ABOUT ANA JUMA
Having experienced the transformative power of journaling firsthand, I’m committed to sparking a modern renaissance of flipping through the pages in a world of constant scrolling.
MY STORY
Growing up as a biracial girl, I struggled to find my place in the world. The feeling of being on the outside slowly turned inward into the belief that I wasn’t worthy of taking up space.
At school, I would slip into the bathroom between classes. At home, I covered my bedroom’s mirror with a cloth so I didn’t have to face my own reflection. I started skipping meals. Depression became the background of my days, and while life offered me moments of joy, I couldn’t let them in.
This had me secretly coming in and out of rehab until I was 20. Walking hand in hand with life’s fragility made me start asking the big questions at a young age — looking at aspects of myself that most of us avoid. During that time, the pages of my journals held the emotions and stories I was too afraid to express out loud.
They became the only reflection I had the courage to face — the safe space where I could embrace the full spectrum of being human: imperfect, vulnerable, and honest.
There was no way out of my illness, but there was a way through. What I thought was an irreversible breakdown turned out to be a breakthrough. The pages I’d kept since adolescence became the practice that turned what I’d been pressing down into words I could finally express. I started to heal.
In 2015, I left the security of a corporate job and moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to pursue my interest in personal transformation. I joined the Mindvalley team and watched over their online community of 3 million students, making sure that their message spread far and wide to fulfill the vision of raising human consciousness through education.
During those years, journaling became both my anchor and my experiment. I began with simple practices — a gratitude list at night, stream-of-consciousness writing in the morning — and soon, friends and colleagues who wanted to start journaling turned to me for guidance.
By 2018, my own practice had evolved into a method. That year, I created the Life Journal, a 13-week guided system designed to help people live with greater clarity and intention through the power of writing.
What began as a single journal evolved into a larger project. Over the next few years, I poured my creative energy into building a small independent publishing house — a space dedicated to crafting journaling tools for my community, where I also published a poetry book, Back to Earth (2022) based on the content of my journals.
To bring these tools to life beyond the page, in 2019 I began facilitating journaling sessions — first at retreats, then during the pandemic with communities and companies inspired to bring more wellness to their teams.
By 2023, I was hosting monthly sessions in Lisbon, and that’s when I realized that the deeper I went into this work, the more I felt called to share it with integrity.
I became a certified Journal to the Self® instructor in 2024 and I continue to further my studies at the Therapeutic Writing Institute.
Today, the blank page that has held me through the ebbs and flows of life is the same one I bring to others — through group workshops, 1:1 sessions, and free resources on my YouTube channel. What began as my private asylum has become my life’s work.
