Anna Fastenko, CCH
It is always a humbling experience to write about oneself. After decades of educational, work, and life experiences, I am certain that healing arts are my path, my gift, my most noticeable contribution to the world. I bring to you what I have experienced myself on the way towards better health, integrity, personal growth, reduction of suffering, and overall happiness. I study in depth what has dramatically improved my own life, then I can relate your experience to my own.
After first extensive education in psychology, with degrees from MGU (Moscow State University) and Boston University, and related work experience, I had a good foundation to continue exploring what’s really mine in the vast field of helping professions. A chance flyer at a yoga studio I was frequenting in California led me to pursue a secondary 3 year education in classical homeopathy from the Pacific Academy of Homeopathy in San Francisco, followed by the national certification and a private practice in San Jose, CA from 2005 till 2021.
That same year, when the pandemic was mostly over, our family moved to Portland, Oregon, a place that felt like home from the first walks, smells, and tastes. That welcome change of scenery allowed me to rewrite a professional chapter on a clean slate, finally bringing my three passions together – yoga, homeopathy, and a recently discovered method of Hellinger family systems (constellations), a healing modality as simple and direct as realizing a connection to one’s own ancestors, carrying the same familiar roles and themes as they did, and as powerful as rewriting an order of events and relationships we call our life.
My initiation into yoga started at the age of 17, and it’s always been an ongoing journey of growing the practice on many levels, these days mental and spiritual as much as physical. I started teaching years before receiving a 200-hr yoga teaching certificate from BreathTogether Yoga studio in Los Gatos, CA, and I now lead vigorous vinyasa, gentle yin, or meditation classes at Santosha Yoga in Bethany, Portland.
A certification in the family constellation method allows me to work as a facilitator with groups or individuals. It has recently become an integral part of my counseling services. Underlying currents of different roles we choose to play in life (e.g. a victim or a persecutor) are probably the strongest determining factor in both physical and mental health, and once they are addressed, other therapies seem to work much better and treatment results are deeply satisfying.
These three healing modalities are strong enough to bring about change on their own in any given condition, applying them in combination ensures you will have the most tailored approach to healing the imbalances we all experience at some point in life.