I am delighted to have been interviewed on Dream Builders Austrailia. Dr. Liara Covert was a delight to talk with and truly an inspiration. I am including an excerpt here but feel free to read the full interview here.
“As life experience guides us from one synchronicity to another, it is a delight to connect with Raana Zia and have the privilege of reading her book, Your Hidden Light: A Practical Guide to Creating Your Desired Life. After reading it, I intuitively asked her to participate in this interview to share it with Dreambuilders Australia readers.
Being a person who loves joining the dots and empowering others to do the same, I am curious how you heard about me and why you so recently chose to offer me your book.
I discovered your blog through The Clearing blog in an article written by Kris de Leon. I read more about you and felt very connected to your messages. I too have recently experienced similar awareness and understanding of the power of following your heart, intuition, inner guidance. From what I read in your blogs, much of what you say resonates as truth to me and is aligned with what I talk about in my book. I so appreciate that you took the time to read my book.
Contrary to what many believe, like attracts like. That is, everything and everyone is a mirror inviting us to get a message we are not yet consciously seeing and integrating. Please share a bit about yourself and your process. What prompted you to write this book?
I am a corporate executive/CFO turned spiritual self-help author of the book Your Hidden Light: A Personal Guide to Creating Your Desired Life. I had been in corporate finance for 20+ years successfully climbing the corporate ladder. In 2012, while I achieved my goal of becoming a CFO of a billion-dollar company, I felt a strong internal pull in my heart telling me I needed to be doing something else in my life. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but the feeling was so strong that I knew I needed to find out. I spent the next five years reading self-help books, going to seminars, talking to personal coaches, etc., searching for my purpose and building a belief I could do something different. The more I searched, the more curious I became on how the world worked and how I was able to manifest the good things in my life (career, family, home, vacations, etc). I was drawn to this subject matter of “manifesting your desires”, and I was determined to make sense of it all in a way that I could easily understand and apply.
In 2015, I thought that maybe I needed to write a book to synthesize all that I was discovering. I was getting pieces of wisdom that were life changing and profound from many different sources, but there wasn’t one book that brought it all together in a way that was direct and easy to understand. However, the thought of writing a book was surprising to me since I was never a writer, nor did I ever dream to write a book. I built my career on finance and analytics, so this new creative urge to write was unfamiliar to me. Despite my initial uncertainty, I knew I needed to follow my inner guidance, but I needed the right moment of courage to begin.
In October of 2016, I lost my CFO job due to a corporate restructuring, and at that moment I knew it was time to follow my heart. I was given the opportunity of time to do what I really desired to do. However, I was scared because I did not know what I was doing or how to write a book. My family assumed I would immediately start looking for another job since they had no idea what I was thinking and feeling on the inside. I remained paralyzed in fear for about six weeks until I finally had the courage to believe that I was a writer and I was supposed to write this book despite what people close to me thought. The moment I finally believed in myself, was the moment the words started to flow out of me. The chapter titles and page count came into my head immediately. I then began writing the content, and I did not stop until the book was completed. It took me two months to write this book.
The writing process was incredible. I loved writing the book because I felt a powerful energy with me throughout the process. I felt supported and aligned with what I was supposed to be doing for the first time in my life. The words I was writing helped me through my own uncertainty of losing my high-level job and all the fears associated with that. Writing the book helped me through a major transition in my life and career because I was constantly reminded by the words I was writing to stay disciplined and focused on what I really wanted in my heart, and to not let fear (fear of poverty, failure, etc.) or doubt stop me.
All this feels like something beyond you took over. Over and above what you share already, how has your outer life prompted and directed your attention to an inner shift?
In the one year, it took to write and publish the book, I went through my own personal transformation. I went from being in a state of fear and depression (from losing my job) to a place of happiness, peace, and fulfilment for the first time in as long as I can remember. By taking the guidance of Your Hidden Light seriously and developing a disciplined practice of consciously aligning my inner thoughts, feelings, and beliefs daily, I became more relaxed, confident in my creative abilities, and truly happy. This new way of being, improved my family life dramatically, and allowed me to achieve all my milestones to getting the book published easily and without stress or strain. I have become an even stronger believer that it is only though changing your own inner thoughts, feeling, and beliefs, that you can most easily and effectively change the world around you.
After the book was published in November 2017, a professor at the business school at Suffolk University in Boston told me he was adding Your Hidden Light to his syllabus for his course – Happiness: How to Get It for the Spring 2018 semester. I am looking forward to the concepts of this book being taught to our future business leaders.
You incorporate quotes from a number of people and books in this work. Let us know why you are drawn to these particular references?
I quote several people in the book from ancient philosophers, scientists, spiritual teachers, religious/spiritual texts, business people, entertainers, etc. who have all inspired me by their view of the world and the messages they gave to remind us that we are more powerful than we think we are. All the quotes I use are inspirational, empowering, and relay powerful wisdom. Your Hidden Light makes this wisdom easily understood and applicable in people’s everyday life.
Very cool. Many people are unaware that anyone who inspires you is actually a mirror inviting you to allow qualities you admire in others to shine from inside you more consciously in a similar way. As part of your transformation process, are you noticing any shifts in sensory perception?
Since 2012,I have become more aware of the energy around me and more attune to my own inner guidance. Prior to 2012, I never noticed or felt the energy of people or places, the way I do now. I also feel very connected to the world around me and much more aware that my external reality is a reflection of what is inside of me. Through my greater awareness, I regularly notice when I am receiving signs or guidance from the Universe.
Your Hidden Light is meant to awaken you to your most powerful self, what I call your soul self or spiritual self, in order to most effectively create the life you desire. When I became more in tune to this part of myself, I began to see the world in a different way. I realized that everything I desired in the physical world came from the unseen spiritual world, which I could only access by going within myself. The more I regularly turned inward through meditation, the stronger my intuition became. In addition, I became a more powerful creator of my reality because I learned how to more effectively direct my energy.”