About

She learned the hard way that passion alone is not enough.

This is the story of a woman who tried to outrun her pain with purpose — and what she discovered when she finally couldn’t.
Once upon a time

She started with
a dream that felt like a calling.

For most of her twenties and thirties, she lived by a single conviction: that passion was the engine of a meaningful life. She wrote a book about it. She built a practice around it. She coached hundreds of people to find it.

And she wasn’t wrong. Passion matters. It is real and it is necessary. The woman who wrote Passionability: Igniting a Life full of Love, Happiness and Meaning — who threw herself into her work twelve, fourteen hours a day for a decade, who crossed continents chasing what lit her up — she knew something true.

She just didn’t know yet what passion couldn’t do. What it couldn’t carry. What it couldn’t survive.
She hadn’t yet met her body’s limit. She hadn’t yet sat with the kind of pain that no amount of purpose can outrun.
That reckoning was coming. And when it arrived, it changed everything she thought she understood about how humans actually heal and grow.

“Passion was never just a concept to me. It was the answer to everything. I believed it with my whole heart.”

Randa El Zein signature
THE WORK

A life lived fully, in every direction.

She didn’t arrive at this work through a textbook. She arrived through living — through beauty and rupture and reinvention and loss. Through three continents, two master’s degrees and one body that eventually said enough.

20

s

The becoming

Florence, Beirut, Europe — a life powered by beauty and movement.

She studied interior design in Beirut and then in Florence — a city that opened her up to the world. She traveled. She created. She lived fully inside her passions and called it enough.

The world felt like it was opening. And she ran toward it.
30

s

The unraveling

Canada. A marriage that didn't fit. The slow drift from herself.

Living in Canada, she found herself somewhere she hadn’t expected: lost. An unfulfilling marriage. A career in real estate that left her hollow. The woman who had been powered by passion had quietly stopped recognizing herself.

And then — the series of ruptures that, in hindsight, were also invitations. She ended the marriage. She left the career. She walked into the unknown with nothing but the conviction that she was meant for something different, and the courage to find out what.

40

s

The audacity

Rock climbing at 42. A second master's at 45. Burning coal in Florida.

She started rock climbing seriously at 42. At 45, she went back to university and earned a Master’s in Educational Psychology, specializing in Human Development.

She was doing what she had always done: proving to herself — and to anyone watching — that limits were negotiable.

She didn’t yet know that the limit coming for her couldn’t be out-climbed. Now, at 50, she is based in Abu Dhabi, doing the most rewarding work of her life — with women who remind her, every day, of who she used to be.

The Turning Point

When the body
finally said enough.

In 2019, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia — chronic widespread pain and fatigue that doesn’t announce itself politely. It simply arrives. And it doesn’t leave.

She did what she had always done: she researched everything. Read every book. Tried every protocol. Studied under Gabor Maté in his year-long Compassionate Inquiry program. Went deep into Joe Dispenza’s work & retreats. Trained under Dr. Mindy Pelz in women’s hormones and perimenopause. Became a certified health coach — twice over. She even mustered the courage for ayahuasca’s embrace.

And in that process, something shifted — not just in her body, but in her understanding of everything she had been teaching for a decade. Passion was real. But without a regulated nervous system, without tended trauma, without a body that felt safe — nothing stands.

“I had been coaching people back to their passion for a decade. And I was right that passion matters. But I had missed something crucial — the reason so many people can’t access their passion, can’t sustain it, can’t feel it even when their life looks exactly as it should.
It isn’t a mindset problem. It isn’t a motivation problem. It’s a nervous system problem. A trauma problem. A body that learned to brace instead of bloom.
The diagnosis gave me that. And I would not trade it — because it made me the practitioner I am today.”

— Randa El Zein, MA, CPCC, PCC
What She Believes

The convictions that
shape every session
she holds.

These have been tested — not just studied. Some of them came from certifications. Some of them came from living.

01

Nothing is wrong with you.

The patterns that are keeping you stuck were once the smartest thing your system knew how to do. They’re not flaws. They’re adaptations that outlived their usefulness. The work is not to fix you — it’s to help you outgrow what no longer fits.
02

Passion is necessary — and not sufficient.

It is a real force. But it will collapse in the face of unhealed pain, chronic exhaustion, and a nervous system living in survival mode. The work tends the ground so that passion can finally take root and stay.
03

The body keeps the score — and holds the key.

Real change doesn’t live in insight alone. It lives in the nervous system, in the places where old fear and old protection still run the show. The work has to go there — gently, carefully, and with proper training.
04

You are not here to be fixed. You're here to be returned to yourself.

The woman you are looking for already exists. She has always existed. What the work does is clear away what was laid over her — the performance, the armor, the quiet abandonment of her own needs — until she can finally breathe again.

05

Happy people change the world.

She has believed this since the beginning and she believes it still. Not happiness as performance — but the deep, settled aliveness of a woman who has come home to herself. That kind of happiness is contagious. It raises children differently. It leads differently. It loves differently. It matters.

Story of the Logo

The butterfly has long symbolized transformation, renewal, and metamorphosis. The Be You logo reflects this symbolism through a butterfly formed from many smaller butterflies — each different in shape, color, and form.
This design represents individuality without separation. Change does not happen through uniformity, but through people becoming more fully themselves — in their own way, and at their own pace. When individuals are able to live in alignment with their strengths, values, and inner truth, their impact extends naturally into the world around them.
The open edges of the butterfly reflect an important principle of this work: growth is not forced, contained, or rushed. There is space to evolve, to expand, and to move in ways that feel authentic rather than imposed.
At its core, the logo reflects a belief that meaningful change begins quietly — through self-understanding, integrity, and small, conscious choices. Transformation does not require grand gestures. It unfolds through presence, honesty, and the freedom to be who we are, without moulds or performance. This philosophy continues to inform the work of Be You International today — supporting change that is personal, integrated, and deeply human.

The woman you are looking for already exists. She has always existed. What the work does is clear away what was laid over her — the performance, the armor, the quiet abandonment of her own needs — until she can finally breathe again.

Rand Al Zain signature

The Book — Passionability

I wrote a book called Passionability: Igniting a Life full of Love, Happiness and Meaning. It was about finding what lights you up and building a life around it. I still believe in that — but I know now that passion alone won’t carry you if your nervous system is shot.

It draws on psychology, lived experience, and deep self-inquiry to support readers in reconnecting with their inner compass.

The book is available on Amazon.

Be you Internation books
Be you Internation Cards

The Be You Cards

I created the Be You Cards. My sister helped me design it. A tool for self-reflection. Hundreds of people have used them. They’re still out there in the world, doing their thing.

Each card offers a prompt designed to slow things down and invite insight — whether used alone, in journaling, or within a therapeutic or coaching space. The cards are not meant to provide answers, but to help surface what is already present beneath the noise.

Begin

If something in this story
recognized something in yours...

That recognition is enough to begin. You don’t need to be ready. You don’t need to have the words. You just need to show up honestly — and she’ll take it from there.

A free, unhurried call. No commitment required.