Meet Lemia Astarabadi

We were lucky to catch up with Lemia Astarabadi recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lemia, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I had a master’s degree in education, was teaching grades 6-8 math and science, living with a boyfriend of 10 years, and a homeowner in Southern California. Instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, I was extremely unhappy and unsettled. There was something missing in my life, but I didn’t know what it was. I had obeyed the rules and went through all of the “steps” in life that I had been taught to follow in order to be happy and successful, only I didn’t feel that way. One of my sisters lived in New York City, and I went to visit her one summer. I got a massage from a Lomi Lomi practitioner that my sister had gone to and said was amazing and powerful. In 90 minutes, I received a healing experience that felt like several hours. I had visions of painful experiences in my life, I cried, and I even coughed up black tar looking material at one point. It was a life-changing experience that left me with a final vision of my hands on someone in a healing session. I spoke with the therapist after our session, and he told me he learned this technique from a Kahuna elder on the Big Island of Hawaii. This experience shifted me on the inside. It caused me to question my past, my career, my relationship, and my entire life path. Over the next few months, I researched and signed up for the Lomi Lomi training that my therapist had gone to in Hawaii. At the end of the school year, I took a month to learn Lomi Lomi Massage on the Big Island with Auntie Margarette (who has since passed away), her daughter, and a team of amazing and knowledgable people. The course offered so much more than a massage training. We learned about the herbs in Hawaii that are used for healing, how health and emotions are linked to one another, and the importance of a daily forgiveness practice called ho’opono’pono. When I was finished with this course, I sold my home, quit my job, left my relationship, enrolled in massage school, and moved to the beach. My purpose was revealed to me during my Lomi Lomi Massage in New York City. After going to Hawaii and experiencing an even deeper healing through this education experience, there was no doubt that these changes had to happen in order for me to move forward. It was a lot of change at once, but it was the best decision I ever made for my life. This new life path allowed me to face my trauma, heal my heart, and grow into who I was meant to be. By taking a leap of faith in my life, I was able to manifest my greatest dreams. I graduated as a Holistic Health Practitioner, met my future husband, and moved to my dream town across the street from the ocean. This life path led me to another turn of events that got me into a recording studio to sing a song that I wrote. It was out of the blue and unexpected, but ended up being the catalyst to the creation of “The Conscious Groove” music collaboration between myself and my husband to be. By following my heart and staying open to change, a chain of blessings was set off that has helped me to manifest deep heart healing, authentic relationships, and a career I that I truly love and believe I can do good work in. Looking back at that time in my life, I feel so grateful and blessed that I had the courage to try something new and follow through with the questions that my soul had been searching to answer. I truly believe that each of us has a sacred journey to unfold. By always following that pure and authentic sense, instinct, and inner voice of guidance, each of us can live our greatest dreams. Life is not perfect, but it can be so much more enjoyable and healing when we follow the heart and listen to the soul.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My husband and I started our business to help support anyone looking to find their purpose, their healing path, a desire to create major life changes, and a drive to live their truth. After learning many tools in creating this reality for ourselves, we now love to support others in shifting the direction of their lives for the better. For most people, major diseases, divorce, loss, abuse, addiction, neglect, or other challenges tend to push them in the direction of change. When someone comes to us ready to move past their life challenges to start anew, we are thrilled to be there to help them. We offer private sessions, classes, training courses, products, music, and healing techniques that have worked for us and our family, friends, and clients for over 20 years now. Through massage therapy, aromatherapy, yoga therapies, healing live music & recorded albums, vibrational healing/sound baths, energy work, nutritional counseling, plant-based life style coaching, doula services, ministry services, pet care & massage, planetary astrology, and ancient mysticism, we offer our experience, passion, and unique expression to every client that comes to us with their individual needs. It is rewarding to watch someone transmute any limited beliefs or practices into a more expansive and healing direction. We find that there are many doctors, healers, and practitioners in the world, but most of them are not centered in the heart, have not done the work for their own lives, or they have alternative intentions. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in. We tend to get those clients after they have been dragged through the coals with an experience that has left them hopeless and ready to give up. Sometimes in our darkest of days, the most healing answers arrive at that 11th hour. We believe an important part of the healing journey is simply regaining hope and faith in the transformation process. When we believe we can feel whole again, then the possibility of that manifesting grows. Every caterpillar has its moment to enter into their metamorphosis process. It cannot be rushed or forced, but embraced when it is time. We feel honored to be called upon by someone in their darkest hours for support through their own personal alchemy. When we are living in truth, following the heart, speaking out against wrong-doing, standing up for ourselves, and our intentions are purely guided by Love, then we find ourselves in the flow and on the path of our destiny. When we all get to the place where we are ready to step into our personal destinies, then the world becomes a product of this passionate healing journey. Life becomes more peaceful, and the focus turns to serving humanity and the greater good instead of our own personal agendas. A kind, peaceful, compassionate, Loving, and giving world is a place where everyone and everything can grow and thrive. This is our ultimate driving force. We wish to be part of the “change we wish to see in this amazing world”, by helping ourselves and others live our highest destiny for the greatest good of all living beings.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Truth, Integrity, and humility are three areas that we find vital to live by in all fields of work, but especially in holistic health. People come to a holistic health practitioner to help them work on their mental, emotional, and physical disharmonies with a more natural approach. They are vulnerable and searching for guidance through a source that has their best interest in mind. Practitioners who have done this work on themselves have had the best results when helping others because they can relate to the journey, and they tend to be more humble, compassionate, and understanding. This is quite different than someone who preys on the emotionally wounded in order to create an emotional dependency that serves to manipulate people for money. We have personally experienced two different holistic communities where integrity was lacking, and lies, manipulation, and control were used abusively for money and power. They were both extremely painful experiences that taught us how a lack of integrity tends to lead to the misuse of trust. Integrity and trust are the foundations for success in this work, and without them, there is nothing strong enough to sustain growth over time. There is a path of ego and a path of humility, and the ego tends to be self-serving while humility tends to lean more towards honoring a greater connection between all living beings. When we can be honest with ourselves and others, say what we mean and mean what we say, and understand how we are all united and equally important as sentient beings, then we have a much greater capacity to hold space for anyone and everyone who seeks our help.

It is best to be true to the self by investing in knowing oneself on a deeper level. Whether it is through journaling, meditation, breath work, or a personal self-study, when we truly know who we are, it is much easier to be humble and honest with ourselves and others because we understand how imperfect we are. By understanding the self, it is much easier to understand others and meet them where they are on the journey. I also believe that unless we have faced our own shadows, pains, abuses, or most difficult life challenges, then we will not be able to help others move through theirs. Simply said, we cannot help anyone else when we have not yet helped ourselves. Each soul has an inner wound from life’s challenges that is yearning to be healed. We either hold it all inside and walk around wounded and broken, or we face it, listen to it, learn from it, let it go, and then use the wisdom from that experience as a super power to help others. Those who enter holistic health have most commonly had something to overcome that has served as a catalyst to helping others. That is a common door of entry to this field of work. It is apparent when someone has skipped this step. The work can only go as deep as we go in our own lives. This is true in any field, but especially this one. By investing the time and energy needed to confront the darkness within, we are also investing in our ability to hold space for others to do the same.

Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?

Our ideal clients have a genuine desire to heal, to change, or shift something in their lives for the better.
They usually have a willingness to go deep, and are not afraid to confront those darker areas of the subconscious to “clean house” and transform. These clients have the ability to look at their own shadows and point out the areas needing change without fear. Because they have gotten to the point where they are no longer hiding from the Truth, it is much easier to be honest about what is most challenging, and then take the initiative to make the necessary changes to move forward. They are truly wanting to heal themselves, and there is no road too challenging to cross in order to get to that place. To heal oneself, the client must have the will-power to do the work it takes to follow through with the plan of action that they have agreed upon. A strong will-power is key in simply having the desire to shift one’s life. As practitioners and therapists, we can never do the work for our clients. We do not believe we can be “healers” for others because we are all on our own healing journeys. When someone “heals” us, they are doing the deeper work for us. This just pushes our challenges into the future to be dealt with at a later date and time, like cutting fruit off of a tree that will grow more fruit in the next season. We end up right back where we started, instead of actually healing the problem at the level of the seed. There can be times when this is the most beneficial, temporary approach, but for true healing and transformation to occur, the client must walk through their own fire. When we get approached by people with this will-power to grow, it is a great blessing for us as practitioners. Our true passion comes in helping those who are ready to help themselves. It is so much easier to see results when our clients are following their healing protocols consistently – whether they are dietary practices, exercises, meditation practices, sleep schedules, aromatherapy protocols, affirmations, or other protocols they have been advised to follow. We are humbly grateful to help those who are willing to do the work and follow through with their commitment to helping themselves.

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