Meet Sara Rector of Circle of Life Counseling Center in Thousand Oaks

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Rector.

Sara, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Basically, I was born a caring and curious problem solver.  I have always had an interest in people, relationships, why people behave the way they do, what motivates their behavior and how I can help and support them to get what they want and have a better quality of life.  I was the friend that asked, “How are you doing?” and “What’s new?” and really wanted to know the answer.  I got a B.A. in Psychology from Pitzer College in Claremont and I wanted to become a psychologist, but didn’t get into the grad school of my choice.  So, I took a 10-year detour into the corporate world of a Fortune 500 company, selling advertising. It was a very lucrative and educational detour.

If I would have gone directly into grad school, I would not have had the “real world experiences” that this detour provided.  I learned about the power of advertising, how to sell advertising to small business owners, the pressure of sales quotas, how to set goals and meet or exceed those goals.  I did really well, made a ton of money and was also rewarded with travel incentives of all-expense(s)-paid trips to Europe and other exotic destinations. I was promoted to District Sales Manager and learned how to lead and motivate my sales team. These were amazing times and I was living the high life, but there was something missing.  I thought about my goal of being a psychotherapist and found out that my company had a tuition remission program that would pay for me to get my Master’s Degree in Psychology.  Back to school I went to get my M.A. in Psychology.  I also married my husband and we were having difficulty conceiving a child.  My lifestyle of a traveling District Sales Manager was not conducive to building my family, so I decided it was time to transition to become a psychotherapist. My advertising/ marketing experience and my passion for helping people achieve their goals, has allowed me to build a very successful group practice, Circle of Life Counseling Center of Thousand Oaks. We currently have 8 state-of-the-art psychotherapists who have specialties that cover all ages and stages of life for individuals, couples, kids, teens, families and seniors

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The struggles along the way have been blessings in disguise! The detour into the business world has helped me understand how businesses work and run successfully, as well as the job and career pressures people experience.  I learned how to set business, sales and personal goals.  Dealing with infertility was a huge obstacle that inspired me to use everything I learned from my sales career.  Goal setting, positive thinking and positive intention were combined with mindfulness, meditation, anxiety and depression-reduction techniques, (learned from my clinical education and therapy practice) to create a psychological treatment plan I successfully used for myself (and my clients) going through infertility.  Helping individuals and couples with infertility inspired me to create a Reproductive Wellness Audio Series comprised of information I found helpful for people dealing with obstacles to family building. Audio files in the series include: “Positive Intention Conception,” “Healing Pregnancy Loss,” “Infertility and Relationship Issues” and “Transition Into Ovum Donation.”   My struggle to decide what career path to take helped me access Personality and Lifestyle/Career assessments that I utilize with my clients who are in transition and want to understand what relationships and careers are best suited to their personalities.

Circle of Life Counseling Center – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I currently am the Owner/Director of Circle of Life Counseling Center in Thousand Oaks. I also see clients and my specialties are: infertility, codependency and career/life transition. I have built my business on being an “immediately responsive and educated” communicator.  I am proud of the caring, personalized, responsive client care that each of my clinicians and myself provide for our clients and our referral sources. We have clinicians that are experts in dealing with a variety of specialties such as: children, teens, addiction, codependency, Autism spectrum, blended families, conflictual divorces, relationship issues, infertility and career/life transitions. We also are knowledgeable about the resources in our community, so if we can’t help, we are able to connect others to people who can. This is what sets us apart.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me, personally in my life, success is simply defined as doing what I love with the people I love. The barometer I use to determine my feeling of success is how I feel internally about myself at any given time. When I feel uncertain, then I question myself about the internal or external causes of this feeling and whether or not it is something I have control over (or what part I have control over).  Then, I ask myself if need to do something about the thoughts and feelings in the present moment.  One of the values that drives me is to make the world a better place for each person that I come in contact with, beginning with myself. So that’s my esoteric response…

Pricing:

• Individual/Couples/family sessions /consultations $100-200
• Therapy Group sessions $30-50
• Career/Lifestyle Assessment $300
• Reproductive Wellness MP3 Download Audio Files $15 each
• Psychological Evaluations for Donors and Surrogates $400-600

Contact Info:

• Address: Circle of Life Center
  501 Marin Street #202
  Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
• Website: Circleoflifecenter.info
• Phone: 805 494-1414 call/text
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/circleoflifecenter/
  Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ51V3b856M

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.