Dhara Within

My Journey

I came home to myself. Now I hold that space for others.

A note before you read on: this page speaks openly about a suicide attempt. If any part of it lands close to home, please be gentle with yourself as you read.

Portrait of Shalini, founder of Dhara Within

I’m a suicide attempt survivor at eighteen, and for years after, I battled a depression and anxiety I didn’t even know I had a name for. This is the story of how I found my way back.

At eighteen, I tried to take my own life.

I don’t say that for shock, or for sympathy. I say it because it’s true, and because the years of silence that followed taught me exactly what I now spend my life undoing.

When I came home from the hospital, my family didn’t say a word. No one asked why. No one asked if I’d been in pain, or for how long, or whether I needed help. We simply agreed, without ever agreeing out loud, to bury it and move on. So I did — for over a decade. I built a life that looked capable and fine on the outside, the way so many of you reading this have, while carrying a shame I didn’t have words for underneath it.

This isn’t the story I want to dwell in here. It’s simply the ground everything else was built on.

When COVID arrived, my life fell apart. I was burnt out from work, my family was moving through serious illnesses, and panic attacks began — attacks I didn’t have a name for at the time. That was when my healing journey truly began.

Something in me finally listened to the quiet voice I’d been ignoring for years. I left my job. I left the country. I followed my inner guidance, with no map, into what became six years of healing and becoming.

A winding mountain trail in Dharamshala, India

six years, no map

The years that rebuilt me

I volunteered and lived in Cambodia for close to two years, and travelled across India learning directly from teachers and gurus — vipassana, dynamic meditation, powerful kriyas, and the practices that now live inside everything I offer. Most of those years were held by the guided coaching process I did with my own coach for two to three years — a powerful practice of inquiry and deep questions that became the foundation of my own healing, and later, of my work. It helped me move through layers of disconnection, meet years of buried pain, and reconnect so deeply to myself, my body, and my inner wisdom.

Along the way, I found somatic practices like TRE, which helped me so much with my body. I experienced shamanic healing and ancestral work, which helped me release wounds that weren’t even mine to carry, and reconnect to my lineage and, above all, to myself. I was healed through sound — Tibetan sound healing, shamanic drumming — learning from teachers around the world. Breathwork and intimacy work brought me back into my body and closer to my sense of purpose. And I trained in Theta Healing, adding another layer to the toolkit I now hold for others.

The lands of Cambodia and India were profoundly healing for me — they became sacred spaces I still carry inside me. That’s how I moved from years of depression and anxiety I didn’t have words for, to who I am today: a woman still growing, building a life and a body of work around the very gifts that saved her.

moments along the way

Sunrise over the Dhauladhar mountainsA quiet moment of meditation in natureHands in prayer position at a temple in IndiaA yoga practice by the riverCandlelight during an evening ritualSunrise over the Dhauladhar mountainsA quiet moment of meditation in natureHands in prayer position at a temple in IndiaA yoga practice by the riverCandlelight during an evening ritualSunrise over the Dhauladhar mountainsA quiet moment of meditation in natureHands in prayer position at a temple in IndiaA yoga practice by the river

not linear, not pretty

What healing actually looked like

It wasn’t linear, and it wasn’t pretty. It was lots and lots of crying. Panic attacks. Journaling. Coaching. Crying again. Anxiety. A lot of yoga and TRE to reconnect to my body, and yoga to connect to the divine. Reading every spiritual book I could find. Meditation. Vipassana. And, for the first time, learning to be with my body and recognise her cues — feeling, truly, that my emotions were safe. That I was strong enough to hold my own pain. That I was capable of healing myself.

I believe we are all self-healers. We have support along the way — but only we can heal ourselves. That belief is the foundation of everything I now offer.

A quiet, grounded portrait of Shalini

my deepest hope

I Hope You Experience When We Work Together

Whether it’s a 1:1 session, a group container, a yoga practice, or a retreat — my deepest hope is that you feel so deeply connected to yourself that you can actually receive your own inner guidance. That your body feels safe and relaxed instead of braced. That you can feel an emotion, trust it, and move through it, knowing it’s safe to do so.

That you feel at ease in your own life, and know you have the power to change what no longer serves you — to build something so aligned to who you actually are that you become open to possibilities you’d stopped believing were yours. That you love yourself deeply, and feel seen, heard, and valued — starting with how you see, hear, and value yourself.

Because this is what it feels like to come home to ourselves.

I don’t have the answers for you — you do. I just hold the space, the portal, for you to remember them.

beyond 1:1 work

Speaking & Talks

Alongside my 1:1 and group work, I speak on burnout, self-reconnection, and rebuilding a compassionate relationship with yourself — drawing on my own six-year healing journey.

Ready to begin your own return?

Whether it’s a guided session, a retreat, or a yoga practice — there’s a place to start.