Janine Sagert, PhD. has dedicated her life to integrating spiritual understanding into daily life and helping others to do so. Her education, professional work and her personal dedication all center around the premise that “work” life and “spiritual” life are not two separate worlds. Indeed they come from the same source. Her life is a testimony to this truth. She is dedicated to exploring psychological and spiritual resilience across cultures and using that wisdom to help others navigate their work and life circumstances with more efficiency, health, creativity, and joy.
Janine's Story, in her own words:
BACKGROUND
Born into a military family, I was exposed early on to many cultures, both within and outside of the United States. Adapting to new people in new circumstances quickly became a way of life for me. But it wasn’t until an extraordinary spiritual awakening in young adulthood that my path became clear: to nourish the experience of the “extraordinary” so as to integrate it into “ordinary” life—and to help others do the same.
EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
Both my undergraduate and doctoral work explored cross-cultural perspectives on factors that enhanced or detracted from mental health, relationships, and overall performance. As an undergraduate at Lawrence University, I conducted research in Pune, India, which resulted in an honors thesis exploring the relationship between family structure and achievement motivation. I then worked as a researcher at Harvard University School of Public Health investigating the role of community cohesion on individual mental health and stress. I went on to receive my doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley with sub-specialties in resilience, altered states of consciousness, and Indian culture. My dissertation corroborated the effectiveness of my Time Out program in developing resilience in executives.
PROFESSIONAL
I coached high-level executives how to navigate their work with less stress and better focus while cultivating more harmonious relationships. Through my consulting firm, Sagert & Associates, Inc., I started out as a pioneer in the field of stress management; I was among the first people in North America to teach meditation in the workplace, for example. Over the years, I have trained and coached thousands of executives and government officials internationally both in leadership skills and self- management. I also co-founded The Clarksville Experience, a weekend event that helps female professionals align their core values with their roles of executive, life partner, and mother.
CLIENTS
My clients have included Dell, Motorola, University of Texas McCombs School of Business, Levi Strauss, Banco National de Mexico, Dow Jones and Shanti Mandir. For a more extensive list, please see my client page.
SPIRITUAL
I have maintained a dedicated meditation practice while exploring various philosophies and technologies for attaining higher consciousness. This has had me living and traveling with the world-renowned meditation teacher, Swami Muktananda; absorbing the riches of many wisdom leaders, wandering the Himalayas with sadhus and immersing myself in the The Work of Byron Katie.
CURRENT PROJECTS
I am serving as content producer for a documentary film, From Shock to Awe. This feature-length doc will tell the stories of combat veterans and their families who are healing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with the aid of cannabis, ayahuasca, and MDMA. I live in beautiful Northern California.