Featured Interview With Onerva Aino
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Hey there! My name’s Onerva Aino, I was born and raised in Finland, in northern Europe. I’ve also lived in Spain, India and the United States. At the moment I live in Finland and teach English and Swedish at a college here.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I loved books even as a little girl! I remember we had this thing in Finland called Library Bus, it was a bus full of books that came to the school every now and then, and we got to get in and browse through the books and borrow what we wanted – it was exciting! I’ve written a diary as long as I remember… I stopped it for a while though, when I was around 9 I think, because my brother and his best friend read my secret writings and made fun of me! It was so terrible that I decided I didn’t want to write anymore… I had written about my crush to that very friend of my brother’s. It was embarrassing. *blush*
I resumed writing later though, fortunately. 😉
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
When I was small I loved reading Nancy Drew, you remember, the girl detective? I loved it and read all of them! Then as I grew up and started being interested in well-being I started reading loads of all kinds of literature on psychology, meditation, healthy living etc. I’ve always gotten a lot of support and inspiration from books.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
UPGRADED YOU is my first book. I think I’ve always secretly dreamed of writing a book. Often when I wrote in my diary, when I was younger, I felt like the text would be good for publishing someday – so interesting, raw and alive. I think I was too afraid to actually dream about it or consciously think about it though. And that’s the thing I talk about in the book, too, that often we humans are too afraid to pursue our dreams or even let ourselves think about them. But when we get to a place where we feel more empowered, we start to get connected to our dreams again, and we can start breaking the walls that our minds (and society and other people) have built for us. We can become aware of the limiting beliefs that our minds hold and that make us play small. And then we can see them, and decide whether we wanna believe in them or not! That’s the beauty of it. So something like that happened to me in Costa Rica in February 2018. I felt like I can do anything I want, I can create anything I want, everything is possible. And that’s when I was ready to receive the inspiration for the book, it seems. By being in a place where I truly believed I could do anything I wanted. That’s fascinating! So the next couple of months I spent writing for hours and hours a day, feeling more inspired than ever on any project or work. It felt like life was flowing through me, love was flowing through me, love was being shared through the words typed. I felt so grateful and inspired to get to share my story for others to benefit. And after the book was ready and I got the first touching feedbacks – of how the words had touched the readers and made their challenging journeys feel a bit lighter all of the sudden, just for getting a sense of a shared journey – it was something unbelievably beautiful. I remember thinking, tears in my eyes, that already this feedback alone is enough to make my whole journey and suffering here on earth worthwhile.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles