Hello! I’m Astro

Bereavement Recovery Coach | Evolved Life Coach | NLP Coach | Bereavement Counsellor | Transformative Mediator | Group Facilitator

I was born in Argentina and grew up in Israel where my passion for conflict resolution and mediation first developed. Following my family, I immigrated to South Africa in 1990 as the democratic process was starting to evolve in the country.

To gain a better understanding and immerse myself in the diverse cultures and humanity of South Africans, I became a Life line and Hospice counsellor specialising in bereavement and pre-death counselling. Later I facilitated the Care-Givers course at Hospice focusing on advanced counselling skills.

My path of facilitating groups started when I joined the Foundation for Tolerance Education facilitating anti-bias workshops for educators, school principals and the Department of Education.

Since then I have facilitated hundreds of group interventions mainly focusing on Relationship Building, Transformation, Conflict resolution, Diversity, Emotional Intelligence, facilitation skills and women empowerment. I was involved with writing and developing material for various workshops and in training facilitators as well as in the report-writing and delivery of feedback to Exco level.

I have participated in numerous courses to further enhance and develop my counselling and facilitation skills such as: ‘The Thinking Partnership’, Logotherapy (UNISA) and ‘Deep Democracy’, qualifying as a ‘Transformative Mediator’ and offering mediation services to families, communities and businesses by empowering the parties to achieve amicable and peaceful solutions to conflict situations.

During my years as a Hospice counsellor, while accompanying patients and families on very emotional and often deeply spiritual journeys, I began to appreciate the need to an holistic approach to recovery, both physical and emotional.

My path to becoming a Bereavement Recovery specialist and a Life Coach felt so natural and appropriate as I was able to synergise many of the skills and tools I acquired over the past ten years.

I am passionate about recovery. My deepest belief is that we are inherently healthy and whole and that our basic nature is always to strive to that healthy and strong existence.