Nervous System Grounding for Sexual Healing
Erotic Safety
in a Chaotic World
A 6‑week somatic nervous system series for individuals and practitioners to rebuild sexual safety, self‑trust, and erotic sovereignty when the world feels anything but safe.
Live online – Starts March 25, 2026 – 6 workshops + bonuses – From $295
The world right now is a pretty chaotic place.
Polarization. Hidden harm coming into the light.
Abuse dynamics happening on the world stage are no longer able to hide.
I’m sure you see and know the impacts both in yourself and others:
Fear. Dissociation. Scrolling on social media. Disconnection from friends, relatives, or other supportive networks. Hopelessness. Anger. Frustration. A constant wondering of what’s next? Perhaps even an unconscious wondering of “Will I survive?”
Quite understandably, right now most of our nervous systems are being hijacked by the energetics of the world and collective. Especially as the Epstein files come to light, coercion and control dynamics in the collective field are being highlighted, and as women’s and queer folks rights are stripped, it makes so much sense that we’d be feeling a lack of safety right now.
I believe the question to ask right now is not: how do I make this all stop?
But rather… how can I move toward myself, the things that matter to me, and my erotic sovereignty in a time where it appears that outside forces want us to be disconnected?
How can I validate and be with my trauma and pain so rather than being hijacked by other energies, I am better able to stand inside myself?
What if–even in times of instability and chaos and horror–I can find tendrils of my own rooted sense of sensuality, eroticism, desire and pleasure, without overriding the slowest or most fearful parts of myself?
Or perhaps, how can I support and help others return to themselves and their sexuality in a time where old and new trauma is getting retriggered, when the world feels heavy and horrible, and the impulse is to disconnect from pleasure rather than engage?
We can not do any of these things if our nervous systems are frozen, hijacked, dominated, paralyzed, or consumed with past experiences and present collective energetics (all extremely understandable realities right now!).
What we need right now is to NOT force ourselves into some sort of state of “regulation,” but to instead attune and honor where we’re at so we can find glimpses of stability within the madness.
What if we stopped allowing overwhelm to dictate our sexuality and lived realities, and we began building a culture of Erotic Safety and Sovereignty instead?
What is Erotic Safety?
Before pleasure…
Before wild orgasms…
Before polarity…
Before erotic expansion…
What if there was a sense of safety that existed within?
If your sexuality feels confusing, numb, overwhelming, compulsive, shut down, or entangled with shame, erotic safety is the place we can begin.
Erotic Safety is not about increasing desire or finding your turn-on (though that could be a tangible result of doing this work).
It’s not about doing the hand’s on jade egg or tantra practices (no shade there… it has its time and place!).
It’s not about being a “sex goddess,” or showing up as the shiniest and sparkly and sensual being on the planet.
Erotic Safety is about understanding how the nervous system shapes your sexuality, and cultivating a deeply rooted sense of safety and self-trust that exists beyond the stories and expectations the culture, or spirituality, or sex coaches, or self-help and self-growth worlds tell you about how you’re “supposed” to be.
In this specific course we are looking at how sexuality sits at the intersection of:
- Attachment dynamics
- Threat responses and circuitry in the body
- Bonding hormones and oxytocin
- Shame
- Attunement and witnessing
- Refinding agency
If safety is unstable, desire cannot organize coherently.
This 6 week workshop series is a starting point offering you the physiological map to work with these dynamics happening in your or other’s bodies.
Who This Is For
Erotic Safety is the foundational nervous system and somatic literacy for sexual healing.
It is for anyone who wants to understand how trauma, attachment, shame, and threat responses shape sexuality, and how to rebuild safety from the inside out.
For individuals
You are needing foundational sexual healing around what is happening inside your body.
(PLEASE NOTE: foundational doesn’t necessarily mean beginner. Perhaps you’ve already done a lot of Tantra or Sacred Sexuality work, but you still have patterns of freeze/fawn/shutdown or hyper-arousal in your erotic life that you want to touch more deeply. This mini-course course is perfect for that.)
It also might be for you if…
- You’re feeling activated by the current news cycle and wanting a place of resource, stability and connection.
- You experience freeze, shutdown, compliance, or dissociation in intimacy, pleasure or around desire dynamics.
- You feel desire, but don’t feel safe.
- You’ve experienced sexual trauma, whether that’s big or on the subtle realms.
- You recognize that you override your body, or perhaps don’t even know your needs, wants or desires.
- You want to rebuild self-trust in sexuality and other areas of your life.
- You are a practitioner who works with sexual trauma or people’s bodies and want stronger nervous system literacy and understanding.
For Practitioners
You are a practitioner / coach / therapist who wants to support people during this specific time, especially as the Epstein documents are released and there’s a lot of instability in the United States and world at large.
This course offers foundational nervous system literacy for sexual healing, and is for individuals healing their own relationship to sexuality and for practitioners who want a grounded, trauma-informed framework to bring into their work.
What You Will Learn
☾ … A precise, nuanced definition of sexual trauma
☾ … How fight, flight, freeze, and fawn show up sexually
☾ … The difference between arousal and alarm
☾ … How betrayal trauma shapes desire
☾ … The role of oxytocin and warmth in erotic regulation
☾ … How to build erotic capacity without overriding yourself
☾ … How to restore agency and choice in the body
Practitioners will learn:
- How to recognize sexual threat responses in clients
- How to differentiate dissociation from low desire
- How to work with freeze without forcing mobilization
- How to titrate erotic capacity safely
- How to reduce shame through physiological education
By the end of Erotic Safety, you’ll begin to develop…;
☾ … Nervous system literacy around sexuality dynamics
☾ … Sexual trauma clarity, understanding and healing
☾ … Unshaming and witnessing work
☾ … Self‑trust repair
☾ … Erotic capacity awareness
☾ … Relational attunement skills
☾ … Somatic practices for embodied agency
The Workshops
1. When Safety Is Broken
Attachment, Betrayal & the Erotic Nervous System
# March 25, 2026 @ 10 AM PST
Understand how early attachment wounds and betrayal trauma shape your erotic wiring, and why your intimacy and sexual responses are wildly intelligent and make so much physiological sense.
Somatic Practice:
- Attunement with Other or Self Practice
2. The End of Self-Betrayal
Sexual Trauma, Shame & Rebuilding Self-Trust
# April 1, 2026 @ 10 AM PST
Through an unshaming lens, understand sexual trauma through a much broader definition and start seeing how cultural and collective narratives impact our sexual understanding. Explore shame in your own body, as well as how the fawn and freeze dynamics, or hyperarousal dynamics, can disrupt your ability to trust your own body.
Somatic Practice:
- Shame release through witnessing practice
3.How to Rewire Desire
Oxytocin, Warmth, Witnessing & Re-establishing Erotic Safety
# April 8, 2026 @ 10 AM PST
Discover how energetic or emotional warmth, being seen, and oxytocin regulate the nervous system, and why desire cannot organize without a sense of inner safety.
Somatic Practice:
- Warmth visualization meditation
- Self-witnessing breath practice
4.Arousal or Alarm?
The Sexual Threat and/or Turn-On Response
# April 15, 2026 @ 11 AM PST (note time change)
Learn to distinguish pleasure from survival activation so you can recognize when your body is aroused as well as when it is protecting you.
Somatic Practice:
- Pleasure titration and pendulation exercise
- Right-distance with sensation practice
Bonus Q&A and Coaching Call
# April 20, 2026 @ 11 AM PST (note day & time change)
5. The Pace of Pleasure
Erotic Capacity & Attuned Momentum
# April 29, 2026 @ 10 AM PST
We have a lot of assumptions about how we should be sexual or the pace we should be moving out, as opposed to recognizing our own inherent impulses and pacing moment to moment. Here you can build erotic capacity gradually and learn how to expand without overriding, forcing, or collapsing.
Somatic Practice:
- Pleasure titration exercise
- Right-distance with sensation practice
6.The Return to Sovereignty
Agency, Boundaries & Erotic Self-Leadership
# May 6, 2026 @ 10 AM PST
Start to restore embodied choice, clear boundaries, and internal coherence so your sexuality feels aligned and self-led, as opposed to cultural or partnered ideas of what it should look like.
Somatic Practices:
- Relational and Sexual “right distance” exercise
- Integration meditation
Bonus Materials
6 hours of Pre-Recorded Bonus Material Included
- Module on Stabilization
- Safe Even Now Workshop
- Sacred Rage, Sacred Pleasure Workshop
- Safety + Self-Trust Shortcut Workshop + Telegram Practice Group
Erotic Safety starts on March 25 2026 and goes until May 6, 2026
Calls will be held on Wednesdays from 10 AM to 12 PM PST.
Course Format
20+ hours of content total
6 live workshops (60 min teaching + 30 min practices)
1 bonus coaching call
6 hours of pre‑recorded bonus material
Educational + practice focused
Hosted on Skool (community + classroom)
Access to content + community for at least 1 year (and probably longer)
Appropriate for practitioners and individuals
Erotic Safety starts on March 25 2026 and goes until May 6, 2026
Calls will be held on Wednesdays from 10 AM to 12 PM PST.
Sign up Today
EARLY BIRD Available
Live classes start Tuesday, March 3rd!
Grab your Early Bird Price
$350 295
*Payment Plans Available
2 payments of $148
3 payments of $99
(please select this plan on a need basis)
Erotic Safety starts on March 25 2026 and goes until May 6, 2026
Calls will be held on Wednesdays from 10 AM to 12 PM PST.
Who is guiding this transformative journey?
Hi I’m Rachel (she/her), though many call me Rae. I currently live in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the original home of the Tiwa. And I’m the creator of this transformative container.
I am a writer, thought-leader, coach and guide in the trauma, somatic and embodiment fields. I love working with coaches, healers and leaders who’ve done all “the work” and yet still sense there are unseen life-degenerating patterns dictating their reality.
I am a seasoned practitioner with over a decade of experience, with some of the most advanced trainings around trauma resolution, sexual liberation, and collective healing under my belt. I have a unique, mystical, and energetic approach to trauma healing + pleasure, and a deep-rooted sense of the dark feminine path (a path of being and accepting, as opposed to a mental knowing and rejection).
My work goes far beyond the typical somatic experiencing principles and enters into the nature and energetic or mystical realms of the unseen.
Outside of my Master’s degree where I extensively researched sexual and spiritual healing through neuroscience, trauma recovery and embodied interspirituality, focusing on the spiritual trauma incurred by those marginalized in the Christian Church through sexual suppression, abuse and LGBTQ+ identification, I also am…
☼ Certified as a VITA coach, a 600+ hr Sex, Love and Relationship coaching program with Layla Martin
☼ Graduated from Alchemical Alignment: Bodywork for Trauma Resolution and Embodiment of the Spirit with Brigit Viksnins (completed modules 1 – 14 in 2021/22, repeated modules 1-7 with Tele Darden in 2023/24)
☼ Studied with Rachael Maddox as a Support Coach for her Sex After Trauma program, and through the ReBloom Somatic Trauma Resolution Coaching methodology
☼ Two years of study in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy through my graduate degree
☼ Completed Levels 1-3 of David Elliott’s Pranayama breathwork training
☼ Certified in Energetic Justice, an anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and spiritual awareness modality
☼ Completed the intro levels of Somatic Experiencing
☼ Studied with Sigourney Belle of SomaMystica in the Spinal Attunement Method Modality
☼ Took Level 1 and 2 of Craniosacral therapy through Upledger
☼ Completed a year long Emotional Leadership Certification Program
☼ Currently enrolled in 10-month long Process Oriented Facilitation Unshaming Training Certification with David Bedrick
☼ Mentored 1-on-1 by numerous coaches, practitioners, and experts in the fields of energetic awareness, somatics and trauma
☼ Spent some of my 20’s in a transformational community rooted in permaculture, deep threads of spiritual traditions and practices and healing
I am half-Engish, half-“American” of English and Swiss-German descent, raised white and middle-class on a farm in the land of the Mesquakie, Sioux, and Ioway people (currently known as Iowa). I grew up Christian in the Mennonite Church, and currently consider myself an animist witch with deep Mennonite roots that still inform the way I operate in this world. I experienced sexual abuse at the age of 3, which I then (re)remembered at the age of 22. That awakening sent me on a deep healing journey that has led me to exactly where I am now.
FAQ
Do not use - do not delete ( hidden)
needs content
Is this therapy?
No. This is educational content and somatic understanding and skill-building.
Is this appropriate if I have experienced sexual assault or trauma?
Yes… the content is very trauma-informed and paced carefully. With that said, this is not the same as 1-on-1 therapy or coaching, and you will not be attuned to as closely as you would be in that kind of space. It is recommended that if you have trauma you’ve never touched before, you are working with other practitioners and/or have a supportive network/friends to lean on while you’re in this space in case you need the extra support for processing and integrating the material.
What if I can't attend live?
Totally okay! You can do this entire course asynchronously. In fact, for some we even encourage that. Though we take trauma into consideration, this course may actually go at a pace that is just a little too quick for you. We will give you a whole year access (and probably longer) to move through the content at the pacing that works for you. Or if you’re in a different timezone or at work during the calls, that’s okay, too. You’ll still also have access to the community page and can share your questions or things that come up there.
If this course is recorded, how do I remain anonymous?
All content WILL be recorded here, and be offered as an evergreen course in the future. I will specifically invite questions at particular times. No one will be recorded unless you speak with a microphone and camera on. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can always ask questions via the chat sent privately to Rachel or one of the assistants.
Is this explicit sexual content?
No, not at all. This is nervous system education applied to sexuality. Occasionally there will be stories told by the teacher and/or by participants. But those stories are invited to be told with caution and care for other folks’ nervous systems.
Is this only for people in relationships?
No. It’s for anyone, whether single, coupled, poly, queer, etc.
Is this for women only?
I am opening this space up to all genders, BUT with that said, 95% of my clients are women or non-binary, so please keep that in mind if you identify as another gender.
Also, if you are a man, please understand that this space is friendly to women who have unprocessed rage or pain around men. If you choose to be in this space, then you’re also choosing to be with those energies and to not get defensive or to take them personally. If that feels like it would be difficult, then this isn’t the space for you.
Do I need prior experience?
No. But if you do have sexual trauma, it will be helpful if you’ve worked on that some outside of this space, or you have other support systems in place while in this course. There is only one coaching call in this space, so there isn’t a ton of 1-on-1 support or attention in this particular course.
I’ve taken Erotic Embodiment or Slow Burn. How does this program differ?
This is more of an intro course than what Slow Burn / Erotic Embodiment offered, BUT with that said, there is content here that Rae has NEVER taught before in any other spaces, including both of those courses. If you’ve taken Erotic Embodiment or Slow Burn in the past, you can take this course at 50% off. Email rae@raehalder.com for a link.
I’ve taken Erotic Embodiment or Slow Burn. How does this program differ?
This is more of an intro course than what Slow Burn / Erotic Embodiment offered, BUT with that said, there is content here that Rae has NEVER taught before in any other spaces, including both of those courses. If you’ve taken Erotic Embodiment or Slow Burn in the past, you can take this course at 50% off. Email rae@raehalder.com for a link.
Across all six workshops of Erotic Safety, you will begin to develop…
- Nervous system literacy around sexuality dynamics
- Sexual trauma clarity, understanding and healing
- Unshaming and witnessing work
- Self-trust repair
- Erotic capacity awareness
- Relational attunement skills with self and other
- Somatic practices for embodied agency
Erotic Safety is not about becoming more erotic (though that could definitely be a side effect of what happens here).
It is instead about becoming more coherent inside yourself, and coming home to who you truly are as an erotic being instead of contorting yourself into what the world or others or your trauma tells you you should be.
If you want this, or you want to offer this to your clients who have experienced sexual trauma or are feeling particularly impacted right now, this mini-course is a perfect place for you to deepen your skills and understanding.
What others are saying about working with Rae…
Working with Rachel has been an interesting and transformational experience, and I mean that in the best of ways! I came into this work hoping to deepen my relationship with myself, my sexuality and sexual expression. Cognitively I felt ready to do this but my body was incredibly resistant. Rachel sensed that from the beginning and made sure I knew that if safety within my body was the “only” thing achieved during our work together that it would be successful! Admittedly, I did not love that answer, but decided to trust it!
Rachel did a great job of tailoring my treatment to me and intuitively picked up on where I needed to focus my attention each session. I had to put the idea of connecting to my sexuality/sexual expression by the wayside which I was bummed about, but I agreed with Rachel that focusing on safety had to happen. And slowly but surely, it did! It’s crazy to think that just 5-6 months ago the idea of feeling safe in my body felt like a foreign concept because it feels so embodied now! And though I still have a way to go, without even realizing it, the creation of safety allowed for my body to connect to sexual expression and desire without any direct attention paid to it—kinda like a side benefit of safety! I feel grateful for the work that Rachel and I have done together. I am hopeful to continue working with her in the future and would highly recommend her to anyone!
Before working with Rae I struggled with shame, shyness, and being seen in my sexuality with others, often I didn’t feel fully comfortable to express or receive pleasure, especially after an unhealthy relationship and traumatic breakup. This manifested physically in discomfort, pain, and numbness. Since working with Rae, I have felt an opening that allows me to connect so much deeper with others sexually and with my own pleasure. I feel a renewed sense of excitement, ease, and aliveness.
In our sessions, Rae held a strong container that was so clearly informed by years of training, self practice, and commitment to healing work. I’d recommend this work to people who have experienced trauma that may be holding them back from fully experiencing pleasure and embodiment. She taught me practices and techniques that I still use regularly to center back into worthiness and self love. I’m so grateful to Rae for our time together!
I have so many amazing things to say about this woman. I am so grateful for her. As someone that has been doing the work and in this world for over a decade, Rae took my healing to an even deeper level.
I used to try and work harder to achieve healing, and Rae showed me that it gets to be gentle and that I can build my capacity and self trust in the process. She holds the most incredible space and has such a gift of reflecting your process back to you, and explaining it in a way that makes sense. I have learned so much, including how important it is to validate my feelings, how trauma responses play out in my body and in my life, and tools to continue using as I navigate intensity in the world and life experiences.
Rae is one of the best practitioners in the trauma industry and this type of support is unlike anything I have received in other therapy + coaching containers. If you are considering working with her– DO IT! What you learn will benefit all areas of your life, for the rest of your life.
Mind blown. Before working with Rachel, I didn’t believe that I would ever be able to move beyond some of the stuck, painful moments that I have been carrying in my body for decades. I can now confidently say that I fully believe healing is possible for me, and that I have been given the skills and resources to personally take these steps.
Being a therapist myself, I initially came into sessions with Rae quite skeptical, but it only took a couple of interactions to realize that this practitioner is a VERY rare gem. Rae’s medicine is a true gift to the earth, and more specifically, to today’s struggling society. Her capacity to hold space and intuitively facilitate is inspiring and I am so glad that I found her because she has taken my personal work to the next level.
If you are considering working with Rae – whether individually or in one of her programs – I urge you to do it. Not only does Rae have a wealth of knowledge and wisdom (thanks to her extensive training and commitment to personal work), but she practices from a place of groundedness and intuition that far exceeds that of most other practitioners.
Other practitioners have taught me how to be rescued through my relationship with them. Rachel is teaching me how to be rescued through my relationship with myself. And that, that is worth more than anything.