Somatic Training and Mentorship
Skills and support for helping professionals at risk of burning out and losing heart.
Create space so work and life can feel more…
Sustainable.
Satisfying.
Meaningful.
Private mentorship groups for teams of helping professionals.
This includes—but is not limited to—physicians, mental health professionals, teachers, social workers, manual therapists, activists and healing practitioners.
I offer single 3-hour workshops and 6-week trainings. These can be customized to the needs of your group.
To learn more click below and I will be in touch!
Are you currently swamped in the responsibilities of your professional practice and the rest of your life?
Exhaustion is an entirely reasonable response to the incredibly painful things we are witnessing and experiencing in the world.
So is frustration, concern, distraction or withdrawal.
We are giving our all. Living through uncertainty with legitimate concerns for our safety and wellbeing.
Capitalist wellness culture tells us that if we would just optimize our habits, we’d be able to do it all with grace and joy.
The truth is, a new 6 am jogging ritual, weight-loss plan or file organizing system can’t address the entirety of what we need.
What if, instead of falling into that trap, we decide we’re already worth tending to, just as we are?
Helping professionals consistently pour into others. Our culture perpetuates the myth that we are selfless servants, willing to set aside our humanity to help others.
This dynamic leads to ongoing currents of exploitation, burnout and isolation.
Our roles require so much hope. And, with the current state of the world we have countless real reasons to feel hopeless, anxious and unsafe.
If we’re going to find our way through these times, I believe our embodied connections—with self, nature and each other provide us with a path we can follow.
I’m Annie Bray (she/her).
I’m a Trauma-Informed Somatic Practitioner and Registered Massage Therapist.
I support caregivers to show up for the people and the work you love, without burning out or losing heart.
My approach is informed by 20 years of hands on bodywork and concurrent studies in trauma recovery, applied polyvagal theory, meditation, yoga and somatic coaching. I work through a lens of intersectional feminism and anti-oppression and consider myself a politicized practitioner of somatics.
I live in Ottawa, Canada, where I maintain a practice as a trauma-informed Registered Massage Therapist, as well as a somatic mentorship practice for clinicians who want reliable access to the skills and support they need, in order to navigate personal and professional challenge and change.
I believe embodiment skills can help us navigate the difficult passages of life more smoothly and the joyful passages more vividly.
That’s why I offer a trauma-informed, non-dogmatic course of practice to help us reclaim our innate embodiment skills.
Let’s land in our bodies.
Tend the neglected places.
And nurture our resilience.
So we can thrive.
Professionally and as humans.
Embodied resilience is a state that allows us to connect more easily to connection, sensation and creativity.
It often shows up as an openness to play with the magic of the everyday. It also increases our capacity to respond to and bounce back from the very real challenges of our life.
That bounce can be hard to come by when we’re shut down, drained and isolated. It’s easier to find when we are nourished, supported and held.
Our work together in this program is to land in our bodies and plug into a deeper source of capacity.
To lessen the imprints of systemic exhaustion and trauma.
And to nourish our nervous systems with exactly what we need to connect deeply, to flourish and to give from a place of overflow rather than depletion.
Let’s co-create a somatic mentorship and support group for your team
These groups combine theory with lots of time to practice the tools we’re learning together while noticing how it all affects our bodies, minds and relationships.
You will learn how to access much-needed resources for your role as a helping professional…
Plus everything else on your plate.
What’s included:
These 90-minute live calls are a mix of teaching, somatic practice, breakout groups (or personal reflection) and mentorship. Expect to land in your body, tend to neglected places and walk away feeling more grounded and clear. You’ll have the chance to ask questions and learn from me and your peers who share similar concerns.
We will also make time to celebrate the small and big wins that happen throughout our time together.
For confidentiality reasons not all parts of the live calls will be recorded.
These groups are more experiential than academically rigorous but it is based on my own lifetime of rigorous study and practice.
Drawing from a combination of material including yoga, mindfulness, somatics, The Work that Reconnects, polyvagal theory and more, I bring my clinical experience as a Registered Massage Therapist as well as my training as a somatic practitioner to this personalized, small-group program.
Read more about my training here.
I know you’ve got brains to spare, but I also know that many of us are dangerously close to burnout if not already there. That’s why this program is designed to nourish and support instead of feeling like another self-improvement project.
Embodiment skills don’t necessarily make life easier, but practicing them can make life richer. More of a joy to inhabit. More of a place where it’s possible to show up and flow.
I believe these skills are best integrated through repetition, ritual and relational practice. And that’s what we’re doing over the course of our time together.
Pricing
Fees based on the length of the program we agree on. I offer sliding scale pricing based on the resources that your team has access to for development and training.
Reach out below for information on content and pricing.
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