For Riz Mirza and Oriah Hera Mirza, healing has always been a shared calling. But sometimes, even the strongest connections are meant to take a different path.
After 17 years of marriage, the renowned healers exclusively revealed to Us that they’re going their separate ways, sharing how their commitment to a “conscious uncoupling” has challenged them to practice what they preach.
“We were starting to see as we got older, we were wanting different things,” Oriah, 53, told Us. “We wanted to experience and express different things [in] different ways, and we couldn’t find the symbiosis anymore.”
The two say their mutual separation isn’t about cutting each other out of their lives entirely, but about learning how to stay in each other’s lives without being married. Rather than letting their split undo the memories, family connection and shared ambition they’ve built together, Riz and Oriah are determined to prove that a marriage can end without everything they’ve worked for crumbling under them.
“You can’t measure the whole relationship by the way it so-called ended,” Riz, 56, told Us. “The relationship is the relationship; it’s the soul connection with someone, it’s not based on whether that piece of paper is valid under the legal terms or not.”
Guiding others through life’s biggest twists and turns is familiar territory for Riz, a psychic medium and shaman, and Oriah, a spiritual life coach. Over the past two decades, the couple has worked together to turn their gifts into a global wellness community, helping people from all walks of life, with Riz even appearing on celebrity podcasts like Maria Menounos’ “Heal Squad” and Tish Cyrus‘ “Sorry We’re Cyrus.”
“We’ve had to implement and bring our own teachings that we guide other people all the time [with] through divorces and everything like that and we have applied it all to ourselves,” Oriah shared. “It was like walking through the fire at first because we were like, ‘OK, this is where we really expand.’”
Their work, which began with intimate spiritual gatherings at their Malibu home, has since expanded into their Sacred Earth Retreats, a shared podcast called “The Mystic Podcast” and a wellness magazine, Chakra Cozy. While the pair may be parting ways romantically, Riz says their shared purpose hasn’t changed, and they intend to remain close friends and keep working together on their business ventures.
Both admit that preserving their bond doesn’t make the emotional adjustment instantaneous. After all, they agree that accepting that their marriage has run its course is one thing, but processing the feelings that accompany that choice is another.
“While you may know that it’s a conscious decision that you don’t need to be in a marriage partnership anymore, you’re still human. It takes time for your heart to catch up to your long-term decision,” Riz explained. “Oftentimes, we all feel that some of us make a higher, I call it the executive decision, and then our heart has to catch up.”
The distinction between what feels right and what still hurts is one the couple isn’t shying away from discussing either. Instead, Riz and Oriah are prioritizing being open with their audience, even if it means letting people in on the most intimate parts of their separation.
“We had to really grow into this experience instead of retreat from it,” Oriah told Us. “We knew if we were going to continue working together, build and continue our brand and continue everything we’re doing, we were going to have to face it head on.”
But sharing the details of their separation doesn’t mean every part of their lives is for public display. While the couple hopes their experience will resonate with others, they’re equally mindful of protecting what remains personal — especially when it comes to Oriah’s five children who Riz helped raise.
“I hope that it becomes for the people who watch us, ‘hey, they’re actually practicing what they’re preaching [and] they’re living what they’re preaching,’” Riz shared. “There’s some matters in your life you have to remain private [and] those parts of the experience that I want to keep private are for me, Oriah and our family.”
Riz and Oriah hope their experience will offer a different perspective on what makes a marriage meaningful. While their decision may not fit everyone’s definition of a successful relationship, the two believe its value shouldn’t be measured only by how long it lasts, but by the impact it leaves on the people who shared it.
“It’s okay to have disagreements and think that your paths are not as a couple anymore, but we are committed to what we’re creating also,” Riz said. “Not just what we created, but what we’re creating.”
