We were lucky to catch up with Wren Astra recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Wren, thanks for joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

Covid marked the height of homebuying in Orange County, CA. I was a single mom with a special needs son and had finally saved enough to purchase a modest home to provide a forever home for my child. But people were buying homes in full cash due to the 2.5% mortgage rates, and I couldn’t compete. I did not realize my realtor was corrupt either. She managed to get a seller to choose me–his first two buyers had fallen through due to lying about gaps in employment, and he was desperate to complete his 1031 exchange within 30 days or lose a small fortune. Little did I know that her broken would offer me a loan at a 9% interest rate, which would have brought my mortgage to more than $9K/monthly and left me house poor and likely in foreclosure.

The seller’s realtor agreed to co-represent me and from there a miraculous set of events transpired. My credit was under qualifying for a conventional loan. The seller paid off nearly $15K in debt to have my credit quickly cleaned. My lease expired 3 weeks before our closing date. The seller allowed me to move in and live with staging furniture for those weeks provided I kept my personal belongings in storage until closing date. Finally, it still seemed we needed an extra 2 weeks to close, which would have cost the seller his 1031 exchange.

“We don’t want you to lose this home,” the seller’s realtor said. “We have come to think of you as a daughter and we want to see your son thrive.” The realtor liquified his entire retirement and bought the home free and clear for me, making an agreement that I would be taking a loan from them and then need to refinance within 1 year. I was able to refinance 3 weeks later and purchase the home, at an interest rate even lower than the conventional loan rate I had qualified for with now nearly perfect credit. Over that year, the seller continued to make good on things that most would not – he paid for repairs in my kitchen and garage simply as an act of kindness and service.

What is the lesson? Help is going to come, but it will likely come from strangers or people who owe you nothing rather than the people you expect to help. This is why it’s critical always to pay it forward and practice goodwill currency.

Wren, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I survived a severe intimate partner violence marriage to which I had returned four times before barely escaping with my life. I am fortunate enough to have an academic, high paying position and grew up in a privileged home so that I have resources and support systems to help me through recovery to thriving. Music has always been my personal outlet for resolving pain and trauma, and it occurred to me that I could create a brand – the Wren Astra brand – through which I could not only share my story but also raise awareness, advocate, and hopefully raise funding to support people from underserved and vulnerable populations who have survived IPV and go to thrive. I’m particularly interested in creating a low-cost 90-day physical detox program to detox from the trauma bond and raising funds to eventually create an agency and clinic with full services to support people from neurodiverse, differently-abled, refugees, and transgendered populations to leave their abusers and begin flourishing.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Be a cautious optimist rather than naive optimist. It’s wonderful to see the best in people and hope they will change. But there is a sunken cost fallacy that survivors of abuse drown themselves in – we believe, relentlessly, that we can make enough personal change and love our abusers into no longer harming us. We look at their potential and see that as reality. This does harm to us, our loved ones, and even the abuser.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

I’ve worn multiple hats in my life – as a humanities and STEM faculty member, instructional designer, grant writer, musician, novelist, and most lately a trauma-informed somatic coach. I believe in consilience and convergence. The more I learn, the more I see my life as a constellation of professions, talents, and experiences that have converged (or coalesced) into a whole human being that thrives and supports others.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wrenastra/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WrenAstra

Image Credits
Ben Arou, photographer Zero Surico, graphic designer