Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves left their “happy” life in California and moved to Texas during a family crisis between his mother and two brothers.

Recently, the couple graced the cover of Southern Living Magazine.

Camila shared during the interview how she noticed how being in Austin brought a positive effect on McConaughey.

“We were living a happy life in Malibu,” she remarked.

“We had a beautiful house that we’d built together and put a lot of love and care into. We were raising our kids there. I was growing everything in the yard. I had bees making honey.”

According to Alves, during their several-week stay in Texas, she observed how Matthew was happier and more relaxed in Texas.

“The gravity is very different in Texas.”

She also noticed how he was more “peaceful” and “energetic.”

Alves recalled asking him, “You want to move here, don’t you?”

To which Matthew replied, “Let’s do it.”

Alves recalled asking him, “You want to move here, don’t you?”
To which Matthew replied, “Let’s do it.”

The True Detectives star also believes that to be “full-blown shaking hands with where you were conceived,” means being closer to your “essence.”

McConaughey was born in 1969 in Fort Davis, Texas.

He reflected on their decision to move to Texas: “Time slowed down.”

“The clock was right, the body clock. And part of that is ritual; part of that is just the distance between places and the way people move. But it’s also the hospitality, the courtesy, the common sense, the lack of drama.”

However, Matthew recognized that the transition was much more difficult for Camila than for him, as she was more accustomed to life in New York and Los Angeles.

He was familiar with the Lone Star state. He had friends and family there. Camila wasn’t—until she found, to her surprise, that she was.

“We can travel all over the world but the moment I land in Texas, the gravity just comes down, my shoulders relax, I know I’m home,” shared Camila.

Moving to Texas, reminded her of her life in Brazil, where she was born and raised by her artist mother and father, who was a farmer and rancher.

The laid-back life in Texas reminded her of her upbringing in Brazil — traditions, values, and manners.

“We grew up saying ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, sir’ or—as I should say—‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘Yes, sir,’ ” she recalls. “It takes me right back to how I was raised.”
As they relocated, sports had taken a big part of their kids’ lives, as well as, church.

“Ritual!” McConaughey remarked. “Ritual came back, whether that was Sunday church, sports, dinner together as a family every night, or staying up after that telling stories in the kitchen, sitting at the island pouring drinks and nibbling while retelling them all in different ways than we told them before.”