Hi, I'm Maria Lyubenova
Psychologist · Certified yoga instructor · Specialist in emotional eating & the relationship with food
Before all of this, I lost myself
For seven years I was a chief accountant. On paper, everything was fine. Inside, it wasn't.
The stress built until it became burnout. I gained more than 20 kilos, and I fell into depression. I had drifted far from myself — from my body, my joy, from any sense of what I actually wanted from my life.
The turning point came at thirty, after the birth of my son. Something in me refused to keep living that way. So I made a sharp turn — I left the career I had built, and I began again.
Beginning again
That new beginning became the last ten years of my life.
I went back to study for a Master's in Psychological Counselling, and I've continued training ever since in cognitive-behavioural therapy, with hundreds of hours of supervised practice. My Master's thesis explored the psychology of overeating and the motivation for change — the very thing I had lived through myself.
That's also why I trained specifically in emotional and compulsive eating and the relationship with food and body — because I know from the inside how tangled food, emotion, and self-worth can become, and how it's possible to find peace again.
Alongside this, I've practised yoga for over 15 years and became a certified yoga instructor (Yoga Alliance, 200h) in India in 2023. I now teach both in person and online.
Over the past 7 years, combining psychology, yoga, and mindful, holistic care, I've supported thousands of women in coming home to themselves — to more balance, calm, and self-trust.
Then came my own pregnancy
When I became pregnant, everything I had learned was put to the test.
My pregnancy was high-risk. I had to stop working by the tenth week, and for the first four months my partner was on the other side of the world. I was carrying so much — uncertainty, fear, the constant waiting — often on my own.
So I did for myself what I had spent years helping other women do: I wove together psychological support, yoga, meditation, and mindful eating — to care not only for my body, but for how I was living through it all, inwardly.
Despite the difficult start, my pregnancy unfolded beautifully, and my birth was natural, calm, and without complications.
"I did for myself what I had spent years helping other women do."
Why this became my focus
In my work as a psychologist, I kept seeing how deeply the emotional patterns we carry — often passed down through generations — shape the way we live and feel.
And research shows how early this begins. A mother's inner world is the very first environment her baby grows in. Studies on prenatal development suggest that a mother's emotional state and stress can influence her baby's development — which means that caring for your own calm is also a way of caring for your child.
This is what moved me to focus on pregnancy — not as a medical checklist, but as a tender, formative window for both mother and baby.
"Caring for your own calm is also a way of caring for your child."
What I believe
I believe these nine months are lived more gently when a woman is truly cared for — not just physically, but emotionally and inwardly, too.
I believe support should feel human. Not another app, not another list of rules — but a real person, real understanding, and practices you can return to depending on what you need in each moment.
And I believe that caring for the way you experience your pregnancy isn't only for you. It's also part of caring for the life growing within you.
It would be my privilege to support you on this path.
