The Rest & Restore Protocol: A Nervous System Tool for Sensitive, Creative Women During the Holidays

For many women — especially the intuitive, creative, high-functioning ones — rest isn’t actually restful.

It’s uncomfortable.
Edgy.
Unfamiliar.

You might crave slowing down, but the moment you try your body feels restless; tense. Your mind speeds up. Your chest tightens. You suddenly think of everything you “should” be doing.

And it’s not because you’re bad at relaxing.
It’s because you’ve trained your system to go-go-go and now it has a hard time slowing down.

In a society obsessed with productivity, stimulation, and doing more, stillness can feel threatening — especially if you grew up in chaos, unpredictability, criticism, or emotional responsibility.

Your system adapted.
It learned to stay alert.
It learned to anticipate, produce, and manage.
It learned that slowing down wasn’t an option.

Rest was never the problem. Feeling safe with going slow was.

Why Your Body Resists Rest (Even When You Want It)

When you’ve spent years — or decades — in a state of overfunctioning, your nervous system builds a pattern:

So when you sit down to rest, the body does exactly what it was wired to do:

It stays ready.
It stays braced.
It stays scanning.

You’re not failing at rest.
Your physiology is doing its job.

This is why so many sensitive, intuitive women feel more anxious, restless, or uncomfortable the moment they try to slow down — especially during more inward seasons like winter, or during times of transition, creative work, or business-building.

Your mind wants to soften, but your body hasn’t caught up yet.

Rest Requires Regulation — Not Willpower

True rest isn’t passive.
It’s an experience your body has to be guided into.

Before rest feels nourishing, your system needs:

• cues of safety

• predictable rhythm

• downshifting in the vagus nerve

• environments that feel grounding instead of stimulating

• practices that remind your body how to settle

This is where somatic therapy and nervous system-based tools become essential.

Your system doesn’t need more discipline.
It needs a different physiology.

The Rest & Restore Protocol as a Bridge Into Safety

The Rest & Restore Protocol (RRP) is one of my favorite tools for helping women learn how to downshift — gently and consistently.

RRP is an occupational therapy intervention developed by Dr. Stephen Porges and Anthony Gorry. It uses acoustic filtering (Sonocea® technology) to support vagal tone, improve interoception, and create the internal safety your body needs before it can truly relax.

It’s especially supportive for women who:

• feel restless when they stop

• have trouble sleeping

• experience internal pressure to “keep going”

• freeze when they try to slow down

• collapse into exhaustion instead of true rest

• want deeper nervous system support between sessions

And it’s particularly helpful around the holidays or whenever life becomes more demanding — whether you’re navigating family dynamics, running a business, moving through transitions, or trying to create space for your health.

This isn’t “just calming music.”
It’s a nervous system recalibration.

Why Rest Feels Even Harder for Intuitive, Creative, or Sensitive Women

Creative women spend a lot of time in their internal world — observing, anticipating, feeling, attuning.
This makes them intuitive, visionary, emotionally intelligent.

But it also means:

• their systems notice everything

• overstimulation hits harder

• rest requires deeper safety

• their bodies stay quietly vigilant out of habit

• stillness often brings up emotions they haven’t had space to feel

Many of the women I work with in Carmel-by-the-Sea arrive saying something like:

“I want rest, but my body doesn’t know how to do it.”

This is where somatic therapy and music-based interventions create a new pattern.

How RRP Supports Psychedelic Preparation & Integration

If you’re preparing for an upcoming psychedelic journey — or integrating a recent one — RRP can be a powerful companion.

It helps:

• regulate your system before you enter expanded states

• increase interoception (vital for somatic navigation during journeys)

• support emotional processing afterward

• keep your system anchored as insights reorganize

• reduce overwhelm and overstimulation

• maintain nervous system safety between therapy sessions

Psychedelic healing requires a regulated container. RRP strengthens that container.

How We Work With Rest in Therapy

In my practice, helping you soften into rest isn’t about forcing yourself to slow down — it’s about teaching your body that slowness is safe again. That happens through a blend of nervous-system–based approaches that support you on multiple levels.

We use somatic therapy to unwind the bracing patterns your body has been holding for years — the subtle contractions, the vigilance, the internal tension you’ve come to see as “normal.” As your body learns to soften, we begin integrating EMDR in a way that helps release old experiences that taught your system it had to stay alert in the first place.

From there, we weave in music-based interventions like the Rest & Restore Protocol to help your physiology downshift into parasympathetic states more consistently. And if you’re preparing for or integrating a psychedelic journey, we incorporate psychedelic preparation and integration therapy to support deeper emotional processing so your system can stay grounded as insights unfold.

Together, these approaches create a body that can actually receive rest — not as a concept, but as a felt experience.

If Rest Still Feels Hard, It Doesn’t Mean You’re Doing Anything Wrong

Your system just needs more support — the kind that honors both your sensitivity and your strength.

I offer in-person and online sessions for women across California, with an office in Carmel-by-the-Sea serving Monterey, Big Sur, and Santa Cruz.

If you’re ready to learn how to rest without collapsing, overthinking, or bracing, book a consult today so I can learn more about you.

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Results from therapy may vary. If you're experiencing mental health issues, consult with a licensed mental health provider near you. Ashley K. Whelan is a holistic psychotherapist in California offering EMDR, somatic therapy, and psychedelic integration for women seeking mind-body-spirit healing.