I’m Sara Avant Stover, founder of her Self Institute. I help established female coaches, therapists, healers, and service providers who've done deep inner work translate spiritual insights into a business structure that generates greater income and impact.
Most business coaching teaches you strategy without addressing why you can't implement it. Most therapy helps you heal without giving you a business that works. I'm the only mentor who bridges this gap by integrating Internal Family Systems (IFS), over 25 years of business experience, and 30 years of expertise in feminine spirituality.
Helping Spiritually-Oriented Women Share Their Soul's Work Effectively and Sustainably
About Sara Avant Stover
My path began long before women’s entrepreneurship became mainstream online.
I graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. Soon after, a health scare changed the course of my life and led me to Thailand, where I lived for nearly a decade and became one of the leading yoga and spiritual teachers in Southeast Asia at that time.
When I returned to the U.S. in 2008, I published The Way of the Happy Woman, a groundbreaking book that helped spark a modern movement in women’s spirituality. Around that same time, I became one of the first women to bring this work online, blending ancient wisdom, feminine leadership, and entrepreneurship before most people had language for that integration.
Today, I’m a Level 3 Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner, trained intuitive, and author of three books. I’ve led retreats featured in The New Yorker and mentored tens of thousands of women worldwide. Over decades of devotion and reinvention, I developed the methodology I now teach, an approach that integrates inner wisdom, psychological healing, and practical business skill.
I now live in Bordeaux, France with my husband and our rescue dog, Sadie. Here, I continue supporting women to become deeply Self-led so their work becomes sustainable, meaningful, and truly theirs.
More women than ever are building businesses around their healing work, spiritual gifts, and soul's purpose. But most are following broken paths.
Traditional business coaching treats your business like a machine to optimize—ignoring inner work entirely. You learn strategy, but when it's time to implement, you freeze, self-sabotage, or burn out.
Spiritual approaches honor your intuition—but bypass practical fundamentals. You receive beautiful downloads, create vision boards, but can't translate any of it into a business that pays you consistently.
Neither works alone. And women are exhausted from choosing between their soul and their bank account.
I help you stop choosing.
Why This Work Matters Now
My Background
Whether we're working together in private mentoring or in the her Self CEO program, the goal is the same: a business that grows with you, not in spite of you.
I believe in:
- Inner wisdom before external strategy
- Long-term transformation over quick fixes
- Congruence with your body and values
- Self-led decisions—not fear-based ones
- Root your business in the Sacred World—Partner with your Higher Self and the Higher Self of Your Business
- Cultivate harmony in your Inner World—Using IFS, identify the parts that block you and heal what’s holding you back
- Build your Outer World—Translate your inner clarity into messaging, offers, visibility, and money management
- Integrate all three worlds— So your spiritual integrity and real-world success work together so you can embody your soul's work.
How I Think About Business
How I Work With Clients
Your business should come from your whole Self—not just your head, not just your heart, but the integrated wisdom of all aspects of you.
— Jennifer Louden
“What I appreciate about Sara is how giving and erudite she is. She is a generous, smart thinker and writer about women's health and I love giving her books to women of all ages.”
If you're ready for deeper integration, the her Self CEO mentoring program is my signature 12-week methodology for women ready to build the Sacred, Inner, and Outer worlds of their business in community.
If you want to understand:
Why your journal is full of visions but your business doesn't reflect them (yet)
How spiritually-oriented women can actually build steady, calm businesses (without hustle or burnout)
What a Self-led business actually looks like behind the scenes:
Everything I teach comes from lived experience—not theory.
I've built successful businesses. I've lost everything. I've rebuilt from nothing using this exact methodology. I know what it takes to trust yourself when everything falls apart, and I know the difference between building from survival and building from Self.
My work is for women ready to stop choosing between their soul and their strategy.
I'm not a fit if you're:
- Looking for quick-fix tactics or overnight success
- Not willing to do inner work alongside business building
- Feeling too stuck to take any external action
- Not ready to invest in both psychological healing and practical structure
I work best with:
- Established female coaches, therapists, healers, or service providers
- Women transitioning out of corporate careers or ready for a pivot to greater authenticity
- Sensitive, spiritually-oriented women generally in mid-life (though some are younger or older)
- Women of depth who have done a lot of inner work and want to honor their intuition, rather than external "shoulds"
Who I'm a Fit For
A Note on My Approach
What to Do Next
The "How to Create a Simple, Sacred, Self-Led Business" workshop
is the best place to start.
— Kate Northrup, Author & Entrepreneur
“Sara has managed to strike the perfect balance between hip, modern practicality, and ancient, wise woman wisdom.”
