58: Making a career change your own (Hispanic Heritage Month)

Zayda Rivera is a Reiki Master who made her career change her own—by bringing together her Puerto Rican heritage and her teachings. 

In this episode celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, Zayda shares the calling she felt to take her career in a new direction after years of covering entertainment, politics, and breaking news as a professional writer. She opens up about the self-doubt she had about launching her spiritual business Mindful Living with Z and how she grew her clientele by infusing Puerto Rican indigenous traditions into her Reiki practice. 

If you're second-guessing yourself about your career switch, Zayda's story can inspire you to take those first steps and believe in yourself along the way.

Episode Highlights:

• Answering a call to study Reiki

• Becoming a Reiki Master

• Finding initial clients 

• Expanding into other spiritual content

• Growing up with a mix of religious and spiritual rituals

• The link between Reiki and Puerto Rican ancestral practices

• Fear and self-doubt about starting a spiritual business

• When your partner doesn't support your career change

• How to believe in yourself 

• Growing a business without advertising

• Networking in the Reiki world

• Taking small steps that lead to big change when making a career change

Find Zayda Rivera at:

Website: https://www.mindfullivingwithz.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfullivingwithz

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mindfullivingwithz

Book: Being Bruja: A Young Mystic’s Guide

Reiki Master 8-week Certification Course: https://www.mindfullivingwithz.com/fall-classes

Zayda’s Spiritual Content:

PS Juntos: https://www.popsugar.com/author/mindfulz 

Parents Magazine: https://www.parents.com/zayda-rivera-8419597

Resources: 

Learn more about Reiki: https://www.reiki.org/

The Reiki Association: https://www.reikiassociation.net/

International Association of Reiki Professionals: https://iarp.org/

More episodes for Hispanic Heritage Month:

Ep 41: Pursuing your passion at any age

Ep 33: Leaving corporate to lead a non-profit

Ep 14: How a passion project led to a career change

More episodes for starting a business:

Ep 37: Starting a business after corporate burnout

Ep 29: The ups and downs of building a business

Ep 6: Starting a woman-owned small business

Music credit: TimMoor from Pixabay

Podcast info:
What's your career switch? What do you think about this episode and the show? Tell us at careerswitchpod.com. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Lixandra: Hi, everyone. I'm Lixandra Urresta, and this is Career Switch Podcast. This show is here to encourage you to take action with whatever career change you're considering or working on. Maybe you're trying to switch industries or professions or break out on your own and start a business. In some episodes, I talk to people who've made their own career switch, whether by choice or circumstance. They share the good, the bad, and the truth about their journey, including what worked for them and what didn't. In other episodes, I speak with experts who offer their best career advice on challenges that can come up during the process of making a career change. After all, it takes guts to switch things up, and it's not easy. However, it is possible. So I hope you hear something in this episode, an idea, a suggestion, a piece of advice that'll spur you into action with your own career switch, whether it's taking that first bold step or trying something new. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. 

It's Hispanic Heritage Month and my guest today is Zayda Rivera, a Reiki master and the founder of Mindful Living with Z. I met Zayda when she led a Reiki session for a friend's birthday celebration at a wellness center. I remember loving how calming and reenergizing it was. I mean, the music itself was amazing. But what really caught my attention was when Zayda told us that she infuses Puerto Rican indigenous traditions into her Reiki practice. Once we got chatting after the session and I learned that she had made a career change, I invited her to be a guest for Hispanic Heritage Month. In this episode, Zayda shares the calling she felt to take her career in a new direction after years of covering entertainment, politics, and breaking news as a professional writer. She opens up about the self-doubt she had about launching a spiritual business, especially when her partner didn't have her back. And we talk about how she made her career switch her own by bringing together her Puerto Rican heritage and her teachings. 

Hi Zayda, thanks for joining us today. Let's dive in. What were you doing before you became a Reiki master and what led up to your career switch?

Zayda: It's been a career switch, but in a way more of an elevation or evolution rather, because I have been a writer, professional writer for over 20 years now. I was writing entertainment, journalism, politics, breaking news stories. And when I left the newsroom in 2016 to become an independent writer, freelancer, and also embark on some new work with event production, you know, that was the first change was becoming an event producer. But in 2018, early 2019, I started really getting these downloads during my meditations. I've meditated for a very long time, nearly 20 years now. Meditation has been a consistent practice. And I started getting a lot of messages about practicing Reiki, which was surprising because it really came out of nowhere. It's not like Reiki was something that was a part of my life before. And after just hearing that call enough, I finally decided to answer the call and started studying Reiki and different modalities and spirituality and spiritual practices and really diving deep to understand indigenous spiritual practices specific to Borinquen, which is known to many as Puerto Rico.

Lixandra: So how did you transition into Reiki as a new career?

Zayda: I got certified as a Reiki practitioner first, then dove deeper in and wanted to become a Reiki master. The distinction between the two is that Reiki practitioners can practice Reiki and have clients that they do Reiki on do Reiki on themselves and family members. Reiki masters can now teach others. to do Reiki and can certify Reiki practitioners. And I knew that the teacher role was something I was very interested in. That's when I really started to say, OK, how do I put this out there to the public? And who is going to receive this from me, knowing me as an entertainment reporter, a politics reporter, an event producer? Now, suddenly, Zeta is this spiritual person, you know, so there was a lot of fear about and self doubt really about putting it out there publicly. So I started very slow. I started, I think one of my first Reiki sessions where I did Reiki on someone else other than myself was my youngest nephew and it seemed pretty impactful for him. And then I did it on my sister. Then I started to kind of put it out there that this is what I was doing. And it was really beautiful what happened. It's like spirit just told me, put it out there and just let it rest. Don't harp on the outcome. You know what it reminded me of was that movie Field of Dreams and the idea of if you build it, they will come. That really resonated with me at that time in my life in 2019 when I started to say, okay, I'm gonna put this out publicly.

Lixandra: And how did you do that?

Zayda: I started slowly just posting things on social media, nothing big. And a woman that I've been friends with for now over 30 years, we became friends in college, she was one of my first clients. And the fact that she believed in me in this role and actually told me, I always saw something like this in you throughout our entire friendship. That gave me the confidence to keep moving forward and then eventually create my website and really come up with the name Mindful Living with Z.

Lixandra: Wow. Okay. Let me just go back a little bit just for listeners who might be interested in exploring becoming a Reiki master. What kind of coursework did you have to do? How long did it take? Is it a certification? Is it a degree?

Zayda: It's a certification course. I studied in Montclair, New Jersey, and my teacher was an excellent teacher. She really did sort of like an expedited crash course. And I liked that because as a mother of three, I didn't have the time to commit to a long series of classes. I wanted to learn, study and be certified. So Reiki practitioner took a full day. We studied all day long and it was a very intense course, breaking down the first three symbols in Reiki. then by the end of the class becoming attuned, and then right there after being attuned, going through that spiritual ritual of awakening really the Reiki within, the teacher put us right to work. Okay, now let's start practicing it. I loved that. That works for me, like diving right in. So I left the first Reiki practitioner course with a very great understanding of Reiki and how to use it. And that's when I started practicing on myself, on my children, on my pets. and then dove deeper into Reiki master and Reiki master was a little bit of a longer course. I believe it was about three days for it, but long, intense, focused teaching that we had to go through.

Lixandra: So normally it would take longer, right? If people can't, um, if, if they don't have like three intense days to devote to it.

Zayda: Yeah, absolutely. So when I created my own course, Reiki and Heal is my Reiki practitioner course. So when you graduate from that course, you become a Reiki one and two practitioner. What I did was I created the course over four weeks. So it's meeting once a week via Zoom plus materials that you do on your own. And I did that specifically to cater to others like me. that are working, that are parents, that need more flexibility. So I really tried to make it available to everyone.

Lixandra: All right, great. And now when we first met, you also talked about how with your reporting, you switched that up too. You weren't talking to celebrities about their latest projects anymore. You went the spiritual route with your writing also. Tell us about that.

Zayda: So once I started Mindful Living with Z, which I launched the business literally at the end of 2019, not realizing that three months later in March 2020, our whole world shut down. Right. Pandemic. Yes, so I really felt divinely guided by all of this work and my business grew pretty rapidly. In fact, because I was offering all virtual sessions, obviously we couldn't be around each other at the time. And my business took off just from people that were either dealing with COVID or had a family member going through it or even a family member that passed. And so that is where the business started to grow. As far as my writing though, this was something that I never even knew would come out of this. And it was such a beautiful thing. It was really something I feel like I manifested because I would speak out loud and say, you know, I would love to continue my journalism career. in a way where I'm writing about spiritual content, writing about indigenous spiritual practices, and literally it came out of the sky and fell in my lap, an opportunity to write for what was previously Pop Sugar Juntos, which is now PS Juntos, and That's been a great space for me to really express this type of work. I have a monthly column there where I write about spiritual banyos you could create for yourself during the new moons and spiritual limpias you could create for yourself during the full moons. I've been there now almost three years writing this column and also writing other spiritual content too. You know, what is Palo Santo and what is the significance in history and how do you use it? What is sage? What's the spiritual significance? How do you use it? What's Agua de Florida? Why is that so significant in many Latinx, Latin households, right? and breaking these down and really realizing there isn't a lot of content out there about our indigenous spiritual practices, what our ancestors did to heal from trauma, from different ailments, to keep health and prosperity and joy and inner peace. They used herbs. They used the elements of the earth, you know, air, wind, fire, earth itself. And these are the things that really resonated with me. It almost felt like my past lives were awakened when I started studying this work. And I also felt like it was ancestral, like my ancestors were supporting me in this work, like this is your calling. And I felt really, really passionate about that.

Lixandra: Yeah, let's get into that a little bit. Did you grow up in a household where your relatives were using herbs and doing limpiezas and all that? Because I didn't.

Zayda: Well, it's very interesting. I've had this conversation with many different people of the same background. And there's this commonality. A lot of our families, a lot of our elders, are devout Catholics or Christians, right? So we're brought up with that in our homes. And I saw that evident in my grandmother's home. She was a devout Catholic. always going to church, all of this. But at the same time, she was doing these little rituals at home that even as a little girl, I definitely picked up on and thought, wait, this isn't directly connected to the church. And it was things like bowls of water that she would put above her refrigerator. And I would see her change the bowls, like every week or two. She would do these seasonal rituals at home where when the seasons were changing, that meant the energy had to change in the home. So she would change the curtains, the sheets, the bedding of the rooms, cleanse the rooms, open up all the windows, allow the air to flow through. These are things that I watched her doing as a child. And you would never hear my grandmother utter the word bruja or spirituality like that or spiritual practitioner or any of those terms. No, never. But it was just something that was just a part of her. And I found that to be really beautiful. The collision almost. being devout in your religion, but also being devout in your spiritual practices that you just learned growing up on the island of Puerto Rico. She grew up there and brought these practices to Connecticut where I grew up and where she lived when I was younger.

Lixandra: Mmm, I love that. I wish I would have had that a little bit myself because my family's from Ecuador But like I said, I didn't grow up in that kind of household and we really didn't have any relatives in the US but in my 20s I actually spent some time in Ecuador getting to know my extended family and I ended up in a little small town and And just to make a long story short, like I experienced having una limpieza because unfortunately I was hit with el mal aire. So I actually got sick. I was vomiting and had an upset stomach. So I had to get a limpieza and it worked. After the limpieza, it all went away. So I've experienced it. So I wish I had grown up with more of that ingrained in my childhood. And even like herbs, like you mentioned, I wish I had had that in my habitual living. But it's good to know that we can learn. So bringing it back to your column, tell us again, like, where can we find this information so that we can learn how to practice some of these rituals?

Zayda: Yeah, and I will say that, you know, a lot of us did not grow up that way with that being a very big presence in the household. It wasn't in mine either. It was just little tiny things that I saw. That's why I feel like such a accomplishment for putting out this column and it's on PS juntos. So this was formerly pop sugar. You know, I feel like that column gives me the opportunity to really educate others like you and I, who, who weren't completely in a household full of these spiritual indigenous practices. I learned a lot of these practices over the years of study and have that also incorporated them into my own life. And like you just said, with the limpiezas that you had, I saw that they worked. And that is what is so important to me. So I love writing about egg limpias. How are they done? Why are they done? What are they good for? You know, things like that, really breaking it down.

Lixandra: Yeah, I'll definitely link to your author page on Pies Juntos and your other spiritual content in the show notes. So Zayda, how do these spiritual practices from Puerto Rico tie into your Reiki teaching?

Zayda: Reiki really spoke to me. Again, I'm not really sure why I was chosen to do Reiki. It's not something that my ancestors practiced, but they did practice healing, energy healing. And that essentially is what Reiki is. And when I explain Reiki to people, it's energy healing to remove trauma, stress, relieve anxiety. And I work specifically with the chakras. starting at the root chakra at the base of our spine, moving up to the sacral chakra right below our belly button, the solar plexus above our belly button, the heart, the throat, third eye, and crown, and the aura. Those are the focus of what I work on when I do Reiki. our ancestors also dealt with energy healing they just didn't call it Reiki and they also dealt with the energy vortexes or energy centers within our body but they didn't call it chakras so I saw these links and I thought okay I want I want to be a powerful Reiki master and really impact people's lives in a positive way and healing ways and teaching them. But I also want to be true to my ancestral medicine as well. And so that's where I started learning how to do egg limpias, how to do barridas with herbs, you know, how to talk about these things, how to utilize agua de florida in my everyday life. You know, really learning all of those things and it felt like it just fit together. So now when I do my Reiki healing circles and invite people to join, and typically they're virtual, I get people from all over the country, sometimes internationally. Yes, it's Reiki, but I also incorporate some of my indigenous practices too and the knowledge around there. You know, so this is where my ancestors definitely speak to me and guide me in this work.

Lixandra: Yeah, I remember from the session you led when we met, how you explained as you were going through the session, you explained what you were doing and how it related to your ancestral indigenous practices. Okay, Zayda, so something with any career change, right, are those ups and downs, the challenges, and you mentioned earlier the self-doubt that you had at the beginning. So let's just dive into that a little bit more and anything else that may come up for you. So there you are, you have completed your coursework, you're a certified Reiki master, and like you said, your instructor was like, now you have to go out there and practice. So tell us about that.

Zayda: My teacher was amazing and she definitely prepared us to then go out and start doing the work. I just didn't know what that looked like. And there was a lot of fear around it. You know, people already knew me for 20 years as a writer that does entertainment and politics and breaking news. You know, I was at BET News. I was at New York Daily News. I was at different Publications like that. I was writing lifestyle in some places, lots of different publications. I was honored to write for. And so when I thought, okay, now I'm going to come out and start promoting this spiritual business. I didn't know how people were going to receive it. In fact, I started thinking, oh, they're going to think I'm a joke, you know, and to be completely candid with you at the time I was in a relationship and my partner also thought it was a joke. He was not supportive of the change of me studying this type of work. And so for it to even start right at home, where I was already getting doubt from my partner, it definitely made me feel even more insecure about putting it out there publicly. What i kept getting that message this is what you're supposed to do this is what you're supposed to do just do it just take the first initial steps. And i think for anyone doing a career switch that is one of the hardest things is that first step forward in just believing in yourself. Oh, yeah. How did you start believing in yourself? I started taking other courses to build my mindset around the business side of the spiritual work. Right. So I took a course that was specifically about women launching spiritual businesses and how you get clients and things like that. And through that course, I really learned Okay, putting that personal feel out is going to be the tie in because it shows people that not only am I doing this work, but I'm doing it because I can relate because I'm you too. Because I come with past traumas that really blocked me from a lot of success and growth in my life for a long time. And I didn't even know that's what the blocks were. And it wasn't until I started to heal from those past traumas that those blocks were removed and I saw growth happening at a pretty fast rate. You know, I studied under renowned spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle and listening to him about being present. So it was beyond just getting that Reiki certification. The learning did not stop. That was really just the beginning. Being certified, but then diving deep and reading a lot, taking other online courses, investing in myself. That is one of the biggest advice I give to anybody that wants to do a career switch. Invest in yourself. Learn that thing that you've wanted to learn. and then put it out there. One thing that learning under totally taught me was the breakdown of there are 8 billion people on this planet. So think of just attracting that small little segment, which could be a hundred thousand people. That's a drop in the bucket of 8 billion, but a hundred thousand people paying attention to your work is pretty significant. So when he broke it down like that, I thought, all right, even if it's not 100,000, if it's 1,000 people that I impact with my work, it's beautiful to realize that you can make an impact in what seems like a small way, but it's really a huge way. And that's when I first created ZetaRivera.com and put Mindful Living with Z, all my work and everything on that website. And I did get a lot of questions. Oh, you're doing spiritual work now? And I'm like, yeah, and people were a little interested. And it was slow at first. I would have a few clients every single month. Some months I didn't have anybody book sessions. I never lost sight of what I was trying to do. And fast forward to today, I have clients every week. And it's such a beautiful thing. And really the business Mindful Living with Z grew out of word of mouth.

Lixandra: That was going to be my next question, right? Once you started getting those initial clients, I'm sure they spread the word.

Zayda: Yeah, you don't have to spend thousands of dollars on ads. Just do your work as authentically and with sincerity. And people are going to, it's going to resonate with people and they're going to want to tell others. And that is exactly what happened.

Lixandra: Well, thank you so much personally, because that's how I feel about this podcast. I'm not interested in getting sponsors, but people find it. I mean, the podcast is doing well. It's a niche podcast, but I like what you said earlier. As long as it affects people, even if it's a thousand, it's still making an impact. And that's how I feel about this podcast. I think it's a testament to the content. It resonates with people. So, yeah, thanks for bringing up everything you just said. So, Zayda, before I forget, earlier you said you have three kids. How did you do everything you've done with three kids in the house?

Zayda: A lot of the work was either done very early in the morning, or at night after they were asleep. Sometimes it definitely took like a zoom here and there during the day, but a lot of it was early morning. I started studying kundalini yoga, which is a very spiritual practice in yoga. So I was getting up at 430 in the morning doing my Kundalini practice and then like doing some spiritual studying before my day started. And during that time, you know, a lot of people ask, well, how could you get up so early? It was the motivation of what I was doing. I knew that I was changing my life significantly and that that change was going to impact my children too. It also felt good. The work I was doing, that was shifting my energy. It was changing things within me. And that becomes something you want to continue doing. It's like physical working out. When you do it and you see how your body feels after doing it, you want to do it more.

Lixandra: And how else have you grown the business? Is networking a big thing in the Reiki world?

Zayda: It is no different in the spiritual world. I have found an amazing network of other spiritual practitioners and teachers. I have a wonderful connection with a woman in the West coast. There's another in Miami. There's several in New York area. So it's, it's a beautiful thing to start really finding your people within this work and growing together.

Lixandra: Great. So tell us about Mindful Living with Z and how listeners can find you.

Zayda: You could go to mindfullivingwithz.com. Follow me on Instagram or TikTok at mindfullivingwithz. My offerings include Reiki sessions. I typically do them virtually. I also do card readings, tarot and oracle cards. I also do home cleansings. So if people have moved into a new space or sometimes people are just feeling like the energy is a little stagnant and negative in their space and they just need a cleansing. So I go in and I will do Reiki on the home. I also do spiritual counseling and spiritual counseling has really taken off for my business. And how does that work? Every month we schedule an hour session together and that hour is yours. Whatever you need. Do you want Reiki today? Do you want to just talk? Do you need some breath work? Do we need to do some guided meditation? Do we need to do a combination of all of it? Whatever it is that they need, I offer within that hour. That hour is their sacred time.

Lixandra: Great. So as we wrap up, Zayda, what advice do you have for other career changers?

Zayda: I think number one is believe in yourself. That is the biggest thing that was holding me back for a long time, was second guessing myself. So really just believing that you received this urge to study something new or to create something new, and that that's really divinely guided.

Lixandra: Can we think of it as a calling?

Zayda: Absolutely. That's what Reiki was. It was a calling. And I always tell people, you know, the callings you've been receiving in your life, it's up to you to pick up the phone and answer that call. And so I answered the call with Reiki and that's where it's taken me to now talking about it on podcasts and also my first book. So all of that came from simply believing in myself in the spiritual work.

Lixandra: Yes, congrats on your new book. It's out now. It's called Being Bruja, and I'll definitely link it in the show notes. What other advice do you have for us?

Zayda: Also, taking small steps that lead to big change. So we often overwhelm ourselves with, oh my gosh, I have to get all of this done if I want to launch this project. We seek perfection a lot of times. You don't need to be perfect. Just put it out there and see what happens. And I think the last thing is don't get caught up on the outcome. That's another very human thing of ours is that we are doing something and we're already jumping 20 steps ahead of, well, it might not end up like this. It'll probably end up like this. Let go of that. trying to figure out what the end looks like, and just flow through the journey, flow through the process of what it is you're creating, and believe every step of the way that this creation is building something great.

Lixandra: Thanks to Zayda Rivera for being our guest today. You can find Zayda at mindfullivingwithz.com and on social media also at mindfullivingwithz. You can find links to the resources mentioned in this episode and more helpful information in the show notes and on our website, careerswitchpod.com. 

So what's your career switch? Are you motivated to take action after listening to this episode? Tell us at careerswitchpod.com. We'd love to know, along with any feedback you have about the show. Let us know too if you'd like to be a guest. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at careerswitchpod. And please rate, review, and share with your friends and colleagues. It'll help get the show out there. Thanks for listening today. Till next time.