indian Gujarati family and raised in Barnsley, Maya sadly lost her mother to Leukaemia at the age of nine. This life event had a profound impact on her future path and she has since devoted much of her life to helping people make sense of grief. She speaks powerfully and eloquently about racism and the colonial trauma that she experienced as a result of her early life circumstances, as well as the mysticism her life became steeped in through these life-altering experiences. Maya is a formidable leader of the ‘uncomfortable conversation’. She believes strongly in healthy communication as a powerful tool for healing and is passionate about connecting to our ancestral, indigenous roots, wherever we originate from. A lifelong poet and writer with a BA Hons in English and Creative Writing, Maya’s debut book of poetry, Half Woman Half Grief, speaks from a place of truth, trauma and healing for anyone who has experienced grief of any kind; personal, collective, environmental and colonial. As a former mental health worker, she managed weekly hubs for young people and created and facilitated various training sessions and workshops, including a collaboration with gender equality organization TIGER on a Femme Empowerment workshop, which was featured in Bristol 24/7 She has spoken to thousands of young people about mental health in schools, colleges and universities, as well as speaking on BBC Radio Bristol about grief, identity, femme empowerment and bullying. She has also delivered mental health training to staff across Bristol based colleges and universities. She is fully trained in Mental Health First Aid. Following the BLM Movement in 2020, she joined speaker and presenter Daniel Edmund on his Race and Gender Unfiltered podcast about racial trauma and grief and interracial relationships. she also appeared on online panels for Ealing Libraries on Grief, Loss and Trauma and Blended Relationships. Her most recent talks were 'Grief and Mysticism' and 'Truth and Reconciliation; let's talk about our colonial past' for South Asian Heritage Month 2021. Maya's debut book of poetry and work around grief was featured in Bristol Magazine's October 2020 issue and was recently featured talking about grief in Stylist Magazine's Dec 2021 issue.