Cayla – Hospitality to Healing

Career Crossroads

#51 – Cayla Schafer has had to pivot her career more than once due to her health. Misdiagnosed celiac disease wreaked havoc on her life while she made her way through university and her illness ultimately forced her to leave her thoughts of pursuing a career in acting behind.

As she began to recover, she picked up a job serving at a restaurant in Toronto and was immediately hooked. Serving ticked all the right boxes: she could talk to people, problem solve, and each day was different. She began to see a future in hospitality and thought about how to climb the ladder and what her future would look like. At the same time, she valued the flexibility of being a server as it allowed her to work in other cities if she needed a change of scenery. Cayla found the right balance of serving while picking up opportunities as a shift leader and trainer, and everything was great - until it wasn’t. After a 5 week trip to Calgary where she trained the staff of a new restaurant while working 16+ hour days, her adrenal glands were shot. After a few days off in Toronto where she just couldn’t sleep, she was headed back to her first shift at her serving job but collapsed on the sidewalk. While the change wasn’t immediate, it was at this moment she knew that she needed to leave hospitality behind and once again pivot to another career for her health.

By this point in time, fitness had become an important part of Cayla’s life outside of her job. She had trained as a trauma-sensitive yoga instructor and had an experience at a Soul Cycle in New York City that showed her how valuable that could be to her life. As Soul Cycle had expanded to Toronto, she was able to get a job as an instructor and suddenly her path became more clear: work as an instructor there while teaching trauma-sensitive yoga on the side.

While all this was happening, Cayla had also started a blog, The Move to Heal Project. As the blog grew, so did Cayla’s ambition and she began to plan a future as an entrepreneur. She has all these skills to help others heal – why not do that while working for herself?

In February 2020 she left Soul Cycle and has been working on The Move to Heal Project full time ever since. Listen to her interview to hear the full story.
Find Cayla and The Move to Heal Project at the following links:

• movetohealproject.com
• @themovetohealproject on Insta, TikTok, YouTube, Podcasts
• Instagram: @caylameredith
• Email: [e-mail]

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Food Truck Faceoff Episode – The Distillery District Duel
• David Emmerson - Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga
• Bessel van der Kolk -

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