Today we’d like to introduce you to Arani Deva.
Hi Arani, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
If someone had told me years ago that I would become an author, I don’t think I would have believed them.
My path has been anything but linear. I studied English literature before earning a law degree and spent many years practicing law. Over the years, I found myself increasingly drawn to meditation, yoga, embodiment, and the deeper questions of healing and what it means to live an authentic life. Over time, those interests became more than a personal journey—they became my life’s work.
For two decades, I have had the privilege of practicing and teaching meditation, yoga, breathwork, and embodied healing with the support and generoisty of my teachers in India, Peru, and the Rocky Mountains I call home. Through the years, I came to understand that healing is is about remembering who we are beneath the layers of conditioning, fear, and old stories rather then trying to fix or change ourselves.
My writing emerged naturally from this work. What began as a desire to support the people I was serving became my first book, Integration Alchemy: The Real Ceremony Is Your Lifeand more recently, The Mother Ache: Healing The Wounded Daughter Within. What a priveledge to write. Along the way, I was fortunate to realize that writing was its own path of inquiry and self discovery, one that continues to invite greater honesty, creativity, and presence within myself.
Today I continue to write, support and teach, while exploring what it means to live a life rooted in embodiment, self-trust, and genuine connection. Looking back, every chapter, from law to my own healing journey, to helping others to heal, to my books finding their own wings, has a;; been part of the same unfolding story, my own journey home to me.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the greatest challenges has been learning to trust a path that rarely made sense on paper. I have moved through several very different careers—from law to becoming a seeker, from being a studen to then teaching meditation and leading retreats, and eventually to writing. Each transition required letting go of an old identity before I could fully see the next one.
Writing the books brought its own challenges. While I was comfortable sharing what I had learned through years of practice and teaching, I discovered that writing my own personal stories was quite difficult. It required a level of vulnerability I had spent much of my life protecting. And, of course, those are often the passages that readers connect with most deeply. so I ma glad I went all in and shared parts of my story honestly.
More recently, I have realized that publishing a book and helping it find its readers are two very different endeavors. Like many first-time authors, I have had to learn an entirely new world publicizing my books. It has been both humbling and deeply rewarding.
Looking back, I don’t think these challenges were detours at all They became part of my evefr evolving path, teaching me resilience, humility, and a greater trust in the unfolding of life.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work centers on helping people reconnect with themselves through embodied healing, meditation, and writing.
I am the author of two books published by Sentient Publications. Integration Alchemy: The Real Ceremony Is Your Life explores how meaningful transformation unfolds after profound experiences, offering practical guidance for integrating insight into everyday life. The Mother Ache: Healing the Wounded Daughter Within invites readers into a compassionate exploration of the longing beneath the mother wound and offers a path toward self-trust, embodiment, and inner belonging.
Beyond writing, I offer workshops, group programs, and private sessions inspired by the themes explored in my books. My work is informed by more than two decades of teaching meditation, yoga, and breathwork. I am a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher and completed the year-long Compassionate Inquiry® professional training developed by Dr. Gabor Maté. These experiences, together with years of contemplative practice and embodied inquiry, continue to shape both my teaching and my writing.
Whether through a book, a workshop, or a conversation, my hope is always the same: to create a space where people can slow down, listen deeply, and discover that healing is less about becoming someone new and more about remembering who they have always been.
You can learn more about my books and current offerings at www.devarani.com.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
One of the biggest surprises has been discovering how deeply I love the process of writing itself.
When I began my first book, I thought I was simply trying to share what I had learned through my own healing journey. Instead, writing became its own path of healing and self knowing. I found myself happily waking at 4:00 each morning, eager to settle into the hours before dawn. What began as discipline soon became the greatest joy of my day – these early morning writing sessions felt so alive and my creativity really came alive.
Another surprise was what happened after I signed my publishing contract. I felt elated for several days, and then reality set in. Suddenly, the books I had imagined writing someday had to be written, and with that came an overwhelming sense of vulnerability. Others would actually read them. It was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Looking back, I realize that fear wasn’t something to avoid. It was something to write right through. On the other side of it was the commitment and creative freedom required to bring two books into the world.
More than anything, writing has changed me. I thought I was writing to share something with others. Instead, I also discovered a part of myself I hadn’t fully known before.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.devaarani.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devaarani/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanya.shimer
