Zain Awad has spent years in front of the camera, but her most important journey has been the one inward. The Jordanian actress and content creator, known for her roles in regional television and her growing digital presence, has built a career on connection, but it wasn’t until recently that she learned the difference between being seen and being present.
Zain represents a quieter kind of transformation: one rooted not in dramatic reinvention, but in awareness, compassion, and the realization that deserving good things begins with believing you do.
A Rebirth Rooted in Awareness
For Zain, rebirth isn’t a singular event. It’s an ongoing process of becoming more conscious of her values, her responsibilities, and her presence in each moment.
“My rebirth has been about becoming deeply aware of important values, like compassion, and realizing that I can be an example or a role model for those around me,” she explains. “This made me feel a great sense of responsibility. I also became more conscious of being present in the moment, mentally and emotionally present.”
This shift has transformed not only how she moves through her career, but how she experiences life itself. “Every day I feel like I’m being reborn as I continue to learn from the people around me.”
When Life Became More Than Work
The turning point came about a year and a half ago, when Zain changed her way of thinking. She realized that life isn’t just about work, it’s about finding yourself.
“The moment you truly find yourself is when you feel emotionally fulfilled, when you feel complete,” she says. “You’ve gone through many things, and you truly earned where you are today, because you deserve it.”
That last word, deserve, carries weight. For Zain, believing in her own worth wasn’t automatic. It was earned through experience, through struggle, through the slow work of unlearning patterns that no longer served her.
“When we start believing that we deserve good things and that we have value, our energy naturally attracts people who share that same value,” she reflects. “They add to you, and you add to them.”
Choosing Connection Over Noise
As her internal landscape shifted, so did her external choices. Zain became intentional about the people she surrounds herself with, seeking out those she can learn from, those who challenge her to grow.
“I’ve come to love surrounding myself with people I can learn from, not just people we talk to without purpose,” she says. “Every meaningful conversation opens more doors for you.”
This selectivity extends to how she engages with the noise that inevitably comes with a public platform. She stopped caring about negativity and bullying. She stopped questioning those who disapprove.
“Not everyone has to like you,” she says simply. “What matters is that you are pleased with yourself.”
It’s a boundary born not of arrogance, but of clarity. The more she found herself, the less energy she had for pleasing others or absorbing their judgments.
Presence as Practice
Throughout the conversation, one word keeps returning: presence. For Zain, being present, mentally, emotionally, completely, is both the goal and the practice.
“Wherever I am, I need to be fully present, emotionally and completely,” she explains. It’s a simple concept with profound implications. Presence means showing up not just physically, but with all of yourself. It means being in the moment rather than performing it.
This philosophy shapes everything from her creative work to her personal relationships. It’s what makes connection real rather than transactional, and it’s what allows her to keep learning, keep evolving, keep being reborn.
A Renaissance Built on Self-Worth
Zain’s journey reflects a broader shift happening among Arab women in creative industries. They’re redefining success not just as visibility or achievement, but as alignment, knowing who you are, what you value, and building from that foundation.
“Soul Arabia has brought us together through love,” Zain says of the women gathered at Umm el-Jimal. “We are truly happy.”
That happiness isn’t accidental. It’s cultivated through the daily choice to be present, to surround yourself with people who add value, to believe you deserve the good things that come your way.
Becoming, Continuously
If there’s one thing Zain has learned, it’s that finding yourself isn’t a destination. It’s an ongoing practice of awareness, adjustment, and growth.
“Every day I feel like I’m being reborn,” she says. And in that continuous becoming, that willingness to shed old patterns, embrace new awareness, and stay present through it all, she embodies the quiet power of personal renaissance.
Standing among other women reshaping the region’s creative landscape, Zain Awad represents a truth often overlooked in conversations about success: that the most important transformation happens not in what you achieve, but in who you become along the way. And that rebirth begins the moment you decide you deserve to be present, fully, authentically, unapologetically, in your own life.
Editor-in-Chief & Visual Director: Sultan Abu Tair, Produced by ThreeSixty Mena and photographed by Cihan Alpgiray, Styling by Jony Matta, Zain’s Black dress & Red dress from Aden Fashion, words by Amira Shawky & Mohamed Alaadin, and special thanks to Grand Hyatt Amman
