Black lace butterfly dress by Jean-Louis Sabaji. Clothing and jewelry available at The Swan House.
The power of becoming your authentic self is a North Star many spend their lives searching for. But for Sandra Vergara, the journey has never been about becoming someone else. It has been about allowing the world to see more of who she is.
Long before stepping into the luxury real-estate world of Selling Sunset, Sandra had already built a multi-faceted career in entertainment. An actress, a model, television host and entertainment journalist – she’s appeared in projects including Fight Night, CSI, NIP/Tuck, and The Bold and the Beautiful. In 2015, she joined RuPaul and Dr. Terry Dubrow as co-host of E!’s Good Work, bringing her perspective as a beauty and entertainment expert to the conversation. She later became a Los Angeles correspondent for People (TV Show), adding red-carpet reporting to an already diverse resume.
Chainmail dress by Versace, chain and black suede boots by Marcell von Berlin, and sculptural gold bracelet by Cynthia Wolff. Clothing and jewelry available at The Swan House.
Yet beyond the famous family name, the television appearances and the many successful chapters of her career, Vergara has refused to be defined by a single title. She is, as she describes herself, a woman of many parts: curious, deeply feeling, resilient and constantly searching for meaning. “I’ve always been my authentic self,” Vergara tells GURUS Magazine. “I’m a painter. I’m a TV host. I’ve been an actor. I’ve been an interviewer, counselor -but those are all aspects of my authentic self.”
Now, however, there is something different about this chapter.
At 37, Vergara says she is becoming increasingly confident in revealing those different dimensions of herself – less interested in performing a version of herself that makes sense to everyone else. And more committed to living in alignment with what she knows to be true.
On him: lace top by Palomo Spain, jacket by Julius, pants by Salt & Murphy, and gladiator sandals by Balenciaga. On Sandra: gown by Versace and natural diamond drop earrings by Loree Rodkin. Clothing and jewelry available at The Swan House.
“I think authenticity is the distance between who you are internally and who you allow the world to see,” she says. “I think that distance is getting smaller and smaller for me. So, I feel more like myself than I ever have, but I hope I’ve never finished becoming her.” It is a philosophy that feels particularly fitting for a woman whose life and career have been marked by evolution.
To the public, Vergara may be known for time on Selling Sunset, where she stepped into the high-pressure world of luxury real estate and reality television. But beyond that decision was a woman navigating a profoundly personal chapter. Following a difficult breakup, Vergara said she found herself emotionally depleted and in need of something that would challenge her enough to pull her forward.
Taking on real estate and reality television became that pivot.
“It was exactly what I needed to get over the emotional rock bottom I was in,” she says. “I was in so much pain, and I just needed something drastic.” The experience ultimately gave her something she didn’t expect: a deeper understanding of herself.
Selling Sunset, she says, reinforced just how deeply she feels and how important protecting her inner peace has become. It also taught her that being misunderstood is survivable and that external validation, attention, and opportunity cannot define a person’s identity. “You can get the opportunities that you want, the attention, the platform, and none of it can tell you who you are,” she says. “I came out of it knowing myself better, but also realizing that protecting who I am is more important than any show.” That realization has become part of the foundation of Vergara’s next chapter.
Today, her focus is increasingly centered on healing, spirituality, and helping others better understand the connection between the mind, body and spirit. Through what she calls her Alignment Blueprint, Vergara is exploring the ways people can begin recognizing when their external lives no longer reflect their internal truth. “One of the biggest signs that you are living out of alignment is that your external life and your internal truth stop matching,” she explains.
Dress by Lanvin and natural diamond cuff by Martin Katz. Clothing and jewelry available at The Swan House.
It can look like saying yes when internally you mean no. Making decisions from fear instead of intuition. Constantly seeking validation. Overthinking. Reacting instead of responding. Or repeating patterns in relationships, work, and life when you consciously know better. “You can have the relationship, the career, the money, the body – all the things that are supposed to make you happy – and still have this underlying feeling that something isn’t right,” Vergara says.
For Vergara, healing has also deepened her relationship with faith. She is open about the role spirituality has played in helping her navigate trauma and difficult seasons, and she believes that people, careers, and external success can never fill what she describes as a deeper spiritual void. “The only way that I can heal is through finding some form of spiritual practice,” she says. “For me, it has been through constantly seeking God and not constantly seeking success.”
That distinction- between seeking validation externally and finding grounding internally – runs through nearly every aspect of Vergara’s philosophy. Even when it comes to beauty.
As someone who has worked in beauty and fashion and who openly appreciates aesthetics as an artist, Vergara has no interest in pretending that physical appearance doesn’t matter to her. She enjoys beauty. She openly embraces skincare, Botox, and aesthetic treatments as enhancements. She partnered with woman-owned Korean skincare brand Osier Wellness, which donates 15% of its sales to support addiction and mental health recovery. But she also believes that physical beauty, without inner substance, is ultimately fragile. “I think you can be physically spectacular-looking, and if your insides are corroded, that facade is going to crack,” she says.
Draped gown with attached necklace detail by Atelier Dutton. Clothing and jewelry available at The Swan House.
For Vergara, beauty must be understood more holistically. Appearance can evolve. Bodies change. People age. But confidence, character and inner peace have the potential to create something far more enduring. “We’re all getting older. We’re all going to change,” she says. “That’s why the internal component is the most important thing, because looks will fade.”
But becoming Sandra Vergara has not meant arriving at some perfected destination. If anything, she rejects the idea that transformation means discovering one fixed, final version of ourselves. Who we are, she believes, can expand as we experience more of life.
The key, she says, is learning to distinguish fear from intuition. And when intuition speaks, clearly? “Run,” she says with conviction. It is perhaps the simplest – and most powerful – advice she offers.
Before making a major change, Vergara believes we must first do the difficult work of discernment. Is the discomfort rooted in fear? Or is something genuinely out of alignment with who we are and what we know to be true? Fear, she says, may be something we need to work through. But intuition deserves to be trusted.
For someone who has lived multiple professional lives, experienced personal heartbreak, navigated public perception, and continued to evolve through every chapter, Vergara’s message is ultimately one of permission. Permission to change. Permission to heal. Permission to let go of the identities that no longer fit. And perhaps most importantly, permission to understand that becoming is never truly finished.
The next chapter for Sandra Vergara is not about proving who she is to the world. It is about continuing to close the distance between the woman she knows herself to be and the woman she allows the world to see. And for Vergara, that may be the real power of becoming: not arriving at a final version of yourself – but having the courage to keep revealing the truth of who you are, one chapter at a time.
Nude chiffon and tulle gown by Vlassi. Live floral crown by Megan Hoelle of Bloom Boom Boutique Florist.Clothing and jewelry available at The Swan House.
