Originally from Bulgaria, Yana spent her childhood years in Austria and Germany, her 20s in the USA, and her 30s in China. Eventually, she traveled the entire Far East. She speaks four languages. Her nomadic life has allowed her to interact with all sorts of people and gain a spectrum of experiences and realizations, which inspired her to write the philosophical book Waking Up to Being.
 
By profession Yana is a healer. She holds a Master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine and has a close relationship with nature, spending a lot of time in the mountains mushroom hunting, harvesting herbs, or simply observing phenomena.
 
Yana is a Buddhist practitioner. Her Buddhist practice as well as her educational groundwork in Taoism, her Christian cultural background, and her love for folklore and mythology have enabled her to examine the world from all kinds of angles, both spiritually and mystically, something that the reader will find is quite pronounced throughout her book.