How do stress and trauma manifest in your body, and what’s the best way to address these physical manifestations — so you can become more embodied and comfortable?

In this opening module, you’ll look at what stress and trauma actually are and how they can physiologically and psychologically impact you. You’ll learn about the three reflexive ways that all humans respond to stress and why we can get stuck in those responses. This is called Sensory Motor Amnesia, and it takes hold in your brain and ripples out to your body, mind, and emotions.

Martha will guide you through the technique of pandiculation, the “reset” reflex that will reconnect your brain and muscles for more comfort. You’ll also explore different areas of breath in the context of three basic somatic movements.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover how your breathing is an indicator of your stress level
• Learn a simple movement (Arch and Flatten) that can be explored in a variety of ways
• Explore simple ways to free your breath for more mental clarity and energy
• Begin to restore a calm sense of self
• Learn to assess how held trauma and stress are showing up in your body
• Begin to release accumulated tension and stress in the front and back of your body

This week, you’ll learn about the parts of the brain that are impacted by stress and trauma and how they might affect your responses to life.

You’ll explore one stress reflex that’s emblematic of “fight or flight” — the Green Light (or Landau) reflex. We tend to evoke this reflex when we’re under constant demands… whether you’re caretaking for a loved one, responding to work or family demands, or meeting a deadline.

It can also take hold as a result of past experiences that have caused you to think that you must always be on the lookout for something that might go wrong. When this happens, your back muscles begin to accumulate tension, as if you were preparing for the next task to be done. It’s as if you’re a runner at the starting block, waiting for the signal to “go!”

Martha will show you how to release those muscles and, in turn, release any concerns about the future — even just for the moment.

In this module, you’ll:

• Experience a fun and integrative movement to assess the level of tension in your body as well as encourage yourself to relax
• Explore 3 basic but powerful movements to reduce tension in your back muscles so you can find a sense of balance
• Learn about areas of the brain that are affected by stress and trauma, and can be reconnected through movement
• Enjoy a new connection between your neck, spine, pelvis, and feet

In this class, you’ll explore the function of the vagus nerve and its effect on the body when it’s not functioning optimally.

You’ll learn the posture of collapse and submission (the Red Light or Startle reflex) that’s so commonly seen in those suffering from depression, “held trauma,” and long-term emotional stress.

Using gentle pandiculation, you’ll locate held tension in the front of your body, all the way up to the neck, shoulders, and head.

This week, you’ll:

• Begin to release tension in the center of your body so you can stand up straighter and breathe more deeply
• Enjoy a calmer connection to your center through differentiated breathing techniques
• Experience freedom in your breathing that enables you to speak up and speak out
• Reflect objectively on your own history and how it may be showing up in your body and movements

In this class, you’ll uncover daily stressful habits that are universal, yet uniquely individual — including jaw clenching, nail biting, fist clenching, and stress eating.

What’s happening in your thoughts, emotions, and sensations when you revert to those habits, and how do you bring awareness to them as they appear?

The roots of these habits are known only to each of us, yet you can become physically, somatically habituated to them, which may only perpetuate the cycle. You will learn about the Trauma Reflex, a stress reflex of avoidance, through twisting and side bending — which are integral to reconnecting both sides of your brain and body.

In this session, you’ll discover:

• Several easy and gentle ways to release jaw tension and anxiety
• Increased awareness of your own responses to stress and what you can about them in the moment
• How releasing the center of your body and connecting it to the head, neck, and jaw can relieve jaw pain and calm the nervous system
• How small, seemingly insignificant movements can release deep tension that you’ve been experiencing and holding

Your eyes, tongue, larynx, and face hold 33% of the sensory neurons in your brain. Everything in your life is processed first through your brain and then responded to muscularly in your body.

Movement yields deeper sensing, yet for held trauma and stress habituation, less is more. In this session, you’ll focus on using differentiation of the hands, eyes, jaw, and tongue to affect deep change in your level of awareness, comfort, and ability to be present in your body.

This will be a gentle class in which you’ll learn the power of differentiation at the brain level — and how doing much less promotes much more calm and positive change in your nervous system.

In this module, you’ll:

• Give yourself permission to let old sensations and feelings rise to the surface as you dive into the deeper workings of your brain
• Revel in the extraordinary change that occurs when you use differentiation to improve your movement and sensation
• Begin to sense the connection between your periphery (head, eyes, neck, fingers, hands, arms) and your somatic center
• Experience improved rotation and movement through your spine as you learn to connect your head, eyes, shoulders, and hips in simple rotation

How well do you sleep? In this session, you’ll learn how stress and trauma can impact your sleep and why improved sleep is critical to overall mental, physical, and emotional health.

Tension and stress (whether eustress, which is beneficial stress, or distress, which is negative stress) can accumulate in your muscles and nervous system. Physical tension and mental stress stimulates the brain, and sometimes, we just can’t shut it off. We may lie in bed going over conversations we’d like to have or just had, listing things to do tomorrow, and running scenarios in our imagination.

All of this conflicts with our natural need for rest and rejuvenation. When you “empty the cup” of your stress at the end of your day using gentle pandiculation and somatic movements, you’ll experience deep release and relaxation so you can sleep like a baby and wake up feeling refreshed!

In this class, you’ll:

• Discover a sequence of easy, gentle movements that will prepare you to fall asleep like a baby and wake up feeling refreshed
• Learn strategies to calm your mind for more restful sleep
• Experience a routine of movements you can do easily before bedtime for deep, restful sleep

In this closing session, you’ll discover strategies for creating a sense of stability and connection to the ground.

When you’re stuck in Sensory Motor Amnesia or have the residue of trauma running your brain and body, you may feel unstable standing and moving forward. This means you’re not in sync with your movement. You may even describe yourself as “klutzy,” and start to fear movement.

When you begin to forge a new connection to yourself through pandiculation and the release of muscular tension, you can reconnect to your feet and the ability to move forward in life.

In this final class, you’ll:

• Feel more grounded by connecting to the earth from your feet to the top of your head
• Make friends with your body as you discover a playful sense of movement
• Continue to deepen your awareness of yourself and what’s possible for you now that you’re more connected top to bottom, side to side, and front to back
• Discover a renewed sense of connectedness from the center of your body outward to your extremities

The Combined Power of the Feldenkrais Method^® & Clinical (Hanna) Somatic Education
Interview With Martha Peterson, CCSE and Lavinia Plonka

Join two renowned somatic movement educators in a lively 39-minute video conversation exploring the rich territory connecting movement, intelligence, function, and possibility. Lavinia Plonka, founder of Kinesa^® and a Feldenkrais Method^® master teacher interviews Martha about how The Feldenkrais Method^® and Clinical Hanna Somatic Education are related through their shared understanding that by engaging the brain with new and novel sensory experiences, you can learn to move with ease, comfort, and skill.

Register by August 8 to claim this bonus before it expires.

Sensory Motor Amnesia (chronic, habituated muscle tension) can develop because of small, seemingly insignificant habits that are repeated daily. They can become so habitual that they affect how you experience yourself. Take the first step to differentiate how you do what you do on a daily basis as you discover the connection between your thoughts, physical sensations, and emotions. In this 2-page article, you’ll learn two powerful daily somatic awareness practices that will help you connect how you feel with your thoughts, feelings, and movement habits. You’ll learn how to integrate the changes and discoveries you make in your practice with the way you live your life.

In this video, you’ll learn helpful pandiculations to relieve tension in your neck and shoulders that can accumulate as a result of emotional stress, poor posture, or long hours at a desk job. You can do these movements seated or standing. You’ll discover that pandiculation allows you to easily and quickly release built up tension in just a few minutes. And you’ll experience how the neck and shoulder muscles are connected to any tension you may hold in the center of your body.