About Sahana D’Silva

Hi, I’m Sahana.

As a physician healer, my areas of expertise include trauma, recovery and wellbeing; cross-cultural modalities and spirituality; and personal leadership development through increasing emotional intelligence and self-awareness. My work with you is guided by tapping into what makes life meaningful to each of us uniquely. We achieve this growth together through coaching and consultation, intuitive integration work, and eclectic modes of psychotherapy.

I am committed to empathic listening, deep intuition, and interdisciplinary collaboration, all balanced with a strong clinical acumen. In approaching mental health and wellness, I challenge myself constantly to push the boundaries of cultural and diagnostic frameworks and appreciate the complex interactions of body, mind, society and spirit.

At an organizational level, my varied leadership experience is used to promote creative emotional intelligence-based personal leadership development for team managers and leaders. Through retreats, teaching, coaching and consultations for individuals within organizations, team members are coached in reflection, vision-setting, personal practices, burnout prevention and wellness, and emotional development.

Over time, these leadership practices deepen communication and nurture purposeful professional leadership, while integrating systems-level thinking in leaders. I believe these to be keys for both greater life balance and meaning.

Our initial meeting will involve conversation about your life. The primary goal of this first meeting is to listen to you and to hear where you most deeply desire change in your life.

Your consultation may involve integrative mental health consultations, coaching, personal and professional leadership development, psychotherapy, or spiritual, integration work. Together, we look at the variety of services I offer and choose one that best fits your needs to start this journey of self-growth.

We co-create a mutual plan and goals for our time working together. The ways we work may change. For example, we may change from coaching to psychotherapy. It depends on the growth that unfolds in you. Regardless of the type of the approach, you will experience deep listening and an emotionally attuned conversation. You will feel empowered as you move confidently toward tangible solutions and results.

Sometimes we have a clear picture of the destination. At other times, knowing what kind of change you want, we set off together to discover the path unfold, following cues, interpreting signs, and exploring and arriving at your destination.

Every 8-10 sessions we re-assess where you are, what progress you are making, and make decisions together about whether to continue on that path or switch gears, based on your priorities.

Whether you are beginning with me from a place of seeking healing, discovery, or growth and transcendence, ultimately each  of these threads intertwine toward a more developed, more evolved You.

The work you choose to do with me may include identifying, clarifying, and aligning your passion and purpose. In doing that, you make strides toward fulfilling your destiny. Through such work is where I believe you will find the greatest joy, satisfaction, and meaning in life.

It is my deepest wish to be of service to you on that path, as you step closer toward who you truly are inside – that authentic, powerful, creative, whole being called You.

My Background

Having grown up in many cultures and sub-cultures, mainly between Bangalore, India and New York City, I see myself as a global citizen. While deeply grounded as to who I am as a person, I also can shift quickly and blend into a variety of environments. This quality may explain why many feel at home in my presence.

Spiritual and personal growth are at the core of who I am now and who I am constantly becoming. I bring this perspective to my healing work – my passion and purpose, my service on this planet. Seeking my passion and purpose led me to spend a year between medical school and residency traveling globally. I wanted to understand spirituality in healing practices and integrative treatments, including Ayurveda and yogic life, Tibetan Buddhism, Sufi practices, and shamanic healing.

It was a year well spent and has guided my path for many years. I learned to develop a blend of integrative medicine, mental health, preventive care, psychological trauma healing, cross-cultural work, spirituality, and emotional intelligence-based leadership development. A mouthful? Yes, it is!

Today, enjoying the homey-ness of the Pacific Northwest, I continue my cross-cultural sojourns through food, music, dance and travel. At the end of a day, I love quiet conversations with close friends, toasty tea mug in hand, around a warmly dancing hearth. Through the eyes of my child, I come to see the world anew. Yoga, swimming, daily meditation keep my connection to Self. I walk in tandem with my husband and Co-Guide in this healing and clinical practice. All these bring joy, pride and constant challenging growth in my life.

The Real Training is Life

I thought my formal training alone would set me up for a lifetime of clinical practice. I was wrong.

The real training is in living life, in all its messiness and beauty. Motherhood and ongoing clinical and intuitive practice teaches me everyday, how to be a better Self and a better Healer.

How do we structure and organize best so we can play in the spaces between that open up? How do we bend our own rules consciously to create glorious exceptions? In there lie the heart-warming memories we make.

We practice tapping into our skills, our inner wisdom, our knowing and awareness, to flourish within the entropy of life unfolding.

We thrive within the swirl of the ocean.


We savor the beauty and stillness within the eye of the storm.

Here we lift. Here we elevate. Here we craft our lives and reach for our dreams.
Here we achieve authentic fulfillment in all areas of our lives.

What Working With Sahana Looks Like:

Arzu’s Story

Arzu had been raised in a traditional Muslim household. While she very much cherished her spiritual roots, she had wrestled with finding her footing through medical school and residency with how much amalgamation into mainstream culture she wanted. Now as a young mother of a 4 year old, finding time to focus on caring for her patients and her family felt like being pulled in opposite directions, within the demands of modern life and the healthcare system.

We began by reviewing various aspects of Arzu’s life – what were the challenges? What were her dreams? What brought her joy?

Then we honed in one priority area she felt was most important – her relationship with her husband. She wished for it to be stronger, more even keeled.

As we dug deeper, various communication styles and points of guilt that Arzu struggled with surfaced. We switched to clarifying and strengthening who she wanted to be in the world, first. That empowered her to ask for what she needed in various roles in her life. It made being a woman, being a mother, being a partner, being a physician, all come into much clearer alignment.

We accomplished this by blending coaching with personal leadership and intuitive insights, building ritual and self-healing practices. She also attended a group I facilitated on building resilience through connection, purpose and life approach.