Exclusive Interview With Feminist Coach – Mayra Martins Cardozo
Mayra is one of the pioneers in Brazil in feminist coaching and is something she is passionate about. Despite being a lawyer and partner in a famous office in Brazil and a university professor of Human Rights, these were not enough for her. She always wants to make a difference in people's lives. It was then that she discovered her passion and became a life coach; she has a brilliant curriculum involving the best national and international courses.
The objective of your work is to empower human beings to be their best version and help them emancipate themselves from socially constructed beliefs to be their essence.
Her approach is different. It aims to unite the coaching process with the development of an inclusive and emancipatory awareness.
Feminist Coach, Maya Cardozo
Who is Mayra?
I'm a 29-year-old white, privileged woman, an only child of separated parents. I am Brazilian, Latin American, born and Raised in São Paulo, now I live in Brasília. In both cases, it is always more in elite neighborhoods where access to everything has always been effortless.
However, I grew up feeling very guilty about my privileges. But always eager to change structures and make a difference in the world. But I kept silent because I believed I couldn't expose myself. After all, I had no place to speak.
Being the daughter of a powerful father is beautiful, but I know what it's like to live behind patriarchy behind the glamor.
Even though my dad is a wonderful feminist man, patriarchal society throws you in your face all the time about what it's like to live backstage. The problem is that I always liked the stage a lot. I wasn't born to live behind anyone.
In this process of self-knowledge, I realized that I wasn't shy. But, unfortunately, I was silenced by the imposter crisis, perfectionism, and the patriarchal society that treats you as an object of decoration in meeting rooms.
It was then that I started to get in touch with feminism, and I realized that most of the pain I had came from a patriarchal mindset I carried. Examples of these mindsets:
Decreasing to please.
Seeking acceptance in the other.
Not knowing how to say no.
Waiting to be "rescued by the enchanted prince
It was then that I rediscovered myself, rediscovered who I am, empowered myself with my story, and decided to leave the aisle and go on stage.
I decided I wasn't going to shut up anymore. I understood that the guilt of privilege plus the fear of not pleasing shouldn't paralyze me. It was then that I decided to use my privilege to move and change the systems and structures.
Feminist coaching was the way I found to make a difference in the world and plant seeds.
What is it that you do for your clients?
I've been to this place of:
Think I'm just a body
Deify people and do everything to be accepted
Overvaluing the opinion of others, especially men
Needing validation from the other to recognize its value
be afraid of conflicts
not feeling that your work matters
fear of making mistakes
fear of taking a stand
imposter crisis
difficulty and connecting with people
fear of showing feelings
making manipulation games
Today I intend to help people understand, as I did, that most of this mindset comes from patriarchal beliefs that we introject in us. Most of these pains come from individual stories we carry with us about living in a society where men hold power and women are either behind or on the fringes.
I gave new meaning to my story, deconstructed beliefs, and broke the bonds that imprisoned me. As a result, today, I have a healthy relationship, bank my opinions, draw my professional future and go on stage alone, whether with an audience or not, because I know I deserve to be on this stage.
And that's what I do for my clients. I help them occupy their stage as protagonists in their lives.
Who should hire/work with you?
Usually, the people who come to me want to make a difference in the world. But the reality is that well-behaved women don't make history, so my main goal is to make women not feel inferior to men and free them selves from patriarchal beliefs to build new paths of history where women hold power.
What is your big goal?
My big goal is to make a difference to as many people as possible, make narratives visible and create my legacy coherent with my feminist values and aligned with social justice.
