Thara Natalie Shares How She Pivoted From Singer To Yoga Teacher And Reiki Healer — Exclusive Interview

Thara Natalie knows all about the hard work it takes to build the life of your dreams. In her early 20s, she put in the work necessary to make it in the music industry. By 22, she had appeared in music videos with Jay-Z and featured on a track with Fabolous (via MoraFire). Over the next few years, she worked with John Legend, opened for Ne-Yo, and recorded her own full-length album. She toured the world, performed in front of massive audiences, and made the music she wanted to make. But then, as she said, she "hit a wall."

When Thara's passion became her career, it wasn't as fulfilling as she'd hoped it would be. And so she signed up for a nine-week-long intensive yoga teacher training and completely changed her life. Within a few years, she became a full-time yoga teacher and opened her own yoga studio with her husband, musician Jay Sean. She's spent the years since then devoted to creating the life she wants.

In an exclusive interview with Health Digest, Thara Natalie shares her story and explains exactly what it takes to live your best life.

How has your heritage impacted your yoga practice?

That's interesting. I feel like my yoga practice brought me closer to my heritage. And again, it all kind of happened in those same pivotal years. Because growing up in where I lived, I was the only brown girl in an all-, really, all-white school. It is what it is, right? And I had great friends and I have great memories, but I was still always different.

I was still always a little bit misunderstood and I still got teased, because kids tease, and I always used to tell my family, "Don't cook the food in the house. My friends are coming over today." Back then, God forbid my friends were to see me in my Indian clothes. That was not something that we put on a showcase. Whereas now, my friends will beg me to come to an event so they can wear my clothes.

So it's beautiful, the evolution. ... I do believe that my yoga practice really helped me to connect deeper with my heritage and really embrace it and put me in a place where I love sharing about it now. And I love even integrating those teachings into classes when I'm teaching, so that I give students a different depth of meaning than just the basics of the postures.

That actually segues perfectly into another question I had for you. A lot of Western yoga focuses on poses. So how do you bring more of that philosophy and that spirituality into your classes?

So it's definitely been a journey for me to get the students to embrace that, because 100%, the Western mindset for yoga is very physical, fitness-driven. And I like to tease my students. I'm like, "Yeah, we get really toned abs and we get really cute booties when we do yoga." But really the goal is really to quiet the mind. The reason we do yoga poses is to prepare to sit in meditation. We're opening the body to prepare to sit and be relaxed. And people are like, "What, really?" So [they] kind of miss the boat. But I think for me, what I really, really embrace is if someone is coming and getting the yoga in any form, they are going to get the benefits.

How did this switch happen in your life? For some people, signed recording artist to yoga teacher seems like a big move. 

Yes, of course. So yes, I was a signed recording artist. I have songs with people like John Legend and Fabolous. I was blessed to open for Ne-Yo on tour. I traveled Japan, Australia, America, and the UK. And then I hit a wall where this thing that was bringing me so much joy, which was music, was my passion, which I had fought really hard for. Obviously, it doesn't come easy to get into the music industry. To get your parents on board with you being in the music industry — it was a lot of commitment and a lot of dedication and hard work. And then I hit a wall where I felt like music was not serving my soul.

And I think that it's a really important conversation for anyone. And even for me now as a yoga teacher and the owner of a yoga studio, I deal with the same conversation, really, that I dealt with back then. When something becomes your job and you need it to make money and you need it to pay the bills. Right? It's all fun when something you're doing is just because you love it. But then when it needs to meet certain criteria, it can become stressful.

It was really funny because for years I was running a yoga studio. And then I realized I needed to stop running a yoga studio and I needed to start running a yoga business. It's two different things. So I had been sharing the yoga, but now I realize like, no, you have to sell the yoga so that you can make money to continue sharing the yoga.

But back to the music side of things, I hit a wall where I realized my soul wasn't being served in the way that I wanted it to be served anymore. And it was becoming hard for me to turn on the radio because I couldn't just listen to the radio anymore. I couldn't listen to the radio without critiquing every song. And well, "why is this song on the radio and my song's not on the radio," right? That started happening and that didn't feel good. And, of course, there were multiple things over the course of a period of time.

And then there was — and you'll laugh because you're a writer — there was this one article that got written. There was this one article and I'll never forget it, but you know what? Everything happens for a reason. So I'm grateful for the journey. But there was this one article and I was really excited about the article and it came out and they paraphrased me in a way that totally shifted the essence of who I am. And that was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I said, no, I can't do this anymore. This is no longer serving me. Because I knew that I wanted to share positivity and light with the world, and I didn't feel like I was getting to do that anymore. But like I said, I'm super grateful for that article because it was the thing that I needed to push me over the edge to make the decision.

Thara Natalie on returning home

[After the training], I came back and I got engaged. And then I wound up getting back into the music industry — funny enough. So everything has its journey. So I went back, but on the other side. I went back as a manager. It started as an assistant and then that grew into manager. And then I did that for a few years and then

I hit another wall. I hit another wall — and I love sharing all of this because I always say to people it's not linear, right? The journey's not linear, and you see someone and you see their success or you see their happiness. And you think that it was always that way or you think... You don't realize all the ups and the downs and the highs and the lows that they went through to get to that space.

So, I hit another wall and I was... I can tell you exactly where I was again. I was in Florida, it was April. And I was doing spreadsheets for a tour for some artists that we were managing. And I was sitting behind the computer doing the tour spreadsheet, and I had that moment where I was like, this is not my calling. Yes, I'm great at it, and yeah, great, I can crunch numbers and I can sit here and I can be organized for all of you, because I'm good at being organized, but this is not what I was put on this earth to do.

I called my partner at the time and I said, "This is the last tour that I will manage." So again big earth-shattering decisions, but it was okay ... And that partner is still my partner and I still work with him and I still co-manage my husband, Jay Sean. So I'm still in the music industry, but just in a very different capacity, and very much in the capacity that I choose. Right now, it's very much in the capacity that I choose.

And then we decided to open the yoga studio. ... Finally, that's how we got to opening our own studio.

I'm also a yoga teacher and one of the things that I've found is that my personal practice changed a lot when I started teaching. Have you had that experience? What is that like for you, especially running a yoga business, as you pointed out?

Yeah. It has changed a lot. It did change a lot and it constantly is always changing. But one of the first things that I did realize happened, and I'm sure you can attest to this, when you become a teacher, suddenly you're teaching so much and you're not practicing so much. And that's really difficult.

One of the biggest conversations that I have with my teachers: You still have to practice and you still have to make time to be a student. It's still just as important. That's why a few years ago I went and got my 300-hour [yoga teacher training] because I wanted to be a student again.

I needed to be filled up. We're constantly, as teachers, giving, giving, giving — we're pouring from our cup. But if we're not refilling, then we're not going to have anything to give. So I've gone through that many, many times, that experience and, yeah, it's a constant check-in with yourself to kind of pull back.

For instance, I'm not teaching nearly as much as I used to. I'm teaching mostly privates and I only teach one scheduled group class a week right now — one, which is, for me, mind-blowing. And then potentially I wind up subbing. That's always going to happen because as a studio owner, you have to be ready to sub ... that's always going to happen.

I realized that in the past two years during the pandemic, I had given a lot of myself in a lot of places. We were teaching outdoors. I was teaching on Zoom. Then the studio reopened, I was teaching privates at people's houses. I really realized I had become a yo-yo. I had become this yo-yo for everyone. And then guess what was happening? I was getting home at the end of the day for my kids and I was tired. And I didn't have the energy for them that I wanted to have. And I had to really step back and realize this isn't working.

It's great that everyone loves Thara. That's wonderful! And I'm helping everyone else. But what about the people inside my four walls, right? I have small children, and I'm like, this is not okay. They're the most important people to me, and they're going to grow up. And then I'm going to look back and be like, oops, I was so busy serving and helping everyone else that I missed out on paying attention to them.

So it was, again, another really beautiful check-in moment. But ... if I didn't have these tools — like the yoga, like the Reiki, like the meditation — if I didn't have all these tools, I don't know that I would've had the need to pull back. So it's all really, really important because it's only because of those practices that I'm able to pay attention.

Beautiful. When did you come to that practice? How did that happen for you?

So that practice came to me a few years ago. Reiki energy was something that I was a little bit ... I didn't understand it. So I wasn't really interested in it, right? Because I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want someone else touching my energy. That's weird, right? I was like, I got to protect my energy. But then my friend got certified, so I felt safe because it was someone that I knew. So since I felt safe with him, I was totally willing to allow him to work on me.

And I had knee pain. I had knee pain that had become so severe that I actually went to an orthopedic specialist. I had an MRI done and the surgeon was hysterical because he had the nerve to tell a yoga teacher that she needed to do more lunges and more squats. And I was like, "Did you not hear what I told you? I'm a yoga teacher. I'm teaching 10 yoga classes a week. I could not possibly be [doing] any more lunges or squats. I don't need to strengthen my knee. There's got to be something else."

I was so frustrated. I went and spent this money and time and had these X-rays and MRIs done ... and we made no progress. So I went to my friend for Reiki. He did the Reiki on me, and when I came out of the session, he said, "Is something wrong with your knee?" And I was like, "Yes. How did you know that? That's weird." Because in Reiki, they don't touch you. We don't touch. So we're just scanning the body. So I'm like, well, why are you asking me about my knee?

He said, "Well, I think that there's something that you are not moving forward on. There's something that you need to handle that you haven't handled. Is there someone that you need to talk to, like an old thing?" So ... I thought about it, all these things. ... I said, okay, maybe this was the thing that I need to deal with. So he had advised me that even if you can't speak to the person about it, write them a letter. Even if you're not going to send it to them, just write it out, tell them everything that you need to tell them.

Within a week, the pain moved, which had never happened. It moved from my right knee to my left knee. So then I texted him ... and he was like, "That's great! It's moving, that means it's working because we got to move it so we can get it out." So four sessions later, the pain was gone. The relationship is now 500% healed, which is so incredibly beautiful for me.

[And] everyone has their own thing. So for some people, it's their stomach. Some people get a headache. For me, it's my knee. So whenever my knee gives me little twinges, that's my poke, poke Thara, there's something you need to deal with. And then I pause and I have to figure out what it is in my life that I'm not taking care of. So that, for me, was mind-blowing because this was something I had been dealing with on my own and not making any progress.

So that was it. I was hooked.

Reiki has many uses, according to Thara Natalie

My brother-in-law is in England, and I was there over the summer and he had a shoulder problem going on. So while we were there ... I said, "I'll just work on it for you while we watch TV." And he's like, "You don't need me to go lay down?" I'm like, "no" — because I knew he was not really going to want to do it that way. So I'm like, "No, it's fine. Just sit here and we'll watch TV and I'll just work on your shoulder while we all hang out."

I did that a few times over the course of the time that we were there and he was just here in December and he's a total believer now. He still was raving about the healing that I was able to do for him, for his shoulder.

So it works on everything from physical ailments to the emotional healing. It's amazing for helping you if you have a goal that you want to work towards. You can really use it for just about anything.

How do you find yourself typically using both Reiki and yoga with the people that you're working with one on one, is it more physical? Is it more emotional, or is it everything?

I'd say it's a combination. I love doing the full moon Reiki workshops. Those are really special because we'll do the sound healing, we'll do the meditation and then I'll walk around and do a little bit of Reiki on each person. So that's really, really special.

And then I think just infusing it in the classes is amazing as well because it just puts everyone home. It's this really deep meditative state as they're flowing when we have the energy there. So that's been really beautiful to watch. Yeah, I use it in all different ways. And then if I have a private client who I know has a discomfort somewhere, I'll use it for them at the end of a session.

What manifesting really means, according to Thara Natalie

I love to share this stuff on intentions and manifesting because I've been doing it for 15 years. I started manifesting 15 years ago and a lot of people don't understand manifesting. They think that it's woo-woo. And they think that, "Oh, so if I wish for a red Lamborghini is my red Lamborghini going to appear on my driveway? Well, I did it and that didn't happen. So manifesting doesn't work, right?" And I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand, that's not what we're doing, right?

Manifesting is intentionality. It's showing up for something every single day. Consistency and putting your energy in. Connecting your energy to that thought every single day. And then you have to put the work in behind the intention ... it's not just magic, it's having an idea, having a thought, consciously thinking about it and then creating the plan: What do I need to do to bring this intention to life? Here's my plan, here are the action steps. And then every day, showing up to those action steps. I think that's such an important part of it. It's not just, like, throwing it out to the universe. It's a very intentional process.

Deepak Chopra shares this and I love it: 'Think of your intentions like seeds.' So we have to plant the seeds. We have to make sure that they're planted in a good place so that they're going to get enough sunlight. We have to nourish them with fertilizer and we have to nourish them with water, right? So we have to make sure that your seeds are planted and they're getting all the things that they need to come to life. And then there's an element of surrender. We can't dig up the seeds to see if they're growing. We have to step back and have faith that we've done all the steps, we've done everything right and now we have to go, "Okay, I surrender. In a few weeks, I'm going to see those sprouts."

So that's my tip on intentions and manifesting — and just knowing and remembering at the end of the day, that what's meant for, you will find you. So even if you put all of your best intentions and all of your manifesting skills into place and it doesn't come to fruition, know that it wasn't what was meant for your highest good. So don't be disappointed! Actually, see it as a moment of gratitude and just open yourself up to what that next opportunity is.

Because that's where my life has been. I think it's funny, as we wrap it up, that's where my life has been. If I hadn't started my career as a singer, I wouldn't have met my husband and I wouldn't have my two babies, right? So although I may not be singing at this point professionally, every part of my journey was so important.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the end game, but just stay with it, keep putting out goodness and positivity in the world, and just know that your path will find you.

You can learn more about Thara Natalie and follow her journey by checking out her Instagram.