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Maya Faya

@mayafayaa

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🌏We'll be somewhere soon
✏️Copywriter /⛵️ Deckhand
📸 @filmonfaya
🌊🐙🐢🐬🐋🦈🐚

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🔥 That time I almost didn’t go to Burn because it felt like a step backwards coming out of Vipassana. Like a distraction from life. Only to realize that Burn is Vipassna—inside out.

💫 Dancing in the dust, stitching cushions together during build with strangers who became friends, wandering away into the sunset to process the laughter and love in solitude, listening to my body, and feeling so deeply at home surrounded by friends, knowing right there, and right here, I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. That actually, this isn’t a distraction from life at all—but what life is all about.

🤍Shoutout to @we.are.bahari and the best group of friends who made sure I made it to the desert in the first place. 📍 Meet you same time same place next year, corner of 7ish and F, the intersection of connection, community, self-expression, and a whole lotta batshit crazy legends. 🔥 taken in Tankwa Town - Afrika Burn by @mayafayaa

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4 months ago

💫Well, about ten months late, I’m finally posting about the journey that was my 11 day Meditation Teacher Training.
🧘‍♀️Since then, the teachings have had time to breath, to settle, take shape, and in doing so, has allowed me to take the next step and even hold space for others.
🌺 It took this long to find the words to honor the experience, so in honor of World Meditation Day, here they are. Swipe to read it in full.

🤍 Thank you to @adam.yogadam for being such an incredible teacher and for passing on your presence and wisdom to so many around the world. And thank you to the wonderful group of humans who became family during those 11 days of exploring stillness and connection. 💫 taken in The Istana by @mayafayaa

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5 months ago

Ok so almost a month late—
but I’m still reflecting on the year of ‘25.
Like whoa.

It was the year I went deep, the year I tuned out and sat in, I isolated and cut off, I listened to myself deeply for the first time, and learned that as much I love to be alone, I also miss being in community.

I set out to leave what I knew behind, and instead retraced my steps backwards, and found home.

A place where people held space, and received me with open arms and hearts, waiting for me to recognize that what I was looking for had been there the whole time.

The people and patience and soul of the country I kept trying to leave, were the very things I wound up craving and needing.

As a nomad, it’s easy to be sensitive to these things, to feel where my soul is adrift, or at unrest. To abandon and take flight. But when it settles?

It feels like the whole world is aligned , and it’s waiting. For me to recognize that it was always there. To make sense of it .

That home is exactly where I left it. That tilting my head in just the right way actually shows me exactly what I wanted.

A perspective buried deep inside my soul. Reflected right back. In their eyes. In the people I meet. In the ones that I love. Wherever I am. Familiar, and foreign. I was home. And I am. I always have been. 💫 by @mayafayaa

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9 months ago

A place of dreams, with people that make my soul sing 💫 what a homecoming. Until next year… taken in Cape Town, South Africa by @mayafayaa

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a year ago

A Philippines photo dump. Two months with some beautiful people, unexpectedly teaching yoga at a free diving center, and a very best friend who flew around the world to visit me. 💫 taken in Siquijor Island, Philippines by @mayafayaa

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a year ago

✨Maya Faya is American born, currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. She has been practicing yoga for 13 years and found her way to teaching by wanting to deepen her own meditation, pranayama, and asana practice.

🌍Her love of people and travel has led to almost ten years of exploration around the globe. She is an avid adventurer, ocean addict, soup savant, with a passion for writing.

🧜🏻‍♀️Maya harbors a deep-sea curiosity that manifests in scuba diving and volunteering to save turtles, penguins, great white sharks, and whales, amongst other marine mammals.

🌊When not practicing yoga, Maya loves a good laugh, sitting around a table with friends, spending time outdoors, trying various kinds of hot sauces, and chasing after any animal she can pet.

#yoga #yogatravel #mentalhealth #mindfulness #panglao #yogabohol #yogapanglao #philippines #yogalife taken in Panglao, Bohol by @mayafayaa

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2 years ago

🧘‍♀️ Yoga Teacher Training (verb)
Read: A wild ride, a purging of the old, an exorcism (quite literally Bali belly).
When I embarked on my YTT, I didn’t know what was to come—yet, I had some expectations. What I’ve ended up walking away with far exceeds what I could have imagined.

Some take aways:

1. 🏔️ Sometimes, using a block for support in a pose shows more strength than trying to bend deeper

2. 🚪 Often, the emotions we suppress out of fear of rejection are the very things that allow us to be seen when shared, and opens the door for others to be seen; It builds more meaningful and deep connections

3. 🏵️ Nothing is personal

4. 🌈 When you see something beautiful about someone, share it with them—they probably don’t hear it enough, and it’s probably exactly what they need to hear

5. 💫 The most creative thoughts and deepest learnings are found in silence

6. 🧀 I can go way longer than I thought without cheese

7. 👀 The only person judging you is you

8. 🦋 Sometimes, the things you judge about yourself are actually the most beautiful parts about you

9. ⭐️ Everything you seek externally can be found inside

10. 🌬️Peace is found in between each breath; in acceptance, when you are unattached to an answer/outcome/or why

12. ☔️ Giving in to the fear of the unknown keeps you from knowing

13. 🌊 Sometimes we think growth means the negative thoughts/ feelings/reactions completely go away, but it’s actually in how you learn, become aware, and forgive your mistakes, even if you continue to make them. Let go and move on

14. 🌚 You are not your thoughts and emotions

15. 🤍 Noticing when someone isn’t ok and checking in on them can say “I love you” a million different ways

16. 🍃 Crying alone is cathartic, crying together is liberating

17. 🥰 The more I travel, the more people I meet, and the more I am reminded that truly knowing someone’s soul isn’t measured by time or distance but how deeply you can share yourself with others, and openly receive them with compassion and love

18. 🫂 Community can be built in a day

19. 🧘‍♀️ If you have made it this far—I also learned some yoga :) taken in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia by @mayafayaa

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2 years ago

💫 🌊
Her hair was wild, her smile alive,
Laughter as deep as the ocean,
Her toes were parched, seeking the sand,
always constantly set in motion.

She chased the waves, rocks under nails,
‘Til time washed her yearning away,
She traded castles for desks, paychecks instead,
Staying tethered to a more ‘normal’ way.

But gold turned to rust, sand to dust,
Joy seemed to set on the moon,
Shadows they crept, where sunlight now wept,
Weeds grew where promise once loomed.

Her heart started to leak,
Salt used as ink, drops onto every page.
The current grew strong, eating away,
Craving and begging for change.

The tide swarmed in, it swept her away,
And wind raged an internal war,
Water contained, nowhere to go,
Whose life was she living for?

For deep in the night, beyond hopes and dreams,
Doubt made a home in her head,
Far worse a fate, she knew very well,
Was regret that haunted the dead.

So, she stepped into thunder, tangled and snared,
Tripping over judgment and fear,
Toe to toe, eye to eye, facing the sea she finally could see;

Water and skin, Hand and fin,
Her lips rippled to whisper the way;

Trust the unknowing,
It knows where its going,
For the waves have always been showing;
The tide found inside, is the pull of the soul,
But its direction is unbound and flowing. by @mayafayaa

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2 years ago

Some salt & spice; wherever the sea takes us and the people that meet us there by @mayafayaa

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2 years ago

In my salty pirate era 🌊 🏴‍☠️ taken in Italy by @mayafayaa

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2 years ago

A diary of dockwalkers; from Palma, with love 💕 by @mayafayaa

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2 years ago

Still in line at Berghain #thanksBerlin taken in Berlin, Germany by @mayafayaa

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3 years ago