There was a time in my life when I moved through the days like a machine.

Wake up, survive, get things done. Even in the most sacred seasons of my life, becoming a mother, starting over in new countries, opening new chapters... I often felt like something was missing. Not because I wasn’t grateful. But because I was disconnected. Disconnected from myself. From the present moment. From the invisible thread that makes life feel sacred, even in the ordinary.

And then I started creating rituals. Not the fancy, elaborate kind you see on Pinterest. Simple ones. Ones that felt like me.

Lighting a candle before journaling. Taking a deep breath with my tea before the first sip. Whispering an intention before I open my computer. Putting one hand on my heart and one on my belly before I respond in anger. Dancing for three minutes in the kitchen while dinner cooks.

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Looking into my child’s eyes and silently saying, “I see you”, even if just for a moment. These little acts changed everything. Because ritual is not about doing more. It’s about doing with presence. It’s a way to return to myself in a world that constantly pulls me away. A way to say: I am not just surviving. I am living. I am feeling. I am remembering.

In a world that glorifies hustle, ritual slows me down. In a culture that numbs, ritual makes me feel. In days full of noise, ritual becomes a gentle anchor, reminding me of who I am beneath the chaos.

Ritual is why I created Pura Maracuya.

Not just a place. Not just a brand. But a space where the sacred is invited back in. Where cacao is medicine, not trend. Where breath is prayer. Where even washing your face can become a ceremony of self-love. This isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about remembering that your life is not something to rush through. It’s something to feel. To honour. To live inside of, moment by moment.

And if you don’t know where to start... start small.

Pick one moment a day. Breathe. Light something. Whisper a word. Place your hand on your body. And just be there. You don’t need a full moon to make it sacred. You just need to show up. That’s the magic. That’s the ritual.

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With love,

Michaela

I used to believe real mothers were made of calm smiles and flawless routines...

women who could fold laundry while whispering affirmations, who never raised their voices, who glowed in every family photo.

Then I became one.

The myth that cracked soon.

At my nineteen, I held my first daughter and realised the story was already broken.

There was milk on my shirt, fear in my chest, thunder in my love. Perfection shattered before it could even land, and something truer slipped through the cracks: a love ferocious enough to survive chaos. Motherhood, it turns out, is not porcelain. It’s volcanic ash and wildflowers growing through pavement. It’s the ache in your spine at 3 a.m. and the giggle that follows five minutes later, reminding you why you stayed awake in the first place.

Mess as initiation.

With each child, Michaela, Dominik, Neli, and tiny Isabella, my definition of “sacred” stretched wider:

• Sacred is the moment you choose to breathe instead of scream, even though cereal is covering the floor and your inbox is on fire.

• Sacred is letting them see you cry, teaching that tears are teachers, not flaws.

• Sacred is saying “I’m sorry” to a six-year-old because you snapped, and watching forgiveness bloom faster than shame.

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The mess isn’t a detour on the spiritual path. It is the path, a proof that divinity lives in dirty dishes, mismatched socks, and the wobble between exhaustion and euphoria.

Losing... and finding myself.

I won’t pretend I’ve never lost myself.

There were seasons when I played martyr, stacking everyone’s needs above my own until my body whispered enough through migraines and hollow eyes. Healing began the first day I rolled a yoga mat onto a toy-strewn floor and chose five minutes of breath over five more minutes of self-neglect. It continued when I let cacao ceremonies replace gossip, when I swapped punishment charts for moon cycles, and when I placed a crystal on my nightstand. Not for aesthetics, but to remind me that energy matters more than appearances.

What my children really need:

They don’t need a spotless house or a mother who never breaks but...

• Presence more than presents.

• An adult willing to apologise, modeling repair over repression.

• A witness to their wonder, someone who sees the universe in their mud pies and monster drawings.

• Her own joy, because kids trust happiness they can smell, not lectures they can recite.

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When I honour those needs, they gift me something back: permission to be wildly, imperfectly human.

An invitation for you

If your motherhood looks nothing like the magazines... welcome to the sisterhood of the sacred mess.‍

Hold your child tonight and let the chaos be holy. Let the dishes wait while you dance barefoot to one song. Let your body rest before your to-do list does. And when shame whispers you’re failing, answer with a laugh: “We’re making art, not replicas.”

Because every sticky fingerprint on the window is a signature of life. Every weary sigh is a prayer in disguise. And every time your heart breaks open, you widen the circle of love big enough to hold you all.

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With love,

Michaela

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Living in Costa Rica and why I finally remembered how to breathe.

I didn’t move to Costa Rica to heal. I didn’t know yet that I even needed to. On the outside, my life looked beautiful: a loving family, children who filled my days with purpose, a business growing between naps and nights.

But my body told a different story. It flinched at sudden noises. It couldn’t find stillness in silence. It lived in a constant low hum of urgency, like something might fall apart if I dared to rest.

At the time, I called it motherhood. Now I know it was survival. And my nervous system was holding the cost.

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I didn’t know I was holding my breath… until I wasn’t.

The first time I landed in Costa Rica, something shifted before I even stepped off the plane. The air wrapped around me like a balm - thick, warm, unapologetically alive. The jungle didn’t ask me to hurry. The river didn’t care about my to-do list. Nothing in nature expected me to be anything other than… present.

It was the first time in years I felt my shoulders drop without effort. The first time I slept deeply without needing to earn it.The first time my body sighed without guilt.

The jungle doesn’t heal you. It reminds you.

There’s something about Costa Rica that doesn’t perform wellness -it embodies it. You don’t need retreats or rituals to feel it. You just need to sit still long enough for the Earth to speak. The wind through the trees is louder than your thoughts. The sunrise is too sacred to scroll through. The rain doesn’t ask permission to interrupt your plans, it just comes. And in that surrender… you start remembering your original rhythm. Not the one shaped by alarm clocks and expectations. The one shaped by breath, blood, and belonging.

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It’s not that the chaos disappeared. It’s that my center returned.

Moving to Costa Rica didn’t erase my stress. It didn’t stop the kids from yelling or the dishes from piling or life from being life. But it did something more powerful: It brought me back into my body.

Now, when I wake up to birds and not sirens, I remember what mornings are supposed to feel like. Now, when I walk barefoot through wet grass, I remember what it’s like to feel supported. Now, when I cry, I let the jungle hold me instead of hiding in shame.

Nervous system healing isn’t a luxury. It’s a revolution.

I used to think rest was a reward.

Now I know it’s a requirement — especially for women, especially for mothers, especially for anyone holding more than their share of invisible weight. What Costa Rica taught me is that healing isn’t always loud. Sometimes it looks like doing less. Sometimes it sounds like saying no. Sometimes it feels like lying on the earth and letting her recalibrate everything you forgot how to carry.

Not everyone needs to move to the jungle to find their breath again. But we do all need to be reminded that our bodies are not machines. They’re wise, tender, living things — and they respond to how we live, not just what we say. Costa Rica didn’t fix me. It just held up a mirror. And in that reflection, I found the version of me I hadn’t seen in years: the one who breathes deeply, moves slowly, and trusts her own pace.

And that changed everything.

With love,

Michaela

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Yes as a ticket to belonging:

There was a time in my life when I said yes far too often.

Yes to things I didn’t want to do. Yes to conversations that drained me. Yes to people who didn’t really see me. Yes to being available, even when I was deeply tired.

I thought that saying yes made me kind. That it meant I was loving, spiritual, generous. I was afraid that saying no would make me selfish. Harsh. Less of a good woman, a good mother, a good friend. But what I didn’t realise was that every time I said yes when I meant no, I was abandoning myself. Slowly. Quietly. Almost invisibly.

It started in the body. My breath became shallow. My jaw clenched when I smiled. My heart beat faster in rooms where I couldn’t be honest. I told myself this was just motherhood. Just being busy. Just being strong.

But the truth was, I was tired. Not just tired in my bones, tired in my soul. Tired of shrinking. Tired of holding back my truth to protect everyone else’s comfort.

The first time I said no and meant it, I felt like I had broken something.

I sat with tears in my eyes, guilt in my throat, and that little girl inside me asking, “Are we allowed to do that?” But something shifted. Something opened. And the second time I said no, it felt a little more like freedom.

What surprised me most was this: the people who truly love me didn’t leave.

They respected me more. And I began to respect myself. No became a sacred word. A word with weight and warmth. It didn’t mean rejection. It meant redirection. It meant: I am honouring myself now, too.

When I say no now, it doesn’t come from anger.It comes from clarity. No, I can’t do that today -I need rest. No, that doesn’t feel aligned right now. No, thank you, I’m choosing something slower, something softer.

And that no… it opens space.

For breath. For peace. For the kind of yes that comes from truth, not pressure. I started saying yes to different things.

Yes to mornings without alarms. Yes to work that feels like service, not sacrifice. Yes to honest conversations and friendships that go both ways. Yes to play with my children that isn’t squeezed between tasks, but lived fully. Yes to rest, without guilt.

In all of this, I’ve come to understand that saying no is not about creating distance. It’s about creating depth.

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You don’t need to explain your no. You don’t need to defend your boundaries to be worthy of having them. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself to be good.

You are not here to be endlessly useful. You are here to be real. To be whole. To be at home in your body, in your days, in your heart.

If you’re learning to say no too - even shakily, even in whispers...

Know that you are not closing the door to love.

You are making space for the kind of love that doesn’t require self-abandonment. And that, to me, is the most sacred yes of all.

With tenderness,

Michaela

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Let her take charge.

For a long time, I thought feminine energy was something fragile. Soft, quiet, maybe even a little naïve. And in the world I grew up in, none of that felt particularly safe.

So I did what many of us do:

I leaned into structure. Into logic. Into control. Into “getting things done.” I knew how to survive in a masculine world. But I didn’t know how to be held. I didn’t know how to surrender. And I certainly didn’t know how to let my feminine lead.

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That began to change the moment I started listening to my body. Really listening.Not pushing through fatigue. Not overriding my needs. But pausing long enough to hear the quiet: the ache, the hunger, the intuition, the pulse.

The feminine doesn’t scream. She whispers.

She waits. She pulls you back, not because she’s passive, but because she wants you to receive. To open. To soften into who you really are. I began remembering her through movement. Through breath. Through moments of stillness with my children, when nothing was perfect but everything was holy. Through cacao ceremonies and moon rituals and crying in the shower. Through dance. Through silence. Through pleasure.

Through saying no.

And what I realised is that the feminine isn’t weak.

She’s wild. She’s deep. She’s terrifyingly honest. And when she leads, things don’t fall apart. They fall into place.

Letting her lead doesn’t mean rejecting the masculine.It means inviting balance. Letting structure serve softness. Letting action follow intuition. Letting rhythm rise from rest.

I began trusting her when I stopped trying to prove. Stopped trying to perform. Stopped pretending I wasn’t tired. And the more I trusted her… the more life began to open. My motherhood softened. My work became richer, slower, more aligned. My relationships shifted. Some left. Some deepened. All became more honest.

I’m still learning how to let her lead.

It’s not always easy. But it’s always true. She lives in every woman. Every man. Every child. She’s the part of us that feels. The part that knows without logic. The part that moves with the moon and cries during music and whispers, “You already are enough.”

If you’ve forgotten her, she’s not mad. She’s just waiting. Patiently. Lovingly. With arms wide open.

And when you let her take one small step forward… everything begins to change.

With love,

Michaela

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