We’re looking forward to introducing you to SaSha Rachel, NCIDQ. Check out our conversation below.
SaSha, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
This is one of those questions that is simultaneously deep, yet surprisingly easy for me to answer at the point I am in now.
If you had asked me a year ago, I would have stumbled. I wouldn’t have had the words, just a quiet feeling somewhere under everything. I will answer the question — just bear with me — but it has taken years of unraveling, rebuilding, and rediscovering to even articulate what I believe I’m being called to do.
There’s been so much work behind the scenes: introspection, meditation, tears, failed paths, the quiet dissolving of connections that just didn’t fit. I had to shed layers I once thought defined me. For years, I was on autopilot. There’s this part of life where you just start doing — doing what looks like success, doing what everyone tells you will make you proud or stable or accomplished.
I made that choice at sixteen, almost by the luck of a draw. Picked a career before I even knew who I was. Graduated early, built things, pivoted, tried to make the pieces fit. Somewhere along the way, I drifted from the parts of myself that felt most alive.
Then came the unraveling: the getting honest, the breaking down to bare bones…even when i though rock-bottom was the furthest one could go. Having to take space in the kind of stillness that forces you to meet yourself again (which, let’s be real, it most definitely is not a comfortable process). And in that space — through jumping off the corporate roadmap, pausing, and celebrating differences — I found my way back.
I realized that my calling has always been the same: to create beautiful worlds, to bring people together, to be the voice for the silent and to make the experience of life feel artful, intentional, and connected — through design, through energy, through experience. And to actually have fun doing it. Because if it’s not fun, what’s the point?
What I’m building now both terrifies and truly excites me, in the best way. It’s new, yet deeply familiar. It feels like coming home. I’m creating spaces and experiences that reflect the kind of beauty, care, and curiosity I’ve always sought; even before I knew I was seeking it.
I’m creating something that reflects who I am now—for myself, for community, and for the ones craving what I’m craving too. Reimagining how we gather, how we rest, and how we experience life through design brands, spaces, and activations.
In essence, I’m a designer and strategist becoming my own dream client — creating the spaces I once searched for and re-envisioning my design agency into a multi-tier experiential lifestyle creative house that centers people, experiences, connection, and joy.
Rebuilding from the inside out. Creating beauty that feels warm. Decentering common structures, even if it means starting from scratch.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
This season feels different. Slower, more deliberate, foundational to me as a person.
I’m SaSha Rachel — a certified interior designer, design director, and the founder of Aomih, a hospitality-driven design and strategy studio specializing in brand worldbuilding, social communities, and experiential-centric spaces.
For years, Aomih has been my way of exploring how people connect to themselves, to each other, and to the places that hold them. We’ve built brand worlds, I’ve been a part of award-winning commercial interiors, and curated activations that center the experience and intention. But this next era is something deeper. We’re scaling down to build stronger. Refining our focus into three anchors: strategy, interiors, and experiences. We’re building Aomih into more of a lifestyle brand and creative house rather than a traditional agency — a studio that lives and breathes the world we’re helping others create.
I’ve always believed that good design should stick with you, and felt in the smallest details. Human-centric design can shift how someone experiences a moment. And lately, I’ve been craving more ways to bring that belief off the screen and into the real world. A place to share my ideas, vent to my community, decenter social media, and build Aomih authentically–sin algorithms. That’s where Dear Studio comes in.
Dear Studio is my way of building in public — not through metrics or content calendars, but through something that feels like a little gift in your mailbox.. Your physical one. That’s right, I am bring back snail mail baby! It’s part creative journal, part design experiment, part love letter to the process. A monthly mail club that shares the behind-the-scenes of Aomih: the sketches, the amalgamation of ideas, the lessons from building something human in a digital world. Each one arrives like a small gift — essays, art prints, or fragments of thought meant to be like little collectibles, that you don’t want to scroll past.
Launching before the end of 2025, Dear Studio is the first step in opening the doors to our world. It’s how I want to build community and share the messy middles and unfiltered behind the scenes journey of building a creative house from the ground up— quietly, thoughtfully, and with care.
This next phase for Aomih is about tangibility. About bringing people closer to design, to story, to each other. We’ll continue working with hospitality and lifestyle brands who value intention over noise. We’ll host our own experiences, collaborate with partners, and prepare for what’s ahead in 2026 (something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time).
Personally, I’m reconnecting with Aomih in a way I haven’t before. For a while, I tried to keep my personal life and the brand separate. But truthfully, they’re intertwined. My approach to design, strategy, and even timing is intuitive — part logic, part creativity, and part “woo.” I like to take risks, to follow alignment, to build in rhythm with what feels right.
So that’s where we are.
Aomih is evolving.
And this time, it’s more personal, more human. Built from the inside out, with joy at the center.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I think about this question often. Probably more than I should. Every version of me, every risk, every pivot, every quiet “yes” to myself led me to where I am today. But sometimes I look back and wonder where parts of me went.
The truth is, I used to have no fear. I was certain. I was deeply confident in my choices and in how I saw the world. People still tell me I seem unafraid, but it’s different now it’s practiced and masked, most definitely not pure.
Back then, my bravery was instinctual. I just KNEW it would work out.
And then came life — the soft unraveling that happens when the world starts offering opinions on who you should be. I remember when I got my dream job, moved across the country, and a principle told me I smiled too much. I remember the client who valued my six-figure ideas at four. The professor who told me sustainability had no place in design because it wasn’t “realistic.”
Each moment chipped at the edges of something I didn’t know I was protecting. The part of me led by my intuition, the version that created without hesitation. Those experiences shaped how I moved through rooms and climbed the corporate ladder. Suddenly, I was the designer leading a sixteen-million-dollar presentation with a goal of not showing much personality and trying not to seem “too much.” (I have a very serious alter-ego when presenting to a room of people who don’t look like me) Or curating databases and frameworks to leading a team of interior designers to make more environmentally conscious decisions when specifying products on their projects — quietly wondering if my voice still sounded like mine – if it was all worth it.
And yet, those versions of me taught me discipline, nurtured my individuality, and platformed my perspective. They built the foundation I stand on now. Over the past couple years, I’ve been peeling back those layers — finding my way back to the parts that feel light. Laughing in meetings again. Leading keynotes with ease. Letting joy back into the work.
Because the truth is, people are here for me — not the version that fits a mold, but the one who smiles too much, dreams too big, centers the overlooked and finds beauty in the details.
I’m grateful for every version of myself that got me here… the resilient one, the uncertain one, the one who kept going anyway. But I’m even more grateful for the one I’m becoming again: the one who leads with softness, grounded in self, driven by joy, and unafraid to let it all show.
If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
I would tell my younger self to be bold. Be loud. You’re smarter than you think, and you’re exactly as cool as you feel. Keep giving. Keep creating. Keep trusting that the things that make you different are the things that will one day set you apart.
And to my pre-founder self… the one with a vision too big to explain. I would say: do it yourself first. You’ll want to bring people along. You’ll think you need partners and co-founders to validate the idea, to help you build it, to make it real. But no one holds your vision the way you do. Protect it. Nurture it. Build the foundation yourself so when others join, they’re adding to something solid. It is going to be scary and have a mid-day cry-sesh–it’s worth it.
Be intentional about who you bring in early. Don’t rush to fill every gap. The wrong people will cost you clarity, and undervaluing yourself will cost you your confidence. Leading you to the place of almost giving up on a dream you have been building for years. You keep going, but it gets close.
Trust your intuition. If it’s not a full-body hell yes, it’s a no. You never need to convince anyone of your worth. The right opportunities, the right people, the right timing finds you when you’re aligned with yourself.
You already know what you’re doing. You just have to keep listening to that quiet, unwavering part of you that always knew.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
For a long time, I’d say no. The public version of me was polished, professional, and very compartmentalized.
Working in corporate design, and later building Aomih. I learned how to “show up” in a way that felt safe, expected, strategic. I had my work voice, my client voice, my presentation voice… and then I had me.
And truthfully, they rarely met.
I used to think that was balance or boundaries keeping my personal life separate from my professional one. But looking back, it was distance. I instinctively built a version of myself that fit the rooms I was in. (Thank you, Gemini moon.) It served me well for a while, it helped me lead, pitch, negotiate, and navigate spaces where not everyone looked like me or thought like me.
But it also left me disconnected from the brand I am building. I realized my audience, my clients, even my community, didn’t really know me. They knew my work and my skillset.
Over the last year, I’ve been unlearning that divide, allowing more overlap between who I am and what I do. That means showing up with more honesty, more curiosity, and a little more humor. It means letting my personality live inside the work, even when that feels risky in a traditional luxury market that often prefers polish over presence.
That’s a big part of why I am starting The Dear Studio Project, a a peak into my world by way of a monthly gift from my desk to yours.
Dear Studio is like a branded newsletter sent by snail mail. It’s an experiment in authenticity and my way of bridging the gap between the public version of me and the person who loves to create, question, and share the in-between moments. My way of defeating the algorithm, curating a strong community of founders, partners and design-lovers –and alleviating the digital fatigue of creating yet another video for someone to just scroll past. It’s something physical, slow, intentional, and feels a lot more genuine to who I am as a person. A letter. A story. A tactile connection between my world and the people who’ve been watching it grow.
Dear Studio lets me talk about the process, the messy middles, the experiments, showcase the plethora of ideas that live within me , and platform the humanity behind design in a way that feels personal again. Because for me, this whole “building in public” thing isn’t necessarily about exposure. It’s about connection.
So, is the public version of me the real me?
It’s getting there. Every project, every letter, every small act of transparency brings them closer together.
I am getting comfortable in the imperfections to show as the unfiltered version of myself in every room I enter, on every page I write, and in every space I help bring to life.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
For a long time, I did what I was told to do. I followed the plan. I chased the milestones. I built the résumé, climbed the ladder, and did everything that looked like success. And for a while, it worked — until it didn’t.
The corporate grind gave me stability, but it also gave me burnout, chronic illness, and a version of myself that felt disconnected from the things that made me feel alive. It took stepping away, unlearning, hitting rock bottom — then falling even further — and rebuilding to realize that just because something works doesn’t mean it’s aligned.
So, many people don’t know this, but I am sorta-kinda-really into astrology (in the logical and scientific sense). A few years ago, I had my birth chart read — and I’ll be honest, at first I thought it was a little woo-woo. But recently, when I revisited it, everything was actually saying that everything I was doing was correct. Every placement, every detail, mirrored where I am now. *WILD*
In summary, my chart said I was meant to be a community builder. A creative leader. A storyteller. A designer who advocates for people and builds systems that make life softer. And when I tell you I read that AFTER already making those shifts — after the introspection, the pivots, the quiet rebuilding I am still thinking about it. It felt like the universe whispering, “see, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.”
So no, I’m not doing what I was told to do anymore. I’m doing what I was born to do. Building worlds that center people, purpose, and joy. Leading in a way that feels human. Living softly, but while still building my dream.
Right now, I feel more aligned than I ever have; grounded, intuitive, and ready for whatever comes at me next.
If the last few years were about returning to myself, the next decade is about expansion. About seeing how far this alignment can take me, and how deeply I can build the worlds I once only imagined.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aomih.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aomihdesign
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasharachel
Image Credits
Portrait: Madeline Harper
www.instagram.com/madelineharperphoto
