Meet Sabi Dhillon of Orange County, California

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sabi Dhillon.

Sabi, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve never found myself in peace; I’ve only ever found myself in the friction.. those moments where life pressed its thumb against me just a little too hard and expected me to break.
But I didn’t. Every time I hit the floor, something in me refused to stay down. Those tiny resurrections are the reason I’m here today. I always knew there was something in me meant for more, a gift waiting for me to stop hiding and actually see it. I think most of us know that feeling… that quiet ache of knowing you’re meant for something great, but fear, trauma, and the opinions of others keep your wings tied.

My gift didn’t reveal itself until I finally decided to open my eyes.

The story of my life didn’t truly begin until three decades in.

In 2019, everything changed.
I had my third suicide attempt, an experience that’s still hard to say out loud: and my little brother saved my life. Literally shook me awake. The words he yelled of our family motto, “Dhillons never give up,” then became the tattoos on my soul that I rebuilt my entire being on.

For the first time, my family saw me, but through the lens of my pain.
It took hitting absolute ground zero to feel seen.
And as dark as it was, that moment snapped me out of the dreamlike escapism I’d been living in: the addiction, the alcoholism, the relationships where I disappeared, the perfectionism that slowly destroyed me. I made a promise to myself that day to rise… purposefully, honestly, and on purpose.

My path to becoming a Creative Director has been anything but linear.

It was messy & full of detours, like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

My love for art started when I was a young girl. Writing was my first refuge. My grandmother gave me my first journal after finding a suicide letter I had written at 14 years old, that she found doing laundry.
With dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, and ADD- none of which I was medicated for- I saw the world in this vivid, chaotic, deeply emotional way. Words didn’t come out right when I spoke, so I rarely did. But when I wrote? Everything made sense. Paper understood me long before people ever did.

Home was equal parts love and darkness. I had to be a parent, a protector, a friend.. but somehow there for me. School was bullying, racial comments, and feeling like the “dumb kid” because my brain worked differently. I didn’t have a safe place emotionally, so I became my own. And when I wasn’t surviving, I was observing.. studying human behavior like a scientist so I could fit in. That fascination led me to wanting to pursue Forensic Psychology.

But art kept whispering.

I did school plays and musicals, always ensemble, never the lead… until a 24-hour play festival randomly put me in the Director’s chair, and realizing I was good at translating that script from a stranger into a visual world an audience could become immersed in.. and something clicked. Seeing my inner world come alive on a stage felt like breathing for the first time.

But depression has a way of convincing you your dreams aren’t safe.
So I chose the path that felt logical, respectable, “stable.”

College cracked something open in me again.

At Whittier College, in the Scholars Program where I built my own degree, I took a class that blended film and forensic psychology. My two worlds. My two languages. And I felt that familiar spark again.

But after meeting someone who actually worked in that field, I realized quickly:
“That’s not my life.”
So I switched my major to English with a focus on Creative Writing and Screenwriting, and minored in Marketing…finally letting my artistic self have a seat at the table.

When I graduated, I was offered an internship at Paramount. And I turned it down out of pure fear. I went into semiconductors instead to “learn business.” And yes.. I learned the structure, the systems, the backbone of entrepreneurship. But I also learned what it feels like to betray your own creative calling.

On the side, I started writing for Cigar & Spirits magazine. But when my mentor left, my growth stopped. And so much of my life felt like that… almost getting to the dream, almost letting myself have it, then pulling away. But I found a way to keep pursuing my craft so I wrote freelance internationally and in the states and now my work floats around in the digital space.

2019 was my collapse… and my awakening.

After going to Onsite in Tennessee: a place that genuinely saved me. I came home with my clarity restored. I remembered my why. I remembered that little girl with the journal.

I started a blog called Beautifully Broken about healing my mental health holistically. It took off.
Then I started a YouTube channel… which became my podcast Beautifully Broken… which evolved into Proper Madness as I grew into my healed self.

My podcast exploded, I interviewed leaders, creatives, visionaries. But on social media, I got lost. I chased trends. I tried to be what everyone else was. I gained 20K followers and lost myself in the process. So I stepped off social media for two full years.

And then 2025 arrived, and I told myself the truth.

I was still in my corporate job. Still performing a version of myself that didn’t fit anymore.
So in May, I made the decision:
I’m going to pursue my dream as a Creative Director and commit. No more hiding from my own gift.

I picked up my camera. Relearned photography. Relearned cinematography.
And within weeks, I booked eight clients: artists, entrepreneurs, small businesses, purpose-led creators. People who had a message inside them that deserved to be seen.

Now, this is what I do:
I help people come home to their artistic truth.
I create cinematic photos, films, and story-driven visuals that feel like a mirror held up to their soul. My shoots are never the same. They’re emotion, individual, and tailored. I guide people back to the parts of themselves they’ve muted for too long.

Just three days ago, I hosted my first Embodied Artistry Workshop at the Twelfth House in Long Beach, a space where people reconnect with their deepest creative desires. Watching people tune back into the voice they’ve ignored for years… felt like witnessing their rebirth.

And now I get to do both, take the photos, videos, marketing as art for anything someone may need, whatever their vision is and then I also get to mentor creatives into the deepest parts of themselves.

This finally is my life’s work.
Helping people see themselves. Helping them rise.
Just like I had to.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My biggest struggle as a creative was always the quiet fear that I wasn’t enough. I spent most of my life fighting the weight of other people’s opinions, expectations, and judgments. When I was in 9th grade, a teacher told me I was the worst writer she had ever had. That one sentence carved itself into me. It made me question every part of my expression.

Even when I became a freelance writer later in life, I kept getting feedback that my work “wasn’t enough.” But really, it was because none of those assignments gave me freedom. I was trapped inside rules, boxes, and parameters that didn’t fit how I saw the world. My ideas were always deemed “too abstract,” “too emotional,” or “too different.” I was just miscategorized.

Underneath that, my real obstacles were internal: my mental health, addiction, and the traumas I faced growing up and as a young adult. Those experiences started shaping a narrative inside me that I unknowingly adopted as truth, “you’re not good enough,” “your ideas don’t make sense,” “your voice doesn’t matter.”

And it didn’t stop in school. I faced doubt everywhere.. professionally, creatively, even in my romantic life. I was constantly stifled in my expression, told either directly or indirectly to shrink, to be quieter, to fit into what made other people comfortable.

Those struggles became the invisible cage I kept trying to create inside.
But they also became the fuel.

Because every time someone told me I wasn’t enough, something in me hardened, but in the best way. I began realizing that my “too much” and my “too abstract” were actually my strengths. The very way my mind works, the very way I feel and express, is what allows me to create the kind of art I make now.

My obstacles didn’t just shape me; they sharpened me.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a Creative Director, Cinematic Photographer, and Filmmaker who specializes in helping artists, entrepreneurs, and purpose-led creators express their truth through visual storytelling. At the core, my work is about transforming someone’s inner world into imagery that finally feels like them. With this I started doing creative mentoring as well, for those who don’t need the tangible photos/videos but more the deep inner work of guidance people need.

I’m the host to Proper Madness Podcast.
I am very well known for my popular series on social media called: Tea Time with Sabi- where I give my unfiltered advice that helps people through what I have been through.

I’m known on my platform and in my community for helping guide people back to their truth, whether thats artistically or within their identity or both.

In my work that I do for Creative Direction I am known for taking ordinary environments and turning them into cinematic scenes, because that’s how I always saw the world:
I’ve made a warehouse look like a movie set, turned equine shamanic therapy into a mystical film, documented Shibari in a way that moved people emotionally, shot a deep artistic music video for a country song, made taxidermy look sexy (yes… really), and helped models who are used to posing drop into something real, intimate, and human, like an editorial moment caught between breaths.

What I specialize in is a blend of creative direction, emotional excavation, and tailored visual storytelling. My process is very intuitive, because the spiritual side of filmmaking is something that is not utilized. I grew up highly intuitive and later in life the more I trusted myself, the sharper my self knowing became. I guide people back into their body, their voice, their truth. I talk to them. I understand them. I study what they’re afraid to show and what they secretly want to embody. Then I build a visual world around that.
I design full stories: from concept to mood board to set to script to shotlist. So that the final imagery becomes a cinematic narrative of who they really are.

What I’m most proud of is how my work makes people feel:
seen, expanded, unlocked, expressed.
Clients tell me they look at their photos or films and tell me always “I feel like I was myself on camera, and that you made my vision in my head come to life.”

My gift is making people feel safe enough to reveal their truth, and then turning that truth into art they can build their brand on.

Right now, I’m expanding into workshops like my Embodied Artistry Workshop, where I help people reconnect to their deepest creative desires and bring their voice back online. Whether I’m shooting, directing, or teaching, my mission stays the same:

I help people express the version of themselves they were always meant to become.

What’s next?
I hope to expand my work to more people who need the help that I can give them through my artistic eye and direction, continue to build my amazing podcast Proper Madness and my ongoing Tea Time with Sabi series. I’m working on entering my first short film festival, I’m going to host more workshops soon, and I hope to take my clientele more internationally as well, I want to continue to create to make an impact on people in a way that allows them to feel seen whether behind my camera, mentoring, or shooting some more amazing short films/photography.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mymyndspace.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_sabidhillon/
• Other: https://linktr.ee/sabidhillon