Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Sav­ina Ram­nanan, known pro­fes­sion­al­ly as Sav­ina or Sav­ina Leo, is a life coach, as­trologer, and spir­i­tu­al guide whose work is root­ed in both tra­di­tion and lived ex­pe­ri­ence. Raised in a Hin­du house­hold, she cred­its her up­bring­ing with lay­ing a strong spir­i­tu­al foun­da­tion that would lat­er shape her world­view and ca­reer. As an adult, she came to recog­nise that much of what is mar­ket­ed as “New Age” spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in the West draws heav­i­ly (of­ten with­out ac­knowl­edge­ment) on Hin­du and In­dige­nous philoso­phies. Still a prac­tis­ing Hin­du, Ram­nanan ap­proach­es spir­i­tu­al­i­ty with rev­er­ence and depth and in­ter­twines it in­to her pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice.

Her up­bring­ing was hum­ble and ground­ed. Ram­nanan at­tend­ed Barataria Sec­ondary be­fore pur­su­ing a de­gree in busi­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean. Vo­cal about dis­man­tling the be­lief that ear­ly ed­u­ca­tion de­fines you, she says that “most peo­ple as­sume I went to Lak­sh­mi Girls or SAGHS”, but in­sists that no mat­ter where the path be­gins, it can find a favourable con­tin­u­ance, es­pe­cial­ly for young peo­ple who may feel lim­it­ed by cir­cum­stance. From an ear­ly age, she sensed she was meant to do some­thing mean­ing­ful and dreamed of a ca­reer that would re­de­fine suc­cess be­yond ma­te­r­i­al mark­ers and fo­cus in­stead on help­ing oth­ers.

That sense of pur­pose took time to ful­ly emerge. Ram­nanan de­scribes her­self as a “late bloomer”, some­one whose true path be­came clear dur­ing her late 20s, around her Sat­urn Re­turn—a sig­nif­i­cant as­tro­log­i­cal pe­ri­od as­so­ci­at­ed with growth and self-re­al­i­sa­tion. Rather than con­form­ing to so­cial norms, she em­braced the idea that some peo­ple are meant to de­vel­op lat­er in life. As an as­trologer, she un­der­stood this tra­jec­to­ry was al­ways part of her sto­ry, and she learnt to trust her own tim­ing.

Her pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney be­gan with a spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing near­ly 20 years ago, which sparked a deep sense of per­son­al aware­ness and in­tu­itive de­vel­op­ment. Over time, Ram­nanan re­alised she had a unique gift: the abil­i­ty to break down com­plex spir­i­tu­al con­cepts in­to ac­ces­si­ble, prac­ti­cal in­sights. While many spir­i­tu­al teach­ers speak in ab­stract or over­ly mys­ti­cal terms, Ram­nanan fo­cused on trans­lat­ing what she de­scribes as “what the uni­verse is say­ing” in­to guid­ance peo­ple could ac­tu­al­ly ap­ply to their dai­ly lives.

Friends and fam­i­ly nat­u­ral­ly grav­i­tat­ed to­wards her for ad­vice, drawn to her abil­i­ty to un­tan­gle men­tal and emo­tion­al blocks with clar­i­ty and com­pas­sion. Her core skill lies in “an un­can­ny abil­i­ty to un­tan­gle peo­ple’s minds and of­fer clar­i­ty and di­rec­tion”, and by iden­ti­fy­ing root caus­es rather than sur­face symp­toms, she has helped peo­ple cre­ate tan­gi­ble change in their lives. Through word-of-mouth, this guid­ance evolved in­to a full-fledged prac­tice. To­day, Ram­nanan is a cer­ti­fied life coach, a pro­fes­sion­al West­ern trop­i­cal as­trologer, and a pod­cast host, work­ing with clients seek­ing deep­er align­ment and self-un­der­stand­ing.

One of the great­est high­lights of her ca­reer has been wit­ness­ing trans­for­ma­tion first­hand. Ram­nanan speaks pas­sion­ate­ly about see­ing clients who once felt lost, con­fused, or de­pressed step in­to clar­i­ty and pur­pose. That evo­lu­tion, she says, “lights up my soul”. Yet the work is not with­out chal­lenges. Many peo­ple come to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty ex­pect­ing quick fix­es or sim­ple pre­dic­tions, but Ram­nanan’s ap­proach de­mands ef­fort, hon­esty, and ac­count­abil­i­ty. She em­pha­sis­es that true change re­quires shad­ow work, in­volv­ing con­fronting trau­ma, fear, and deeply in­grained pat­terns. Her work goes be­yond sur­face-lev­el af­fir­ma­tions, fo­cus­ing in­stead on heal­ing the mind, body, and soul to­geth­er.

An­oth­er chal­lenge she faces is one some might en­vy: her youth­ful ap­pear­ance. At 37, she is of­ten un­der­es­ti­mat­ed, though she notes that her ex­pe­ri­ence and re­sults ul­ti­mate­ly speak loud­er than as­sump­tions.

In her prac­tice, Ram­nanan sup­ports clients by help­ing them re­duce men­tal noise and build in­ner re­silience. She ex­plains that the mind of­ten re­sists change due to child­hood pro­gram­ming, fear, and self-doubt. Through non-judge­men­tal guid­ance and prac­ti­cal tools, she helps peo­ple strength­en their spir­i­tu­al and men­tal for­ti­tude so they can live in­ten­tion­al­ly and in align­ment with who they tru­ly are.

For those in­ter­est­ed in mind­ful­ness, Ram­nanan of­fers a re­de­f­i­n­i­tion. Mind­ful­ness, she says, is not pas­siv­i­ty but sharp self-aware­ness paired with aligned ac­tion. It re­quires un­der­stand­ing per­son­al de­sires, blocks, and im­pact on oth­ers, while re­leas­ing the pres­sure to live for parental ex­pec­ta­tions, part­ners, or so­ci­ety.

As we are at the start of a new year, she en­cour­ages peo­ple to set in­ten­tions across all ar­eas of life—fi­nances, re­la­tion­ships, ca­reer, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty—and to match those in­ten­tions with ac­tion, even when it feels un­com­fort­able. “The uni­verse re­sponds to ac­tion,” she says, “and re­wards those will­ing to take the first step.”