A 3-month course of guided somatic meditations and live interactive workshops, for quietening the internal racket. Support for you to cultivate a more nourishing Sleep and Rest practice.

28th October 2024 - 27th January 2025

An online course combining Somatic and neuroplastic technologies including Feldenkrais, Sounding, Movement, Environmental Feedback, Visioning and group sharing to support you to cultivate a healthier relationship with sleep and rest.

10 experiential, live workshops spread over 3 months, designed to remind your system how to rest. Identify healthy sleep and rest cues and make space in your life to follow them.

All sessions are recorded and participants receive the recordings each week. You get life time access to the recordings so you can return to your favourites as often as you like

Monday evenings 6pm - 7.30pm UK time / Monday mornings Americas
On Zoom.

Spaces are limited to one full zoom room. (20 places).

Ways Into Quiet Radiance

We are living in dis-quietening times. How do we settle ourselves and make our down time more nourishing?

There are biological 'prompts' we can work with to remind our bodily system to come to a place of quiet radiance.

But slowing down is counter cultural and at first may feel counter intuitive. Many of us need some support to remember slowing down can be safe. Especially after a life time of working hard to stay 'on top' of everything. This course will share eight ways into a quiet aliveness, in a live group learning environment where there is plenty of time for sharing your experience and reflections.

We will gather ourselves together and settle in the evenings, then head towards bed time a little softer than how we arrived.
Yes, please!

Course Introduction

"You can just be. You don't have to always be doing something... naps are soul care." - Tricia Hersey - The Nap Ministry

What it is & what you'll get out of it...

10 live online workshops and session recordings, take home practices, group sharing sessions and a private Mighty Networks community to grow a better rest practice.

Live lessons and group support for growing a more nourishing rest practice. This course will equip you to tend to your inner space and support you to bring your nervous system into a more resourced place, making rest more possible.

You will learn to feel what works for you and let go of what doesn't in terms of rest.

You are welcome to do the course as a series of live classes, as a series of recordings in your own time, or in some combination that suits you.

Everyone who signs up receives all the recordings, so you can revisit the content when ever you like. At every point you will be encouraged to follow what feels resonant rather than do something just because the teacher says. This way you can cultivate your own instinct for what works for you.
Yes please!

''And I said to my body, softly, 

'I want to be your friend'. 

It took a long breath. And replied, 

'I've been waiting my whole life for this.''

- Nayyirah Waheed

Timings

Live group workshops for your diary -

Dates of the live workshops are:

October 28 - Intro. Set & Setting - Following Enjoyment

November 4 - The Medicine of Voice

November 11 - The Medicine of Darkness

BREAK

December 2 - The Medicine of Oscillation

December 9 - The Medicine of Breath

December 16 - The Medicine of Early Developmental Movement

BREAK

January 6 - The Medicine of Mobilisation

January 13 - Slow Movement & Visualisation

January 20 - Slow Movement & Visualisation II

January 27 - Integration and Intention setting.

All sessions 6pm - 7.30pm London / 10am LA / 1pm NY - on Zoom.

"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear" - Rumi

Course curriculum

    1. Welcome and a Little Bit More About What Is In Store

    2. Your Zoom Link for the course

    3. Our Private Mighty Networks Community Space

    4. HOW TO: How to download audio files from the Course Hub

    5. How to find the Course Hub, Zoom link & Mighty Networks

    1. Introductory Video - Experience First - You are the Boss of Your Own Experience.

    2. Introduction: Set & Setting - Following Enjoyment

    3. Lesson 1 Session Recording

    4. Lesson 1 Session Recording - Audio Only - Downloadable

    5. Somatic Drop In Practice - Downloadable Audio

    6. Lesson One Reflections

    1. Lesson 2 - The Medicine of Voice

    2. Lesson 2 Set up - The Medicine of Voice

    3. Lesson 2 Session Recording

    4. Lesson 2 Session Recording - Audio - Downloadable

    5. The Medicine of Voice - Meditation Recording

    6. Lesson 2 Homework

    1. Lesson 3 - The Medicine of Darkness

    2. Lesson 3 - Intro to Darkness as Medicine

    3. Lesson 3 Session Recording - Darkness Medicine

    4. Lesson 3 Session Recording - Audio - Downloadable

    5. The Medicine of Darkness - Meditation Recording

    6. Homework - Lesson 3

    1. Lesson 5 - The Medicine of Breath

    2. Medicine of Breath - Intro 1

    3. Medicine of Breath Intro - 2

    4. Lesson 5 - Session Recording - Medicine of Breath

    5. Lesson 5 Session Recording - Audio - Downloadable

    6. The Medicine of Breath - Meditation Recording

    7. Breath Form Taster - 1 - COSMIC ORBIT - Sap Rising

    8. Breath Form Taster - 2 MICROCOSMIC ORBIT - Sap settling

    9. Breath Form Taster - 3 - Ocean Breathing

    10. Lesson 5 Homework

    1. The Medicine of Early Developmental Movement

    2. Early Developmental Movement - Intro Video

    3. Lesson 6 Session Recording - Developmental Movement

    4. Lesson 6 Session Recording - Audio - Downloadable

    5. Mini Somatic Drop In - DOWNLOADABLE

    6. The Medicine of Developmental Movement - Somatic Practice - DOWNLOADABLE

    7. Lesson 6 Homework

Somatic Meditations for Soothing & Softening

  • A 3-month course of guided somatic meditations and live interactive workshops, for quietening the internal racket. Support for you to cultivate a more nourishing Sleep and Rest practice.

What people say...

'This offering is an absolute gem!'

Rachel S

This offering from is an absolute gem. I really recommend this to anyone who is tired of being tired. As with any new pattern of being, it takes support, time, repetition and community to make a change. You couldn't be in safer hands with Rachel. I really want other people to experience this!!

I'm still using aspects of the course now...'

Andrew C

The course helped me change my attitude to rest. Instead of seeing it as just “not doing anything”, I learnt to see it as something I could deliberately practice. Having a regular class helped keep it in my awareness and being introduced to a variety of ways to practice rest allowed me to find ones that worked for me. I am still using aspects of the course now, several weeks after it has finished.

'Unique and potent - creative pre-sleep tools, that I have not seen offered anywhere else'

David L

Rachel is a fun and inspiring Somatics teacher. Clear in her experiential instructions, encouraging and supporting students in their own autonomy and developing a personal practice that works for them in their own circumstances. Coming out of her own deep explorations in a wide range of modalities, this course provides some unique and potent, creative pre sleep tools aimed at unwinding your nervous system that I have not seen offered anywhere else in a singular course, that are highly effective. I definitely recommend this course to anyone seeking quality Somatic instruction to help improve the art and science of their sleep.

'I can’t recommend this highly enough.'

Celynn M

I can’t recommend this highly enough. Not only does Rachel facilitate with grace, empathy and deep wisdom ... but the journey into soothing rest is one that every human being would benefit from exploring and revisiting no matter what....one of the greatest values I received from the course is that now, in those moments where I am struggling to drop into sleep, instead of dread and frustration building, I have techniques I can use which help me feel empowered.

'For the first time in a long time, I (am) sleeping more deeply '

Natasha D

This was just what was needed. The invitation to listen and rest once a week, exploring different somatic pathways with others, held by Rachel’s calm, curious and grounded facilitation style, meant that I was able to absorb this into my conscious awareness as a practice. The impact meant that for the first time in a long time, I was sleeping more deeply and finding other ways during my usually busy days to calm and soothe.

'My whole system was in need of softening and resting'

Carina N

I found Rachel Blackman and her teachings at a place in life where my whole system was in need of softening and resting. Going through a couple of years of highly stressful events I was at a place that mostly resembled complex trauma or burnout. I tried many things, but most did not make any sustainable or notable changes. (I moved) from having the sensation of a tight belt around my diaphragm which made each breath an effort, to the sensation of a soft jellyfish moving in water and breathing softly and easily again. I would recommend the course to anyone in need of slowing down. Softening, finding a deeper connection to the body and getting into a more balanced, softer and receptive state.

'From the first week I found myself feeling the benefits'

Rosy P

I can't recommend Rachel's Somatic Meditations for Soothing and Softening course enough. It arrived at a time when I was really exhausted, and from the first week I found myself feeling the benefits. Rachel is a brilliant facilitator, warm and wise, masterfully guiding us to deep places with a light touch. Thanks to this course and equipped with a variety of accessible new tools, I am learning to explore rest as a practice in its own right, rather than a thing that might happen (if I'm lucky).

Money, Time & Resources

You'll need the a quiet room, a mat, a blanket, clothes you can move in & the internet.

Allow 90 mins per week for the live zoom workshops (or the equivalent if you're joining via the recordings) and roughly 15 minutes per day for practicing the tools during the week. More if you feel inspired.

If you like social engagement, allow time for sharing in the private Mighty Network community with other participants.

Suggested investment: £360. Alternative pricing options and payment plans available. Please choose the price below that reflects your financial situation.

Pricing options

If you are ok for money, please choose the regular price. If you need further financial support than these options allow in order to join us, please reach out.

Curious and want to know more?

I ran a free taster workshop and Q&A session for this course. If you'd like to see the recording from that session and have a go at the taster exercise, click the button below to enroll for free. You will need to create a login for my course hub in order to access the recording.

About your facilitator

Rachel Blackman

Rachel is a daughter, sister, wife, step mother and proud aunty, originally from Australia, living in Brighton UK.

She is a somatic educator, somatic & creative coach, trainer, Feldenkrais practitioner, artist, theatre maker, and mentor.

She trains coaches to work with the body as an intelligent instrument at The Somatic School, creates online courses and classes which are designed to bring us home to our innate biological wisdom and creative expression. She has been supporting people to come home to their embodied wisdom for over 30 years.

All her work is in service to the Generative principle which is alive in all organic life and therefore also in us.

Rachel honours the traditional owners of the unceded territories of her birth and childhood. She honours the elders past present and future of the following nations: Yuggera nations (now Brisbane) where she was born and her ancestors settled. Murwinina nation (now around Hobart, Tasmania. The lands of the Eora Nations (Sydney). But the place she spent most of her childhood, the lands of the Bunjalung Nation, in the subtropical rainforests by the sea, is where she feels her greatest sense of belonging.

She hopes, one day to return.

Got Questions?

Send Rachel a message and she will get back to you soon.

Contact Rachel