The Rest & Digest Collective
Restorative somatics and gentle yoga
for humans who are carrying too much
Come as you are.
Leave more resourced
for the life that you’re living.
So many of us are moving through life with quiet and relentless weariness and anxiety from the many ways that we are caregiving and navigating this world that can be so very overwhelming.
The Rest & Digest Collective offers a weekly pause where your body can soften and remember what steadiness feels like.
It is intentionally designed for midlifers, caregivers, helping professionals and anyone feeling frayed or crispy at the edges who would benefit from a space of gentle resourcing and attunement.
Because you know that what you need more of is not self-improvement or optimizations, but a gentle space to return to and reinhabit yourself.
Rest & Digest classes are temporarily paused and will be starting again this September.
These are practices specifically designed to meet you much less like a rushed demand and more like a warm embrace.
Each class weaves together gentle yoga-based movement, somatic awareness, self-massage, mindful meditation, guided visualization and rest.
Instead of focusing on the shape of a pose, we focus on how it feels. Instead of correcting you, we support your body’s natural intelligence. Instead of pushing past limits, we honour them as wisdom.
These are experiential sessions where it is less about theory and more about practice.
Where you, your body and your whole system can feel genuinely supported in a way that makes everything else feel a little bit more doable.
I know and acknowledge that world feels intense for so many of us right now. We are often navigating a combination of:
Burnout
Caregiving overwhelm
Financial and career pressure
Perimenopause
Relationship ambivalence/ transition
Loss of creativity/ pleasure/ fun
Climate + socioeconomic grief/ rage/ fear
You don’t need more to do. You need more spaces to be held.
Yoga, meditation and somatic practice.
Specifically for caregivers, helping professionals, worried and weary humans in midlife and beyond, folks living with burnout, chronic illness/pain or anyone who is longing for a generative pause.
Sign up for the waitlist.
Re-launching in September.
A weekly yoga class isn’t going to solve all of our problems or the world’s heaviness.
That’s not the point and it’s certainly not what I’m trying to do here.
What I am after is creating a well-held space that can offer you a sense of steadiness and resource, so that you can traverse all that you’re navigating with a little bit more support.
Here’s all the details.
When:
Weekly class is Wednesday from 12:00PM to 1:00PM EST
I take holidays from the live weekly class now and then throughout the year. This will be scheduled well in advance.
I also occasionally need to cancel due to illness and will always provide as much notice as possible via email.
Where:
Option 1: Attend live via Zoom
Option 2: Access the on-demand recordings anytime and anywhere as it supports you.
There are three ways to pay for class:
1- Single day pass: Sliding scale from $5- $30 CAD
2- Monthly subscription: $50 CAD
3- Sliding scale monthly subscription: $30 CAD
Sign up for the waitlist.
Re-launching in September.
Try a free class
To get an tase of what the experience is like in the space and decide if it would be a support to you.
A short, simple somatic yoga practice that includes gentle movement and guided meditation. This session also includes an short introduction where I share about my approach to teaching and my intention for these classes.
Sign up for the waitlist.
Re-launching in September.
What might happen if we were to practice showing up for ourselves with the same curiosity and attuned care we’re so good at offering others?
Meet Annie Bray (she/her)
I’m a Trauma-Informed Registered Massage Therapist, somatic practitioner and Yoga & meditation teacher.
My approach to massage therapy, mentorship and teaching is informed by 20+ years of manual therapy and concurrent work and study in trauma recovery, community mental health, applied polyvagal theory, meditation, yoga and somatics.
I’ve been guiding classes, workshops and retreats, both online and in person, for over twenty-five years.
It takes resilience to be here. The wear and tear is real. The reasons to check out, reasonable and plenty.
Exhaustion is normal. All of us are living in an unjust system that asks us to bypass our physical and emotional needs, disconnecting us from our bodies.
Somatics can help us reclaim the experience of feeling reliably well-met, relatively safe and capable of engaging with life meaningfully.
FAQs
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My approach to somatic yoga draws on the gentle application of
yoga postures as well as other forms of movement and meditation.
If you practice yoga you will recognize some of the postures but you can expect to colour outside the lines a bit too!
The focus is less on alignment, strength or flexibility and more on embodied awareness, nervous system support and mindful self compassion.
All the movements and practices we do can be modified or passed on if needed.
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It’s possible to come to class in whatever you’re wearing with very little equipment. However, here’s what I suggest bringing:
Comfy clothes for moving
Yoga mat
Pillow(s) or yoga bolster
Blanket or two
Extras:
Yoga block or book
Any props you enjoy using
Tea/ water
Anything you like to have around for extra comfort!
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Absolutely.
We will not be doing any fast or complicated poses or sequences, nor will be be doing any meditation or other practices that require previous experience.
It’s probably helpful if you are able to move from standing to sitting to lying down and back again without a ton of trouble, but if your mobility is lower than that feel free to reach out and we can chat about how to make it work.
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Yes, this is a monthly subscription model. You can cancel anytime and will not be charged for any future payments.
While you subscribe you have access to the live weekly classes as well as all previous recordings.
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No, there is no expectation for you to unmute and talk or participate.
You are welcome to ask questions. Either during the class if urgent, or preferably at the end of class if not urgent!
Everyone will be invited to unmute at the end to say goodbye if they like, and then I will always stay around to touch base or answer questions for a few minutes.
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I want this class to have a sense of group connection, even if we’re not all together in the same room.
I also find it very hard teaching to a screen full of black squares, it just isn’t fulfilling!!
You are NOT required to keep your camera on you while you practice, it can be aimed at your bookshelf or the wall… It just feels way more connected if we start with a bit of visual connection and I can see who’s there.
Of course, if you’re having a rough day or for any reason need to make an exception that is fine.
Set aside one hour a week to join a class that’s designed to meet you with thoughtful support and your specific needs in mind.
Sign up for the waitlist.
Re-launching in September.
See you in there.
With lots of care, choice and gentleness inside.