Parvati Shallow navigates social interactions with the same smoothness, grace, and uncanny efficiency that Michael Phelps navigates a 50-meter swimming pool. “I can connect with people and quickly build trust and rapport,” she says.
That’s not a useless claim. This skill set has made Sharrow, 41, a reality TV icon. Over the past 18 years, she has appeared on four seasons of Survivor and the U.S. season of The Traitors, a popular Peacock show in which reality stars must figure out who among them is up for the challenge. I have just charmed, plotted, seduced, deceived, and appeased. She betrays the group for the bounty.
The public first encountered Sharrow in 2006 on season 13 of the long-running reality show “Survivor.” With her thermonuclear smile and coconut-hard abs, the 23-year-old University of Georgia graduate uses her supernatural charm to secure her loyalty and eliminate her. By being evasive, he gained a reputation as a cheater during the season.
I didn’t win in shallow water, but I got pretty far. After three seasons, she returned to Survivor older (26) and wiser (she was still planning on cheating, but more strategically), she said. She assembled an all-female alliance and brutally defeated the male contestants, ultimately winning the $1 million pot.
In the second US season of The Traitors, she was recruited as one of the show’s titular traitors and tasked with lying to the other contestants and reaching the end without being found out. Although she was eliminated in episode 8, her headband, her thoughtfully pursed lips, and clever tactics evoked ecstatic cries of “”mother!” from of internet.
But television is no longer Shallow’s main job. Currently, she primarily works as a life coach.
“Whatever your dream is, together we will make it a reality,” she said Website To read. “Whether it’s work, money, health, or purpose, I facilitate change.”
Who wouldn’t want her to teach them how to live?
MMost of Sharrow’s clients have contacted her because they are survivors, she said in a video call from her home in California. “They saw what I was capable of, so when she told me to do it, it was like…” she says.
Typically, Shallow’s “1:1 Transformational Coaching” costs between $1,500 and $25,000, depending on the length and frequency of our work together. However, Sharrow agreed to do a one-time free coaching session with me for this article. She says her life coaching doesn’t get as much attention as her TV work.
“People know me as Parvati from ‘Survivor’ and ‘Traitors,’ but what I actually do day-to-day is coaching,” she says.
I’m a Survivor fan. But when I’m preparing for a session, I don’t know what I want from it. What exactly does a life coach do? What does a life coach who is also a reality star do? Unfortunately, I’m not stranded on an island competing with bigwigs for money or in a Scottish castle lying on The Real Housewives while Alan Cumming is on. parade at the cape.
When I asked Sharrow what clients needed help with, she gave several examples. One is a business owner and wants to improve her leadership skills. Another person is dissatisfied with their marriage and considering next steps. Some people have sleep problems and social anxiety. The accountant she works with wants to “make life more fun.”
It’s pretty good that it’s fun. My self-esteem is closely tied to productivity, which seems fine and probably doesn’t need further consideration, but I tend to get bogged down with work and errands.
I want to have more fun too, I say.
I think it forces you to think about what you enjoy or when you feel happiest. I’m worried that people will tell me to get a hobby or dance more.
What’s happening is much more complex. Shallow leads me to a meditation practice. She asks about my relationship with her mother. She had me draw and name both my anxiety and my “higher self” (Cathy and Eleanor, respectively) and imagine a conversation between them.
what’s happening?
SMs. Hallow says her talent for connection is based in part on her non-judgmental nature. She said, “I’ll share all my failures and mistakes if I think the person I’m talking to will feel more comfortable with me.”
She believes part of the reason for this is her upbringing. Shallow grew up in a yoga community led by a female guru named Parvati. Chanting sessions, meditations, and fire rituals were held regularly. On the surface, she says, things were perfect. Adults in the community always told her how idyllic her childhood was. Beneath the surface, she claims, there was “coercive control and abuse of power.”
Group dynamics and power structures were complex and ambiguous, she recalls. “As a child, I could feel the truth in my body, but I couldn’t express it in words,” she says.
Her family left the community when she was nine years old, and she never spoke much about the community again. She says the skills she developed there, negotiating complex social dynamics and listening to the unsaid, helped her navigate the socially complex atmosphere of survivorship.
Despite his success on the show, Shallow struggled. “Survivor really had a huge impact on my body and mind,” she says.
When she returned home from the early seasons, she said, she had to readjust to the real world where not everyone she met was trying to throw her under the bus. Not only that, but her performance made her unpopular. Critics mocked her frivolity and earned her the nickname Black Widow for how effectively she and her all-female alliance defeated their male competitors.
“After I returned home, I really didn’t like myself.” [season 13]” she recalls. “And in season 16, I won, but I was vilified. I was thinking, ‘Nobody’s going to love me.’ ”
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Struggling and unsure of what to do next, Sharrow dove into what she calls a healing journey. She practiced yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, and hypnotherapy. She got married and worked at a consulting firm, telling companies how to grow and make themselves look better.
Then she got pregnant and wanted a job with more flexibility and control. At one of her speaking events, Sharrow met Amber Kusis, a life coach in Los Angeles. Kusis invited Shallow to train with him.
Shallow likes how life coaching taps into her curiosity about people.
“It’s not for people who are really stuck. It’s for people who are doing well in life,” she says. “I thought it was great. So people aren’t stuck in a loop and exhausted.”
There are currently no legal, educational, or licensing requirements for life coaches in the US or UK. As such, this area can be something of a wilderness in terms of provider qualifications and services.
Before launching her coaching business in 2019, Shallow worked one-on-one with Kuzis as a client for three months. She then enrolled in a six-month coaching program with Carolyn Freyer-Jones, a coach who developed a professional soul-centered coaching program at Santa Monica College specializing in “spiritual psychology.” .
However, Sharrow believes that his true qualifications come from working. “I’m a big believer in on-the-job training,” she says. “Get out there, talk to people, and learn through trial and error.”
Sharrow does not claim to know how or why coaching works. “I’m not a scientist,” she says. She tells her clients: “If it works, if it makes you feel better and improves your life, then that’s the proof you need.”
Shallow currently works with five private clients. In her early days of the pandemic, she primarily worked in groups, but she has stopped doing that now because she is also working on a book. She works with clients over three-month, six-month, or one-year periods in 60- or 90-minute sessions. New customers can only sign on to her three-month package initially, so Shallow can see if it’s a good fit.
“I’m not going to sign someone for a year if I haven’t worked with them before, because you never know if it’s going to be a good relationship,” she says. “I love my clients. I love them so much. I want them to live their biggest, richest, most beautiful lives. That’s why I love working with everyone. I don’t do it.”
DShallow is very attentive and attentive during our sessions. She repeats my words back so I can hear them. She tells me to write down what I notice. She refers to internal family systems, a psychotherapeutic approach that identifies subpersonalities within a person. She talks about the importance of emotions and how childhood experiences influence our romantic relationships. She complimented me, told me I was brave and vulnerable, and her “powerful wisdom” helped me visualize the Kathy I had drawn in my notepad. She’s a nasty mix of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. And, well, kathy. “You have a gift,” she says.
I’ve been in therapy on and off for over 10 years, and most of it is nothing new to me. But I feel an intoxicating sense of validation. By the end of the call, I wished I could have been on Survivor and told Shallow everything I know.
Shallow said much of the value of her coaching work comes from creating a space where people feel included and heard. “These people have a lot of freedom to make mistakes, fail, and experiment,” she says. “Really, it’s all about permission to play.”
At the end of the session, she was on her back with a satisfied smile on her face. She says she hasn’t planned what the phone will look like.
“You bring me content and I just go with it,” she says.
Did you have more fun as a result of your phone call? Did you feel less anxious and more able to fool around and have fun? Not so much. But even the most transcendently positive, charismatic coach-slash-reality star can’t reasonably be expected to undo his 32 years of self-flagellation in an hour.
But since my session with Sharrow, I’ve been thinking a lot about Kathy. When I feel that tingle of anxiety, I picture Kathy and think, “Wow, that was a really ugly picture.” Strangely enough, it helps a little.
