Many sensitive, smart people desire to step away from chronic stress and overwhelm to create more meaning and purpose.

Often this means learning to slow down and rest, and also becoming aware of our unique nature, to make better choices.
Sensitive touch and body-mind awareness offered by Craniosacral practice supports true rest and health on all levels.
Insights from astrology helps us know ourselves more intimately, and what kinds of actions will best support our thriving.

Craniosacral Practice
& Astrological Coaching

with Raka Tavasmi

Hello, welcome!
I work with sensitive people who wish to be more at ease in their own skin. Most of us are not supported to know ourselves, nor to slow down and rest - the world is frequently pushing and pulling us out of what is important. I work with people who are wanting to live with more respect for their own soulful nature.Part of my work is with the therapeutic touch of craniosacral practice, to help access deep rest, spaciousness, and engage the natural healing capacities of the body. The other part is astrology-based coaching, to help you understand more of who you are so you can make choices that are good for you.Read about the people I often work with and my general approach.Have a look around, and be in touch for further information.

EAST LOTHIAN
and ONLINE

Offerings

I work with people who wish to find a greater sense of rest and vitality in the body, and express more of what is important to them. My practice includes subtle touch and dialogue to support restfulness, vitality and self-understanding. We are each complex, and I welcome our multiplicity - in both our personal qualities and experiences, and also our social place in the world.I offer craniosacral touch and astrology-based coaching. I am always learning and will use any of my skills that can usefully help you.

We work collaboratively, as partners, where my role is to assist you. Read about the people I often work with and a bit about me.See links above for one-to-one sessions I offer.
Or read about my overall working approach.

Slowing down & remembering ourselves

My general working approach

Many of us are exhausted and overly stressed - be it from the impact of the recent lockdowns, ongoing social and environmental crises, pressures of productivity, along with our personal life challenges and complicated histories.Under these conditions there is a tendency to get overwhelmed and disconnected from the body, making us anxious, fearful, thinking very fast, unable to take decisions and actions towards what is good. Our inner gifts, sensitivities, genuine needs and desires can get buried under this onslaught. Pain and other symptoms do not get a chance to heal when the body cannot find any ease and rest. From the perspective of neurobiology and trauma, we could say that some of us get stuck on fight, flight or freeze responses, and cannot truly relax. This also means our life energy is stuck in survival mode and we cannot express our creativity.When we learn to slow down and connect to our natural rhythms, new possibilities can emerge. This is the gift craniosacral practice offers us. The simplicity of genuine rest, subtle touch and spacious connection allows the body and mind to rebalance. Vital energy can then start to free up and be expressed in healthy ways.Complementing this body awareness and inner balancing, astrology offers us a powerful doorway to know ourselves at a deep level. We get to see what we are made of, what life is asking from us, our opportunities and challenges. This multi-dimensional language helps us see ourselves and others with more compassion and depth. As we come to understand the symbols in our personal astrology, questions and themes emerge which lead us to think differently and make better strategies for action. The gift of evolutionary astrology is to live with more respect for soul.These practices I offer support you to be more at ease in your skin, as the complex, creative being that you are. They also reclaim life energy stolen by the excessive speediness and mechanical nature of modern society. It can be a beautiful, quiet rebellion.

Session Information

For craniosacral sessionsIn Humbie, East LothianThese are one-to-one sessions with subtle touch and dialogue. We work with you as a whole person, and your priorities for health in the current moment. This work is about slowing down and paying attention, making more space for ourselves to listen. I draw on learnings from neuroscience, trauma studies, coaching psychology, craniosacral energetics, meditation and more. In sessions most people experience deeper rest and awareness, some symptoms dissolve quite quickly and others take more time and other supports.Treatments take place sitting or lying on a treatment couch. Dress in comfortable fabrics please. The effect can be powerful so I suggest choosing a time when you can rest afterwards. The work builds gradually over time, so it helps to have multiple sessions no less than 2 weeks apart.

Each session is for 60 to 90 mins.
The cost is £50 to £70, please choose the amount that suits you.Occasional sessions available in Edinburgh, Broughton Street.

Session Information

For astrology conversationsIn Humbie, East Lothian, or online video calls.These meetings are most useful when you wish to know yourself better, and have an area of your life that you would like to have deeper insight into. We will look at the symbols in your personal astrology and see what it reveals about you, and what supports your thriving.Our horoscope holds a lot of information about us. It is the story of us in this embodied life, literally a picture of the sky at the time we were born. It invites us to respond to life in very particular ways, and understand ourselves as the complex beings we are. This then opens up new ways of seeing ourselves and new options.We will be in conversation throughout this meeting, it is dialogue between us and your astrological chart. I use a holistic coaching perspective, to both share what I learn from your chart, and help you discover what is right for you.I will need your birth time as precise as possible. It takes time to study the information, so I ask for £50 in advance when you book your session.Cost of the first meeting of 2 hours is £95.
Further meetings cost £50 to £70 per hour, please choose the amount that suits you.Contact me to find out more.

About you & Me

Read below about the people I tend to work with, or go here to learn more about me.

You

Many of the people I work well with are sensitive folk who struggle with their body symptoms, wish to know genuine rest, and express something important to them. Many symptoms can soften or dissolve when we can learn to slow down and listen to the deeper story of the body (and mind). Certain kinds of attention and touch are very supportive to facilitate this.You may want the immediate relief of deep rest and maybe also the longer-term project of learning new skills to be with your body and feelings.You may be interested in creative self-expression. It may be that a lot of your energy is spent in managing symptoms, and there is a longing to create more of what you love. You want to make choices and take action in ways that are meaningful to you.You may have interests in psycho-spiritual tools, or at least an openness to them. The key for you is if they help you make sense of things and improve your understanding of yourself, so that you can make things better.People I work with have often found themselves out of sync with the social norms of the groups they are born into or live in. There can be a lot of pressure to conform which makes symptoms worse or causes them in the first place. You may be somebody who longs to be yourself and also have healthy supportive, relationships.

I alone must become myself,
I cannot become myself alone.
- J. Pittman McGhee


About Raka Tavasmi

As a practitioner my focus is on assisting others to find ease in the body, become more aware of their unique nature and make choices that are beneficial. I like to use tools and ideas from science and wisdom traditions.

I am trained in craniosacral practices (a subtle way of working with touch and the nervous system), transformational coaching (to help people make good choices), and mind-body practices including gentle yoga and meditation. I love learning about our deeper nature, which brought me to many years of astrology study. Contemporary Buddhist training also influences my thinking.I have degrees in philosophy and cognitive science, and worked in psychology research before retraining in the healing arts and sciences. While in research I studied unsual minds - people who perceive the world differently, eg. those who are faceblind or synaesthetes. I maintain an interest in unusual minds.

Years of difficult body symptoms led me to learn about mind-body connections. I started yoga and other movement practices in 2006, completed my craniosacral training in 2017 and continue to learn about trauma and living in a body.Astrology caught my attention in a book shop in 2007, and I started discovering its immense wisdom. Respectfully read, it emphasises self-understanding, growth and choice. I primarily work with 'evolutionary' astrology.I grew up in India and live in Scotland; my experiences of immigration and multiple cultures impacts all aspects of my life including how I work. I enjoy working with people from varied social backgrounds, and my clients have often been 'outsiders' in different ways.

I believe each of us is wanting to be more in our own skin, a continuous process of coming into oneself, living from our own unique centre with dignity.

Contact

If you would like to know more or arrange an appointment, please get in touch.
I will get back to you as soon as I can.I work in the Humbie area of East Lothian, and online.