We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rubina Chadha. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rubina below.
Rubina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I didn’t so much “come up” with the idea for Inner Design as much as it revealed itself to me over time. It was the thread running through my entire life — I just didn’t recognize it until I had lived enough of the story to see the pattern.
I grew up in a spiritual household where meditation, yoga, and mindfulness weren’t trends — they were part of daily life. I carried those practices quietly into my career as a creative professional, working in design and arts education. But over the years, I began to see a troubling pattern in myself and in the people around me. The more we pushed for productivity and achievement, the more we lost touch with the very creativity and presence that had fueled our work in the first place. I saw brilliant minds burn out. I felt my own energy drain. And I realized — no one was offering a way for high-performing, highly creative people to truly reset from the inside out.
The turning point came when I experienced burnout so severe that my body and mind forced me to stop. In that stillness, I reconnected with the very tools that had always been there: breathwork, mindfulness, and creative expression. Not as side practices, but as a living, integrated way to rebuild my energy, focus, and inspiration.
That’s when the idea for Inner Design crystallized. I knew there was a gap — plenty of programs promised productivity hacks, and others offered spiritual retreats, but there was almost nothing bridging the two worlds in a grounded, accessible way. My approach would honor ancient wisdom and the origins of these practices, while translating them into tools that modern creatives, leaders, and organizations could use immediately to regulate stress, reset their minds, and unlock their best ideas.
I felt an undeniable pull to create this work because I had lived its necessity. I knew it would resonate because every person I shared it with — from students to executives — felt a shift after even one session. It wasn’t about teaching people something entirely new. It was about guiding them back to a natural rhythm they had forgotten. That was the spark. And once I saw how it transformed others, there was no question this was the work I was meant to do.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am Rubina Chadha, the founder of Inner Design, where my work lives at the intersection of mindfulness, breathwork, and creative expression. My discipline is rooted in a lifetime of spiritual practice, a professional career in the arts, and more than a decade of teaching and coaching. I help people, from high performing creatives and leaders to students just starting their journey, learn how to breathe, reset, and create in a way that is both sustainable and deeply fulfilling.
Inner Design offers private coaching, group workshops, retreats, and professional development programs. Each experience is trauma informed, culturally respectful, and grounded in both ancient wisdom and modern science. Whether I am guiding a CEO through breathwork to find clarity before a major decision or leading a group of students in a mindfulness and creativity session, the goal is the same. I help people regulate their nervous systems, reconnect with their inner wisdom, and unlock their best ideas.
The main problem I solve for my clients is helping them step out of cycles of burnout, overwhelm, and creative block. Too often, people are told to just push harder or work smarter without ever being shown how to truly restore themselves. My approach is different. It is about creating space to breathe, resetting the mind and body, and then allowing creativity and clarity to flow naturally. This is what sets me apart. I am not giving quick fixes or surface level motivation. I am guiding people through lasting shifts that they can carry into every part of their lives.
What I am most proud of is seeing the transformation in the people I work with. I have watched clients go from exhaustion and self doubt to feeling grounded, confident, and inspired. I have seen teams collaborate more effortlessly and individuals rediscover joy in their work and lives. These changes are not only felt in the moment. They ripple out into relationships, careers, and communities.
What I want people to know about Inner Design is that it is not just about wellness or creativity in isolation. It is about integrating the two so that you can live and work from a place of wholeness. When you breathe deeply, reset fully, and create from your center, you not only perform at your best. You feel more like yourself than ever before. That is the transformation I am here to guide.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Resilience for me has often meant beginning again when the path I was on no longer felt true to who I am. One of the most defining moments came when I made the decision to close my family’s early childhood education business. I had stepped into it out of a sense of responsibility and carried it forward with dedication. For years, I poured energy, creativity, and care into making it successful. On the surface, it was thriving. But inside, I carried the weight of obligation more than the spark of fulfillment. The success was real, yet it did not feed the part of me that longed for creative expression and deeper connection to my purpose.
When I finally chose to let it go, it was not an easy decision. It came with grief, uncertainty, and the question of who I was without this role I had been carrying for so long. The business had become a part of my identity, but it was also a heavy burden that left little space for me to breathe.
After the closure, I could have rushed to fill the gap with something safe and familiar, but instead I chose to pause. I gave myself the time to be still, to listen inward, and to reconnect with the practices that had been part of my life since childhood — meditation, breathwork, and creative expression. These became the tools that helped me process the loss, release the weight I had been carrying, and imagine a new future.
What emerged from that time was the clarity that my next chapter had to be about alignment, not just achievement. Inner Design was born from that space of renewal. I took the lessons I had learned from running the family business and combined them with my lifelong mindfulness practices to create something that felt alive and purposeful. For me, resilience is not just about enduring challenges. It is about allowing them to strip away what no longer fits, so you can breathe, reset, and create a life that feels true to you.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The biggest pivot in my journey came after closing my family’s early childhood education business and finally giving myself the space to ask what I truly wanted to create next. Long before that chapter, my roots were in the arts. I studied fine arts at ArtCenter College of Design and spent my early career immersed in the creative and entertainment industries. I worked on projects that allowed me to explore both the commercial and fine art worlds, and being a creative was always at the core of who I am.
At the same time, I had a lifelong connection to mindfulness, yoga, and breathwork. These practices had been part of my life since childhood, woven into my daily rhythm by my family’s spiritual foundation. For years, my creative work and my mindfulness practice ran alongside each other, shaping me in different ways but rarely meeting in the same space professionally.
After stepping away from the family business, I realized my next chapter had to unite these two essential parts of me. I wanted to create work that allowed me to live fully in my creative element while also sharing the practices that had carried me through every transition in life. It was not about choosing between art and mindfulness. It was about weaving them together into something entirely new.
That vision became Inner Design. I began creating workshops, retreats, and coaching programs that guide people to breathe, reset, and create, using both creative expression and mindfulness as powerful tools for transformation. It felt like coming home — not to the work I had done in the past, but to the truest version of myself. The pivot was not simply a business decision. It was the moment I chose to design a life and a body of work that honors every part of who I am.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://theinnerdesign.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialrubina
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubina-c
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RubinaChadha
Image Credits
Mark Adams