Dr Maya Campbell is a research scientist, psychologist, author and mindfulness teacher living and working in Colchester. Having initially trained as a research scientist in chemistry and physics, Maya became interested in psychology and mindfulness after having experienced exhaustion and burnout, leading to years of depression and ultimately a heart attack and cardiac arrest. After having been resuscitated, and spending two months in a coma, Maya began years of personal physical and mental therapy. Along this journey she became more and more interested in how people experienced mental distress and did a Master’s in Psychology and trained as a Mindfulness teacher.
In 2015, having been diagnosed with heart failure and an inoperable aneurysm in the heart, and feeling more and more fatigued and ill, she decided to research her own medical conditions to see whether there was anything she could do to help herself. What she discovered about how the mind influences the body and heart, and how techniques that use these interactions could help her heart galvinished her to use them in her own daily routines as well as developing a training program for others with heart issues and other disorders of the autonomic nervous system. The Heartfulness Project was born in 2016 in collaboration with colleagues Dr Tamara Russell and Dr Anna Bendijk and after a pilot study by Kings College, London run in London and Colchester.
Recently Maya has written a book about her experiences of having a cardiac arrest as well as 2 months spent in a coma after being resuscitated. In her book she describes her life’s journey through childhood and teenage trauma, her life as a research scientist investigating crystals that could be used as an invisibility paint, years of depression, heart attack and cardiac arrest and how she overcome the illness to once more engage and enjoy life. Along the way she describes a profound shift in her awareness and perceptions of the world around her and a new found sense of connection with people.
In her work, Maya brings her professional training and expertise to her teachings as well as the lived experience of having gone through major traumas and illnesses and flourished despite currently living with the life-threatening disease of heart failure. Maya brings kindness and compassion to her teaching and is especially interested in the teaching of self-compassion to people. The ability to bring kindness and care to the self is profoundly healing, both mentally and physically and underpins all the gains individuals experience through undertaking a mindfulness course.
Maya is an experienced mindfulness teacher and supervisor and has trained to teach mindfulness courses (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) at the University of Oxford Mindfulness Centre and Bangor University Mindfulness Centre. She has been teaching mindfulness based courses since 2012 as well as running workshops and drop-ins.
In 2016 she travelled to the USA to train to teach the Mindful Self-Compassion course with the originators Kirsten Neff and Christopher Germer and is an accredited teacher of this course after having done additional advanced training in 2017. Since 2016 she has been teaching the MSC course and has mentored a number of MSC teachers in the UK.
What People Say
‘I have found it a life changing experience’
Course participant
‘The leader Maya is lovely and kind’
Course participant
‘Thanks Maya for running and facilitating such a special course’
Course participant
Dr Maya Campbell 