REWRITING OUR REST STORIES
A 4-month group program for tired API women & femmes to liberate themselves & their lineage from intergenerational cycles of burnout through rest
Enrollment for Spring 2024 is now closed
Upcoming Cohorts:
Fall 2024: Sept 21st - Jan 24th
Most API women & femmes did NOT grow up seeing rest modeled in our families.
Here’s how it affected us as adults:
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“My Asian family passed along generations of upholding the lack of rest as a sign of resiliency... it has been very challenging for me to unlearn this and feel worthy of rest.”
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“Every movement, every moment, every task needs to have a purpose - if I'm doing nothing, I end up feeling angry or guilting myself for being lazy.”
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“I feel like I have to take care of everyone around me first before I am allowed to rest.”
You learned to survive because you had to.
Now, it’s time to rest because you deserve to.
You know how to work hard. Take care of others. Fight for the world you believe in. Make a lot out of a little. Be strong. Endure. Survive.
In fact, you might be doing what you’ve seen every woman or femme in your lineage do: caretake, over-give, and self-sacrifice until there is nothing left for themselves.
But it’s not sustainable. You’ve begun to notice the costs of living with survival as your primary or only strategy. You can sense that the years of busyness, burnout, and stress have buried important parts of you.
You dream about feeling spacious, peaceful, and free. You wonder what a softer, slower, and sweeter life might look like. You want to reconnect with your magic, your joy, your power.
You’re curious about rest. You’re willing to be the first in your family, friend group, or community to have a committed relationship to rest. And you’re hungry to do it in community with people who understand your experience.
Survival got you this far. Now, let rest lead the way. 🕊
If you ask me how I came to rediscover myself, my honest response is in my rest journey.
I entered RORS from a place of self doubt, wondering if the concept of "guided rest practices" was real (and even declined the opportunity at first, despite feeling called to enroll).
On the first day at our Welcoming Ceremony, I met my fellow tired companions who were pursuing this same journey, consciously choosing to heal from hustle culture, and something just clicked. It felt like a homecoming. For the first time in forever, my soul felt whole.
Once you're on this journey, it leaves a lasting impact on the reality you want to create. You feel the subtle shifts in your approach to work, how you plan your schedule, and most importantly, how you treat yourself and others. I re-emerged from my darkness and gained lifelong friendships in my Resties community and a new awareness that you only end up accessing through finding stillness.
After feeling lost, at last, I returned home to me.
— Faerie C., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2021)
Since 2021, we’ve helped 28 API women and femmes to embody the irrevocable knowledge – born from their experiences within our rest-affirming container – that in time, with practice, and surrounded by community, your body can feel safe enough to slow down.
We don't realize how much we stigmatize rest until we start to question the ways we've been socialized to survive.
For me, this cohort was transformative. I joined RORS as an exhausted parent and burnt out pharmacist in the midst of vaccinating my under-resourced community during the height of the pandemic. Something in my spirit was calling me to rest before my body shut down.
RORS is not another "to do" on your list. It's a restructuring of how we choose to use our time and mental capacity.
As Asian women, we deserve to do more than survive. We deserve to flourish. Join our community of Resties and experience what it's like to be celebrated just as you are, independent of what you produce for the world!
— Danielle C., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2021)
Photo from a recent NYC Resties alumni community dinner (Nov 2023)
Inspired by the intimate village settings that once held, nurtured, and poured into our ancestors, Rewriting Our Rest Stories is a living village of support, created for us by us and co-stewarded in collaboration with our members.
It is only through our relationships that we, as individuals, can access the courage, strength, and resilience necessary to question the status quo, push back on dominant paradigms, and commit to our irrevocable right to rest.
That’s why we offer a community-centered, trauma-informed, and body-based approach that focuses on helping people to feel safe enough to slow down.
My intention is to offer you direct experiences with rest that put you in touch with your body’s innate intelligence —specifically, your sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Because that’s where your unconscious rest story lives. That’s where we can make a change.
By bringing awareness to what’s been normalized, investigating the survival strategies that contribute to burnout, and making new choices aligned with your values, you can begin rewriting a rest story that works for you.
Our Approach
“I was able to connect with other like-minded people from the AAPI community.
As a political worker and a policy student in a very white area, I never really had that much by way of connection to others with similar experiences as I did.
As a result, my suffering and my overworking went unnoticed by my peers and colleagues.
At RORS, I was able to be witnessed in my fullness and holistic authenticity, as well as learn very real coping mechanisms and lessons for my own rest practices that I utilize to this day.
I would recommend this to anyone for whom burnout is simultaneously a constant, and yet not an option to rest — you deserve this.”
— Lalitha P., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2023)
The (Un)learning Process
In this space, we prioritize:
Application > theory
Embodiment > intellectualization
Practice > perfection
No homework. No text-heavy slides. No required reading or facts to memorize.
Just practice, practice, practice.
Because feeling — rather than intellectualizing – is the key to learning how to rest.
Everything that you need to transform internalized oppression and make room for rest lives inside you.
So let your life and lived experiences be the raw material for this journey.
Through experiential group activities, coaching, and guided self-inquiry, you will uncover the unconscious beliefs that helped you survive, but hold you back from rest.
Then, through somatic healing practices and Collective Rest sessions, you will rewrite your rest story in mind, body, and spirit.
The RORS program transformed the lens I use to view rest.
I am now able to center rest, understand its importance, and be more mindful of how I can gently integrate it into my life – despite being in a society that pushes us to reject it.
— Vinuri R., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2023)
Rewriting Our Rest Stories is designed with your tiredness in mind.
You will utilize your survival superpowers to incorporate more rest into your schedule & experience real-time changes in your daily life.
Through our culturally-sensitive framework, you’ll explore how your family, identity & lived experiences impact your relationship to rest and build the skills necessary to rewrite your rest story.
Chapter 1: Unearth the Origins of Restlessness
What did I learn about rest growing up — from my family, school, society, or workplace?
How has this shaped my relationship to rest?
Why does rest feel unsafe to me?
What do I unconsciously believe about rest? How much of that is my own?
What am I willing to believe instead?
In what ways has systemic oppression distorted how I treat my body, work, and rest?
Chapter 2: Honor the Seeds of Survival
What does my relationship to tiredness reveal about what I’ve had to be or do to survive?
Where and when did I learn to ignore my body’s signals to stop or slow down?
What is the cost of pushing past my limit?
Who benefits when I don’t listen to my body?
How does guilt, toxic individualism, scarcity, and perfectionism prevent me from honoring my need for rest?
Chapter 3: Root Into Your Rest Story
How has rest expanded my perspective?
What does my vision for rest make possible in my life and for those around me?
What needs to change so that I can continue prioritizing rest?
What structures or practices can I implement into my schedule to protect my energy?
How can I invite my partner, roommates, family, friends, and/or work colleagues to be part of or join me in the rest journey?
P.S. I’m excited to announce that our alumni are in the process of planning the very first Restie Bestie retreat later this year, which Spring 2024 participants will be invited to join!
As an entrepreneur, the idea of rest felt so foreign and impossible, it was overwhelming to even consider starting the journey towards rest on my own.
How can I rest when there are so many responsibilities, people, and projects I have to take care of?
But I was so tired. I thought to myself, "There has to be another way to live.”
In RORS, I discovered that this way of being is conditioning that can be unlearned with patience, practice, and a deeply supportive community. RORS helped me begin to unpack and rewire my thoughts and beliefs around urgency and start to shift my toxic relationship with work and hustle culture. The program challenged me deeply to reimagine my way of being, helped me believe that I am deserving and worthy of rest, and shifted me towards a more peaceful, joyful, and easeful life.
I'm so grateful to the RORS community for their love and care and being a soft place to land when this journey felt so hard, and to Cass for being a role model through the way she courageously embodies this work.
Moving towards a more restful life has been one of the most challenging, but fulfilling and nourishing journeys I've been on. A year later, I'm still carrying the mindsets, lessons, and most of all, feeling of restfulness in my day to day life.
— Stephanie T., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2021)
How We Support You
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Structure & Skill-Building 💤
The key to unlocking rest resides within you, underneath layers of exhaustion and survival. That’s why RORS is designed so that you can just show up as you are – we will work with what you bring into the room.
We’ll meet Tuesday evenings 5-7pm PT / 8-10pm ET for creative reflection exercises and group coaching to help you uncover the unconscious beliefs holding you back from rest. Then, you’ll lie down for a relaxing Collective Rest practice to develop somatic awareness of what rest feels like.
You will also receive daily Rest Reminders Monday - Friday to make rest a normal part of your weekday.
Replays are available and will be uploaded within 48 hours.
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Accountability 🫂
We need community in order to heal internalized guilt and shame. You’ll be embraced by a community committed to co-creating conditions for us all to feel safe enough to slow down. Through vulnerability and compassionate witnessing, we destigmatize rest together.
You will get paired with a Rest Buddy who you can lean on and grow with throughout the program.
In addition, you will have access to a Group Chat where you can ask for + give support, exchange memes, and stay in touch between sessions.
Many of our buddy pairs have gone on to meet each other in person. Some still connect on a regular basis to this day!
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Connection ❤️
At the end of each module, we pause for integration and communal processing. In lieu of our usual live sessions, we’ll gather for a Virtual Sleepover.
Imagine curling up under the covers in your PJs with your favorite snacks for an evening of laughter, heartfelt stories, deep convos, and friendship!
Throughout the program, you’ll also connect with and learn from our alumni! The Resties are API women & femmes who’ve graduated from RORS and continue to stay in touch.
Upon graduation, you’ll be invited to join the Resties Village for ongoing support for the rest journey.
“The RORS program is the most beautiful synergy of safety, love, and accountability all in one.
I started the RORS program with a severe lack of understanding on how my inability to sit still was affecting my life.
I am leaving the RORS program with an immense amount of gratitude for a new muscle and ability for rest that I have literally grown out of the love and safety of this cohort, and my life is changing every day because of it.”
— Dani C., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Fall 2023)
Financial Investment: $2,500
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Upfront Payment
Make a one-time payment of $2,500
Bonus: Receive a 60-min 1:1 Rest Mentorship call (valued at $200) for personalized support during the program!
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Payment Plan: Monthly
4 - 6 month interest-free payment plans available
4 payments of $625
5 payments of $500
6 payments of $416.67
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Payment Plan: Biweekly
4 - 6 month interest-free payment plans available
8 payments of $312.50
10 payments of $250.00
12 payments of $208.33
“My RORS experience was incredibly important to my healing journey. Cassandra and my cohort peers helped collectively lead me to a true, sustainable, and real relationship to rest. RORS is a community space that is welcoming, safe, and encouraging, and I highly recommend this course.
We are all constantly writing and re-writing our personal stories, and being in the RORS container helped me write mine. I now have a more integral relationship with rest in my daily life, a stronger sense of self, and a gracious and grateful community of #Resties that I trust and know will be with me along the way, should I ever need a helping hand.”
— Sarah W., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Fall 2023)
Cass and Rewriting Our Rest Stories created a safe space to do rest practices that have radically shifted my body’s resistant relationship to rest.
Those rest practices have continued to help me through some of the most challenging times of my life.
And RORS empowered me to reimagine ways to weave rest into my life, workplace, and community.
— Nicole F., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2021)
Hear Emily W.’s Rest Story
“My time with Cassandra and the RORS cohort was nothing short of transformative. I entered this space because I wanted to learn strategies to avoid/prevent stress and burnout; I felt I was heading that way, as a first generation, early career academic working in a precarious discipline.
Prior to this program, I never felt well-rested, no matter what I tried. I was not expecting to learn that restfulness and somatic awareness go hand in hand!
This was where I truly learned to both listen to and feel what my body is trying to tell me, rather than minimizing my physical, emotional, or mental needs through processes of intellectualization.
I never understood what people meant by ‘feeling your feelings’, but now I do. It is through the noticing of and tending to various sensations in my body that I could feel fully rested.
I will undoubtedly be using what I learned in this space to ground myself not just in times of turmoil, but in times of calm to work towards a well-rounded, restful, life.”
— Lisa N., Rewriting Our Rest Stories (Winter 2023)
Meet Your Guide
👋 My name is Cassandra Lam (she/her) and I am a Vietnamese-American trauma-informed somatic healing facilitator. As a neurodivergent and invisibly disabled daughter of refugees living with complex PTSD, I’m passionate about creating community care spaces where love and liberation are practiced as culture.
I started Collective Rest to help tired and trauma-impacted organizations and communities feel safe enough to slow down. Since March 2021, the practices I teach and share have helped thousands of people within corporate or nonprofit organizations, at virtual healing circles, and beyond.
My passion for serving API women & femmes specifically comes from my experience of building The Cosmos. As CEO and Co-Founder, I dedicated 5 years to developing community care programs that center and celebrate us.
Rewriting Our Rest Stories was originally conceived during my time at The Cosmos. The first cohort (Winter 2021) brought 14 API women & femmes together to heal through rest. As our Resties Village continues to grow, I am grateful for the opportunity to support our inspiring cycle-breakers in passing down lineages not just of resilience, but also of rest.
My Rest Story
As someone who spent most of her life believing that a "good life" — the life I dream of and that I wish were possible for all of us — could only come through immense struggle, I NEVER imagined I would be here, talking about rest with you.
As the daughter of Vietnamese boat refugees, survival started at a young age for me and it just snowballed from there. As a child, I had the privilege of hoping that things would get easier when I grew up. But then I became an adult… and the world didn't get less complicated. There never came the day when the feeling of being free and unburdened suddenly dropped into my lap like a miracle.
So I survived, as many of us do, by making the best out of the circumstances while searching for ways to drive change, praying life would not always be this hard. This looked like pushing against systemic barriers, fighting for seats at tables, creating opportunities, caretaking my community before myself, and working hard and way too much. Sound familiar? 😣
I learned how to survive because I had to. Then, I learned how to rest because I HAD to.
In the depths of grief, burnout, and depression in early 2021, I reached a breaking point.
I realized: Even if my external circumstances NEVER changed, I had to take better care of myself. If survival remained my only way of living, it would eventually kill me. And every single day, it was already taking so much out of me — my joy, connection to self and others, hope.
Since then, every step of my rest journey has been informed by my years of survival:
Knowing the starvation of survival is what makes me hungry to devour rest.
Knowing what survival took from me is what encourages me to receive from rest.
Knowing how much I had to DO to feel worthy in survival mode is what helps me relax into my inherent worthiness.
I am grateful to survival for guiding me here. I am also grateful that survival is no longer the ONLY or dominant strategy in my life. The way I was going, I’m not certain I would be here today if something didn’t change.
Facing the un-sustainability of survival and making rest a priority totally changed my life and what I thought was possible for someone like me: a neurodivergent and autistic daughter of refugees living with complex PTSD and chronic pain who now gets to guide others to the healing realm of rest.
Rest helped me reclaim my humanity, dignity, and divinity. It opened doors I never thought possible to new ways of living, relating, and working that help me feel whole.
I hope for the chance to support you in doing the same. 💕
Alumni Testimonials
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Dani C. (Fall 2023)
“The RORS program is the most beautiful synergy of safety, love, and accountability all in one.
I started the RORS program with a severe lack of understanding on how my inability to sit still was affecting my life.
I am leaving the RORS program with an immense amount of gratitude for a new muscle and ability for rest that I have literally grown out of the love and safety of this cohort, and my life is changing every day because of it.“
-
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Lalitha P. (Winter 2023)
“At RORS, I was able to be witnessed in my fullness and holistic authenticity, as well as learn very real coping mechanisms and lessons for my own rest practices that I utilize to this day.”
-
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Sarah W. (Fall 2023)
“My RORS experience was incredibly important to my healing journey. Cassandra and my cohort peers helped collectively lead me to a true, sustainable, and real relationship to rest. RORS is a community space that is welcoming, safe, and encouraging, and I highly recommend this course.
I now have a more integral relationship with rest in my daily life, a stronger sense of self, and a gracious and grateful community of #resties that I trust and know will be with me along the way, should I ever need a helping hand.”
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Stephanie T. (Winter 2021)
“RORS helped me begin to unpack and rewire my thoughts and beliefs around urgency and start to shift my toxic relationship with work and hustle culture.”
-
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Lisa N. (Winter 2023)
“I truly learned to both listen to and feel what my body is trying to tell me, rather than minimizing my physical/emotional/mental needs through processes of intellectualization.”
-
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Vinuri R. (Winter 2023)
“The RORS program transformed the lens I use to view rest. I am now able to center rest, understand its importance, and be more mindful of how I can gently integrate it into my life - despite being in a society that pushes us to reject it.”
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Faerie C. (Winter 2021)
“My rest journey is the most meaningful transition I've ever made in my life so far.
The biggest part involved stepping back to my core and to stop trying to justify my right to rest. My life perspectives have shifted and I embraced insights that can't be taught in schools.
Once you're on this journey, it leaves a lasting impact on the reality you want to create.”
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Candice M. (Winter 2021)
“The program really showed me how to allow rest into our lives, embody rest techniques, and solidify habits rather than only using them when you are stressed out and desperately need them.”
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Danielle C. (Winter 2021)
“Something in my spirit was calling me to rest before my body shut down. RORS is not another "to do" on your list. It's a restructuring of how we choose to use our time and mental capacity. This cohort was transformative.”
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Ava N. (Winter 2021)
“RORS is Asian faces and voices of people I know.
RORS is a place to lie down, a revolutionary question, a soft opening in this unfashionable, lifelong effort to slow down in the face of urgency.
To say in the care of our peers, “My pace is sacred, my rest worthwhile.” and more of me means it this time.”
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Jessica N. (Winter 2023)
“I used to be excited about contributing to the demanding grind of being a tech professional. However, after years of keeping my head above water, burnout eventually took its toll, and I found myself in desperate need of a break.
Thanks to Cassandra's program, I had a transformative experience where I discovered that rest is not a mere luxury as I had previously thought, but a necessity for us to cultivate a sustainable lifestyle.
Cassandra was highly effective in creating a safe and nurturing environment for us to learn how to rest without guilt, and I’m proud to be part of her alumni of Resties!”
Frequently Asked Questions
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We begin with our Welcome Ceremony on Saturday, March 16 at 9-11am PT / 12-2pm ET.
Afterwards, we’ll meet for weekly live sessions (including integration weeks) on Tuesday evenings 5-7pm PT / 8-10pm ET starting on Tuesday, March 19, 2023 through Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
We’ll wrap up our journey together with our Closing Ceremony on Saturday, July 13, 2024 at 9-11am PT / 12-2pm ET.
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Friday, March 1st, 2024
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Here at Collective Rest, we believe in holding trauma-informed yet healing-centered spaces.
This is what it means to us: We’ve all experienced forms of trauma and we’re all in different places on our journey to healing.
While we’ve all experienced trauma, none of us is inherently “broken”. Healing is not a linear journey nor is there a final destination on the map. We are whole and beautiful as we are right now. Our survival skills, coping mechanisms, and embodied ways of being have helped us navigate the world with more safety, dignity, and belonging than we might’ve been afforded without – so they deserve to be honored.
You are the expert and authority on your experience. Choice, agency, and consent is non-negotiable in this space. Everything is always invitational and optional. Take what resonates and leave what doesn’t.
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A computer, internet access, free Zoom account, headphones, journal, and a quiet place in your home where you can set up a cozy Rest Nest for our practices 😊
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Yes, all sessions will be recorded. Replays will be uploaded to the Resource Library for participants within 2 business days.
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Upon enrollment, you’ll receive an onboarding email than includes our Welcome Survey. This form collects information on the various experiences, needs, and identities in the room. It will also support the coaching team in building an intentional program.
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There will be another cohort in Fall 2024. The program dates are September 21, 2024 - January 25, 2025.
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Your enrollment is non-refundable and non-transferrable.
If you need to withdraw from the program for any reason, you will have lifetime access to replays and resources.
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As a one-woman neurodivergent and invisibly disabled business owner who offers free community care events every month, my ability to offer financial aid depends on community support.
I am hosting 5 free community care events in February 2024 to raise money for the Rewriting Our Rest Stories Financial Aid Fund.
Please note that the amount of financial aid available will depend on donations from Collective Rest community members. It is not guaranteed we will have aid to distribute.