Maira Flores Xavier

Embodiment Coach for Executives

Maíra Flores is an embodiment coach for executives and high-achieving professionals — the people who look most in control on paper, who often already go to the gym or run or do Pilates, and are still the furthest from what their body is actually trying to tell them.

Her work sits at the intersection of ontological coaching, somatic medicine, and movement. Where most executive coaching stays in the realm of strategy and mindset, Maíra works with the layer underneath: the survival identity the nervous system has organized itself around, often shaped by early trauma, that quietly dictates how a leader makes decisions, handles pressure, and relates to their own limits.

She is the creator of The Five Masks framework, which identifies the specific survival identity the nervous system has attached to — the particular strategy a person built early on to stay safe, be loved, or stay in control, and has been running on ever since. Each mask once worked. Now it costs the person wearing it their health, their relationships, or their capacity to lead well.

Maíra is Brazilian, based in London, and brings a background in physiotherapy and Pilates instruction — alongside a personal practice of social dance — into her coaching work, treating the body as a legitimate source of information rather than something to override. She works with clients one-to-one, both in person and online, and is building toward a corporate offering for organizations ready to address the root of what's running their leaders, rather than just the symptoms.

Her approach is direct. She does not do generic wellness language, and she does not tell clients what they want to hear. She tells them what their body has been trying to tell them for years.