Rooting to Rise

How mindful movement supports you to do the work that matters.

"Do you have any body-based practices?” I asked a new client recently in preparation for some systemic exploration we were going to do about a leadership issue at work they were facing.

“I signed up to go to the gym recently and have managed to go once since, my aim is to go twice a week but I’ve only been once, I just haven’t had the time to go yet and…...” They smiled sheepishly as they trailed off from their short monologue.

This is a different version of a common answer I get to this question. It may even sound familiar.

I ask the question not to find out if you keep fit, go to the gym or even how you look after your physical health. These things are important but this question is about how you connect with your body in a way that’s beyond just the physical.

Our body is wise

In the past decade or so, we’ve become more and more aware of the mind-body connection; of the millions of neurons in our gut and our heart that act in connection with, and independently, of our brain. We’re understanding now that we hold experiences, emotions and our responses to past events in our bodies - our muscle and tissue, our physical structure, even our hormones and glands, and that this holding impacts our responses to experiences and events in our present.

When we think about connecting with our body, our default tends to be something like the answer my coaching client gave. We drop into a self-critique, a sense of guilt and frustration of what we’re not doing for our body.  That is, keeping fit, healthy and strong and also being tender, listening to it when it’s ‘speaking’ to us and doing things that help process stress or challenging experiences in life and work.

But we keep pushing through

With our busy lives doing work that we care about – building businesses, leading others, family responsibilities, social lives to maintain and To do lists to get through - caring, and even listening to the body falls to the bottom of the urgent and important list. We’re aware of our body tensions, aches, pains, upsets, flare-ups, but we push through and carry on regardless.

As well as an Executive coach, I’m also a certified yoga teacher, I like to run, swim and hike when I can, but Non-Linear Movement supports me in a very different way, it helps me work through tension, anxiousness, and uncertainty in a much more subtle and intentional way.

Non-Linear Movement Method® is a powerful somatic method developed by Embodiment and Relationship Expert, Michaela Boehm (you can see more of Michaela’s work on Netflix with Gwyneth Paltrow in S*x, Love & Goop and (UN) WELL). The Non-Linear Movement Method® fuses Michaela’s decades as a Clinical Counsellor working with trauma, emotional closures, and physical contractions in her clients and students, teaching Embodiment in relationships and is rooted in her training in a Kashmiri Shakta Tradition. I’ve been practicing NLMM® since 2020 and certified as a teacher in early 2021.

Letting go of striving

In NLMM® we let go of needing to get anywhere or achieve anything. We allow the body’s intelligence to regulate and unburden the nervous system through gentle, non-forced movements. 

This practice is about relieving your mental loops (you know when you get stuck with thoughts that you just relay over and over again in your mind without getting to a resolution, those ones that jolt you awake so rudely in the middle of the night), relaxing the mind and processing emotions. It’s about unfreezing the body, moving from what can be a common state of numbness or numbed-out-ness (that state I spoke about earlier of ‘pushing through and carrying on regardless') to increased sensitivity, bringing fresh awareness, perspective, and clarity.

Accessing your knowing

It’s a practice that supports your emotional, mental, and physical health, and allows you to access your bodily wisdom. When we purposely create space for ourselves and connect with the subtle sensitivity of our body with a practice like this, we access the natural intelligence of our bodies. We can ‘hear’ or sense what those neurons in our gut and our hearts are actually communicating, pulsing through our bodies. In Glennon Doyle’s book ‘Untamed’ she calls it our ‘Knowing’.  You might also call it your ‘gut feel’ or your intuition.

This is important when exploring your next move, a team conflict or a leadership transition, to sense make at a deeper, transformational level.

We learn to listen and to trust ourselves.

I coach busy professionals with a lot of responsibility and a desire to succeed and do well. The central focus of my work is growth and transformation, rather than goals. We explore their sense of who they are and how they are making meaning in the world, their depth of relating and their capacity to lead and hold responsibility, uncertainty, and complexity.  It means I can hold a lot too. Practicing Non-Linear Movement Method® supports me to let go of what is not mine, process my thoughts and emotions, and create fresh space and perspective so I can support others with my presence, and attention and be able to access my knowing.

Rooting to rise

We do the work we do (and the way we do it) because it’s deeply meaningful, we want to do it well and we care about people and planet. It’s work that requires our head, heart and gut. It requires us to know what it is to feel connected to ourselves and to each other. NLMM® supports you to access your whole system, to feel more grounded in your body, rooted, to rise.