Life is a complex combination of stresses — “good” stresses, like running, moving, or creating, and “bad” stresses, like grief, loss, worry, or failure.

Martha says that it’s not the number of years we’ve lived that determines how we can move and feel as we age, but how we’ve habituated to these stresses.

When we feel out of balance, stuck, or defeated by life’s challenges — both physical and emotional — we tend to react in predictable, reflexive ways.

You’ll experience what these reflexes are and how to begin to release them so you can take back voluntary control of your unconscious, involuntary reactions and habits — improving the quality of your brain, nervous system, and life.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover the difference between a body and a soma — and how your physical and muscular systems respond to everything you experience in life, creating either tension or ease
• Explore the benefits of connecting to the center of your body, your power center
• Be guided through the “Back Lift,” a powerful movement you can do daily to soften tension in your back muscles
• Learn how your habitual responses to stress can contribute to chronic muscle tension — Sensory Motor Amnesia — and how it presents in 3 universal patterns of muscular holding
• Experience the pandiculation technique to improve your brain’s ability to sense and move your muscles with ease, while calming your nervous system and reducing full-body tension
• Identify the “call to action” and “withdrawal” reflexes — or, as Martha calls them, the “green light and red light reflexes” — to reduce tension between the front and back of your body for more freedom in your spine

With all the computer work we do and technology we use these days, who doesn’t have tight shoulders? Tight shoulders are actually a result of a ribcage that can’t expand and contract.

Martha will show you how to release tension in your ribcage, release stress in the muscles that move your shoulders, and restore improved range of motion to your shoulders.

You’ll be able to breathe more deeply and fully.

In this session, you’ll:

• Practice another somatic practice, the “Washrag,” to enhance movement in your shoulders and hips for improved coordination in all your daily activities
• Renew your ability to release tension in the front of your body and breathe more freely and easily using “The Flower” and “Pulling Rope” somatic movements
• Release the shoulders for improved reaching and comfortable movement 
• Deepen your awareness and skill in restoring true balance in your somatic center, resulting in more ease, comfort, and stability to your shoulder joint
• Stand taller as you resolve the “head forward posture” that develops from the habituated red light reflex that causes slumping and tension in the front of the body

Emotional stress and fear — a daily experience for many people — can evoke a deeply primal reflex that causes us to withdraw physically, mentally, and emotionally.

This reflex is known as the Startle Response (or “red light reflex” in clinical somatics) and creates tension in the muscles of the eyes, jaw, tongue, neck, and shoulders.

When we contract inward to protect ourselves from a real or perceived threat — or we slump over our computers and phones — our chest collapses inward, our shoulders hunch, our head goes forward, and we tighten our abdominals.

This tightness in our centers creates anxiety in our bodies and shows up as tension in our eyes and jaw.

Martha will guide you to use gentle, basic movements and differentiation of the eyes, jaw, tongue, and shoulders to create a deep sense of calm in your nervous system.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover how small, seemingly insignificant movements of the tongue, eyes, and jaw can gently release deep tension that you’ve been holding in your body
• Understand how a lot of emotional stress and tension is stored in the muscles of the face, eyes, tongue, and jaw
• Release the center of your body and connect it to the head, neck, and jaw to relieve jaw pain and calm the nervous system
• Learn how less really is more when it comes to working with deep tension in the central nervous system

The psoas is a deep stabilizer of the lower body. When it’s habitually contracted, it restricts freedom of movement — not just in your lower body, but also in the shoulders, neck, legs, and feet.

By releasing muscle tension in your front, back, and sides, you’ll be able to connect your shoulders and pelvis for improved walking. You’ll learn to move your pelvis in a new way to create more freedom in your entire body. You may even be on your way to dancing again!

As you gain freedom, you may experience unexpected emotions, like fear, which may force you to challenge the way you’ve been living your life — because as you change your movements, you change yourself as a human soma.

You’ll explore how releasing fear of moving, other people’s opinions about you, and your mental expectations can impact your long-term success in moving forward in life.

In this session, you’ll:

• Practice 3 simple, safe somatic movements — “Arch and Flatten,” “Back Lift,” and “Diagonal Arch and Curl” — plus a short, seated exploration to help bring the front and back of your body into improved coordination and balance so you can walk, run, dance, and play with more control
• Learn the easiest way to walk that connects you to the ground and allows your entire body to coordinate with ease
• Discover your stories around the “right” way to walk, and learn how to feel comfortable with your own stride
• Connect the movement of your shoulders to the movement of your hips for improved rotation and movement through your spine
• Free your rib cage for improved breathing and more movement in your entire torso

Everything you’ve learned in the course so far has been leading to the restoration of the most important movement in our human vocabulary — sensing the ground and walking forward toward life.

Now that you know how to release the red light, green light, and trauma reflex muscles (back, front, and sides of your body), you’re ready to connect your feet to your legs, and your legs to the center of your body for easier walking and more stability.

You’ll also play with rolling over onto your front and back and getting up off the floor with ease.

In this session, you’ll:

• Begin to restore movement in your pelvis as it connects to soft movement of your back and waist
• Feel more grounded by connecting to the earth from your feet to the top of your head
• Make friends with your feet as you discover how control begins in your lower leg and connects to the center of your body
• Play with more ease and coordination as you learn powerful walking movements to restore balance
• Experience how freedom in your center and connecting to the ground leads to a sense of safety and balance when you’re standing
• Reflect on what’s possible for your future now that you can move with more ease

At this point in the program, you’re likely to feel safer and more grounded in your movement. It’s time to take a step further and explore what it’s like to twist and rotate from your center.

Our spine is meant to gently rotate as we walk. After all, movement nourishes our spine and keeps us standing tall and feeling strong.

You’ll learn the “Propeller” — a more complex movement that connects the head, shoulders, hips, pelvis, legs, and feet for a luscious experience of spinal rotation.

In this session, you’ll:

• Learn how the ability to twist and rotate the spine comes from freedom in the back, waist, abdominals, and ribcage
• Experience the connectedness of your entire body as you gently and luxuriously twist and roll on the floor
• Feel the wonderful sense of playfulness that can show up in your movement when you restore your ability to twist
• Discover how certain pain patterns — such as sciatica and pain in your back, neck, shoulders, knees, and feet — begin to wane as you allow the shoulders, pelvis, and legs to coordinate in a natural, effortless way

Anxiety and stress can lead to a fear of movement. It’s important to remember what it was like to be playful and “dance as if nobody was watching.”

You’ll explore seated, standing, and balancing movements you can do every day to feel confident in your movement and body…

… and learn how invoking curiosity, patience, persistence, and the willingness to be kind to yourself is vital to your daily practice.

Martha will also illuminate how creating a daily somatic movement practice is the best and most time-tested way to create long-lasting improvement and comfort in your relationship with yourself, your body, your movement, and your life.

As you strengthen your capacity to sense, you’ll become more self-monitoring. And as you enhance your ability to self-monitor, you’ll become more self-correcting, self-regulating, and, ultimately, self-actualizing.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover how to build a daily somatic movement practice that works for you and complements the way you live your life
• Learn easy and effective standing sequences you can do anytime, anywhere to make gravity your friend
• Experience how everything you learned up until now can be applied to your daily life to enhance your sense of overall wellbeing
• Uncover how much fun it is to let go and explore as you learn the “Shoulder and Hip Circles Sequence” for supple movement of the shoulders, hips, and waist muscles
• Access a deeper level of understanding of balance and stability through standing somatic movements

The 12 Days of Somatic Movement
PDF of Helpful Tips From Martha Peterson

Dig into 12 of Martha’s favorite “pro tips” for deepening your somatic movement practice — using pandiculation — and continuing your journey of self-exploration. These tips will guide you in your practice and pique your curiosity about what’s possible for your healing and thriving. This bonus is bound to keep you motivated to learn more about yourself and discover how you can feel your best as you walk through the world.