Kristina Kastelanac - Enrol

Body Wise Insights

ENROLMENT PERIOD CLOSED

Enrolment opens again

Fall 2019

Learn how to listen to your body’s story; to clear the obstacles in your nervous system that keep you bound to the same thoughts, emotions and symptoms that hold you back from expressing and being your Truest Self.

Learn how to listen to your body’s story; to clear the obstacles in your nervous system that keep you bound to the same thoughts, emotions and symptoms that hold you back from expressing and being your Truest Self.

• You have served others in your work, in your relationships, and in your family for years. On one hand it has been a joy, and you have gained a lot being other people’s rock, but you are ready to start putting yourself higher on the totem pole.

• Maybe your kids have grown up and moved out and you are looking at retiring, or at least slowing down.  

• Perhaps your kids are still little and you don’t have much time and space for yourself, but you know that if you don’t take care of yourself then you can’t be the kind of mom, partner, woman that you want to be.

• Things have happened in the past and it feels like they have impacted you physically, mentally, emotionally and things always seem to be the same; the same thoughts, the same emotions and same behavioural patterns.  

• Lately it even feels like things have gotten more challenging. You were always able to keep up with things before, but lately your energy is dragging, and your symptoms seem to be getting more consistent, persistent or more intense.

• Your physical body seems to be impacted by past, or daily, stressors and doesn’t seem to recover completely.  

• You are noticing your body’s dissatisfaction, but you don’t really know how you can change it. • You eat as well as you can, and exercise when you can, and maybe even meditate or go to health professionals and all of this is helpful in some ways, but you want to know how you can help to support your own body’s healing. 

• There is this vague sense that something is missing, or not fully connected within you. You need support to grow this connection within yourself. • You need support in ‘clearing the waters’, so to speak, so that you can move away from the recurring cycles of worry, judgement, fear, and anxiety that seem to re-occur with no obvious cause. This sluggishness manifests physically too; tension, headaches, lack of energy and flow, struggles with digestion and hormones. • You want to see your body move from this state of lack and struggle, to one of flow and vitality.  

How do you get yourself out of the stuckness and start to flow, and be more of who you know you are meant to be?  

My name is Kristina Kastelanac and I have been practicing as a Naturopathic Doctor for over 9 years. I am also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, which has been a part of my practice for over 5 years. I am a mother of two little girls and I know first-hand how hard it is to find harmony amongst all the roles and facets in life. I also know how imperative it is for me to keep myself healthy and to restore my health, so that I can be more available for my kids, my partner and my patients. As an ND I have had the honor of supporting many women on their healing journeys and I have come to realize that a HUGE key to healing is to learn about the stress response and how it contributes to our state of health; to develop an EXPERIENTIAL understanding that the BODY constantly wants to heal the stuck fight, flight, and freeze patterns that are locked in the nervous system and in our tissues. I have seen how empowering it can be to gain insight into how these stuck patterns are triggered by daily life, but also how these tendencies can be re-patterned.

I see how we struggle with repetitive thoughts that suck us into a cascade of emotions and sensations that then create a whole host of symptoms downstream:

  • from menstrual challenges,  
  • to perimenopausal symptoms,  
  • to digestive disturbances,  
  • anxiety, and mood swings.  

Most of us feel these symptoms, but we don’t know what the root cause is. We simply feel stuck in the cycle. We keep doing the same things that we have always done, because they are familiar to us and they are all that we know. Yet, we all have this drive for more harmony within our body and mind. 

The good news is that we can encourage this movement toward harmony! 


Your life essence and truest self, want to take you there!  

If you can learn to: 

  • track sensations in your body,  
  • ride the waves of activation and deactivation in your nervous system,  
  • sense into the good stuff of life,  


your body may grow in its innate ability to rest, digest, heal, and bond.  

• You have served others in your work, in your relationships, and in your family for years. On one hand it has been a joy, and you have gained a lot being other people’s rock, but you are ready to start putting yourself higher on the totem pole.

• Maybe your kids have grown up and moved out and you are looking at retiring, or at least slowing down.  

• Perhaps your kids are still little and you don’t have much time and space for yourself, but you know that if you don’t take care of yourself then you can’t be the kind of mom, partner, woman that you want to be.

• Things have happened in the past and it feels like they have impacted you physically, mentally, emotionally and things always seem to be the same; the same thoughts, the same emotions and same behavioural patterns.  

• Lately it even feels like things have gotten more challenging. You were always able to keep up with things before, but lately your energy is dragging, and your symptoms seem to be getting more consistent, persistent or more intense.

• Your physical body seems to be impacted by past, or daily, stressors and doesn’t seem to recover completely.  

• You are noticing your body’s dissatisfaction, but you don’t really know how you can change it. • You eat as well as you can, and exercise when you can, and maybe even meditate or go to health professionals and all of this is helpful in some ways, but you want to know how you can help to support your own body’s healing. 

• There is this vague sense that something is missing, or not fully connected within you. You need support to grow this connection within yourself. • You need support in ‘clearing the waters’, so to speak, so that you can move away from the recurring cycles of worry, judgement, fear, and anxiety that seem to re-occur with no obvious cause. This sluggishness manifests physically too; tension, headaches, lack of energy and flow, struggles with digestion and hormones. • You want to see your body move from this state of lack and struggle, to one of flow and vitality.  

How do you get yourself out of the stuckness and start to flow, and be more of who you know you are meant to be?  

My name is Kristina Kastelanac and I have been practicing as a Naturopathic Doctor for over 9 years. I am also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, which has been a part of my practice for over 5 years. I am a mother of two little girls and I know first-hand how hard it is to find harmony amongst all the roles and facets in life. I also know how imperative it is for me to keep myself healthy and to restore my health, so that I can be more available for my kids, my partner and my patients. As an ND I have had the honor of supporting many women on their healing journeys and I have come to realize that a HUGE key to healing is to learn about the stress response and how it contributes to our state of health; to develop an EXPERIENTIAL understanding that the BODY constantly wants to heal the stuck fight, flight, and freeze patterns that are locked in the nervous system and in our tissues. I have seen how empowering it can be to gain insight into how these stuck patterns are triggered by daily life, but also how these tendencies can be re-patterned.

I see how we struggle with repetitive thoughts that suck us into a cascade of emotions and sensations that then create a whole host of symptoms downstream:

  • from menstrual challenges,  
  • to perimenopausal symptoms,  
  • to digestive disturbances,  
  • anxiety, and mood swings.  

Most of us feel these symptoms, but we don’t know what the root cause is. We simply feel stuck in the cycle. We keep doing the same things that we have always done, because they are familiar to us and they are all that we know. Yet, we all have this drive for more harmony within our body and mind. 

The good news is that we can encourage this movement toward harmony! 


Your life essence and truest self want to take you there!  

If you can learn to: 

  • track sensations in your body,  
  • ride the waves of activation and deactivation in your nervous system,  
  • sense into the good stuff of life,  


your body may grow in its innate ability to rest, digest, heal, and bond.  

Body Wise Insights: The Power of the Nervous System is an 8-week online Healing Intensive that teaches you how to build body awareness, track sensations and learn about your fight, flight, and freeze response patterns. It offers tools on how to allow your body to renegotiate these stuck stress responses, so that you can be a more embodied woman. This course is predominantly an experiential one, but it also offers instructive teachings on the nervous system, the vagus nerve, and the polyvagal theory (all of which is very helpful information when getting to understand your nervous system more consciously).

What you'll learn and how you'll grow:

You’ll learn about the physiology of the nervous system and its fight, flight, and freeze response.

You'll build your body awareness and awareness around your own INDIVIDUAL fight, flight, and freeze response patterns.

You’ll develop skills and tools on how to unwind the stuck fight, flight, and freeze in your nervous system.

By building awareness and unwinding the stress response, people tend to feel more present and in their bodies, more available for connection to themselves and to others, so that they can participate in life more fully. 

As you build your ability to tolerate the good stuff of life, the body tends to settle into a rest, digest, heal, and bond state more often. This gives the body more opportunity to heal and to repair those things that have become unbalanced due to being stuck in a fight, flight, freeze pattern.

The stuck patterns of thoughts, emotions, and sensations tend to shift, change, and transform.

There tends to be more connection to your own sense of power and knowing. This leads to steady change that can be integrated into your body and into your life. 

As you practice, learn, heal and grow, you tend to be able to ride the waves of life with more grace and ease and they tend to feel less intense and less frequent.

Body Wise Insights 

Healing Intensives 

(NOW AVAILABLE)

Phase 1 

The Power of the Nervous System.

Learn how to listen to your body’s story; to clear the obstacles in your nervous system that keep you bound to the same thoughts, emotions, and symptoms that hold you back from expressing your Truest self.

(coming soon)

Phase 2 

The Power of Your Inner Knowing.

Learn how to listen to your intuition, to gain clarity and insight into your body’s symptoms.

(coming soon)

Phase 3 

The Power of Holistic Medicine – as it works within your body.

Learning to apply holistic medicines, like Traditional Chinese Medicine, Biotherapeutic Drainage and Ayurvedic Medicine, to your body.

Body Wise Insights Healing Intensive Phase 1: The Power of the Nervous System


  • Content is released over 8 weeks, in four modules. Each week contains a series of instructional videos, as well as a series of practice audios. Each week contains PowerPoint presentations and each module has optional worksheets to solidify your learning.  


  • There will be a total of five 60-minute Q and A webinars spread out over the 8 weeks so that you can get your questions answered. 


  • You will have lifetime access to the material for a minimum of 1 year and for as long as the program exists. I anticipate it will run for many years to come, as supporting others on their healing journey is my truest and deepest passion. 


  • You will have access to all future Q and A webinars as you continue to work and refine your skill of listening to your body. 


  • There will be a community of support though a private Facebook group where you can share your questions, insights, and triumphs with others that are also learning how to trust their body’s healing ability. 


The Curriculum 

Module 1 (Weeks 1 and 2): The Power of Noticing 

We work on: 

  • Building awareness of sensations. 
  • Tracking those sensations and learning about them. 
  • Building awareness of your response to stress (threat) and your response to rest and digest through observing and tracking thoughts, emotions, sensations, images and body movements.  


Module 2 (Week 3 and 4): The Power of the Nervous System

We Learn about: 

  • The nervous system and hormonal system’s response to threat (stress) vs. safety (calm).
  • The neuroscience of the polyvagal theory and how it relates to your life.
  • How to ride your waves of activation, how to build your ability to deactivate your stress response and encourage your BODY’S own healing response.
  • You’ll learn tools, and practice ways to work with the charge of the fight, flight and freeze responses, so that you can re-negotiate those patterns of stress.


Week 5: Interlude

  • This is a vital week of settling, integration and crystallization. 
  • Space to practice what needs to be more thoroughly integrated and embodied. 


Module 3 (Week 6): The Power of Following the Body

  • We work on: 
  • Growing your ability to track your sensations and noticing your body as you move into your relaxation response. Slowly growing your ability to tolerate the challenging stuff, because you feel more empowered and trust your body’s organic healing response. 
  • Learning more about your waves of activation, and deepening the experience of deactivation and calm. 
  • Beginning to learn about the interconnectedness in the body and how to navigate it.


Module 4 (Week 7): The Power of Going Slow

Where we learn:

  • The value in slowing down so that your nervous system can have an opportunity to process and repair.
  • About how your body shifts and releases as you move into the rest, digest, heal and bond state. 
  • With deactivation we learn how to notice what your body does to correct the compensations it has had to make due to stress and trauma.
  • To notice the change your system has already experienced, since the beginning of the program, and to learn more about your nervous system’s unique expression.


Week 8: Interlude

  • This is a vital week of settling, integration and crystallization. 
  • Space to practice what needs to be more thoroughly integrated and embodied. 
  • Wrap up and final reflections and experiential audios.


Bonus!

If you decide to pay in full you will have the option of receiving: 

  • Two, one-on-one, 30-minute consults with me.  
  • The first will be in week 1, where we discuss your intentions and hopes, and create a roadmap for you.  
  • The second 30-minute consult will be as the program wraps up in week 8, where we hone in on the transformation that has taken place and provide next step objectives.  

What You’ll Receive…..  

  • 11 Instructional videos that take you on a step by step journey into your body.


  • 17 Deeply experiential audios that provide an opportunity to build your awareness of sensation, renegotiate stuck patterns, and build internal resources.


  • 14 PowerPoint presentations to accompany your learning, and worksheets for each module to enrich and solidify your experience.


  • 5 Live 60-minute Support calls to help you integrate and refine what you’ve been working on.


  • 2 Live 60-minute bonus sessions with experts in this field of mind body healing.


  • Lifetime access to all of the course material for as long as the program exists (a minimum of one year).


  • Access to a private online community in the form of a Facebook group, where we can grow, heal and transform together.


  • Access to past call recordings so you can always go back and explore more.


100% money back guarantee If you work through the material for module one (completing weeks 1 and 2 and attend both 60-minute webinars) and feel like there is no shift, and that this is not for you, then you can ask for a full refund (up until day 14 of the course). As long as you have participated in the first two webinars and listened to the material, tried the audios and completed your worksheets. If you do this and still feel the course is not supportive to your healing journey, then we will gladly refund your investment.  

Meet your Facilitator

Kristina Kastelanac BHSc., ND, SEP. Dr. Kristina has been practicing Naturopathic Medicine since 2010. She considers the core naturopathic principles of “identify and treat the root cause”, and “the healing power of nature”, as guideposts on her journey to discover what best supports her patients’ healing and recovery. Dr. Kristina is extremely passionate about treating the “root cause”, which inspired her to receive additional training as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and as a Medical Intuitive. In practice, she also uses the core naturopathic modalities of acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy, nutrition and supplementation.  

Dr. Kristina sees the body as a powerful web of interconnected systems functioning on many levels (the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual). She views symptoms as the body’s way to communicate with us. She listens to the body’s story and she invites others to do the same. In her experience, the body is capable of great healing, when given the right conditions to do so. “It is the body that does the healing work; we just need to support it with natural remedies and by encouraging the parasympathetic state. My goal is to work with people to help guide and empower them to live a more balanced and healthier life.”  

Frequently asked questions 


How is this different from mindfulness?

It is similar to mindfulness in that you are noticing your environment and your body in the present moment. However, the focus goes beyond simply being present. It involves tracking, observing and being curious about how your body organically and spontaneously responds to what you are observing in the world around you and within yourself. 

This process specifically explores your physiological response to a threat, versus your response to safety. It helps a person develop awareness around how they respond to transitions between activation (fight, flight, freeze) and deactivation (rest and digest). Building this awareness can facilitate a resilience in the nervous system and the stress response that allows you the opportunity to work through past hardships/traumas that are still held in the body. 

 


How is this different, or the same as, meditation?

Although meditation and mindfulness both build your awareness, settle the mind and acknowledge the body, they often place breath, mantra work, or affirmations into the practice. Where the skills that you build here encourage you to listen to what your individual nervous system needs, moment to moment. For example, your body may spontaneously twitch or shake when you are in a state of tension or nervousness. Or perhaps a feeling of sadness and disconnection prompts an image of needing a hug from your mother. Imagining this hug, and sensing into it, can allow your nervous system to renegotiate and repair this pattern of sadness and disconnection. You are watching for what your body needs on a deep level, and allowing it to receive that which it did not get at some crucial moment in the past.

Through this work we are asking a vital question: What does your unique nervous system need to renegotiate stuck patterns and repair itself? Through this work we are encouraging your body’s unique and individual discovery of what would bring regulation and harmony. You are tracking your fight, flight, and rest/digest responses and, over time, discovering exactly how your body wants to create health and regulation. You are learning how to trust your body and engage with it in a deeper way.  



What if I can’t feel a lot of sensations? Would this still benefit me?

Awareness of sensation is a skill that you build. This is the perfect place to practice this skill. Most of us have never been encouraged to listen to our body’s prompts. As you are introduced to this technique it will feel foreign, unfamiliar and perhaps very few sensations will arrive. You have access to this course for as long as it exists (a minimum of a year from sign up). So as you practice, you will evolve. More and more sensations will float into your conscious awareness, where we can work with them. We address this in the course specifically by offering tools to support you in developing this skill.  

 


I can never settle my mind enough to feel my body! Maybe only after I exercise, do I actually feel calm in my mind. Can this still benefit me?

This course is a great way to build new patterns of noticing the body, instead of noticing the mind. As you practice the exercises (audio recordings) in the course you learn to call out your thoughts and notice what happens in the body. When we track the effects that our thoughts have on our body, we can actually work with what the thoughts are generating. It is a powerful way to address recurring thoughts, or emotional patterns. By oscillating between the mind and the body we are rewiring our habit patterns. We begin to learn what our thoughts and emotions are really trying to convey to us, and what they are connected to (i.e past events). 

I have found that if there is a high flight response in the body, the mind tends to be very active. If we engage the flight response and help to renegotiate the patterns through the body, over time, you can settle into the body’s promptings and experiences more easily. As the charge of the flight response diminishes throughout the body, then our mind can also settle.  

 


What if I feel numb, hopeless, and disconnected from my body? Could this be helpful for me?

Disconnection, or feelings of hopelessness and numbness may arrive in our bodies from time to time. The fact that you are aware of this is encouraging. You would likely need to make sure you have adequate support in your life before you were to embark on this journey. You would likely need support from your healthcare team, family and friends. It would be vital to build connection and resources externally, so that it can support the building of connection internally, as well.  

As long as you have one on one support, and resources to call upon as needed, this course could be a great adjunct as you slowly come back into your body and thaw what may be a freeze response. All of us have this freeze response in us, in certain situations, and at certain times. It is a physiological function of survival. However, as long as you are not stuck here a majority of the time, and as long as you have access to times when you do feel connected, expanded, settled and present, then this course can help the nervous system unwind (or thaw) these patterns.  



I feel so angry and irritated most of the time, but it is so much worse around my period. Is this just hormones or can exploring this course help my irritability?

The body is interconnected. Addressing this fight response via the nervous system may support the healing of hormonally driven symptoms, but we often need added support. Working with an Naturopathic Doctor or a health professional to support liver metabolism, and address hormonal imbalance can be helpful, alongside this sort of nervous system work. As we renegotiate the stuck fight response it may help to reach deeper layers of why this irritability is coming up.



What if I try this out and it does not resonate with me?

If you work through the material for module one (completing weeks 1 and 2 and attending the 60 minute webinar for both weeks) and feel like there is no shift, and that this is not for you, then you can ask for a full refund (up until day 14 of the course). It is wonderful to try new things, but if it does not feel like the right fit then trust yourself. I will honour this self-trust and reimburse you.



Will all my mental, emotional and physical symptoms go away from taking this course?

No, they will not. As with most things in life, you are on a journey of transformation and of progress toward harmony and better health. If you feel called toward this course, it is a stepping stone toward more body awareness. This awareness facilitates learning about your unique nervous system. It offers tools, and support, to witness and encourage the healing of your stress response. The more you practice and work with the content of this course, the more you can build internal resources, resilience and capacity for self-regulation, as it relates to your stress response. More resilience to stress, and more capacity for joy can provide a better opportunity for your body to heal the physical, mental and emotional symptoms associated with a dysregulated stress response.

 


I have very specific symptoms. Will this course help them disappear?

Working with the nervous system in this way is a very “organic” process. “Organic” means that we work with what arrives in the body, instead of chasing what we think needs fixing. You may have intentions to change specific symptoms, but this is not how healing necessarily works. There are often many layers to our mental, emotional and physical health. You will be learning to trust your body’s story and to work with the layers as they arrive. Sometimes those very specific symptoms that are nagging you can not be addressed until other layers are tended to first. The body’s inherent wisdom is more advanced than our mind’s thoughts. By trusting the body’s wisdom, we unfold in a very unique way. 

 


What if it seems like I don’t really have symptoms and no diagnosis of any kind, but I’m curious about this? Can I benefit?

Yes, yes and yes! Openness and curiosity are great traits to hold as you embark on this journey. There is an opportunity here to uncover and discover what your body’s story is. Our body’s story is so deep and vast and there are always going to be things to explore and improve upon. As you build your ability to listen to sensations, track your nervous system, you will learn about yourself (physical, mental, emotional). You may gain insights into your relationships and the way you engage in the world, and why you engage in that way. Most, if not all of us, have some fight, flight, and freeze response locked in our systems. Curiosity may be an indication of a deep wanting to release and heal what your body is holding.

 


Is this course easy or hard?

There are times when the journey is hard, as life can be. There are times when we want to avoid, run and hide from ourselves and others. These tools can help support you in those times, because you will be present to them, if they are tolerable. Then there are times when there is great joy and laughter, a feeling of flow, resolution, and completeness. We can more fully delight in those times as we build our capacity to sit with these sensations within. This course is a fun and challenging ride, as is all of life. If we can have more awareness and be more objective about our nervous systems triggers, then we do not have to over identify with the thoughts, emotions and sensations that arrive. With this comes space, in which new patterns can begin to sprout. Over time we nurture and grow these new patterns and this creates more optimal function downstream. We grow, heal and transform. Are you ready to transform?