Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Cavrak. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share an anecdote or story from your schooling/training that you feel illustrates what the overall experience was like?
As a psychological scientist, getting my PhD in cognitive psychology was a fun and heady dance between conducting research and teaching undergraduates; running a lab, training volunteers experimental protocols, analyzing data, and preparing for conferences and lectures. My brain was on fire in the most exciting way. It was six years of idea development, experiment execution, theory testing, and endless amounts of writing and editing papers for publication. I loved every second of it. I learned crucial critical thinking skills that rarely get taught in other disciplines and environments, and learned how to effortlessly bounce back from rejection. Scientists are notoriously brutal in their assessment of other scientists’ work and if you’re going to survive and thrive as a career scientist you have to know when to take excruciating feedback and integrate it for the betterment of your project and science (even when it means a project you thought was coming to a close requires another 3-6 months of re-evaluation, data collection, and analysis), and when to roll your eyes and move on.
I remember a project I was handed when I first arrived in grad school that had already been dragging on for about two years that hadn’t yet panned out. The theory, protocol, and stimuli all were solid, but the data wasn’t meeting the expectations of the hypothesis. My academic advisor thought a fresh set of eyes would help move the experiment forward so that we could wrap it up, publish it, and add it to our CVs. And although we did ultimately get the thing published, it probably wasn’t until maybe my third year that we finally succeeded. This was after we’d submitted it to at least 4-5 journals, all of whom tore it apart, requiring us to update our stimuli, include additional assessments to appease a particularly prickly journal reviewer, rerun the entire project yet again, before they gave it their stamp of approval. In total, it probably took 5-6 years to finally close the chapter on that experiment.
So while my grad education was exhilerating — it was also exhausting. When your brain is on constant hyperdrive, it’s incredibly taxing, and over the course of six plus years, it wears on you. Thankfully, I always had yoga to balance me back out. And in the final year of my dissertation program I chose to also complete my first yoga teacher training. Both happening, simultaneously. It was an immeasurable amount of work, but the yoga piece never felt like “work”. I always felt rejuvenated by it even when it meant long weekdays on campus and long weekends in the studio. But that’s probably why I found my professional “home” as a yoga teacher rather as the professor I always thought I was going to be.
Sarah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Dr. Sarah Cavrak, and I’m a cognitive scientist, yoga teacher, and environmental advocate. My career, that once felt like a very clear and straightforward pathway, has taken me in directions and detours I’d have never have been able to predict or anticipate at the beginning. At this point in my life and professional work, I’m motivated by one central thread: that the work I do help people or the planet. After 23 years of studying psychology, 13 years teaching yoga, and 6 years being a community leader in environmental conservation, I now dovetail my life by doing a combination of all of it.
My teaching and healing business looks like leading public yoga classes, workshops, and retreats, alongside 1:1 healing services in the form of yoga and energy therapy, and holistic wellness coaching. Whereas my scientific work now focuses on bridging the gap between psychological science and environmental conservation and sustainability. It’s here that I help nonprofits translate their mission and message to diverse communities in order to create engagement, awareness, and ultimately policy advocacy.
Throughout my life, I’ve found myself to be a bit of a trailblazer and translator — creating pathways that didn’t exist before, bridging the gap between science, rigorous research and real work application, and between internal struggle to outward transformation through tangible practices that awaken and empower. I probably feel most proud about my relentless trust in myself and unwavering commitment to follow the sparks of joy that have always left breadcrumbs for me to follow as I journey through this thing called Life. I’m continually grateful for opportunities to share my passion for human behavior, self-development, the natural world, and the critical and alchemical intersection between them.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I’d just graduated with my doctorate, was making a pivot into the yoga industry, and longed to get away from a desk and out into the world. So I sold all my belongings, gave away my car and my cat, and moved to Costa Rica to teach yoga. I was naive but I had a vision and a dream and I put all of myself into it. I’m proud of myself for that — for believing in my dream so fiercely that I took a massive risk to leave everything I had known to follow the spark of something that repeatedly called to me and created an aliveness in me I’d never felt before. There were so many moments that felt like magic toward the beginning that journey — living in community at the studio, teaching almost daily, sharing my passion for this work, being immersed in nature surrounded by lush, vibrant jungle, greeted by the sights and sounds of monkeys, sloths, lizards, and other creatures. It brought out parts of me I never knew existed.
And there were so many challenges I could have never anticipated. About 3 months into my journey, I had a truly harrowing swimming accident where I almost drowned and walked away with a severe injury to my left tibia. Then my bike (my only form of transportation) was stolen, and having moved here right out of grad school, I was absolutely broke and couldn’t buy a new one. Then I got hit with my third round of parasites, and someone I’d been dating passed away unexpectedly. All these events occurred in rapid succession of one another, and I just felt broken. I was physically healing from my accident, nursing my internal body back to health from parasites that actually never fully went away, and my heart was distraught from the loss of this person I felt an instant bond with and was thrilled to have been deepening my connection to. I’d been hit on all sides by tragedy, and having sold all my belongings immediately prior to this journey, I was literally left with nothing but a broken heart, a broken body, $400 in the bank, and a backpack of moldy clothing.
I was angry at yoga for bringing me here only to crush me. I was angry at myself for being so foolish to think I could “follow my bliss” and have it all magically work out. I was thrust back into survival mode in almost every way and I was at the end of myself and the capacity of my efforts to fix and heal all the woes that had befallen me. I returned to the States to regroup. My body needed tending. My heart needed space heal. And my finances needed to get on solid ground again. So, despite my reservations, I took an industry research job out of necessity while I continued to teach yoga on the side to continue building my skillset, visibility, and student base. Thinking this would only be for about a year to get back on my feet so I could get jetset into the world teaching yoga again — I ended up in an almost 10-year research career in an industry that ultimately burned me out and left me feeling devalued and invisible.
But throughout those 10 years, I was teaching, developing trainings, workshops, and personalized coaching programs to help serve the people who were showing up again and again and again to my public yoga classes. I was unknowingly building leadership and business skills I never had before and hadn’t realized I needed. Simultaneous to this, I was also volunteering with an international nonprofit and through that work discovered a passion for environmental conservation and policy advocacy. The totality of these challenging and ultimately fortuitous events was gaining an immeasurable amount of resilience, incredible trust in myself and the sparks of passion and joy that kept popping up and guiding my path forward, and two businesses that I’m so proud to have launched. The first, Sacred Self Holistic, is a wellness business that combines yoga, energy therapy, and coaching into a comprehensive program that heals, guides and empowers people as they take steps to transform their lives. The second, EarthMinded Research, is a think tank and research engine that serves environmental nonprofits — helping them use psychological science to educate diverse communities and advocate for critical environmental policies.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Ruthless authenticity, building trust through teaching, and bringing all of my passion to the conversation. Over the last few years, I’ve desperately tried to go the online route, creating endless content, sales funnels, and freebies to curate a successful online business, but that hasn’t been the fruitful pathway for me. I know it is for many others, but it’s just never worked for me and my business.
What has worked is being both passionate and visible in the community, and having an understanding of my customer journey was a critical piece of intel that I failed to do for so many years as an early, solo entrepreneur in the wellness space. Once I finally tracked the path back from how my 1:1 clients found me to when they signed on with me, I realized I’d been placing my efforts in the wrong places for years. Of course I still have a website and active social media accounts, but I spend less time and effort there so that I can focus more on my in-person offerings. Whether that’s through weekly studio classes, monthly and quarterly trainings in other cities and communities, and workshops at bigger annual events like festivals and conferences — teaching as a tool for establishing relationships, building instant trust and safety, and inspiring people through my skill and passion has been the most effective doorway to invite people into the conversation to work more deeply with me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sacredselfholistic.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/yogadoctorsarah
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/drsarahcavrak
- Other: earthmindedresearch.com
https://yogadoctorsarah.substack.com/
drsarahcavrak@gmail.com
Image Credits
Personal Photo = Abigail Whitehurst; Studio Photos = Candace Molatore; Jungle Reiki Photos = Charli Watts; Solo Photos = Marisa Karoutsos