Always searching for the silver lining in life, the Novocastrian yogi has the ability to make people feel valued. Appreciated. Special, somehow. She finds the beauty and strength within.

At the age of 25, Sjana has built an inclusive and empowering online community and taught yoga all around the world. She has cleverly and enthusiastically chosen a path in life that revolves around her passions - yoga, travel, writing, modelling and photography - and devised ways to make a living from them.

Her life plays out on Instagram and her 1.6million followers eagerly await her life-affirming observations, personal insights and stunning photographs.

Yes, you read that correctly. 1.6million. And counting.

She and her "best friend" of a brother Sam Earp have travelled the world documenting their adventures for an online audience. Their big smiles, senses of humour and fun-loving personalities make them sought-after social media "influencers".

But you shouldn't let the word "influencer" taint your opinion. It is just an official acknowledgement of Sjana's popularity in the numbers game.

She was the subject of a tabloid frenzy in 2013 and 2017 when she is alleged to have been in contact with UK singer Harry Styles, formerly of boy band One Direction. Neither party has spoken publicly about the rumours, and they remain just that. Rumours.

Sjana is the first to admit that she is a work in progress, as we all are, and her life is not perfect. She wasn't born with a sunny and joyful approach to life. In her teens, she suffered from depression and anxiety and was hospitalised on multiple occasions. While recovering, she found writing to be a powerful tool to reflect and heal.

She explores her journey from depressed teen to internationally renowned yoga instructor and lifestyle blogger in her debut book of poetry and photography aptly titled You Will Rise, published this week through Penguin Random House. Her aim? To empower, inspire and connect us in our modern age.

The tender words shared in You Will Rise want us to become more resilient and self-aware, to channel creativity and grow in times of pain and anxiety, especially now.

Sjana has had to draw on her owns words of wisdom more than once since the COVID pandemic hit our shores.

"I'm grounded for the first time in, geez, I don't know. I don't remember the last time I was in Australia for an Australian winter," she says from her home in Newcastle.

"I normally spend about 80 per cent of the year, at least, travelling."

Sjana had planned to visit Nepal in March with her mother, Judy, as part of Habitat For Humanity's International Women's Day build.

More than 80 volunteers had signed up to build eight homes for widowed women and their children in rural Nepal. There, women who are divorced, separated, widowed or abandoned face social stigma and discrimination. They are considered bad omens and are blamed for misfortunes that may befall the family.

Violence towards these women is common, and those not welcomed in the family home are forced into poverty along with their children.

"It's disappointing because we started organising the build 10 months in advance," Sjana says.

"It also tied in with International Women's Day and it would have been my Grandmother's 80th but she passed away when I was much younger.

"She and my Mum were really close, and the trip was going to be a tribute to her.

"So yes, it's very unfortunate that it didn't go ahead but I know that everything happens for a reason and we'll just have to wait to see what that reason was."

Her love of writing developed during her teenage years.

"I liked English in school but I didn't necessarily excel in it," Sjana says.

"It was more that I went through a large part of my adolescence struggling with depression and anxiety and that kind of forced me to look within.

"I used writing as a form of self expression and catharsis and healing. It was a pretty crippling time of my life but at the same time I wanted to grow from it."

Her recovery took time but was no doubt expedited by the care and attention of her mother, who is a psychologist.

"She saw it coming, well before I did. She slept outside my room on a beanbag for four months and I had no idea," Sjana says.

"Right around the time that I needed her the most, too. I definitely had the right support around me and that was probably one of the main reasons I was able to pull myself out of it."

These days she is more aware of the ebb and flow of her emotions.

"There's a big difference between being depressed and being upset," she says.

"Sadness is a human emotion and it's actually a beautiful part of our human condition that we have the ability to feel all of these different things.

"Learning to witness emotion without judgment and without giving it a good or bad title has been a pivotal learning experience for me, to be able to understand that emotions aren't necessarily good or bad.

"We are actually really blessed to be able to feel emotions and to watch them come and go, just like the waves at the beach. You sit at the beach and you might be sad and you're like 'Right, there's my sadness right there - and there it goes!'."

Yoga was another tool Sjana used to ward off depression. She started at 18, using YouTube videos and photographs of yoga poses for guidance.

"I had a background in gymnastics growing up but I wasn't extremely flexible - I was always strong, though, and loved inverting into a handstand," she says.

"So I would look at poses and I'd copy them. Some I could do, some I couldn't.

"That's how social media started for me as well. I left school early because of anxiety and depression and went to university on the Gold Coast to study photojournalism.

"I was kind of mixing the two together - I would get up and go to the beach at sunrise and I would take a photo of me trying to do one of the yoga poses, then I would go to work or university and mix it up with some writing as well."

She reckons she was in the right place at the right time when it came to social media. Luck was a factor, too.

"None of us who, in that supposed first social media wave, had any idea that we were riding it," she says.

"It was almost out of our control and more about how Instagram used to work. Instead of an 'explore' page there was a 'popular' page and once you understood the formula to it, it was kind of like a game.

"Learning to play the game and being able to share our creativity in such a way and connect to so many other people has been such a beautiful blessing.

"Social media is a platform from which to express and to share and be raw and honest and vulnerable and understand that we're all human. It's not about being perfect or projecting an illusion of perfection. It's about understanding that we are all working through our own stuff but working through it together."

Internet trolls have been quickly and effectively dealt with by Sjana since day one. She refuses to let her platform be infiltrated.

"If anyone has ever been negative towards myself or someone else in the comments, or if it's just an unnecessary comment, I delete it and I block them if it's reoccurring," Sjana says.

"I haven't had to do that for so long because I set the standard early on that my platform wasn't a space where that would be tolerated - rather, it was a space I wanted people to feel empowered and motivated and inspired to connect with themselves, to step away from the ego and step into something greater than themselves."

Sjana is used to sharing her life on social media but had always shied away from writing a book.

"I never had the will or the courage, I suppose, to step out and do it on my own. It was a little dream that I tucked away inside my head," she says.

"I was approached by a bunch of publishers, I guess because of the captions I would write on Instagram, and was offered a handful of opportunities but they never really resonated so I didn't follow them up.

"I didn't give it any more thought until Penguin approached me."

It wasn't a conscious decision for Sjana to release a book in poetry form. She says it's "just how it comes out of me".

Sjana says she wants the book "to be a source of inspiration and comfort, but also a tool for self-awareness and connection". In You Will Rise she is candid about her personal growth, heartache and finding balance.

The book has been divided into chapters that reflect her own experiences.

"We've tried to categorise them so it's kind of like a journey as you open up the book and unfold each thought," Sjana says.

Yes, she is a positive person but she is also human. And like all humans, she still has her bad days. The pandemic has been tough on everyone.

"I deal with it in my book - I like to explore every little nook and cranny because I know that every emotion I could possibly feel is something that someone else can connect to on some level as well."

Sharing her feelings and personal insights is all part of Sjana's perceived purpose in life. It doesn't bother her, and she is surprised by that.

"At times I feel like maybe it should bother me but then when I think about it, it's more like it's my purpose to be overboard open and to understand that what I'm sharing is not mine, necessarily," she explains.

"I'm just expressing these things that are universal emotions and feelings and so without a doubt other people are going to be able to connect with them and to need them.

"And I know from my own experience with depression and anxiety that was something that helped to heal me. Words were calming and soothing and that's where I found a lot of solace."

She's nervous but excited about the release of You Will Rise, describing it as her "little baby". To release a book like this in her 20s reveals a lot about Sjana.

She says she has always felt like an old soul.

"I know I have achieved a lot in my 25 years and I feel it is important to look back and feel a sense of accomplishment with the things that we have done because it's just so easy, once you've done something, to just move on to the next thing and not even give it a second thought," she says.

"We need to be humble and surrender to the fact that we are achieving things on the daily, even just little things. If you're struggling with depression, if you can just get out of bed that's a big win for the day.

"Celebrating the little victories is just as important as recognising the big victories. But at the same time I want to do so much more. It's about finding a balance between the two, I guess.

"Life is fabulous, life is so beautifully chaotic and I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way."