What is the Four Languages?

The origin story

The Birth of The Four Languages

✨ Maaria Tiensivu is the visionary behind The Four Languages framework, a holistic approach to personal and professional growth that emerged from her unique journey across continents, careers, and life experiments.

After years of mixing transformational coaching and service design work, she founded The Four Languages and KNOW-ME to help herself and others nurture different sides of life: the mind, heart, body, and soul.

The Four Languages was born during a pivotal conversation where Maaria was engaging in a circular conversation, and realized that the reason it wasn't moving forward was because she was describing a soul experience, while her partner was approaching the same topic though his mind.

In that moment Maaria realized that they weren't actually disagreeing, they were simply speaking different languages.

The personal impact of the framework

The Four Languages framework has evolved over two years to become both Maaria's professional offering and personal practice.

She has noticed that during times when she took a break from the framework, she (and her community members!) felt unwell. While when engaging with the framework and community has been a constant journey of embracing joy and intentionally exploring different aspects of life.

She finds immense joy and love in the practice and daily logging of various activities across the four languages, reinforcing her belief in the framework's power.

Practical applications and integration

She integrates the Four Languages with other programs like Remote Skills Academy's Virtual Assistant Bootcamp and by collaborating with a range of coaches and practitioners, helping people navigate life and work transitions while enjoying maintaining holistic wellbeing.

Her approach emphasizes small, low-risk experiments that build intuition and self-discovery, making personal growth feel accessible and playful rather than overwhelming.

A practice of personal development

Maaria's work stands apart from typical self-help approaches by focusing on practical experimentation rather than learning theory or forming rigid habits. It helps anyone new to self development to embrace all aspects of human experience, and encourages people to trust their own curiosity and wisdom.

Her framework helps people distinguish between societal, and egoic programming and connect with their inner explorer to guide their way to authentic inner knowing, allowing them to make decisions from a place of wholeness rather than just rationality or impulses.

The Four Languages in Maaria's Life

🧠 Non-dogmatic exploration as a tool for growth

🧠 With a background in service design and transformational coaching, Maaria brings a rare blend of design thinking practice and intuitive guidance to her work.

She founded KNOW-ME and The Four Languages in January 2023, creating tools that make personal growth accessible without the pressure of rigid habits or routines.

Her approach challenges the "expert advice" and daily routines model, instead helping people discover their own hidden passions and creativity. As she puts it, "I recognized that I didn't want to be 'the expert,' but the one who helps people become both explorers and experts of their work and life."

❤️ Using laughter and fear as a compass

❤️ Maaria believes that balance isn't about doing the same things consistently, but ensuring you stay curious and actually enjoy the exploration of daily life to nurture all four languages. Nurturing yourself should be something exciting, not a dreaded task!

Her all-inclusive approach emerged from her own experience of suffering from an impulsive heart mixed with cold rationality to discovering that true fulfillment and joy requires engaging with all the aspects of ourselves. Even the ones that aren't always promoted around us.

She advocates for intentional experimentation rather than forced habits, encouraging people to ask "Does is scare, or excite you?" and try out both options. This philosophy has fostered a community of curious humans who want to grow without the limitations of labels or forced commitments.

💪 Living through experiments

💪 As a location-independent entrepreneur who has lived across Europe, Latin America and Africa since the age of 15, Maaria embodies the experimental approach she teaches. In 2018 she left behind a "sensible" life with a life fully set-up: a supportive marriage, beautiful apartment, and established career in Helsinki Finland to follow her intuition step by step.

Her moves are now guided by intentional choices rather than whims, seeking places that offer "access to clean nature, peace and silence, art and culture, and a community of people who aren't stuck racing for status."

This journey has taught her that most "I can't" statements are actually "I won't" choices, and that all the steps are welcomed as a part of the journey.

💨 Tuning into the wisdom of the soul

💨 Maaria's spiritual journey has taught her to value intuition as "the energy within that always knows."

Regardless of one's spiritual or religious background or practice, she emphasizes creating space to hear the soul's quiet guidance, noting that "the soul doesn't scream, so you need to make space to hear it."

This can mean going to nature, meditating, praying or cooking. We all have our own ways of connecting with our deeper being.