Mariana López M.A., LCPC, SEP, 200hr RYT
About me
My name is Mariana López (she/her/ella). I am the firstborn daughter of courageous Mexican immigrants that made Chicago’s South Side our home. I am a bilingual, bicultural Licensed Professional Counselor of Mexican (Mexika, Chichimeca) in Illinois, the ancestral lands of the Three Fires Confederacy: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, the Myaamia, Kiikaapoi, and many other Indigenous communities.
I was born a mystic carrying the blood and DNA of my ancestors who are warriors, healers, and protectors of mother earth. My mother shared with me her gift of nurturance through gardening and nature. From my father, I inherited the fearlessness to create my own path. For the past 25 years, I have been mastering sacred healing tools that I utilize in my work as an integrative healing facilitator and somatic psychotherapist. Birthing Tolteca Healing Arts PLLC has been a powerful and humbling experience that I am honored to share with you.
It has been my life’s path to reclaim my roots, cultivate a connection to the sacredness of the natural world and embody my mission to support generational healing, empowerment and liberation for BIPOC communities. I walk the path of the Nahual- Medicine Woman and Warrior and learned how to rebirth myself by persisting and trusting the process through the challenging parts of transformation and healing and have internalized the importance of a safe, secure, and compassionate space to support the blossoming of the actualized self, for myself and others.
My Approach to Healing
I believe that healing is multidimensional and an inherent right to reclaim the whole self. My approach to clinical work, mentoring, education, and supervision is to encourage and inspire growth and creation, because after all, we are all artists of our lives.
My treatment approach is rooted in a holistic, strengths- based, person-centered, relational-cultural, psychodynamic, family systems, mujerista and indigenous frameworks. I emphasize the importance of nourishing the whole self, particularly the spiritual, emotional, and physical dimensions of the self, throughout the healing process. I have extensive experience with body-centered therapies such as Somatic Experiencing®, and hatha yoga, as well as Cognitive-Behavioral and Narrative therapy.
In addition to psychotherapeutic and cultural approaches, I have a background in Clinical Massage Therapy where I specialized in sports massage, chronic pain, stress, pre/post-natal massage and infant massage therapy instruction. I am a 200 hour Registered Yoga Teacher trained in Hatha Yoga. I am also an Advanced Reiki practitioner and about to embark on my journey towards Reiki Master Teacher. These practices have taught me the power of our bodies as sacred containers for our story and evolution.
"Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today"
-Thich Nhat Hanh