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Monday 10am - 7pm Tuesday 10am - 7pm Wednesday 10am - 7pm Thursday 10am - 7pm Sunday 10am - 7pm

http://linktr.ee/holisticaquila

Holistic Aquila, Soft Soul Studio, Edinburgh (2026)

09/01/2026

s l o w i n g

02/01/2026

Hi, I’m Astrid 🌿

I’m a holistic and somatic therapist supporting people navigating burnout, chronic illness, and trauma recovery.

My work is rooted in somatic therapy, trauma-informed practice, and nervous system regulation, with training in complex PTSD, massage modalities, Reiki, and shamanic practice. I take an integrative approach that honours mind, body, and spirit, helping you feel more connected to yourself your body 🤍

My practice is also shaped by several years working in the mental health sector, including within the NHS and on psychiatric wards. I bring this clinical insight alongside holistic and earth-based ways of healing.

I’m q***r, chronically ill, and in remission from complex PTSD. My lived experience deeply informs my work, how I hold space, and the compassion I bring 🌱

I value community, collective care, and advocating for change. You’ll often find me outdoors, grounding in nature, listening to the land, or with my dog Topaz 🐾 my familiar and constant companion.

I love bridging earth and spirit, weaving the body back into relationship with the natural world, and creating spaces where slowness, support, and authenticity are welcome.

Outside of work you’ll find me in outdoor saunas, swimming in the sea, drinking endless cups of tea, and savouring slow mornings ☕🌊

If you’re new here, you’re very welcome. 🧡

29/12/2025

Glimmers of 2025 ✨

This year has taught me to slow down, to soften into acceptance, and to stop pushing through. There have been so many shed skins, so many quiet and beautiful glimmers, a real meeting with life’s duality: expansion alongside contraction.

I had a very successful start to the year business-wise, through both my holistic work and modelling. I was in a privileged position where I had to turn down more work than I could hold, and that in itself became a lesson in slowing down.

I shared many beautiful spaces, held events and containers, created, connected, spent time in nature, launched somatics, and allowed myself to be deeply moved by community and creativity. It was a big year for business and an equally big year of learning where my edges are.

More than anything, this year has shown me the importance of honouring my health and letting it lead. That’s something I’ll be carrying forward with much more intention.

As we move into the year of the Horse, I’m looking forward to more balance, steadier momentum, and growth that feels sustainable and embodied.

Wishing you all a gentle and beautiful transition into the new year.
All my love,
Astrid 🤍

28/12/2025

For many of us, especially those navigating the world with bodies or minds that don’t fit the neurotypical pace of productivity, rest isn’t optional. It’s a vital part of our healing toolkit. More than that, it’s a part of our survival.

As a neurodivergent and chronically ill somatic therapist, I’ve learned that rest isn’t earned. It’s not a secondary reward after working ourselves into the ground. It’s an innate part of being human, as Tricia Hersey talks about at length in her incredible book Rest is Resistance.

I need to rest.

My work in somatic therapy online, reiki training, and other holistic healing offerings, simply would not be possible without my own rest practice.

Of course, it’s an ongoing exploration - I don’t always make enough time to rest, sometimes life happens, medical admin and other responsibilities pile up and the rest I need can get impacted. That’s life.

But the important thing is that rest is on my radar.
It’s seen as a matter of priority, a must have not just a “nice-to-have.” And this is a big shift in perspective that I support my clients to make too.

It’s a shift that allowed me to take extended time off work over the holiday period to truly deeply rest.
May this upcoming month of January offer you small moments of stillness and hopefully, a budding feeling inside that you truly do deserve to rest. 🌙

24/12/2025

A gentle reminder for the festive season 🤍

This time of year can be difficult for many of us.
Especially if you are living with trauma, chronic illness, neurodivergence or complicated family dynamics.

If you are feeling more tired, more emotional or more on edge than usual, this makes sense.
Your nervous system may be responding to increased demands, memories, expectations, and sensory input.

Here are a few gentle self regulation practices you can come back to 🌿

• Orienting
Slowly look around and name a few things you can see, hear, or feel in your body (if it feels safe to). Let your system know you are here.

• Containment
Place a hand on your chest or belly. Notice the support beneath you.

• Resourcing
Bring to mind a person, place, memory, or sensation that feels steady, comforting, or neutral. Even a small sense of safety is enough.

• Micro rest
Stepping away, lying down, cancelling plans, or doing less than expected is not failure. It is nervous system care.

• Boundaries as regulation
Saying no, leaving early, changing plans, or protecting your energy are valid and necessary forms of self care.

You do not need to push through this season.
You are allowed to move through it slowly, gently, and in your own way.

If this time of year feels hard, you are not alone.
Your nervous system is dealing with change of routine, increased sensory input and potentially navigating all the difficult emotions associated with the festive period. 🙏🏻

22/12/2025

Community care in its truest form 🧡
Wheeled me to the sea at Solstice, cooked me dinner, walked Topaz and held space for me post surgery this weekend with so much ease and love. 8 years of friendship, hundreds of versions of ourselves, and still it feels like home every time.

So grateful for connections that are effortless, unmasked, and deeply safe. 🙏🏻

21/12/2025

Grateful 💛

20/12/2025

This year, I stopped trying to bypass grief and let it become my practice. 🌑✨

This week I had surgery for endometriosis alongside sterilisation.
With it came a deep reckoning with the body I live in. A body that is disabled, chronically ill, and no longer willing to push itself into narratives that were never built for it.

Choosing not to pass on a genetic condition does not mean I am closing the door on motherhood.
It means I am making radical, loving choices.
It means I am redefining what motherhood is. Creativity, care, devotion, legacy, protection, stewardship, and presence.
Grieving one form does not erase the others. 🌱

In the wellness world, I have often been told to think positively, to trust that if I just healed enough, somatically, energetically, spiritually, my body would comply.
But the truth is this. You cannot heal your way out of a genetic condition.
And suggesting otherwise quietly places blame and shame onto bodies that are already carrying so much.

Somatics and energetics have changed my life profoundly.
Not by fixing me, but by teaching me how to be with myself.
How to meet grief instead of overriding it.
How to ritualise it, befriend it, and let it speak.
And how love grows not through force, but through acceptance. 🤍

The deeper I have gone into this work, the more I have stepped outside the expectations of an industry that often rewards productivity, bypassing, and high vibe resilience while excluding disabled bodies and lived reality.
What I am interested in now is harmony, pacing, accessibility, and truth.

This past week post surgery, I have been sitting with everything my body has been holding. Riding the waves, listening, integrating.
Letting grief have a voice.
Letting excitement arrive too.
Welcoming a new chapter that does not require me to abandon myself to belong. 🌊

This is not less than motherhood.
This is not failure.
This is devotion to life as it actually is.

And this is the work I bring into the space with my clients. Spacious, honest, inclusive, and rooted in lived experience.

Grief can be a teacher.
Acceptance can be fertile ground.
And there is so much life waiting on the other side of meeting ourselves fully✨

12/12/2025

From Snake to Horse 🐍🐎
A year of shedding > a year of movement.

If 2025 slowed you down, brought health flare-ups, emotional unraveling, or asked you to let go of ways you once survived -
you weren’t failing.
Your nervous system was asking for safety.

Snake years work quietly and internally:
deep healing, old patterns surfacing, identity shifts that can’t be rushed.

2026 carries Horse energy - not urgency, but supported movement.
Momentum that comes from regulation, not force.
Forward motion that honours your capacity.

I’m stepping into this next chapter with more accessibility, gentleness, and nervous-system-aware support, for my body and for the people I work with.

✨ January sessions + Reiki trainings open
✨ DM “HEALING” for 1:1 support or upcoming offerings

With care,
Astrid 🌿

11/12/2025

Hello loves 🧡
I have a little update to share.

From January, I’ll be moving my in-person work back to in Leith. This decision comes with a full heart, because my time in Portobello has meant so much to me. It was a chapter of healing, slowing down, and rebuilding - and I’m still very close to the studio and the beautiful community there. I’m so grateful for the warmth, support, and space Portobello held for me.

As I prepare for a move and step into a new season, it’s becoming clearer that Soft Soul Studio is the space that aligns most deeply with both my own accessibility needs and the needs of the clients I support.
✨ It’s ground floor
✨ Fully wheelchair accessible
✨ Has a wheelchair accessible bathroom
✨ And offers easier access from my new home location

With more of my work centred around chronic illness, trauma, and nervous system support and with many of my clients having accessibility needs, it feels right to move into a space that reflects the values of inclusivity and ease that are at the heart of my practice.

I’ll be working one day a week back in the studio, with the rest of my offerings continuing to grow online.

✨ My books are officially open for January, and Reiki training inquiries have already begun coming in.
If you’re wanting to begin or deepen your healing journey in the new year, I have a few limited spots available for both trainings and 1:1 support.

DM me “HEALING” for more information.
With love,
Astrid 🌿

06/12/2025

I want to begin by acknowledging that being able to plan some of my work around my menstrual cycle is a privilege. Many people who bleed do not have flexible workplaces, supportive structures, or financial stability that allow rest or cyclical planning. I don’t take this lightly.

We live in a world built around a 24-hour masculine-aligned rhythm - not the shifting 28-day cycles many of us hold in our bodies.
So if you’ve ever felt like you “should” keep the same energy every day… that pressure isn’t coming from your body. It’s coming from the system.

When I do have the capacity and choice, I work with my cycle as an embodiment practice:

🌼 I book my higher-output work around ovulation
🍂 I slow down before my bleed
❄️ I rest more during menstruation
🌸 I follow my natural rise again afterwards

Not perfectly. Not every month. But intentionally.

This isn’t about productivity.
It’s about self-relationship, body trust, and reducing the ways I override my nervous system.

And if full cyclical living isn’t accessible to you (for systemic, financial, work, or caretaker reasons), even small things count:
a softer morning, a gentler expectation, a no instead of a yes, five minutes to breathe.

Your cycle isn’t the problem.
The world we live in makes it harder than it needs to be - and that deserves to be named.

If you want support to reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, or explore cyclical living in a way that respects your reality, my link in bio has ways we can work together 💛

Holistic Aquila

09/01/2026

02/01/2026

29/12/2025

28/12/2025

24/12/2025

22/12/2025

21/12/2025

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Monday	10am - 7pm
Tuesday	10am - 7pm
Wednesday	10am - 7pm
Thursday	10am - 7pm
Sunday	10am - 7pm