Lisa Mistry-Ghatala

Lisa Mistry-Ghatala is a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist, CCA Class of 2023 graduate, and founder of SOMA Lifestyles, a small-batch, certified organic Ayurvedic wellness brand made in the U.S. and reformulated for the modern American body. Before Ayurveda, she spent seventeen years in Silicon Valley marketing before leaving her corporate career to enroll at CCA. Today she works with clients through virtual one-on-one consultations while running SOMA and serving on the Board of the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM), where she oversees marketing communications.

An alumni spotlight from Lisa Mistry-Ghatala, CCA Class of 2023.

When I look back at the woman I was eighteen years ago, sitting in a Silicon Valley marketing meeting, optimizing for the next quarterly target, I can’t say I knew where the path would lead. But I know now what I didn’t know then: there was a whisper, and I’d been ignoring it for years. 

For seventeen years I worked in marketing in Silicon Valley. I was good at it. I was rewarded for it. And I was tired in a way sleep didn’t fix. 

The whisper that eventually became loud enough to follow had nothing to do with strategy decks or campaign metrics. It had to do with my own body. It had to do with my daughter’s eczema, and the way the doctors offered steroids on her skin that was practically brand-new. It had to do with my father, who passed away at fifty-seven, looking healthy by every conventional measure. It had to do with a single question I couldn’t put down: what did my grandmother do? What did our ancestors do back in the day? 

These were the divine sparks. They weren’t loud. But I’ve come to believe that the whispers that come to you are exactly the ones you need to lean into. 

In 2019 — before the COVID pandemic — I enrolled at the California College of Ayurveda. And I left my corporate career at the same time. Something just felt right about going all in, in a way my mind couldn’t explain but my heart already knew.  

What Ayurveda Gave Me 

I didn’t study Ayurveda to leave my career. I studied it because the whisper was getting louder, and I needed to know what was on the other side of it. 

What I found was a framework for living that my body recognized before my mind did. The five elements. The three doshas. The six tastes. The daily rhythms our grandmothers built whole kitchens around. None of it was new. All of it was new to me. 

By the time I graduated, I knew I wouldn’t be going back to marketing. I started seeing clients virtually — women, mostly, navigating the same nervous-system overwhelm that had brought me to Ayurveda in the first place. The work felt like coming home. 

The Pivot to SOMA Lifestyles 

But there was another whisper. And it took me a year to listen to it. 

I wanted to create an entryway — a way for women to live Ayurveda simply, to bring it into the kitchen, into the morning, into the body, without needing a practitioner or a textbook to begin. And my clients kept confirming the need was real: Lisa, where do I get good Chyawanprash? Where do I get a Golden Milk I actually trust? Every time I sent them to a brand made in India, I felt something was missing. Not because Indian-made Chyawanprash isn’t amazing — it is. But because Ayurveda’s first principle is that your environment shapes your body. The Chyawanprash that supports a body living through Mumbai monsoons isn’t the Chyawanprash that supports a body walking through Bay Area dry-air afternoons. 

So I founded SOMA Lifestyles, bringing my seventeen years of marketing experience and my four years of Ayurvedic training together into something I’d been quietly wanting all along: small-batch, certified organic Ayurvedic products made in the United States, reformulated for the modern American body. 

Our Chyawanprash leans into the sweet and sour tastes that classical Ayurveda recognizes as most calming for vata. Because vata, the dosha of air and ether, of movement and the nervous system, is what’s most dysregulated in modern American life.  

Golden Milk started a little differently. My clients kept telling me they tried to make it at home, but they didn’t feel they were doing it “right.” So I created a small-batch blend, pre-measured with the spices and adaptogens in the correct proportions, that they could just stir into warm milk. Same logic: meet people where they actually are. Make the ritual easy to keep. 

SOMA exists to make Ayurveda easy to embody where you actually live. The kitchen rituals our grandmothers practiced — translated for the bodies we have now. 

Two Hands: Practitioner and Founder 

Today I work both sides of the threshold. 

As a practitioner, I see clients one-on-one through virtual consultations — women (and increasingly men) who want a personalized Ayurvedic approach to coming back into rhythm. The work is the same work CCA taught us: read the constitution, find the imbalance, co-create the protocol, walk with them while they integrate it. 

As the founder of SOMA, I’m building a small modern Ayurvedic brand — Chyawanprash, Golden Milk, daily rituals — for the women who don’t yet have a practitioner but want a doorway into the practice. 

Both are the same work. Just at different scales. 

CAAM: From Feeling Siloed to Finding Community 

I’ll be honest about something most graduates don’t say out loud. 

In my first year of practice, I felt alone. The truth is — and I’d come to learn this is what a lot of graduates feel — most of us are dispersed, working virtually, heads-down. I’d studied at CCA virtually too, through the middle of the COVID pandemic, so even my time at school had been remote. After graduation the loneliness just got louder. I missed the sangha. 

What changed it was volunteering. The California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM) was looking for help. I offered what I had: marketing. One small project became another. Within a year I was on the Board, overseeing all of CAAM’s marketing communications.

It’s not what I expected. It’s been one of the most rewarding parts of the past three years. 

And the thing I’ve learned in those conversations? Most CAAM members feel the same way I did. So if you’re an Ayurvedic practitioner, student, or simply an enthusiast — find an organization you feel called to, and offer what you have. For me it was CAAM, and what I had was marketing. For you it might be something else entirely. The point isn’t where you go. The point is to step into community. The medicine we carry isn’t meant to be carried alone. 

If CAAM speaks to you, you can learn more at ayurveda-caam.org. 

What I Would Tell My Younger Self 

If there’s one thing I’d say to anyone reading this — a current student, a recent graduate, someone still in the corporate world wondering, it’s this: 

Be curious about the whispers that come to you. They’re divine sparks. They’re not random. They’re the moments where your dharma is reaching for you across the noise of your life. 

You don’t have to leap. You don’t have to know the whole path. You just have to follow the whisper to the next room and see what’s there. 

That’s what I did. And here I am, doing the work I was born to do. 

I’m grateful to CCA — for the foundation, the teachers, for the community of students that became my colleagues. The school didn’t just teach me Ayurveda. It gave me a way to listen.

A small gift for the CCA community: 

If you’d like to try SOMA — our small-batch, certified organic, made-in-the-US Chyawanprash and Golden Milk — use code CCA15 at checkout for 15% off your entire first order. Available through August 31, 2026. 

— Lisa Mistry-Ghatala, Founder, SOMA Lifestyles · Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist · CAAM Board Member