Your body is sacred
Not a problem to solve or a project to optimize. A temple to tend — worthy of rest, nourishment, and grace.
About Malica
The most dangerous thing a woman can do is convince herself that exhaustion is the price of success.
I know that woman. I was that woman.
From the outside, I had everything together. Six figures at a prestigious consulting firm. Choir girl. Devoted wife. Autism mom. Sorority superstar. I looked accomplished and in control.
But behind closed doors, I was exhausted — bingeing on gummy bears to get through my workdays and making late-night runs to Chick-fil-A for cookies and cream milkshakes. Sugar was the only thing giving me relief.
Then came the annual physical. My doctor looked at me and said: "Malica, you're 30 pounds overweight and pre-diabetic." I sat in that office in shock, thinking — you've got to be kidding me. I'm succeeding at everything. Now this?
He handed me a prescription for weight-loss pills, told me to come back in three months, and showed me the door.
I went home, opened my laptop, and started researching the pills. Oily stool. Dependency. Cancer. I was done at oily stool — but cancer put the nail in the coffin.
So I made a different choice. Protein and greens. Water over sugar. Strength training. And for the first time since joining corporate, I deliberately rested. Three months later I walked back into my doctor's office 31 pounds lighter. He asked which pill I took. I smiled and said: none of them.
The honest beat
But here's what I didn't tell him.
I went right back to an unrested life for seven more years. Seven years of knowing better and still choosing the grind. Because I had shed the weight, but I hadn't shed the busy. The weight was never the root problem. Unrest was. And I was still carrying it, just in a different body.
I had shed the weight, but I hadn't shed the busy.
The layoff
Then one morning, an unexpected meeting invite appeared on my work calendar.
It was from my boss's boss's boss. And I felt it immediately — that sinking feeling when you know something bad is about to happen. I was being laid off. Everything I had built my identity around was gone in 7 minutes.
I couldn't run to work anymore. I was left with me.
So I did what any high achiever would do. I opened my laptop to update my portfolio and my LinkedIn. But it was too much. I got so overwhelmed I had to stop. I closed my laptop, got up from my desk, sat back in my chair — and closed my eyes.
And in that quiet, something I had been running from for years finally caught up with me.
I didn't have to run anymore. I didn't have to fix anything in that moment. I could receive the rest I'd been given.
In Genesis, the very first full day a human being ever experienced was a day of rest. We hadn't done a single thing yet. Rest wasn't the prize at the end of the work. It was where we started.
Now I help high-performing Black women in tech, corporate, creative leadership, and entrepreneurship stop living the double life of public success and private depletion and rebuild their lives, bodies, and leadership around rest.
What I believe
The convictions behind my work
Rest is not a reward
It is a command, a practice, and the foundation your health and leadership are built on — not something you earn after finishing everything.
Faith changes everything
When God is at the center of your health journey — not as an afterthought but as the foundation — transformation becomes sustainable, not striving.
Credentials
Training & affiliations.
- Certified Rested Path Coach
- Daring to Rest — Yoga Nidra Facilitator
- Thrive-Certified Wellness Coach
- Tiny Habits® Certified Coach
- Author — Rest Is The Way: A 31-Day Christian Devotional for Faith-Led Health and Sacred Stewardship
- 25+ years in UX design and product leadership in tech
She practices what she teaches
Sometimes beautifully. Sometimes imperfectly.
Malica lives in Georgia and practices the rhythms she teaches, sometimes beautifully, sometimes imperfectly, but always as a commitment to the wholeness she helps other women find. These days you'll find her at RollerFit twice a week, rediscovering the joy of roller skating after more than twenty years away.
And she's learning, just like the women she serves, that sometimes the most faithful step forward is simply to rest.
Rest is not a reward. Rest is the way.
Whether through coaching, speaking, or the devotional — there's a way in that meets you where you are.