HORÓ Psychotherapy - Aleksandra Staneva, PhD

25/11/2025

One of the things I felt like doing for my birthday this year was to see ‘If I Had Legs, I’d Kick you’ with a bunch of friends, and have a discussion about it. (Some spoilers coming up)

It is a film about a therapist and mother who is completely overwhelmed by the chaos of family life, starring the fantastic Rose Byrne.

After the movie my friends and I sat around talking about it, and what really stayed with me was how unusual it felt to watch a story where the focus was actually on the mother. Full focus! Zoomed in on her experience Not the child, whose face was not shown until the very last scene, not the partner, not the “role” of motherhood, but the woman herself.

It made me realise how rarely we get to see a mother’s inner world shown honestly. We talk so much about mothering, but hardly ever about the psychological experience of the mother as a person in her own right. This film gave her space: her frustration, her tenderness, her anger, her exhaustion, her humour, her moments of disappearing and reappearing.

From a Jungian point of view, it touched on the deeper layers of the mother figure. Not the perfect Mother that society expects, but the real one who has a shadow too, the parts that feel trapped, resentful, scared, lost. It showed how easy it is for a woman to be swallowed by the idea of “being a good mother” and how that can disconnect her from her own sense of self. As well as some truly real challenges mothers experience in their hopelessness and inabilities to “know what to do” when often - there are simply no answers to this.

The film puts the mother’s experience front and centre, which as I said - is quite radical. We see just how much society expects women to carry emotionally, practically, and constantly. The father or male presence barely appears, not because she needs him, but because the story refuses to give men the spotlight. As a matter of fact there’s no healthy masculine present. The way I saw the father appear at the end was actually the mother’s own helpful inner Animus energy, much needed for her inner resolution.

Have you seen the film? What are your thoughts?

Aleks

23/11/2025

06/11/2025

Another Mother-centered film! I am thrilled to see it!

04/11/2025

Shadow work is not glamorous. It’s not neat. It’s not fancy or pleasant or cute. It’s not instagram-worthy and it’s never ending. Can’t put a pin on it. Or a nice ribbon of completion.

It’s tiring. It’s sticky. Uncomfortable. Shame-inducing. Nauseating. It is also INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT sacred soulwork.

What is Shadow Work
Shadow work is the sacred art of walking into the dark with a candle in hand. It is the journey to the places inside us we have banished or forgotten. The Shadow holds what we have been told not to be: our grief, our rage, our hunger, our wild knowing. When we meet these hidden parts with tenderness instead of fear, we recover the lost pieces of our soul and remember the fullness of who we are.

⸻

Why it Matters

1. It restores power
What we deny does not disappear. It waits beneath the surface and pulls the strings from the dark. Meeting the Shadow frees the life force trapped in fear and shame and returns it to our hands as creativity and strength.

2. It brings wholeness
To love only the light is to live half a life. When we welcome the dark, we become complete. The soul longs to be seen in its entirety, not edited to please or perform. Wholeness is born when we can say yes to all that we are.

3. It deepens love and truth
Unseen Shadow makes us judge, project, and repeat old wounds. Seen Shadow softens us. It humbles and awakens us. It allows us to meet others and life itself with greater compassion, honesty, and depth.

“ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SHADOW” is a Women Circle I will hold on February 23rd at

10 spots only

📧 horoforwomen@gmail.com

04/11/2025

This is what’s currently happening (and for a bit - not happening 💤) at HORÓ in the next few months.

04/11/2025

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE SHADOW: the GOLD inside the DARK
Monday, February 23rd, 2026
5.30–7.30pm
at HORÓ Psychotherapy, Annerley
Cost: $199 | Only 10 spots

⸻

HERE SHE IS, cloaked in mystery and power. The Dark Goddess, the keeper of the underworld within.

She does not whisper sweet words of comfort. She calls you deeper. She asks you to look where you have not dared to look before.
SHE IS REJECTED AND PUSHED OUTSIDE OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS 🌖

This is an evening of descent and awakening, where we meet the Dark Goddess as the sacred guide into our own Shadow. The parts we hide, deny, or judge are the very places where our life force, creativity, and truth are buried.
Together we will enter sacred circle and
• Meet and embody your Dark Goddess archetype
• Encounter what has been repressed or feared
• Reclaim your power, vitality, and creative fire - and all her secret gifts

This will be a deeply embodied experience of shadow work through Archetypal exploration, Invocation, and inner process. You will be guided safely into the terrain where transformation begins.

As always, spaces are very limited to keep our circle intimate and safe.

⸻

🖤🤎Come dressed in BLACK and/or GOLD, the colors of the Dark Goddess 🤎🖤

Booking details
📧 horoforwomen@gmail.com

Strictly limited to 10 participants.
For more information: horoforwomen@gmail.com
More about Aleksandra: www.aleksandrastaneva.com
Artwork by Sarah Bogh

03/11/2025

You don’t have to “bring something” to therapy.
So many of us feel pressure to arrive prepared, with a dream, a crisis, or something meaningful to unpack.
But therapy isn’t a performance.

The moments when you feel blank, tired, or “have nothing to bring” are often the most honest. They reveal the part of you that learned long ago: I must produce to deserve attention.

In truth, you don’t need to bring anything.
You are the material.
Your silence, fatigue, numbness, confusion all of it belongs.

When we let ourselves arrive empty, something deeper can begin to speak.

Sometimes the most transformative sessions start with: “I don’t know what to talk about today.”

Just show up.

Warmly,
Aleksandra 🤍

27/10/2025

Lately I have been immersed in an advanced depth psychology studies on Jungian Shadow work, the deep, disciplined kind that asks us to face what we would rather not see. As part of this work, I watched the Netflix series ’Monster: The Ed Gein Story’ as a case study through a Jungian lens.

Reflections on Shadow work through the series Monster: the Ed Gein story

19/10/2025

Abre la puerta! Open the door!🚪
On seeking safety in sameness

We rarely think of sameness as dangerous. Familiar routines, predictable relationships, the quiet repetition of what we already know. These things feel like safety. They ask nothing new of us. They keep us steady. They keep the heart carefully guarded.

But what feels safe is not always what gives life.

Sameness often becomes a hidden defence, a shield we do not realise we are carrying. We repeat emotional patterns that once protected us, even when they now confine us.

We stay with what is familiar, even when it no longer nourishes us.
We choose people who awaken the same ache, because the ache is known.
We shrink our needs to avoid disappointment.
We hold tightly to control and call it strength.
We mistake stillness for peace when it is really a fear of feeling.

Sameness whispers to the nervous system: you survived this before, you will survive it again. But survival is not the same as living. Emotional repetition is rarely harmless. We return to what we know to avoid what feels unbearable: the grief of what never was, the tenderness of longing, the risk of being truly seen.

To step out of sameness is not easy. It requires courage to enter the unknown. To feel again. To let the frozen places thaw. Our defences were formed for a reason. They once saved us. They helped us endure. But what once protected us may now be what keeps us small.

Real safety does not come from repetition. It comes from connection, honesty, and the willingness to meet life as it is. It grows slowly, through presence. It requires us to risk something new.

Sameness may feel safe, but it is a room without windows. Growth asks us to open a door we have kept closed for too long. And somewhere beyond that door is the quiet beginning of freedom.

Are you ready to open the door?

Yours in curiosity,
Aleksandra