the pantarei approach

uniqueness

Each client is seen as unique, shaped by their experiences, emotions, and history.

touch

Touch is a core tool for focus and connection. It is used to guide awareness, release tension, and evoke emotions.

person-centered

You are the expert of your own experience. I will assist you in accessing your inner knowledge and emotions by helping you to connect to your body’s innate wisdom.

what a session looks like

A session would usually start off with a conversation about who you are, your experiences, your history, and your relationships. We’ll look at why you’ve chosen this path of deeper learning and how we can cultivate a trustworthy space for you to explore these topics together.

In the hands on part, we will continue the conversation by investigating how your experiences manifest in your body at present. I will encourage you to breathe, to feel your body and to connect to the sensations as well as the emotions that arise. When we allow our physical body - our direct experience - more space to be a part of the conversation, we are able to reach a deeper connection and ultimately a broader understanding of ourselves within the context of our lives.

By connecting you to your body, our goal is to get you feeling more grounded in who you are as a unique individual in this world so that you can face life’s obstacles with strength and compassion.

if you’re interested in finding out more about the Pantarei Approach, here is a link to the official website.

my story and how i came to Pantarei

I’m Athena Strates (she/her), a born South African with German, Dutch and Greek ancestry.

I completed my Pantarei training in 2025 in Berlin, Germany, where I lived for seven years working as a professional actress in the film industry.

I started acting at a very young age out of a need to express myself and to have that be witnessed by others for the freedom and the fun of it. Throughout my career I became passionate about character development and the things that drive us as individuals. Many acting methods require you to use your own personal story (often shaped by trauma and difficult experiences) to bring authentic emotions to the table in a bold way.

However, I realised that when this was not properly executed under support and supervision, I was left feeling depleted, under resourced, and with a lot of pent up emotions disguised as anger which lead me down a path of depression and alcohol consumption to silence the noise.

There’s a lot of technique out there to prepare actors for a role and to get them to that emotional place, but not much for the aftermath. Nothing to come back, nothing to recenter — nothing to bring you homeward. And so I started looking for more sustainable methods to support actors in this endeavour which was when I came across Pantarei in 2022.

I was moved by the ‘full-circleness’ that a session can offer. I was struck by the capacity of touch to bring greater awareness to one’s emotional experience and to draw connections between the past and present. To then use that awareness to transform that emotion — be it grief, pain, sadness - into self-compassion and strength, simply by being with it, holding it, breathing through it and having it be witnessed by another… It is pure and magical at the same time and everything I had been searching for.

I am excited to learn and grow through working with this approach. I look forward to getting to know you and other individuals from all walks of life - to be inspired by your leaps of courage as we go through this process together.

rates

a short disclaimer

training

if you’d like to schedule a free 15 minute connection call or find out more information ——

i look forward to hearing from you

I’d like to acknowledge that I work, play, live and learn on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nation and the W̱SÁNEĆ people.

620 View Street, Victoria BC