Muud was in a drawer for 3 years.

This is not the story of a brand, it's the story of a person.

My name is Renata

For years I lived on autopilot, with the feeling of having a hundred windows open in my head, all at the same time. I couldn't switch off, and I didn't have the tools to do so.

It took me about three years to realise it wasn't just stress. It was me, living faster and faster and feeling less and less. I needed a concrete reason to slow down. A gesture, not an idea.

I started by realising I needed to use my hands again.

Setting up my workspace at home was where I began. I built, painted, restored furniture. Working with my body relieved my mind. It calmed me and brought order. As I did it, I visualised what would come next.

I had many questions and few answers. Where I saw myself in two years. How I wanted to live.

I work in communications, and I started getting more and more clients who were therapists and psychologists. It was through contact with them that my interest in psychology, psychotherapy, and biological reprogramming was sparked. I started applying what I was learning: meditating, using my body to regulate my nervous system.

I practised all of this, but I still felt like I wasn't creating anything of my own, with my own purpose.

The Mud

Ceramics appeared due to proximity. I live near Bajouca, a parish in the municipality of Leiria with a tradition of pottery. I visited potteries, made prototypes. And then I stopped, because what I had in my hands was just another brand of plates and and mugs.

What got me going again was a training course at the Bajouca association. I learned to work with clay, and what remained wasn't the pieces themselves. It was the process: my hands occupied, the time it forces you to take, my mind quieting down while my body worked. I had felt this before, during construction work. This time, I recognized the pattern.

I spent three years thinking I was postponing Muud. Turns out I was putting the pieces together.

In the meantime, more and more therapists started appearing among my clients. It was my contact with them that sparked my interest in areas such as biological reprogramming, psychology, psychotherapy, and spirituality. I started applying a lot of what I was learning: meditating, using the body as a tool to regulate the nervous system.

One day I thought: I know about communication, I'm learning about the body, and they know what I don't. What if I combined everything – the tool I made, with clay, supported by them?

And that's how Muud was born

Muud creates experiences through ceramics. The piece is born on the wheel of Céu Pedrosa, a potter in Bajouca for at least four generations: her great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were also potters, and she learned the craft from her grandfather at the age of 9. Then, Muud applies the holes and textures. It passes through three hands: the one that shapes, the one that textures, and yours, which paints.

The first experience, the Anchor, has four moments: create, breathe, feel, integrate. You don't need to know anything about mindfulness, or have an hour free, or believe in anything in particular. All you need are your hands and a few minutes.

A moment of presence in your hands.

Muud doesn't promise to solve anything. A piece of clay doesn't solve anyone's life, and whoever says otherwise is selling something else.

It provides a concrete place to focus attention, and on the right days, that's enough to interrupt autopilot.

Getting to know my anchor