In a heartfelt interview with MysticMag, Maura Amelia Bonanno, a seasoned transformational guide, shares her profound journey into holistic practices and personal growth.
From a teenage vow to support others through pain, inspired by her own struggles, to embracing the Enneagram and Somatic Movement as tools for transformation, Maura’s story is one of resilience and intuition. Her approach seamlessly weaves spirituality and self-awareness, guiding clients to confront limiting patterns and rediscover their inner balance.
This introduction to her philosophy sets the stage for a deeper exploration of how conscious practices can unlock profound personal and spiritual growth.
What inspired you to become a holistic healer and transformational guide?
Greetings to the readers of Mystic Mag, and thanks to you for the kind invitation to this interview. I will gladly answer your questions.
I will begin my answer with a clarification: the definition of a holistic healer does not correspond to me. Certainly, my approach is holistic, but I do not consider myself a healer. Rather, a transformational guide is a definition that is more appropriate to my work and probably also to me and my life in general. As you surely know, those who find themselves engaged in this field bring themselves into their work. Obviously, when there is a relationship, there are boundaries; it is necessary that roles and spaces are respected and honored, but inside oneself, there is a continuum.
You ask me what inspired me to commit myself as a transformational guide. I can share three moments in which I consciously saw this direction. And I do not know if I would call them inspirations, perhaps rather intuitions and understandings.
The first occasion was when I was a teenager. Today, I am almost 57 years old, so it’s quite a while ago. I clearly remember the moment when I thought, felt, and sensed that if one day I could get out of the nightmare I was living—and it was my firm intention to get out of it—I would dedicate my life to supporting other individuals who could find themselves in similar situations, or in any case, very difficult and painful ones. I wanted one day to be proof that it is possible to overcome them, maybe even discover that horrible experiences can become gifts.
Over time, I forgot this intent. I continued my academic studies, dancing, travelling, and at the same time worked on myself and nourished my self-knowledge. Mainly, among other things, meditation practices, psychological analysis, and body approaches. I did jobs that had nothing to do with the holistic world until I was 34. Indeed, there was a moment of “dark night of the soul” in which I became terribly selfish; I needed no one to need me. As with many other processes in life, it is necessary to move away from something precious in order to feel the longing to get closer to it again.
The second occasion was when my first Enneagram teacher, Maysa Branco Castelo, pushed me with a certain vigor to throw myself into teaching and leading groups. I was 36 years old and already had a lot of experience with growth and meditation groups as a participant, translator, assistant, and organizer. Up until that moment, I had never intended to be in the front row; I loved those secondary roles, behind the scenes. Her push scared me so much; however, I understood that precisely for this reason, it was necessary for me to accept it, to seize the opportunity. A solid confirmation of this decision was the blessing of the Sufi master of whom I had become a disciple in the meantime, Maulana Sheikh Nazim al-Haqqani al-Qubrusi. It may be interesting to remember that when a master indicates a path as good, it means that it is full of obstacles and potholes necessary for spiritual growth. A part of me was powerfully against taking it; another knew that I had no choice.
The third occasion is timeless. It’s what happens when someone I’m supporting sincerely thanks me. Every time I see eyes shining again, my being a channel and a vehicle allows spaces of liberation, deep understandings, love, compassion, inner transformations that change and transform one’s sense of self, one’s approach to the environment, relationships, and life.
Regarding inspiration, I would rather use the “from whom” than the “from what”. There have been individuals I’ve met in whom I’ve recognized role models, who had positive qualities that have inspired me to nurture in myself, too. For example, one of my therapists, one of my teachers, my spiritual master.
How does your approach combine spirituality and personal growth?
That’s a great question, thank you for asking. Both of the main tools I use—the Enneagram map and the Somatic Movement research practice—involve and embrace personal growth and spirituality. Not so much as a combination of these two dimensions, but rather as facets of a single reality. The same can be said with some of the other methods, techniques that I use, mainly meditative practices and Ken Wilber’s Integral Approach. Instead, movement disciplines, Non-Violent Communication, and Solution Focus involve the sphere of personal growth more directly and do not obviously touch the spiritual dimension. When this approach and methods, and techniques are integrated adequately and coherently, they contribute to the harmony between spirituality and personal growth.
To support a real transformation, personal growth and spiritual growth are inseparable. Anyone who sincerely commits himself to a path of self-knowledge and personal growth aimed at inner transformation inevitably finds himself having to deal with the spiritual dimension at some point. If this is not the case, it is not transformative work, but rather a simple change of habits that do not touch the being, that reiterate limiting patterns by simply changing their superficial form. If in the work of personal growth at a certain point the yearning for the spiritual dimension does not appear, we cultivate an ephemeral success that does not nourish the soul, that can never truly satisfy us.
This circumstance is very evident today in neoliberal Western society, in which we are entrepreneurs of ourselves, in which we believe we are masters of our destiny, in which we are convinced that where there’s a will, there’s a way, in which merit and skill are associated with material results, with the product, with the form. The dissociation from the spiritual dimension is evident. There is an enormous hunger and thirst for contact with one’s soul and with the spiritual dimension, which, when they are not recognized, are vented in the obsessive drive to achieve tangible goals.
If at some point in the work of spiritual growth we do not confront the need for personal growth work, we are trapped in magical thinking, in the illusion of inner balance and harmony that is lost as soon as someone steals our parking space or passes us in line at the post office. This circumstance is very evident in contemporary New Age environments where the race to see who shines the most with catchy phrases and the competition to have more followers are wild. The pandemic years have produced a very high number of individuals who declare and propose themselves as masters and teachers, spiritual, of last-minute awakened people. Without a sincere commitment to self-knowledge, nothing is truly transformed in our lives; the knots will continue to come home to roost, no matter how many mantras we recite.
In both cases, whether we neglect personal growth or neglect spirituality, we are trapped in the mechanical nature of limiting internal patterns, slaves to our ego. We are attached to forms (thoughts, emotions, sensations, objects, situations); we avoid being deeply questioned; we are playing; we are entertaining ourselves.
In the work I propose, the transformation process awakens and involves different intelligences and different dimensions of experience: corporeal, somatic, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual. While we become more aware of our limiting internal mechanisms, we nourish the subtle and essential aspects.
With the Enneagram, because personality and character are explored as mechanical products of the loss of direct experience of aspects of essential reality, for which we are particularly sensitive, we can reconnect and which we can reopen. With Somatics, because the body is explored through a conscious practice of embodiment that highlights the automatic patterns of our movement in the world, and that leaves room for a natural and effortless energy that harmonizes the different levels of our experience, and that changes the quality of consciousness.
For those who are not familiar with the terms Enneagram and Somatics that I have used, I feel like writing a few lines. The Enneagram is a map of the human experience that supports the evolution of human consciousness and awareness through self-knowledge. The body of knowledge of the Enneagram is an incredible concentration and integration of philosophical and mathematical understandings from different eras, cultures, and traditions. It helps us to gain clarity in our inner world and to see others as they truly are. To understand and discern our experience. To discover and honor our natural talents and resources, and take responsibility for our difficulties with others. It is a map formally represented by a circle that includes an equilateral triangle intersecting a six-sided figure. The points that touch the circle are numbered from one to nine in a clockwise direction and are connected by lines and arrows in both internal figures.
The Enneagram is today mainly used to delineate nine personality types with distinct and specific mental, emotional, and instinctual patterns and their interrelationship. In reality, it is much more. It represents very precisely three intelligences—cognitive, emotional, and visceral—with distinct approaches to the world and three survival-oriented impulses that govern our decisions and actions. It also describes different aspects of experience that all human beings have in common. It is a map of the path on the journey home, of remembering oneself.
The Enneagram offers many levels of interpretation, and two of them are particularly evident. A horizontal one to understand the functioning of the personality and to support the awareness of one’s own limiting cognitive, emotional, and instinctive patterns and of the resources available. It explains in a clear and detailed way the true motivations of our behaviors, reveals the intentions, beliefs, and prejudices that automatically guide our decisions, and provides concrete indications about the resources that can lead us out of these limitations. A vertical one clarifies the change and evolution or involution within the personality, the spectrum of motivations, traits, and defenses. A third that includes both shows the connection between personality and essence and the spiritual path.
The first to introduce the symbol to the West was the Armenian Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff around 1913 in Moscow, using it to describe the cosmic order of the universe and the natural laws that govern the occurrence of all processes. He used it in his program of “Harmonious Development of Man” to provide a balanced education of the different sides of human nature. The work I propose—be it counseling, coaching, Somatic Movement, training, facilitation, mentoring—is strongly based on the Work proposed by G.I. Gurdjieff.
Somatics is a field of research that includes different methods of pedagogy and techniques of movement analysis. The common principles are the holistic conception of the subject in which body, emotion, and thought compose an inseparable continuum, a wide and sophisticated availability of gestural and manual techniques, and a construction of subjective experience through the constant and in-depth practice of listening and sensitivity, especially proprioceptive and kinaesthetic.
In the 1960s, the American philosopher Thomas Hanna began to use the term somatic to define the field of study of the body through the perspective of individual experience. He began to use the term soma to define the body as a subject that experiences, in contrast to the body considered as an object. Each individual can be able to perceive their own bodily sensations, to know themselves in the body, and experience themselves from within. Learning to experience the body from the inside increases awareness and the efficiency with which one moves in the world, allows one to renew and strengthen the sense of real presence to oneself in every moment of life, to recognize one’s limits and resources, and to bring out unexpected abilities and be immediately active in change. It supports self-esteem, assertiveness, and the ability to manage tension. It allows the integration and harmonization of the different levels of our experience: sensation, perception, emotions, and thoughts.
Somatic work allows us to acquire a broader awareness of our body, of movement, of psycho-perceptive and relational patterns, and to explore new alternatives for feeling, thinking, moving, and interacting with the world. The somatic approaches that I use are Body-Mind Centering®, Experiential Anatomy and Embryology, Bioenergetics, Primitive Expression, Osho Dance Therapy, Dance Therapy, Aikido principles.
Among these, in particular, Body-Mind Centering®—developed in the 1970s by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen—specifically explores the relationship between body and mind through movement. It is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of principles of anatomy, physiology, psychology, and knowledge of the development of movement from conception to the first year of life. It explores the physiological body systems and their expression, the evolutionary patterns of movement, the development of the senses, primitive reflexes, balance, and the relationship with gravity and space.
Body-Mind Centering® states that each part of the body and each physiological system has its own uniquely patterned quality of movement and, in some cases, a spatial range that we can consciously access. It uses movement, touch, voice, and images, and pays attention to the whole person and individuality.
What common challenges do your clients face, and how do you help them overcome them?
The area of life in which difficulties emerge is always the relational one, starting from the relationship with oneself. The relationship with one’s body and health, with painful emotions, with fears and anger, with money and objects, with time, with loved ones, family, animals, friends, colleagues, collaborators, superiors at work, career, society.
In the relationship with oneself, difficulties are often connected to constant self-control, to an overestimation or underestimation of oneself, of one’s internal resources and energy. In the relationship with the environment and with others, difficulties are often connected to not receiving the desired answers, to wanting to change others, to rejecting reality for what it is, and exhausting oneself in denying it or in trying to forcefully change it.
A general challenge is to shift the responsibility of one’s experience from an external object—event, situation, person—to oneself. This is a necessary initial challenge that only some accept and overcome. It is an understanding that, once acquired, it is possible to train in order to be able to support the inner space and balance of freedom of decision and choice.
Another recurring challenge is to open up to possibilities other than the known and usual ones. We are all terribly attached to the usual way of thinking, to the opinions, to the known emotions, and to habits. Changing habits is a challenge: easy to say and difficult to do.
Another challenge is to overcome the forced search for well-being. I believe that in contemporary Western society, there is an obsession with well-being. Well-being is idealized, forgetting that inner balance and serenity do not always mean being well. In reality, what makes the difference in the quality of life is the level of consciousness, the self-awareness that allows you to manage with inner balance even the most difficult situations.
In this regard, another challenge is to welcome what emerges when we listen to ourselves. This is one of the times when proper guidance is essential because initially, these may not be pleasant aspects, but rather exactly those experiences that until that moment we have tried to avoid, may emerge. Taking the risk of looking into unknown places of ourselves is scary, but it is an obligatory path to being reborn free. Having someone by your side who accompanies you with experience, love, and method on this journey is precious. To overcome this challenge, you also need a firm intention to do so, determination, courage, a lot of acceptance, and love.
There is no single way to transform difficult experiences, because every situation is unique. However, the direction is to bring awareness to limiting internal patterns, embark on a journey of self-knowledge that allows you to be aware of your own responsibility, with love, acceptance, courage, curiosity, and at the same time, always orient yourself towards the solution.
What I propose is a form of re-education of the way we treat and manage our inner world. Together, we learn to re-educate our thoughts towards resources and solutions instead of indulging in complaint, anxiety, and blame that drain our energy. Together, we learn to respond instead of reacting. I guide towards a change of consciousness whose content I cannot predict, but which will be a broader consciousness. I support highlighting the attachments that trap in the lack of choice and cause pain, and I help to nourish the opening of an inner space from which creativity, intuition, and the resources of the individual can emerge.
I basically do it through listening, targeted questions, feedback, the exchange of information that can broaden the understanding of the dynamics addressed, the invitation to pay attention to the internal experience of the body, and proposing specific movements that awaken the intelligence of our cells. I help separate the person from the problem: “You are having difficulties” is different from saying “The situation is making your life difficult”. I have complete faith in the resources of the individual who turns to me, and often, those who ask for help are already doing something to deal with the situation. I pay attention to what the other wants rather than what they do not want, and I avoid offering advice or proposals that are not totally under their influence. I leave time and space. I go towards the internal place where the other is, avoiding forcing the other to reach me in the place where I am or what I believe is good for them.
Often, requests for help come in times of emergency. In these cases, the necessary work is to resolve the situation, to overcome the difficulty of the moment. Typically, these coaching or counseling interventions are quite quick, and for some, it ends there. Differently, the work of inner transformation requires time, commitment, and practice and does not happen in situations of emergency, but rather when you have the time and energy resources to do it and, above all, there is a clear intention to dedicate yourself to it.
Can you share a transformational success story from your practice?
This is a difficult question. It is difficult to choose one. The word “success” is often a trap. When personal and spiritual growth are in harmony, success is replaced by the realization of one’s being. Success is ordinarily interpreted as the achievement of a goal, while being and realization are in progress. You have never arrived.
However, I can share the story of a lady in crisis on all fronts of her life, who asked me for help because she was exhausted by a job she didn’t like, in a very difficult environment, with a superior by whom she didn’t feel valued, and by a large family for whom she felt an enormous responsibility, a husband who was perpetually annoyed and offensive, and children with whom there was no communication.
I initially thought it necessary to leave space for her words and her outbursts. I noticed the way she walked and breathed, the way she moved her hands and gaze, and the recurring words she used. I decided to start from the body, since her mind and heart were too full to be able to invite reflection. The somatic practice allowed a reorganization of the nervous system and the construction of a ground on which to work together, also emotionally and cognitively.
Through the body, we re-organized the internal somatic patterns connected with healthy boundaries, with the sense of solidity and internal support that allowed her to begin to accept reality, accept herself, and affirm herself. This also offered her the courage to explore and listen to her true needs, to bring to consciousness her responsibility in the dynamics in which she felt trapped. She understood that love is not what she believed; she began to take better care of herself, to dedicate more time to herself without feeling guilty or selfish. She discovered that in this way, she loved her family even more, and work became less burdensome.
A year later, she came back, and I supported her in changing jobs. She had discovered what she liked; we worked together until she opened her own business.
How do energy healing and intuitive guidance support personal development?
This is another beautiful question. Regarding energy healing, I believe that everything is a question of energy because we are fundamentally manifestations of vibrations, which become resonances, that become forms. The term healing can be a trap because it is based on the assumption that there is something sick and wrong in us that needs to be healed. I don’t think so. Everything is vibration, and everything we experience affects our vibrational state. For me, it is not a question of healing, but of nourishment, harmonization, and rebalancing.
How consciously do we nourish ourselves? What do we nourish ourselves with? What is the quality of the food, air, and impressions that we offer to our body and soul? What aspects of ourselves do we want to nourish? When I support individuals in the re-education of the way in which they manage their mental, emotional, or physical energy, a change also happens in me. Resonance is fundamental. The quality of the relationship is fundamental. While online work works great, in-person work that also allows for direct involvement of the senses is far more powerful. The skin is an important vehicle because it comes from the ectoderm, a precursor to the neural tube, which has become our nervous system. In contact, we contact ourselves, and this consciously lived experience has a huge impact on transforming our physical, emotional, and mental energy. A purposeless conscious contact can rebalance an over-stimulated or dormant nervous system, allowing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems to communicate and harmonize.
Regarding intuitive guidance, for me, intuition is the manifestation of an inner alignment, of a reunification of all our parts. Intuition finds space to emerge when we are present, which, translated, means when we are free from attachment to thoughts, emotions, sensations, imaginations, memories, associations, and projections. We are. These are nonordinary moments of grace that can be cultivated. Intuition arises from a space in which the separation between “I” and “you” falls, and therefore, it is possible to clearly see the harmonious path, the unifying path. Even if it indicates a direction in which personal action or non-action is involved, this guide is no longer about me or the other; it involves all beings.
In this space, the work of personal and spiritual growth is not only for oneself, but for all creatures. When this happens, I propose my intuition to the other to verify that it is truly a good path for him or her. My guidance is my presence. Only the other knows what is good for them. Whatever answer I receive, stimuli have passed that allow for greater self-knowledge, and possibly also, their intuition has been awakened. For me, it is important to support others in meeting their experience of inner guidance, so that they can know the way to access it when they need it.
What is one simple practice anyone can do to cultivate more balance in life?
I mentioned the nervous system earlier. We live in an age of overstimulation where our sympathetic nervous system is hysterical. A simple and powerful practice to remind the nervous system of the possibility of balance is to lean on your back. In the back of our current body, there is the memory of the very first support we experienced, the one in which we were welcomed by the internal wall of the maternal stem. Regardless of the relationship with our mother that we may have had later, that embryological moment of support is the one we can evoke in cellular memory by leaning on our back. Sensing the support. Letting go of the superficial muscles that we do not need at this moment, because we are sitting or lying down. Muscle tension and labored breathing are the first obstacles to the flow of natural energy.
It is a simple practice; you can do it any time you remember, when you are at work, or when you are on the sofa, or in the car. The nervous system records, and the body—meaning also mind and emotions—learns with repetition. With this simple practice, we can build and nourish new, more useful synapses and stop nourishing the useless and painful ones. Over time, you will notice that your breathing changes, your sensations are clearer, your sense of self changes, and you can feel centered quite quickly.
Thank you, Mystic Mag; goodbye, readers. I hope this sharing can bring good inspiration, and I am available for anyone who wants the support I can offer.
Find out more at: www.enneagrammaIntegrale.it and www.mauraameliabonanno.com
