NON-LINEAR
MOVEMENT METHOD
Move. Release. Feel. Respond.
Non-Linear Movement Method® (NLMM) is a powerful somatic method created by Michaela Boehm with an aim of connecting individuals with their inner landscape, exploring and releasing physical contractions, withholds and emotional closures.
Bi-monthly online classes coming soon!
NLMM is a self-led experience of embodiment. You really can't do it wrong.
My role as a guide is to create the conditions in which you can feel safe to move, assist in keeping you in the practice and offer guidance to reach deeper levels of embodiment at your own pace and in your own time.
Embodiment is a practice, not a destination.
You don't have a nervous system, you are a nervous system; so there is no escaping the evolutionary fight, flight and freeze response, but you can learn to notice the patterns around when those responses show up.
Embodiment practices provide access to those patterns so they can be transformed.
Your body is a living library—it remembers everything. Whatever the mind tries to hide from us to help us survive daily life, will reveal itself through the body in many ways. What is known is that 80% of what the brain processes is bottom-up. Meaning the body is informing the brain what is going on 80% of the time. The body is the canary in the coal mine that alerts the brain that something is off.
But heavy emotions don't feel good. Most of us weren't taught how to process our emotions and so we tend to push anything uncomfortable down, and we create maladaptive patterns and behaviors to avoid giving any kind of pain a voice, but that doesn't mean the emotion is gone. It just gets stuck in the tissues of the body. Unfortunately, part of not processing the uncomfortable emotions is that we also end up numbing our sense of well-being and joy; cutting off access to our bodily wisdom.
Embodiment practices like NLMM are not meant to "fix" anything, but to provide an opportunity to be with whatever is present in the body that we may not be aware of (trauma, stuck patterns, unprocessed emotions to name a few) and learn to let them be present with curiosity and without judgement and learn to feel sensations and inhabit our bodies in our own time and at our own pace.
THE BENEFITS OF
NON-LINEAR MOVEMENT
Regulates the nervous system
The demands of modern life create stress and tension in the body and an overactive mind. NLMM encourages the identifying and unwinding of patterns of contraction. Through gentle, non-force movements bodily tension and underlying mental loops are relieved. The result is a systematic, self-guided unburdening of the nervous system.
Processes and Identifies Emotions
As the body unwinds and the mind relaxes its pressured pace, the emotions associated with these contractive patterns become apparent and can be dissolved through the movement. You can note recurring emotional loops for further processing and at the same time allow emotions to simply arise and let go.
Releases Trauma Patterns into Flow
One of the common results of traumatic experience (fresh and old alike) is “freeze”, a state in which body, mind and emotions are stuck in a state of numbness. Often “freeze” is falsely perceived as a feeling of “calm/nothing”, which results in an inability to release the experience and ease the bodily patterns of hold. NLMM facilitates a continued movement, which gently opens the freeze pattern and allows for recognition and release of the underlying bodily and emotional patterns.
Unites Mind and Body in Intimacy with Physical Sensation
Through continued engagement with release of contraction and facilitation of emotional awareness, the ingrained patterns become both more apparent and less pronounced. Over time, physical sensation can be more fully engaged with, and the acceptance as well as tolerance of all sensation increases. Intimacy with whatever is present is possible. Body, Emotion and Mind can align to support an integrated approach to feeling and understanding existing behavioral patterning.
Creates High Bodily Responsiveness
NLMM educates the body how to release and process contractions, stress and emotional tension while at the same time sensitizing you to your internal landscape. This is called “Interoception”, the ability to feel what is “inside”. Via the body we become highly attuned to all sensations and can note, react or release fluidly and without having to attend to traumatic or suppressed backlog.
Opens Access to Bodily Wisdom
By putting emphasis on movement and circumventing the analytical mind and loops of tense thinking the natural intelligence of our bodies is accessed. Through gentle guidance the mechanisms of “freeze” and refusal to feel are being loosened and our innate bodily wisdom can create the necessary actions and releases.
Awakens Vital Energy and Sensual Sensation
As tension, contraction, and emotion are being released, the body becomes sensitized and we are able to feel deeper. One of the marked results of this sensitization is an ability to feel increased pleasure and well being. Participants report an increased ability to connect through their body, both with themselves and others.
