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Want to hear more about our approach to healing, leadership, and systems change?
Below are selected podcasts and articles where the founder of Rooted Soul shared reflections on trauma-informed care, sexual violence, embodiment, burnout, sustainable leadership, and the intersections of justice.
Whether you're curious about Rooted Soul or simply seeking insight, you're welcome to explore.
Interested in inviting Sonya to speak, collaborate, or be a guest? [Reach out here.]
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August 19, 2025
Burnout, Worth & Letting Go: The Cost of Overachieving as Women of Color
Neelam Chand sits down with Sonya Martinez-Ortiz, founder of Rooted Soul, a trauma-informed therapy practice grounded in justice, and former Executive Director of the Rape Recovery Center. Sonya shares her deeply personal story of working nonstop for years, hitting a wall, and finally realizing the toll burnout had taken on her body and spirit. Her honesty and vulnerability gives the language to what so many of us, especially women of color, carry in silence. This one is for anyone who has ever pushed past their limits just to survive, and it’s a reminder that rest is not weakness, it’s healing.
👇🏽 Listen now:
🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/eVYMBc9q
🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eRgbZ6kv
🎧 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/epEUiV8h
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April 30, 2025
Local Stories: Exploring Life & Business with Sonya Martinez-Ortiz
In this profile, Sonya Martinez-Ortiz shares her journey into healing-centered leadership shaped by early life experiences and a career at the intersections of healing, equity, and systems change. She reflects on the challenges of leading as a woman of color, the importance of collective care, and the liberatory frameworks that guide her work—including somatics, body wisdom, and trauma-informed practice.
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March 2025
Work, Rest, Repeat - The Life Changing Power of time off
In this podcast episode, Sonya Martinez-Ortiz reflects on the lived experience of burnout, particularly in the nonprofit and social impact sectors where urgency, overextension, and sacrifice are often normalized. She explores the warning signs leaders frequently overlook, the systemic roots of burnout, and the radical importance of rest as a collective and organizational value—not just an individual act of self-care. The conversation also highlights how women of color are disproportionately impacted by these dynamics, often carrying invisible labor and navigating inequitable expectations. Together, these insights challenge the notion that rest is a reward, reframing it as a necessary strategy for sustainability, clarity, and community-rooted leadership.
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Feb 10, 2025
In this episode, Sonya Martinez-Ortiz shares her personal and professional path into anti-violence work, including her leadership at the Rape Recovery Center and the experiences that shaped her commitment to healing justice. The conversation explores support for both primary and secondary survivors of sexual violence, offering insight into how loved ones and support systems can show up with care, accountability, and presence. We also discuss trauma therapy, the impact of systemic violence, and what it means to move toward healing, not just individually, but within community.
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September 13, 2022
In this reflective piece, Sonya Martinez-Ortiz and Yvette Romero explore how ancestral wisdom, particularly the teachings of their grandmothers, shapes their healing practices as social workers, therapists, and educators. They share how reconnecting with cultural and somatic traditions, including Indigenous and body-based practices, has deepened their understanding of collective care, intuition, and community-rooted healing. The article emphasizes the importance of reclaiming cultural knowledge, resisting appropriation, and honoring the complexity of colonization while integrating spirituality, body wisdom, and ancestral medicine into liberatory practice.
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July 1, 2021
Bill Cosby release news shocks. For survivors of abuse, it's 'very triggering.
In this article, Sonya Martinez-Ortiz offers insight into how high-profile stories of sexual violence in the media can deeply impact survivors. She explains how public coverage of these cases may reactivate trauma responses, such as anxiety, flashbacks, and dissociation, and can undermine a survivor’s sense of safety, validation, and trust in the justice system. The piece underscores the importance of trauma-informed care, collective compassion, and accessible healing resources in times when public discourse reopens wounds many are still working to heal.
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April 16, 2021
Justice for Joyce Yost | Talking Cold | Discussion of Episode 2
In this episode of Talking Cold, Sonya Martinez-Ortiz joins hosts Amy Donaldson and Sheryl Worsley to discuss the impacts of sexual violence through the lens of Episode 2 in the Justice for Joyce Yost series. The conversation explores how trauma manifests differently for each survivor, the harm of victim blaming, and the layered complexities survivors often face when navigating systems that were not built with their needs in mind. Sonya offers insight into what trauma-informed support can look like—at both personal and societal levels—and how we can collectively do better in responding to and preventing sexual violence.