Hi. I’m Sonia.

I work with clients to to realize their creative dreams. Using breathwork, writing prompts, readings, meditations, creativity exercises, therapeutic modalities, and a consistent, supportive relationship, I help clients gently move past blocks and heal their relationships to their art and to themselves.

I believe everyone is creative.

I believe there is no time limit on creativity — that you can start writing, singing, painting at 10, 30, 40, 70. That sitting down at the piano or picking up the pen even just for a few moments can create beautiful ripple effects in our lives. I believe that we confine people to the narrow identities of “artist” and “non-artist,” and that people find themselves trapped inside, feeling empty, numb, or like something is missing. That what we call laziness is actually a lack of belief in ourselves and an overall exhaustion and depletion of our life force. That most of us were silenced in some way — talked or bullied or coaxed into lives we never wanted for ourselves. I believe that we must fiercely protect our hearts and earliest creative dreams and learn who will ridicule and doubt us and who will keep us safe and say, yes, more, I love you. That each of us has an inner voice that is waiting to be heard.

Work with me if you want to…

CREATE.

You want to start (and finish) your book, write and release your album, launch your business, or learn an instrument and need support following through on the entire process.

You want to learn to manage your energy levels to protect your creative work from tiredness and depletion from the work day.

You are ready to create a daily routine where productivity comes from joyful momentum rather than forced effort.

Your creative work could benefit from guidance, accountability, or encouragement.

CHANGE.

You want to transition out of a corporate job into one as an artist or entrepreneur.

You’re happy with your job, but want to bring creativity into your life and home in meaningful daily ways.

You are in a transitional period and need help framing your personal narrative in job interviews, meetings, and everyday conversations in a way that is both authentic and empowering.

SPARK.

You feel numb, uninspired, or in a rut and want a more creative life or job, but don’t know where to start. 

You’re in high school or college and you want to begin developing your creativity.

You make your living from creative work, but have lost the joy of it due to pressure, financial stress, or your spirit is calling out for something more or different.

You don’t know exactly what you want but you know that there’s something that needs to come through you.

 

How I work

I know what it feels like to want to make a change and not know where to start. How scary it can be to voice our desires or creative dreams for the first time to friends, family, or even ourselves. To be at the beginning of something new and feel paralyzed by the pressure of possibility. To set daily routines and goals each day only to fail repeatedly until you lose all trust in yourself. To feel the urgency of knowing this one precious life is passing you by and you’re barely even here for it.

I care fiercely about helping people find, heal, and deepen their relationship to their creativity — to their inner voice — because my own connection to my own voice was broken and creativity is what made me come alive again. This experience informs my approach to coaching. I want to move at a pace that is comfortable for you. Working with me is a mix of practical approaches and turning inwards to our truest selves.

A note for BIPOC: I am Indian American. Having navigated a mostly white industry for a very long time, I understand the particular challenges that being BIPOC presents in all of this. There’s also a specific intensity that exists in the first-generation child experience for which I feel particularly passionate about providing support. I bring this part of me to our work as well.

Types of sessions

I work with clients on a weekly basis. All sessions are held over Zoom and confidential. If needed, I can provide a form that makes it easy for employers to reimburse as part of your professional development.

  • Creativity Coaching: In a typical session, we talk, we process, I ask a lot of questions, and gently encourage you to go deeper. I assign homework — writing prompts, readings, meditations, creativity exercises — to further deepen what we've worked through and to carry our work into your daily life.

  • Songwriting Sessions: This session is for you if you've been wanting to learn how to write a song. Similar content might come up as a Creativity Coaching session, but the goal of this session is to improve your songwriting abilities, to give you to the confidence to write a song, and to do so from your inner voice. These sessions are 90 minutes.

 

work with me

 

What people are saying.

(Read more client testimonials on my testimonials page)

  • “Working with Sonia has been the most transformational experience I’ve had as a writer. Her deep empathy and creative guidance in the form of thoughtful and tailored coaching sessions have steered me from my first tentative steps into writing to having completed full drafts of a novel and a novella, and a finished short story under my belt. Sonia has taken great care with bringing alive and nurturing my creative spirit."

  • "Sonia Rao is the creative midwife to a process of personal redesign that has made my life so rich, so beautiful, and so exciting. Over the process of working with Sonia for the last 4 years, I have become a different person: I used to think I was a musician who only played other people's music; now, I have 10 of my own original songs on Spotify. I used to feel that I didn't have the stories or skills to be a singer-songwriter; now I'm sharing what I've learned and made at music workshops from the United States to Sierra Leone. I used to idolize musicians whose songs I heard in published channels; now my kids and their friends add my songs to their playlists."

  • "Were it not for the past 3+ years of regular coaching with Sonia there is no way I’d have completed even one, let alone 3 projects. She is an integral part of my process and is an utter pleasure to work with.”