For a while, senior Sky Cowans was lost. With graduaton looming in the spring, she wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing or on the right path. 

Cowans had been debating starting a health and wellness web series but was scared to put herself out there and do something completely different. All that changed after Cowans attended a yoga retreat in Mexico with Yandara Yoga Institute over Winter Term to fill 200 collective hours of teacher training. 

During the retreat, Cowans learned about the anatomy, physiology and philosophy of yoga.

“I appreciated it so much because it focused on the true meaning of yoga,” she said. “It opened my eyes and flipped my perspective on a lot of things, especially in having faith in a path and not being so caught up in the future.”

At the retreat Cowans would wake up at 6 a.m. to practice meditation. She was taught how to assist students, pose-by-pose, with the correct alignment as well as the anatomy and physiology behind it. Days were spent chanting and learning about mantras and the lineage and history of yoga.

From there, “Sky Life,” a health and wellness website and web series, was born. Cowans incorporates aspects from the retreat into the series.

“I felt really centered in myself and felt more connected to myself than I had in so long,” she said. “The vision became pretty clear, and it didn’t matter what was going to happen in the future. It was just something I wanted to do for myself and share a message that was so meaningful to me to other people.”

Finding a love of health

Cowans has had a fascination with health ever since she was little and attempted to eat grass. When she was 8, she began drinking green juice and refusing the candy her babysitter offered her, opting for fruit instead.

By the age of 15, Cowans began practicing yoga with her mom, who is a fitness instructor. She immediately fell in love and is now a certified teacher, giving classes at Campus Recreation and private studios.

“Growing up [health] played such a big role in my life with what it meant to be healthy and taking care of myself, and it’s guided me up until now,” Cowans said.

Since a healthy lifestyle has been so ingrained into her, Cowans had no issues with getting off-track when entering college. She is human and does have treats every once in a while, but knows that won’t completely ruin her health.

“I’ve never dieted,” Cowans said. “It’s all about doing what feels right in this moment. Eventually, you’re just going to be drawn to the things that are going to help you.”

Cowans also follows a vegan diet. She cut out red meat completely when she was 10 for health reasons, and ate 80 percent plant-based foods for her first three years of college.

But after learning about the environmental impact of animal agriculture and the ethical impact of consuming dairy and other animal products, Cowans decided she did not want to partake in it whatsoever.

“If I have the choice to live a healthy life and get all the nutrients I need while being vegan, I want to do that,” she said. “I have so much energy. I just feel great.”

Creating the series

As an avid health and wellness lover, Cowans wanted to share her experience with the public, especially the mental and spiritual aspects. For her, health is the driving force behind everything that she does.

With many diseases preventable and diet-related, Cowans believes that now is the time to start thinking about and forming healthy habits in order to not deal with these medical issues in
the future.

“I think it’s the single most important thing in someone’s life,” she said. “If you’re not healthy and feeling connected with your mind, your body and your spirit, and you’re just moving around in life and going through the motions, then what’s the purpose?”

Currently ‘Sky Life’ has four episodes that focus mostly on the mind with topics such as meditation and mindfulness as well as adventures with a vlog of a vegan festival in Los Angeles.

To come up with ideas for each video, Cowans does things she is interested in and films it as well as interviewing those she encounters in her own journey. Cowans mostly focuses on stories of holistic healing because it’s not often thought of and is a huge part of Cowans’ own life.

“Sharing it with other people and the power it’s given me is really important to me because it has empowered me in so many ways,” Cowans said. “Having this vitality and zest for life, it’s all related to my health and me taking care of myself — not just my body, but my mind, my spirit.”

Future videos will include an interview with a woman who healed after a traumatic mountain biking injury using the power of the mind, medicinal cooking, and a yoga sequence on empowerment and manifesting your dreams.

“I want to show the power of this work and this practice because it’s easy to brush it aside, but it actually has a huge impact, especially when it comes to the power of the mind and your heart intelligence and head intelligence connecting,” Cowans said.

Since Cowans has been busy and has more content she needs to edit than film, scheduling for the show has been a bit sporadic. But she is hoping to get into a weekly schedule as time goes on.

To assist with the videos, Cowans has a team including senior Emma Vo on videography and seniors Kayla Hammer and Nikita DeMare helping with production. Cowans usually edits all the videos by herself. 

As a believer in positive energy and a health-minded individual herself, Vo was ecstatic to assist with this project.

“As a vegan and a public health minor, this is a project that my moral compass can approve,” she said. “I want to help people too, and I think Sky and I have good chemistry when it comes to making content that we care about.”

Cowans’ positive energy has also benefited Vo during the production of the series. Before working with “Sky Life,” Vo was going through a rough patch and felt like she needed something positive in her life to get her back on track to pursue her passions.

“Sky Life” was it, and she now feels happier and sees good things happening each day.

“Sky’s whole message is that she wants people to live their best life and give people the tools and information that she has learned that have worked for her,” Vo said. “Sky does not claim to be an expert in health and wellness, but she is relatable to many people struggling to figure out their journey so I think that’s what makes it so great.”

Working toward the future

So far, Sky Life has only been promoted to friends, family and the Elon community through social media. But once she creates more content, Cowans wants to make partnerships with other health bloggers to hear their stories and reach their viewership as well.

“It’s kind of scary ’cause I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I don’t even know what’s going to happen in the future with this, but this is what I want to do now, and that’s all I care about.”

Ideally, Cowans would like to continue filming beyond Elon and hopes to eventually have a job that would give her the time to produce it. Her end goal is to create a full-length television show and build Sky Life into a company complete with vegan clothing, all-natural beauty products and health programs for college and high school students.

“I feel like there’s so much opportunity, who knows where it’s going to go?” Cowans said.

Though Cowans isn’t completely sure where Sky Life is heading, she is simply letting it flow and move forward the way it wants to go. Cowans also isn’t sure where she will be working after graduation and hasn’t applied to any jobs yet.

But she knows there will always be opportunities out there.

“I have three mantras that I live by, which are ‘you do you,’ ‘trust,’ and ‘ride the wave,’” Cowans said. “You keep doing you, you trust it’s all going to work out and you let it flow and enjoy every second. So that’s what I’m doing.”