Hello! I am so pleased you are here reading… I have always enjoyed dreaming of women drinking wine, tea or coffee talking and sharing about simple things of life, their stories, and their ways of living. We might not see each other in person right now, but I like to imagine that we are, while I share… know that I’d love to hear about you!
I think one great thing about life is to get around people and hear their life story. I love that we get to grow through our own experiences, I believe it’s how we cultivate that resilient responses to the challenges we face and that’s why I decided to create this blog and am honoured to share my time and journey with you!
This is me
My name is Maharai, but now affectionately known as Maha. I owe this name to my parents. I was born in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca (Mexico) in 1989, I’m the oldest of four children. In that small city, my desire to know more and other frontiers took hold.
Since that life stage, I have always had the impulse to help others, find a solution for everything and make things more beautiful. My desire has always been to focus on women, children, and families.
At 18 years old, with an eye toward human vulnerability and the desire to change the world, I dared to leave my country and moved to Spain to take a course in leadership and music in Aranjuéz, Madrid. My time in Spain helped me to see the world beyond my possibilities. I LOVED this season. Also, I think this is where my love for manuals started as well ha!. It was the time to embrace my journey in faith.
Then, I decided to start my degree in Image Design and Public Relations, I returned to Mexico to finish university in Veracruz. At some point of this stage of my life, I was living with a high self-expectation and I didn’t know I was being too hard on myself, I was so focused on the future, perfection, concern for others and of course, we can’t do it all of the time.
I was missing the present and that self-expectation sometimes was driving me crazy! I learned to be more gracious and to appreciate what I was living. I don’t recommend controlling your emotions, but rather, listening to them and express them. 🙂
After university, I made the next best decision of my life. I began studying at BSSM in Redding, California. The best three years of learning and alignment in my spiritual, emotional, and physical life.
I learned to listen to myself, allowing me to experience the emotions in my heart and body. Gradually I started healing parts of my life I didn’t know I needed to heal! I moved toward healing and hope, and this time allowed me to appreciate and savour my life story, my growth, my journey, also the time where I started to realised the impact of health, what we think, what we eat and put on.
In my second year, I met the man of my life, Joshua Stannard.
The ongoing journey
After finishing school, we got married and decided to live in Zaragoza, Spain.
In this city, I had my second eye-opening towards a more conscious living. We were learning to do life together, live simple, waste less, and budgeting our very small income for literally everything, it was so challenging, beautiful and so meaningful. I learned to value the pause, walking, the strength of the sun, the seasons, good coffee, the love for things made with my own hands, the warmth of the candles, the silence, the affection and respect for myself, the friends and people you meet as you walk through this world. To live more consciously.
Amid everything, I began to have life in my womb, a little person, our first child, Judah. With a little nervousness about becoming parents for the first time, we decided to move to England (West Yorkshire). That’s where, thanks to Judah, I became a mother for the first time. Since then, I felt and experienced that part of motherhood that I had not been told before, and it might sound crazy but I got excited about the second one and now I’m also a mother to a baby girl, Brooke Adar.
My husband had been working as a graphic designer (freelance) and then started to found an agency with a friend about Digital Design and Consulting (DCT) here in England. We have been learning in so many ways as a couple and building our family, and hey! Learning is a lifestyle journey! But, you know? something specific that has been clear to me so far, and that I have to share with you is: —
It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you are, or what dream you have, – it is vital to remain full of faith and hope.
As I was saying, it is vital to remain full of faith and hope. Now, more than ever, we have refocused our lifestyle.
In the last week of January 2018, my husband has his wisdom tooth removed. The simple procedure turned out somewhat confusing. Suddenly Josh’s procedure wasn’t healing, he wasn’t able to eat and kept bleeding for almost a week. I remember those nights, it was so difficult for him and that was breaking my heart. We got to a limit following the instructions from the doctors.
So he went to the hospital to have another procedure, but, just before that, he had a blood test. That night the doctors diagnosed a type of cancer in Joshua’s blood, leukemia they said. I can remember that night so much! I was by myself in our house when Josh called me from the hospital to give me the doctor’s news. My instant reaction was like if someone was playing a joke, but it wasn’t. Somehow, I felt full of faith, I had only one option. Trusting our God we would see a miracle.
I am also a human, I felt some fear and sadness to see my husband going through that… I cried, prayed, talked with people, meditated and let go of anything that wasn’t peace in my heart through those moments and even now I like to process and speak about what I feel about that journey.
Somehow I knew sadness and fear wasn’t the route to face that alongside my husband. I had to be very conscious of what I was feeling and intentional with my thoughts, but I wasn’t scared of the word cancer. I chose to trust in God even if I looked crazy. I was designated to see a miracle in my husband’s body and I knew my God was bigger than cancer.
I was adament to see a miracle in my husband’s body and I knew my God was bigger than cancer.
I write this as part of what I experienced as a wife because I experienced challenges that I’m sure a lot of people are facing as well and maybe a lot of them are not sharing how they are feeling. People have been experiencing loss, hurt and sickness… In situations like this change life, to some temporarily, others permanently, for me, it was permanent and it has been a journey of faith and intentionality.
If you haven’t faced a serious similar health situation, I hope to impart some measure of the experience to understand it better and maybe encourage the ones you know they need it. That night our life took another perspective, a better one (Only God would have made us see this with a different perspective). Josh recovered from the stage he was on. He was able to go through mild therapy with a tablet at home, he is still going through it but his blood is now stable. We were so happy he was able to leave the hospital before valentine’s day! We got a miracle! and he has been experiencing God’s goodness in every blood result he gets.
Now, you see… we weren’t expecting this situation but we faced it, we believe in a good God, sometimes it has been so easy, and other days not that easy but having this spiritual relationship has been our life-living rock.
Now, I have imagined many people going through hard things, illness and feelings of depression, or uncertainty. I just want you to know, you are not alone. I encourage you to take care of your spiritual life and walk this life with God. it is worth it.
I see every day as a miracle, a divine gift. This situation also forced me to be more mindful of the way I live, perhaps I wouldn’t see life how I see it now without what I have experienced. I had learned to appreciate these simplicities of life in a way that I hadn’t before. My experience in life reminds me to be thankful for the gifts we have been given. To live in the present and to be intentional.
Life has its ups and downs, it takes you to places and times you never thought of, but there is divine grace, and I have learned that if you trust, life puts you in better places.
Indeed, while living all this, my life was filled with more meaning. Consciously, I began to introduce new changes in my personal life and my family. Now, as a wife, mother and professional I want to bring part of what I have been discovering and rediscovering in my journey for you to make use of in any area of your life or the season you are at the moment.
I am still a woman who loves aesthetics, fashion, family, fun, nature, food, etc. But I have refocused life itself, its meaning. Currently, I want to create and nurture a simple, mindful, peace-filled home. Living an intentional lifestyle through our choices and commitment to our faith, family, values, health, friendships, and the land we live in.
Changing the world with every daily decision that I make personally and with my family. Making aware that change begins with ourselves. I don’t have everything figured out, life is a journey. I am re-creating new habits, living the journey of living, turning my simplest moments into meaningful memories.
Love,
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