When Brianna came to our Isla Mujeres retreat in 2025, she wasn’t just carrying a suitcase. She was carrying years of grief. She had a beautiful three-year-old daughter, but becoming her mother hadn’t been the joyful beginning she had imagined. Her daughter had been born with a serious heart condition and spent time in the NICU, undergoing multiple heart surgeries. Those early months were filled with fear, uncertainty, hospital rooms, and the kind of trauma that quietly settles into a mother’s heart long after everyone tells you everything is okay. As mothers, we become so focused on surviving that we rarely stop to ask ourselves if we’ve actually healed.

One afternoon during the retreat, Brianna and I sat together on the couch outside our villa overlooking the ocean. The breeze moved through the palm trees as we spent hours talking through everything she had carried since those early days with her daughter. We focused deeply on her heart chakra, gently working through the guilt, fear, sadness, and heaviness that had lived there for years. It wasn’t dramatic. It was simply two moms sitting together in a safe space, allowing the truth to come to the surface. That evening she told me she could actually feel something changing. She said it felt like the blocked energy around her heart had finally started to release.

As we talked that day, Brianna shared something she hadn’t fully allowed herself to admit before. She was seriously considering having another baby. Deep down, she wanted to grow her family, but she also knew she couldn’t move forward until she had made peace with everything she had experienced during her daughter’s medical journey. Before she could open her heart to another child, she first needed to heal the wounds left by the first.

The following day we visited the ancient Temple of Ixchel, the Mayan goddess of fertility, motherhood, healing, and feminine wisdom. For generations, women have traveled to this tiny island seeking her blessings. At the temple stands a statue of Ixchel, and local legend says that if you touch her foot, you’ll be blessed with pregnancy. Whether you believe the legend or not almost doesn’t matter. Sometimes these sacred rituals simply become the moment we quietly choose hope. Brianna reached out and touched the statue. Looking back now, I often wonder if that was the moment she gave herself permission to believe that another beautiful chapter could exist for her family.

On our final day together, Brianna was scrolling through the photos we had taken throughout the retreat when she noticed something unusual. In nearly every picture there was a small orb floating nearby. She showed me the photos, and we both just stared for a moment. Without even thinking, I smiled and said, “What if that’s your second baby waiting to meet you?” We both laughed, but we also both got goosebumps. It was one of those moments that neither of us could explain, but neither of us forgot.

Exactly one year later, almost to the very dates that Brianna had been in Isla Mujeres with us, she welcomed a healthy baby boy into the world. Today her family is complete in a way that once felt almost impossible to imagine. Her little girl is now a big sister, and her home is filled with the beautiful chaos that comes with two children.

Was it the retreat? Was it healing? Was it the courage to finally let go of years of fear and open her heart again? I don’t think anyone can answer those questions with certainty. What I do know is that healing changes us. When we finally allow ourselves to release the pain we’ve been carrying, we create space for something new to enter our lives. Sometimes that’s peace. Sometimes it’s confidence. Sometimes it’s forgiveness. Sometimes it’s simply believing that life can still surprise us.

For Brianna, Isla Mujeres will always be the place where she stopped surviving and started healing. It was where she released the weight she had carried since becoming a mother, where she allowed herself to dream about the future again, and where she unknowingly began the journey that would lead her to welcoming her son just one year later. Whether you call it the magic of Ixchel, divine timing, or simply the incredible power of healing, it remains one of the most beautiful stories to come out of our retreats, and one I will never forget.