With everything happening in our world right now, many of us find ourselves bracing for what’s to come. This bracing can also come with a sense of urgency and need to keep moving. While this is an absolutely reasonable response to current events, it’s also exhausting, especially when we are in more of a marathon than a sprint.
Something I am exploring, both personally and with clients, is how to invite our bodies to take breaks from the bracing and urgency—to rest, reset, and replenish. I have been experimenting with somatic yielding as a way to encourage that rest.
At its most basic, yielding means allowing our bodies to rest into whatever support is available. Physically, this looks like inviting our muscles to stop efforting and to surrender to gravity. Relationally, it means settling into the support of another and trusting them to hold us. And it allows us to shift from a state of doing to a state of being.
This morning, for me, it looked like pausing during my walk to sit on a piece of driftwood. Shifting from the doing of walking to the being of rest. Can you think of any moments of yield?