According to Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, the founder of the somatic approach known as Body Mind Centering®, to yield is an active state of engagement between you and whatever you are in contact with.
Simply put, yielding means to actively meet something. And actively meeting something means your relationship to that something will change.
I appreciate Bonnie’s definition of yield because I had previously associated the word to mean surrender or give up. However, Bonnie’s definition asks me to question how I am personally participating and engaging with whatever I am in contact with, whether it be the chair beneath me, the conversation that I am having or the hand that I am holding. How I interact with my environment, directly relates to how I am actively meeting a given moment. When I attend to the places of contact with my body and my environment, I have the option to meet it or not. And when I choose to actively interact with whatever I am meeting, I have an opportunity to make choices about how I want to interact and respond in the moment as opposed to respond habitually. When I remember to yield, I begin to learn how to relate on a deep level and recognize how I am communicating with whomever and whatever I am in relationship with in the moment.
One of the most foundational and primal relationships we have is our relationship with gravity. When we are born, we are no longer the aquatic creatures that we were when we were in the womb. We become land dwellers and have to renegotiate and learn how to feel supported, safe and held by earth, as opposed to the familiar 3 dimensionally surrounding and supportive water that we freely floated in for 9 months. This big change in environment, asks us to learn how to trust and feel safe in the arms of our caregiver and begin to bond with the earth and gravity in a completely new and different way.
As we grow, our relationship to earth, gravity and with the caregivers in our life, changes and is effected by many circumstances, events and happenings. Over the years, we naturally forget to yield, trust and remember to feel supported by earth at all times.
What we attend to changes our experience. If we change where our attention is we can change how we relate to our environment. I believe that part of what we are actively doing in our yoga practice is remembering this vital relationship with the earth beneath, remembering that mother earth exists, gradually beginning to cultivate the ability to rest into ourselves more fully and awaken again and again to the process of personal engagement and relationship.
I have been actively practicing how to yield not only in my yoga practice but in all aspects of my life and what I have experienced is that the more my body feels supported, the more free my body is to move. When I first started yielding, all I wanted to do was sleep. I would lie on my studio floor and spread myself out onto the ground with as much contact as possible and almost immediately fall asleep.
I heard Bonnie say in a workshop that, “sometimes your body needs to rest for a long time before it can feel the resiliency and responsiveness of the earth below, you might need to collapse until you discover the relationship that goes both ways.”
I did not understand what she meant at the time, but after many years of remembering to yield over and over, her words have become my experience too. For example, if I practice yielding in downward dog, my body begins to develop a conversation with the vitality of the earth that is both restful and rejuvenating, giving weight and receiving support simultaneously. Each shape is a process, not a fixed position. The process allows me to observe how I am relating to the earth and how the earth is relating to me.
On a daily basis, I spend time yielding because my body craves the reciprocal and responsive feeling of being supported by the earth. When I feel supported, I can receive support in my life. The process of meeting the ground brings nourishment to all layers of my being. When I can meet the earth fully and feel met by the earth, I can utilize this relationship with gravity that has always been there, and I can begin to move more freely and easily.
If you are curious about the practice and process of yielding here is an inquiry for you to explore:
A yielding practice:
1. Lye on the ground and pick a particular surface of your body either the back, front, or sides of your body and allow that surface to spread and actively meet the ground
2. Can you find and seek comfort? – Are you comfortable in whatever position you have chosen and if not, change the position so that you are comfortable.
3. Feel both you and the earth, earth and you
4. What parts of your body are going down into the earth and what parts of your body are moving away from the earth?
5. Is there anything that you can let go of that you do not need? Is there anything you need to hold onto that you do need?
I believe that the ability or inability to yield is underneath every compensation or habit that we have. If you are struggling or suffering in anyway, this approach of practicing and remembering how to yield into the support of the earth might give your body exactly what it needs so that it can feel nourished, resilient and responsive and the whole body can develop a sense of agency and freedom that brings a balance to both your feeling of stability and mobility.
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