Founder

Dana Santoscoy, PhD, ACC, Hypnotherapist

Hi, I’m Dana, founder of Wren Astra. My story began long before me, within an intergenerational family system marked by addiction, womb twin survivorship, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, religious shunning, and forced exile. 

These weren’t only ancestral wounds. They were also lived childhood realities that followed me into adulthood, where I experienced 9/11 in New York, escaped two violent romantic relationships, and walked away from a toxic dream job that left me with severe adrenal fatigue and burnout. I had been living with chronic pelvic floor pain and recurring UTIs since childhood, navigating life as a neurodivergent woman, and raising my children in a world increasingly marked by distrust, isolation, burnout, and eco-anxiety.

Like many New Yorkers after 9/11, I had a gritty “put your head down, push through, and hustle” mindset. I told myself that life was about ups and downs, and that suffering was the best teacher. I relocated to Los Angeles in 2016, thinking I could start with a clean slate, only to repeat patterns of overwork, addiction, and relational abuse that were now impacting my children and chipping away at my physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial health. 

Then, in April 2022, life shook me. My sister died tragically of a fentanyl overdose. Her body was discovered five days later, and the circumstances of her passing were anything but dignified. She had lost custody of her children to foster care while living with our mother (herself dependent on opioids and pain medication), and was married to a Desert Storm veteran carrying his own untreated traumas. Reading her journals afterward, I saw the depth of her pain, the shame she felt for not being able to stop medicating, and the many ways the legal, medical, and financial systems had failed her.

Bearing witness to her suffering made me realize how close I was to the same dangerous edge. At the time, I was enduring a dangerous and abusive relationship with a refugee who carried his own unhealed traumas. I was being concussed, coerced, worn down, and slowly losing the will to live despite seemingly living a glamorous lifestyle with a fabulous artist and successful academic career.

By August 5, 2022—my Liberation Day—I chose to walk with my pain on a self-defined path. All of these inherited and lived moments, painful as they are, have pointed me back toward my soul’s true purpose: creating accessible, play-based ways of healing for people who may not find safety or belonging in mainstream systems. 

That purpose became Wren Astra…a name I chose because the wren, a tiny songbird, symbolizes resilience and creativity, and “astra” evokes the celestial, a reminder to keep looking toward light and possibility. Together, they embody my vision for Inner Compass Healing— a reminder that even in the darkest times, we carry a compass within us that knows how to guide us back to joy, dignity, and discovery.