El Alma is an Australian award-winning author and semi-retired counsellor with a master’s degree who has spent many years working with people facing relationship difficulties, trauma, loss, grief, and later supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities. Through both her professional work and personal life, she observed that many human experiences follow recurring stages—silence, hope, suffering, loss, and survival.

After the death of her daughter, El Alma’s understanding of life and spirituality deepened profoundly. Through this grief, she came to believe in the eternal nature of the soul and discovered two further stages: belief and heaven. These insights inspired her novel Becoming Soul: Seven Steps to Heaven.

In her writing, El Alma explores how human suffering can open the path to spiritual awakening. She believes we may choose to keep our souls closed, yet prolonged survival in pain can manifest as dis-ease in body and mind. Becoming Soul reflects her belief that, like Christ, we all walk seven steps on the journey toward becoming soul—and that this transformation is never easy.