NAME: Andrea Anstiss
INSTAGRAM HANDLE: andreaanstiss
JOB TITLE: Psychotherapist. Breathwork Facilitator. Author
Andrea is a transpersonal psychotherapist, certified Holotropic Breathwork facilitator, published author and a former Hoffman Process teacher with over four decades of healing expertise. In her work she draws on both talk therapy and somatic approaches to support her clients to heal the child within, to transform trauma, addiction and challenging relationships, and to awaken to their innate preciousness. Andrea offers Holotropic Breathwork workshops as well as a shorter version of breathwork called Hawa. Soon she will also be launching another online Hawa Breathwork facilitator training. Together with her friend and colleague Karen Bauer Andrea is offering online Deep Dives into the wisdom contained in her book 'Juicy Life'.
Juicy Life – 8 Surprising Steps To Awaken Your True Self is the title of Andrea's recently published book. It offers to the world clear ways of navigating many of the life lessons both herself and her clients have danced with. The structure and simplicity of Juicy Life is brilliant for anyone wanting to evolve in a hurry. Andrea wants Juicy Life to reach people who may not be able to afford the privilege of therapy or coaching.
The Gulf States and its people have a huge place in Andrea's heart. Because of her husband’s engineering career she's been fortunate to be a resident of the Gulf since 1990. Her children were born in beautiful Muscat, Oman. Dubai has been her home and playground since 2004 and Andrea works with her international clientele individually in workshops and online. Creating a safe, nurturing space to help facilitate the unfolding of her clients’ and participants’ deepest dreams, uncovering their hidden brilliance and transforming blind spots and wounds into potent resources is her mission.
In her spare time, you will find Andrea on the tennis court or on an Emirates flight to the next adventure.
Today we learn Andrea's 3 biggest life learnings to-date:
#LIFELESSON – 1: Follow the thread tenaciously! Then you will shine brightly and illuminate yourself and the world.
Whatever excites you, brings you energy and joy – commit to following that thread. This is where the depth and richness lives. If possible allow yourself to do the explorations and work you would do even if you weren’t being paid. To do this we may need to be aware and then let go of patterns or tricky traits that stymy the full expression of our curiosity and aliveness. For example, you may need to challenge the expectations you parents have about your career or path.
My husband used to get so irritated that I was attending yet another workshop! Yoga was followed by Reiki, then Breathwork, then flower remedies, then many more studies until I completed my Masters Degree in Transpersonal Psychology (while living in Saudi Arabia during the challenging period of 9-11).
That lead to a wonderful job with a prestigious organisation where I gained the skills to kick off my own private practice. Eventually he came to understand how important it was for me to follow the thread to uncover my true self. It’s also important to remember it about process rather than product or journey rather destination only.
If you need help to follow the thread and uncover your True Self, Juicy Life is a truly useful and fun guide. “The mission of this book is to help you to uncover and recover your ‘Juiciness’ and be seated in what I like to call your True Self. So, what is your True Self and why is it not shining brightly, illuminating you and the world?” Juicy Life
#LIFELESSON – 2: Fresh lenses bring compassion for our humanness. Experience yourself with spaciousness using other lenses such as Breathwork. You’re not who you are conditioned to believe you are!
Often we are unaware of our difficult patterns or Tricky Traits because they seem so embedded in our way of being and have been with us for so long. They feel normal. They feel familiar. Often they feel comfy, like an old pair of slippers.
The invitation is to challenge those old familiar patterns and trances we live in. One of the best ways to do that is to seek out experiences that take you into non-ordinary or expanded states of consciousness where you open up your perception. Living in a different country is a way to experience yourself and life outside the usual box. So is meditation or running a marathon.
A fast and safe way is to explore your inner landscape and transform stuck or beyond the use-by-date parts is to engage in breathwork. Breathwork with the intention to dive deep and explore your multidimensional being is a profound experience. I did my first breathwork, which was called Rebirthing back then, at aged 19. The experience of my first Breathwork workshop created a sense of spaciousness in me which at the time I desperately needed. I bicycled home that night feeling as high and as bright as the street lights, with my relationship to Joy and possibility restored.
#LIFELESSON – 3 There are many more than you here! Connect with family and community.
Explore your place in your family tree and know you are deeply supported by the generations who have gone before. Know that your incredible qualities and your tricky traits didn’t start with you. You are a precious part of an enormous sweep of history.
As much as we need to individuate, we also need to connect. To thrive we need family, friends, beloveds, ‘frenemies’, mentors and community. This is challenging in the expatriate community as our beloveds are left behind sometimes seventeen hours flight away. Spend as much time as possible with your beloveds even if you live on the other side of the world. Invest that time and energy because lives go by in a blink of an eye.
I recently lost my mother and I’m negotiating a very different grief passage than I have with other family members. I feel so fortunate to have a beautiful band of openhearted female friends to hold my hand through this transition.
“For an ongoing awakening to our True Selves, we need a community of like-minded Juicy people or sangha, which means spiritual community. That community will ideally nourish us and challenge us to grow. In community, we learn cooperation and friendship. Kindness and respect are often values of spiritual communities.” Juicy Life
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