Author, master teacher and healer Rena Harvey’s book The Formula of Life is all about self-discovery and empowerment.
Drawing upon over three decades of work, Rena unveils what she believes are the keys to healing, transformation, and understanding oneself at a deeper level.
She delves into four aspects of life: health, lifestyle, relationships, and career/purpose, and how someone can strengthen each area.
Rena told Neos Kosmos that it’s a culmination of her life journey and learnings.
“It was a really profound journey of understanding what is the secrets to healing and transformation and understanding yourself at a deeper level,” she said.
“By having these understandings and this awareness, it starts to open your conscious mind so you start becoming more conscious of who we really are and the things that we experience in our life and how they’re all there to help you, they’re all there to guide you towards becoming the best version of yourself.”
Starting her journey
Rena’s journey began with a Bachelor of Education in Secondary School Teaching coupled with a Bachelor of Arts, sparking her lifelong love of learning, and marking her early career as an educator.
Then in 1999, she embarked on a new journey to heal the pain that resided within her from her childhood growing up in a Greek immigrant household.
“I think in every immigrant family they never really delved into their wounds and they weren’t healed people and then they moved countries and then they’ve got even more pain,” she said.
She said if they don’t heal their own trauma, it is passed down to their kids.
Her household was one of an “abusive or the affirmative or the controlling father and the victim mum, observing their pain and being in this domestic violence household having just chaos and drama, there was no real peace.”
“I would kind of find refuge in my own bedroom and close the door and just be in my own mind.
“That’s when I started to kind of, if you want to call it, talk to God.
“I would start to ask questions and I would find that I would get the answers, but I was answering, so it’s kind of me channelling since a young kid.”
She left home at 18 and at 21 got a one-way ticket to Bangkok, Thailand.
She would sit with Buddhas and meditate and eventually began to journal. From that point she began to realise how much pain she had.
“That’s when the pain really started to come out and showed me how much residue I had towards everything that I had felt – the lack of safety in my life.”
Being proud of where she comes from
Rena’s mother is Greek Egyptian, who came to Australia at 17 and met Rena’s father (who is from Piraeus, Athens) when she went on a trip to Greece at 21, and she brought him back to Australia with her.
She said if it wasn’t for her mum to still hold the traditions of Christmas, Easter and all, they would have probably lost their connection to the culture because she still cooks Greek, still speaks Greek, everything’s very Greek.
Over the years on her travels Rena has grown fond of South East Asia and also Greece.
Her children went all over Europe but found Greece to be their favourite.
“They came back and they’re like, ‘Mum, why was Greece our favourite place? It’s not just because they’re Greek, it’s because they know what it feels like to be in such an old civilization of such amazing rich culture,” Rena said.
“I’ve been there many times. I’m really drawn to anywhere that has community and culture.”
She said she resonates more with community and rural living than commercialism seen in the West. She and her family are actually moving to Thailand in January.
In her chat with Neos Kosmos, Rena also came to a realisation about her self-identity. She realised in other interviews and talks with people; her ethnicity has never come up.
“It was weird for me to say, ‘Hi, I’m Rena Harvey and I’m Greek Egyptian. So it’s really beautiful for me to plug in my heritage and where my roots come from,” she said.
“Because Greece is so rich. Egypt is so rich. There’s so much richness of spirituality in both of those amazing countries.
“I really wanted something to say it somewhere, so then I can say, “Hey, I’m in the Greek newspaper because I’m Greek.
“It’s nice to say I’m Greek Egyptian out loud to my following.”
People want to know the formula of life
Even though Rena is qualified and is a therapist, sound healer, a reiki master and more, she said no matter how many degrees one has, it is literal experience that works best when helping people.
She has her own experiences to draw upon.
“I’m celebrating the pain because we’re all here, and we all feel pain,” she said.
“That’s why it’s the formula of life because we all have the same formula. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what culture you’re from. We all have the same formula.”
Since the release of her book, it has all amplified she said, doing media and more people following her.
She has a retreat coming up in the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand.
Rena wants to spread her knowledge worldwide and that is a key motivation for moving overseas.
“I’ll start in Thailand and absolutely I’ll end up in Greece and be teaching this stuff there.”
“It’s my duty now to have created something that’s so powerful and just keep on spreading it until I have no more energy.”