Mental health care is essential to resistance.
Hi! I’m a trauma-informed coach/counselor who wants to make mental health care more accessible for social workers, activists, and young people of color. With me, mental health care is affordable, accepting, and adjusted to your context. It is compassion that never pathologizes illness.
My experience
I received my trauma-informed counseling certificate from Trey Malicoat M.S. in April 2024. I’ve hosted multiple journaling, meditation, and community care sessions since 2023, including an in-person workshop for activists to process and heal from burnout. I’m also preparing to take my Master’s degree in counseling this 2026.
As someone who has struggled with anxiety and depression for eight years and been through the other side, I know how hard it is to find an affordable therapist who understands your context. That’s why I’m offering counseling sessions at a sliding scale.
An idea of what we’ll talk about:
Early sessions:
Your specific goals (e.g. managing anxiety and depression)
Understanding your background and what brings you to counseling
Middle to Later sessions:
Inner child work and healing childhood trauma
Life timeline and intrinsic beliefs
How to develop self-compassion
How to make meaning from negative experiences
How to set healthy boundaries with harmful people
Improving relationships with yourself and others
With me you’ll learn:
Greater emotional awareness, self-compassion, and practical ways to make life more meaningful. I want our coaching sessions to feel comfortable, as if you were talking to a friend. I prioritize your comfort in sharing, your pace of healing.
Decolonial Counseling
Stress and trauma is common under imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. I acknowledge the pervasiveness of systemic issues and their effects on mental health, and I’ll work with you to navigate these difficulties in a compassionate and radical way.
I maintain a decolonial approach to mental health, which means we have an equal relationship as counselor and client. My knowledge is not superior to yours. You are an active participant in your healing, and I’m just here to guide and empower you.
Journaling, Art & Somatics
Mental health is soul work, is body work. With this holistic understanding, I facilitate journaling, art and somatic practices that makes the process of healing more intuitive and enjoyable. If you have a preferred method, let me know so we can prioritize it in our sessions.
A better life is possible
It takes a lot of courage to begin the work of healing, but I believe everyone can have a better life if they choose. If you’ve been thinking about taking that first step, I encourage you to try—I think you’ll find that it’ll be well worth it.
Testimonies from past clients
Angeli: I had the opportunity to avail of Maria’s counseling services several times. What struck me from the outset was Maria’s compassion and perceptiveness—by listening intently she guided me towards significant realizations I never before considered. She helped me unpack key events in my past in ways that allowed me to see my past self with more kindness and compassion, as well as understand the ways this influenced me at present. Maria helped me navigate my chaotic thoughts, identify patterns, and chart ways to prevent spiraling into anxiety in the future. In all our sessions, she prioritized my comfort in sharing what I wanted to share, and I felt immensely comforted and at ease in her presence as a counselor. It is clear to me that she is an incredibly sharp, attentive, kind, open, and discerning counselor. I highly recommend her for anyone seeking out counseling services.
Alab: Sessions with Maria are like a warm cup of tea. She's warm, comforting, and familiar. She will provide you a comfortable seat, and a comfortable environment to open up and be yourself. She gave me a space to just pause and learn about myself while in the middle of a hectic life.
Anaya: Nilad's counseling has been tremendously helpful for when I sought to improve radical empathy, nuance & boundary-setting in my interpersonal and activist relationships. She was adjusted to my contexts, provided practical tips, and included appropriate rituals in our sessions to respect the emotional, spiritual & psychological. That is so refreshing having come from mostly hyper-western styles of therapy/mental health support.
Philline: Maria has a softness and a gentleness with her presence. If you need a space to be human, safe to be inside someone’s non-judgmental space colored with a skilfullness and a relationship with words that is pure –– let yourself be held by her.
Scheduling and Rates
Please go to calendly.com/niladmaria/counseling to schedule an online appointment at a sliding scale rate of 600-1200PHP.
I’m excited to meet and work with you!