Episode 38: Healing Isn’t About Fixing, It's About Remembering

In this episode, we journey into the healing power of duality, shadow work, and spiritual integration. Angelique Koster shares how her spiritually rich upbringing shaped her unique approach to energy healing and personal transformation. We explore the unseen parts of ourselves through powerful reflection exercises, breathwork, and the embrace of both light and shadow. This conversation is a reminder that healing isn’t about fixing—it’s about reclaiming joy, self-awareness, and the art of living fully.

About Angelique:
Angelique Koster is the vibrant force behind Asanak Healing — an energy alchemist, wellness wizard, and anatomy enthusiast with a passion for turning life's chaos into harmony. Starting her journey in alternative medicine at the age of 7, she became the youngest South African Accunect practitioner at just 17. Armed with an eclectic toolkit of color therapy, sound healing, mBit coaching, and more massage techniques than you can shake a chakra at, Angelique is on a mission to help you embrace the messy, magical dance of life. Her philosophy? Healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken — it’s about discovering the art of living fully, embracing the “AND” of duality, and finding the beauty in every contradiction. When she’s not guiding clients to breakthroughs or teaching classes, you’ll likely find her meditating at naptime, losing herself in the pages of fantasy adventures, exploring new wellness techniques, or turning everyday challenges into opportunities for growth and self-discovery.

Find Angelique:
www.facebook.com/AsanakHealing
www.asanakhealing.com
www.instagram.com/asanak_healing

Free gift:
https://ko-fi.com/s/1da0a9018a

Chapters

• 0:03 Healing and Spiritual Growth Insights
• 8:17 Exploring Shadows
• 18:09 Healing Through Self-Discovery and Joy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Heal Yourself Podcast, where we dive deep into all things healing. I'm Denise, a speech-language pathologist and a self-love coach for adults and teens.

Speaker 2: 0:15

And I'm Kira, a traditional naturopath and functional nutritionist, and we are here to guide you through the transformative process of healing your body, mind and soul.

Speaker 1: 0:25

From the latest in functional medicine to nurturing your relationship with yourself, healing trauma and even transforming your money story. We're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.

Speaker 2: 0:39

So, whether you're looking to heal physically, emotionally or spiritually, join us as we explore the many paths to wholeness and wellness. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Heal Yourself Podcast. You have Kira today, and I am joined by special guest Angelique Koster. I'm really excited to introduce you guys to her. So she is the vibrant force behind Asana Healing. She's an energy alchemist, wellness wizard and anatomy enthusiast with a passion for turning life's chaos into harmony. She started her journey in alternative medicine at the age of seven, and she's actually going to tell us more about that. She became the youngest South African ascetic I'm totally butchering this practitioner at just 17. So, angelique?

Speaker 3: 1:40

welcome. Tell us a little more about yourself and how I'm butchering these things. Hi, kira, it is absolutely perfect. So, as everyone now hears, I'm Angelique Costa, and South Africa in general, I think, has brought in a lot of life energy into my story, because, for anyone who's ever been in South Africa, it is a very vibrant, vibrant country and there's a lot of earth energy here that you can tap into and alchemize into fire power. So it's amazing. But, yeah, my journey actually started really young. Um, I had the privilege of growing up in a spiritual home, so the secret was my bible growing up and through this work and through, you know, doing um mindscape through body talk at the age of 10, during alpha mind trainings, going to guided meditations from as early as I can remember, getting my certifications for it at the age of seven, becoming a practitioner at 17 it's been a literal life journey of alchemizing and harmonizing the spiritual with the modern world.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Yeah, and for you to have started healing at such a young age is amazing, and the fact that you were a practitioner at 17, I'm thinking 17,. I was in high school and thinking about my next boyfriend or whatever it might have been, or whatever it might have been. You said that you grew up in this. For those that don't know, what does that look like? Because I have no idea what that would look like. I grew up in a Catholic household. You went to church on Sundays, you prayed your rosary, that was it. So what does it look like to grow up in a spiritual family?

Speaker 3: 3:31

It's. It's very challenging. It's incredibly there's there's a large amount of accountability that comes with the kind of growth attributed to growing into a spiritual household. There are no such things as excuses when it comes to ailments. You know, it's the small things. You know.

Speaker 3: 3:44

Now, on TikTok and Instagram, we see people talking about gentle parenting. But growing up in awareness and consciousness from a very young age. Firstly, you mature a lot quicker, but you also become very self-aware. This is what I love. This is not what I love. This is for me, that is not. There's a big knowingness that comes in and that can look like very small things a knee injury. Then your mom goes oh, where are you afraid of your future choices? Or where, at the moment, do you feel you're stuck in walking forward, you know, and it becomes a very big conversation at home instead of just going like, oh sorry, sweetie, you hurt your knee, let's go to the doctor. It's actually what's happening over there. Yeah, did someone make you mad at school? Why do you have a fever blister today? What weren't you verbalizing? It's being called out a lot more than in a normal household.

Speaker 2: 4:42

Yeah, that's hysterical. Hysterical but wow. What a gift at the same time to be able to have those conversations at a young age. Because you're right, yeah, anyone else? It's like take an ibuprofen or take a natural alternative. Here's some herbs, you know, whatever that might look like, so definitely go ahead, yeah it definitely creates a integrated space.

Speaker 3: 5:06

My mom came from a very religious background and from her own. She was only 20 when she had me, so she was still in her own unfolding and her own womanhood kind of coming in. And it was an incredible magic to experience because of these powerful women that were spiritual in my environment, had not only this authority about them but created the space for me to live integratively into my environment. So she put me in Montessori schools and for those who love Montessori, you know it creates that independence, that awareness, that consciousness that comes with being self-aware, self-regulating and very much wholeness in self.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Yeah, love Montessori over here, so I'm curious how do you work with clients? Because I know that's evolved over the years, but what does that look like now? How do you help people?

Speaker 3: 6:04

So now what I end up doing is I kind of integrate between the different modalities that I have. So I've currently finishing my masters in metaphysics and using everything that I've learned throughout my existence. You know, the angel therapies, the dragon therapies, the acunect which is what I did at 17 um the chakra, balancing massage and just bringing whatever is unique to that person. So a lot of the time my clients find me.

Speaker 3: 6:34

I find that, even though I can make it, put a message out there of oh, I'm running a class for, like now, I'm doing a shading of the old for the new snake year, for this year and other people reach out and say but you know, I want to shed my old, but I really struggle with my relationships, I really struggle in business. Or, and then I find the tools in my toolbox, whether it's through integrated coaching, whether it's through integrated coaching, whether it's through the healing, because people are so many different levels at any given moment of their life that whatever they come for, I integrate into their experience. So if one modality ends up not holding their space, I switch them into a different modality field, so it's continuously moving with where they are.

Speaker 2: 7:22

Okay, well, and you talk a bit about duality. What does that even mean for our listeners?

Speaker 3: 7:31

In a very Western culture, duality is as simple as left brain and right brain.

Speaker 3: 7:37

It is as simple as the logical, the creative, the intuitive versus the intellectual.

Speaker 3: 7:49

That is the duality that we face in a very Western world practice space, especially through the acunate practice. It's all about duality. It's all the feminine masculine, but not the feminine masculine that we have titled it now in Western worlds, where it's I'm a woman and that's a man. It's the dark, the yin and the yang, the shadow and the light, and there is duality in everything because there's a pull and a push in everything. So a lot of my work, especially when I start with clients in duality, is finding their weakness in the spokes of their wheel of life, finding those parts of your wheel that you're the most resistant to, that you don't quite know, that you have issues with, because you want to focus on something else, like money or career, but your relationships are suffering. So that is the duality that becomes very practical for us, going into the areas that are our support pillars, that need the most work to build the foundation for where we want to go and how did you get to that place?

Speaker 2: 8:55

because I love what you're talking about with duality. I mean, one of my spiritual mentors has said in the past light cannot exist without dark yin and yang. There's always duality, but we don't know in our ego 3D mind what the heck that even means. So how do you get people to that space and seeing that there is a duality? You can't just focus on just money or just this over here.

Speaker 3: 9:20

My quickest exercise that I usually do with clients and this is for my beginner clients and usually when people first get introduced to the work of duality is I tell them to become okay with the shadows and not the shadow work that we know of, that we speak about in where we see it virally. Instagram will have shadow work. Youtube has shadow work. No, the kind of shadow work that I want people to start recognizing is to voice the things that they generally try and push aside with the love and light language that we use.

Speaker 2: 9:55

Spiritual bypassing 100%.

Speaker 3: 9:58

And by voicing those shadows we start recognizing that we're holding space for two polarities. So, for instance, I really, really, really want to have a loving, thoughtful relationship, but the verbalization behind that, beyond what we see in manifestation of affirmations and what they're repeating, the shadow side of that is I don't actually like people in my space or I don't have the energy and capacity for meeting new people. That becomes a duality. You're holding the two polarities. It's very simple. It becomes very easy for people and I tell them to put on your pessimistic glasses. You know, in a lot of my workshops that's one of my favorite tools is physically put on a pair of glasses, like we're in drama school. Put them on and look at life through the gringe and just be miserable about it, because those belief systems that pop out in that moment are still in you. Those four thoughts are yours. They don't belong to anyone else because you're the one thanking them, you're the one saying them.

Speaker 3: 11:04

That's a powerful exercise it's so bitter to swallow that pole when you first in it, yeah, but then from there it becomes kind of this relief because it's not a thorn in the side anymore. You can recognize it, you can see it and say, oh okay, that's how I really feel about things. How can I shift from that? And that's where duality becomes powerful. It's not the shadow work of I have inner child wounding. It's just being very frank about what I feel about things, without gaslighting myself about what I feel about things without gaslighting myself.

Speaker 2: 11:39

Yeah, and it's that awareness piece is so crucial, because we don't recognize sometimes that we have those negative thoughts or beliefs until we do something like that. And you mentioned shadow work. I know there are listeners who either don't know what shadow work is or we see it all over Instagram. I help people do shadow work and people are like what on earth is shadow work? So do you mind telling us a little bit about what even is a shadow?

Speaker 3: 12:05

So I'll tell you my interpretation of the shadow that I've experienced in my life, because I find that a lot of the practices that we're seeing on social media now isn't the true spiritual practices that exist. Shadow work that I've come across it in my work over and over and over again is recognizing the traumas that we have and seeing the wounds for what they are. That is the shadow work. We can say that our ex-boyfriend was a narcissist and yet we might have tendencies of narcissism or selfish behaviors or limiting beliefs because of wounds within us. And that is where shadow work comes in. It is looking at the side of ourselves that we generally feel very uncomfortable with and that generally we bury. So the moment we have anger that we're suppressing, that becomes a shadow aspect of who we are.

Speaker 3: 13:02

And one of my favorite proverbs and lessons that we learn in the Chinese medicine modalities within Acunect is that the shadow can move.

Speaker 3: 13:12

We always look at it as if you're facing a mountain and you're looking at the mountain, you see the sun rising on the one side.

Speaker 3: 13:19

The opposite side is automatically the shadow, but as the sun reaches the apex there is no more shadow, but once it drops, the shadow shows, and so our shadows are always changing. We can see that when we walk outside and the sun hits our bodies. We always have shadows and they're always changing. So shadow work is just becoming aware of the power that these wounds have. It's becoming okay with these wounds so that they don't determine what comes next. Because whether we're looking at it from a spiritual point of view or we're looking at it added from a neurological point of view, we have things called neuroplasticity and these are formed by our nervous system with fight or flight and freeze and form responses as the world changes around us and with this becomes a pattern, our dna stores for us to stay safe, and that becomes shadow work as well. It just gets a really spiritual label to it instead of a very practical survival mechanism that we just have to look at and remind our nervous system.

Speaker 2: 14:27

It's not a danger to us, yeah that's a good way of looking at it and this is a prime example of duality, I'm guessing you know, because we've got the shadows, would you say, for everything, like in every aspect of our life, relationships, money, do we continue to have some shadows?

Speaker 3: 14:47

A hundred percent. I have been doing this work a literal lifetime and every time I think that you know I fully evolved.

Speaker 3: 14:57

there's another layer yeah new level, new double yeah and it goes deeper and deeper and then it's another layer of maybe family stuff, belief systems or, you know, social conditioning or, um, you know, something happens and we don't realize it's traumatic until another spoke of the wheel rolls in and another angle of it hits it. So, yeah, shadow work I don't think ever ends, because there's always a new light to shine on a topic. There is always a new level, there's always a new understanding. New understanding and that is something that is deeply ingrained in my practice and within my clients that I work with is be okay with always evolving. There is never a end line. So a lot of people ask me how many sessions do I need? And I'm like how many sessions do you feel you want? Yeah, because that's the question, you know, is how how much work do you feel you want to invest in yourself? There's no quick answer. There's no quick tool. It has to become an integrated lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 16:04

Yeah, and that's the theme of our podcast. I mean, it comes up in every episode of. There's not an end point for healing, it's an ongoing journey. You were put on this planet in this lifetime to heal and that's your journey. That's what you're going to continue to do until you're gone. I think people don't like to hear that, but for me I do. I know that's a part of my purpose is to continue healing and, like you said, shining lights on areas where, like, oh, didn't see that one before. Um, I'm curious. Yeah, sorry, we interrupt each other all the time on this podcast.

Speaker 3: 16:41

go ahead um, I think it fascinates me and that's part of the duality teachings that I have as well is, you know, we are so willing to watch the same episodes on tv over and over again? Yeah, but when it comes to healing work, and someone tells us that there's always work to do, we're kind of a little bit like yeah don't we have to.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Yeah, can I do something else?

Speaker 3: 17:08

but but we're okay to binge watch something and we're okay to watch the same reruns and we're okay doing things like that, but the moment it's something very vulnerable. It's almost like our society norms have made it so uncomfortable to be held in that space that it's something we reject and it's. It's always just very fascinating to see how we have those two, and I'm in there as well. Sometimes I'm like no, I'm not ready for that, I'll go have a nap instead, yeah, yeah, we're not always ready for certain things.

Speaker 2: 17:42

And this brings up the idea of are we broken? Because we're both saying you're constantly having to heal, you're constantly needing to work through shadows and looking at the duality. How do you word it to someone when they come to you and just think well, then I'm just broken, I have all these aspects of me that aren't working. Are we broken?

Speaker 3: 18:05

We are not broken. In Acunet it was probably one of the most profound things that I'd learned and it's a lesson that I carry with me. So when I discovered Acunet at 17, you know, at that time of life it's still very much self-discovery. You know we're still even though the whole your whole life there's always a new level of self-discovery. But juggling, you know, I went through a lot of bullying in high school. I went through a lot of different, not being able to almost connect with other students because I just had such a different way of life and I was in a Christian school. So being a spiritual child in a Christian school was very challenging.

Speaker 3: 18:49

And, yeah, I can imagine, you know I had to go through like people speak about the witch wound online, but I had to go through that in my reality. People were calling me a witch in school and people were bullying me for being different and I had to go through that. And when I discovered it, I had that same question. I was like, no, I'm going to be a practitioner for this, but I am. I am I broken?

Speaker 3: 19:14

And the answer was and it's something I now carry with me as a lesson is, when we look at God oneness universe, there is no such thing as imperfection, it simply is. And when we start a question with an acunate, when someone comes to me and they've got extreme fibromyalgia, they've got cancer I recently had to treat a dog that was on the verge of being euthanized and I had to do skin rejuvenation for her we don't ask the question of what can we fix. We ask the body and the mind and the integrated healing there what is ready to shift? And that is the most powerful question that I've learned, because it takes away the pressure of I'm broken and it moves it on to it is already working, but what is ready to shift? It's like when we're driving, the car isn't broken.

Speaker 2: 20:11

If there's traffic, we just take a different route yeah, and it's a much more empowering way to look at it. And and obviously I knew the answer to that was no guys. But but I have to say it because, especially those with physical ailments, and when you've been dealing with, like you said, fibromyalgia or something you've been dealing with issues for so long, you start to think that you're broken. Nothing else has worked for me. So obviously this is it, and it's not what else needs to shift, what needs to move right now.

Speaker 3: 20:41

Yeah, you know, I always think of you. Know, if we had to be a pebble or a leaf in a stream and there was a dam being built by a beaver, the water would be piling up. We would be thinking, oh, we're broken because we can't move. Meanwhile the beaver just built a dam and we need to go around it. Yeah, same thing, same thing, just different principles and I find that that's a big lesson in my teachings as well is just, you know, sometimes putting on different glasses.

Speaker 3: 21:13

And I tell my clients, especially if they wear glasses, take your glasses off and put them back on with a new personality on it. You know, because looking through a different lens just gives us a different perspective and different way of being able to maneuver through a task. That's why we have these beautiful communities and corporate does that really well. We have a brainstorming session. Now imagine we applied that to everyday life and we could be like well, I'm stuck in this problem, let's brainstorm it, let's gutstorm it, let's heartstorm it. And you know, see where we're feeling different things, intuiting different things, thinking different things and finding new ways of dealing with whatever. We're going through through those new avenues.

Speaker 2: 21:58

Yeah, we're going through, through those new avenues. Yeah, well, I'm curious for those that are like okay, I know I've got to start on this healing journey. I don't know where to start. Besides the glasses, do you have any advice for where someone can start?

Speaker 3: 22:14

breath work is definitely a big thing, especially with so much of the world being the way that it is. Um, I know in america they had the california fires. Now, um, in south africa we've had extreme weather. In uk they've had rioting, and so anywhere in the world where people are listening to this, you'll remember to breathe. That is the first step to healing and it is the most underrated step to healing. Great breathe um, I find myself often, you know, is my shoulders are hunching forward so we get less breath in. You know, put your shoulders back consciously. Remember to breathe consciously. Becoming aware of breath and where it's sitting without judgment, is the biggest first step to healing. Then put your glasses on, have fun with it when you're feeling tense or stressed. Figure out ways where, when you're starting your healing journey of things that you've forgotten, that you love to do, and become playful with it again it's a big one.

Speaker 2: 23:22

We, yeah, I feel like it comes up on several episodes and back to the inner child and having fun like we forget to have fun. Just because you're an adult doesn't mean that everything you have to do is adulting. Have fun. You're here for reason and part of that healing journey is to have joy in your life 100%.

Speaker 3: 23:43

I don't know about many other people, but as a child I loved playing groceries and I've recently with them. We're moving into a new space and I've had to clear out a lot of boxes and I found a million receipts that I had written to people and I was invoicing and I was loving life as a child, it seems. I was running my own little restaurant and so many of us as children go through these playbooks, but then as adults we find them as chores. So that was something that I had to teach myself as well is, you know, when we're children we want to do those things, we want to write invoices, we want to play, do those things, we want to write invoices. We want to play business, business. We want to play doctor, doctor, we want to be fake cooking and making everyone tea parties, and yet as adults we kind of forget that we had a joy in those and we make them a chore. So just making it more fun for ourselves again is a big part of healing. The more joy we feel, the less cumbersome life becomes.

Speaker 2: 24:44

And the more we heal, the more we heal. Awesome. Well, for those that want to find you, how will they do that? Where can they find you?

Speaker 3: 24:56

They can find me on my website. So it's Asanak Healing. It a s a n a k healingcom. Um, it just had a beautiful revamp. So anyone watching this, if you can comment on what you think about the new, the new website, that would be great. Um, and then I'm on facebook, instagram, linkedin not quite figured out tiktok quite, but you can find me on most of the social media.

Speaker 2: 25:22

Wonderful. Well, and these will all be in the show notes, guys, you'll be able to contact her and look her up in those ways, but thank you, thank you for this beautiful conversation. Thank you, kira. All right, guys. Well, you know where to find us next episode. We'll be here next week. Come find us on Instagram, ask us questions, share what you want to hear about, and we'll see you on the next episode.