About
Rooted Soul is a therapy and consulting practice offering culturally rooted, somatic, and trauma-informed care – grounded in liberatory values and supported by evidence-based practices that foster sustainable healing and change.
Founded by Sonya Martinez-Ortiz, LCSW (she/her), Rooted Soul supports individuals, practitioners, and organizations who are ready to move beyond survival, reconnect with their values, and create more sustainable ways of living, leading, and healing.
Our work lives at the intersection of personal healing and systemic change and stems from the understanding that our well-being is deeply connected to the systems we move through, and that liberation starts in the body.
While Rooted Soul is currently a solo practice, it holds a vision that’s bigger than its founder. In the future, Sonya hopes to grow a collaborative space where other practitioners — particularly those grounded in equity, embodiment, and cultural healing — can offer their gifts in community.
Until then, this is the “we”: me, the people I serve, and the values we move with.
Meet Sonya
I’m a Chicana (Latina) therapist, consultant, and the founder of Rooted Soul. For over 20 years, I’ve worked across trauma recovery, nonprofit leadership, academia, and systems change. In 2022, during my time as Executive Director of the Rape Recovery Center, I was named Nonprofit Leader of the Year by the Utah Nonprofits Association for my impact in the nonprofit sector.
I created Rooted Soul to offer something different: a practice where healing is not a luxury, but a way forward. Where care, integrity, and embodiment are centered. And where we honor lived experience, cultural wisdom, ancestral knowing, and the possibility of wholeness—not just for individuals, but for the communities we’re part of.
Rooted Soul is built on the belief that healing and justice are not separate. I am trained in Feminist Multicultural Therapy (FMT) and draw from liberatory frameworks and other evidence-based interventions that honor the body, resist harm, and reconnect us to what matters most—including the teachings passed down through generations.
Whether I’m offering therapy, consulting, or other somatic support, my work is guided by a simple but radical premise: healing is justice, repair is leadership, and values alignment is the path.
CREDENTIALS & TRAINING
Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Utah
Master of Social Work – University of Utah
Certificate in Nonprofit Management – Georgetown University
Certificate in Executive Leadership – Northwestern University
FMT Trained
EMDR Trained
TF-CBT Trained
IFS Informed
Somatic Informed
200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training (in progress)