Hi, I'm Maria Marc
Trauma integration practitioner and ICF Master Certified Coach
I combine master-level coaching with trauma-skilled, relational, and systems-aware practice. I help people shaping high-consequence systems recognize the hidden patterns that narrow their leadership - so they can act with greater presence, integrity, and choice. Presence is the capacity to stay in relationship with yourself, other people, and reality when the stakes are high.
I work with people navigating speed, power, ethical complexity, and the human consequences of technological and organizational change. Most leadership coaching begins with strategy and performance. Most trauma work stays outside the realities of power, culture, responsibility, and institutional life.
Having worked in both worlds, I bridge that gap.
Master Certified Coach (ICF) · 6,000+ private sessions · 1,000+ group hours · Compassionate Inquiry · Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment · Relational Trauma
Why
Because, I once trusted a system that took advantage of me, at a time when I didn't yet know how to stand up for myself. I did what I had learned to do. I stayed capable, stayed loyal, and kept going, while the part of me that knew something was wrong had nowhere to go. It took me years to understand the cost of that, and to learn that protecting myself wasn't disloyalty. It was dignity.
Over more than 6,000 private conversations and 1,000 hours of group work, I have seen the same pattern in people who carry real consequences: good people who trusted, adapted, and slowly left parts of themselves behind to stay effective inside systems that didn't hold them.
My work, The Surfacing Practice, grew from what I wish I had known sooner: what stays hidden still leads. When we bring it to the surface with care, slowly, and with someone holding the light beside us, it stops shaping us from the dark. I don't do this work because I stand outside it. I know the way down, and I know the way back.
The Surfacing Practice
1
SURFACE
Identify the hidden pattern beneath over-functioning, perfectionism, conflict avoidance, or self-erasure.
2
STABILIZE
Build enough nervous-system safety to meet the pattern without overwhelm, shame, or collapse.
3
RECLAIM
Practice decisions, boundaries, relationships, and leadership actions aligned with integrity.
How I work
My approach draws on Compassionate Inquiry (CI), Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST), neuroscience, relational trauma theory, and some holistic modalities. Together, these modalities let me work with what's beneath the surface: the over-responsibility, the perfectionism, the inhibited emotion, the chronic self-abandonment...
As the nervous system settles and what was hidden becomes visible, something shifts. Old, familiar defenses give way to something more durable: the capacity to live and lead from integrity rather than pressured performance. Clients describe it less as becoming someone new, and more as finally becoming who they already were - underneath the roles, the titles, and the coping strategies that got them this far. The Surfacing Practice is about clarity, dignity, authenticity, and self-trust. This is not curated confidence - it's the hard-earned, real thing that no one can take away, even when life falls apart.
What Begins to Shift
Real change is often quiet. It happens through small, steady, life-altering shifts as your nervous system recalibrates and your inner world becomes more trustworthy to live inside.
You may begin to notice:
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More space between stimulus and response.
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Less urgency, less bracing, less internal fragmentation.
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A greater capacity to tell the truth without immediately abandoning yourself.
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Clearer boundaries, with less guilt and less over-explanation.
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More discernment about what belongs to you and what does not.
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A steadier relationship to uncertainty, conflict, rest, and choice.
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A body that feels less like a problem to manage and more like a place you can inhabit.
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Leadership that is less performative, less compensatory, and more rooted in integrity.
The shift is not toward perfection. It is toward congruence. Toward becoming someone whose life no longer depends on betraying what they know to be true.
How I got here
Over more than 6,000 conversations, I have supported leaders, founders, practitioners, and change-makers navigating complexity, transition, and institutional strain.
I am a Certified Compassionate Inquiry® Practitioner and ICF-Master Certified Coach (MCC), whose work integrates nervous-system intelligence, leadership development, and trauma-informed systems thinking. I hold an MA in Leading Innovation and Change, with advanced training in Relational Trauma, Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST), and Neurodivergence.
2026 - Certified Compassionate Inquiry® Practitioner
2026 - ICF: Master Certified Coach - 009920129I
2026 - TIST (Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment) Level 1 & Level 2
2026 - Neurodivergence in Practice
2026 - Working with Clients in Toxic Organizations
2026 - Suicide Attention Training
2026 - Navigating the Levels of Trauma Healing
2026 - The Art of Attunement
2026 - Foundations of Psychedelic Therapy
2025 - IICT: Neuro-Life Coach & Life Coaching Practitioner - US969940782
2025 - Neurodiversity Specialist Training
2025 - Compassionate Inquiry Circles
2024 - Specialized in Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS)
2024 - Certified Relational Trauma Coach
2023 - Coaching for Motivation
2023 - Mental Health Awareness & Recognition
2022 - Cognitive Behavioral Coaching
2022 - The Neuroscience of Change
2022 - The Neurobiology of Attachment
2022 - How to Target the Limbic System to Reverse Trauma’s Psychological Imprint
2022 - Strategies to Help Clients Navigate Rupture and Build Skills of Repair
2022 - Ignite the Intuitive Power of Your Emotions to Heal and Transform Fear
2021 - Neuroscience Coaching and Leadership
2021 - Mental Fitness Coaching
2020 - The Power of Embodied Transformation
2020 - The Art of Developmental Coaching
2020 - Conscious Business Coaching
2018 - Positive Cultures in Organizations
2017 - Human Capital Coaching
2016 - Career Coaching Mastery
2015 - Master of Arts, Leading Innovation and Change
2014 - Kaizen Workshop Certification
2013 - Facilitation Foundation Certification
2014 - Postgraduate Certificate, Business Administration
Boundary Statement
I offer non-pathologizing, trauma-skilled coaching, facilitation, and education. As a trauma integration practitioner and ICF Master Certified Coach, I bring depth of training to our exploration of the patterns shaping how you lead, relate, make decisions, and participate in systems. This work is grounded in the ethics and scope of trauma-informed coaching. It does not provide clinical diagnosis, or crisis care. When your needs extend beyond that scope, I will support you in identifying appropriate professional care.