REST 2026 includes five community events throughout February, each exploring rest through a different lens.
REST as Resistance — Black Therapist Panel Sunday, February 1, 2026 2PM-4PM
REST as Regulation — Nervous System Reset Class Saturday, February 7, 2026 11 AM-12:30 PM
REST as Reclamation — Sudanese Valentine’s Poetry Workshop Saturday, February 14, 2026 1PM-3PM
REST is Remembrance — Sudanese Film Screening + Mental Health Q&A Saturday, February 21, 2PM-5PM
REST is Release — DJ Set & Collective Dance Party Saturday, February 28, 8PM-11PM
Each event is grounded in care, accessibility, and community healing
REST AS RESISTANCE: BLACK THERAPIST PANEL
REST as Resistance opens the REST 2026 series with a Black-led panel of licensed mental health professionals exploring rest as a political, psychological, and communal act.
In a world that demands constant productivity and emotional labor from Black communities, this panel centers rest not as indulgence, but as survival and strategy. Panelists will reflect on burnout, boundaries, nervous system health, and what it means to practice care in systems that were not designed for our rest.
This gathering is intentionally conversational. Attendees are invited to ask the questions they’ve been holding and engage in grounded dialogue with Black therapists who understand the cultural, historical, and structural realities shaping mental health.
This event is free and open to the community and serves as the grounding foundation for the REST 2026 series.
REST AS REGULATION: NERVOUS SYSTEM RESET CLASS
REST as Regulation centers rest at the level of the body.
This therapist-led nervous system reset class offers practical, accessible tools for grounding, regulation, and recovery from chronic stress, burnout, and emotional overload. Facilitated by licensed mental health professionals, the session translates nervous system science into practices that can be felt, not just understood.
This class explores:
How chronic stress and trauma live in the nervous system
Simple regulation tools that can be used in daily life
Rest as a skill that can be practiced collectively
Grounding as a form of resistance to constant survival mode
No prior experience with somatic work, meditation, or therapy is required. This is not a fitness class or a performance space. Participants are encouraged to engage at their own pace, with consent and care at the center.
REST AS RECLAMATION: SUDANESE POETRY WORKSHOP
Held on Valentine’s Day, REST as Reclamation invites participants to reclaim love beyond romance — love as memory, grief, resistance, and cultural continuity.
This Sudanese-centered poetry workshop is facilitated by Israa Abbas, a Sudanese-American poet and archivist and the founder of The Sudanese Poetics Archive and the Sudanese Literature Archive. Israa created these archives in response to the underrepresentation of Sudanese writers and poets, building an accessible, global repository of Sudanese literature across languages and geographies.
The workshop centers poetry and writing as acts of reclamation and rest. Through guided prompts and reflection, participants are invited to engage language as a way to hold love, loss, longing, and collective memory — especially in the context of displacement and erasure.
No writing experience is required. This is not a performance space. Sharing is always optional and consent-based.
REST AS REMEMBRANCE: SUDANESE FILM SCREENING
REST as Remembrance centers rest as memory and collective witnessing.
This event brings the community together for a Sudanese film screening followed by a facilitated mental health Q&A led by licensed therapists. Together, we create space to engage Sudanese stories with care, reflect on grief and displacement, and process emotional responses in a grounded, trauma-informed environment.
Through film and conversation, participants are invited to slow down, ask questions, and explore how memory, loss, and resilience live in the body and mind. No prior knowledge of the film or mental health training is required, and participation in discussion is always optional.
REST as Remembrance honors the truth that remembering together is a form of care — and a refusal to forget.
REST AS RELEASE: DJ SET & COLLECTIVE DANCE PARTY
REST as Release closes the REST 2026 series with movement, music, and collective joy.
This DJ-led dance party (DJ’ed by JUS.BE HOUSE COLLECTIVE) centers rest through embodiment and release, honoring music and dance as ancestral tools of regulation, connection, and survival within the Black diaspora. When rest is denied, joy becomes an act of resistance.
The evening invites participants to move, exhale, and celebrate together in a space grounded in care and intention. No performance, no pressure — just presence, rhythm, and collective release.
REST as Release reminds us that joy is not a distraction from struggle, but a vital part of how we endure and imagine what’s possible.
