Yield, Baby: Yoga Nidra and Yield
From Guest Contributor, Shelley Tom
In a world where many of us experience the pressure to perform as the norm, there is often little time to nurture the important state of yield. As we stress our system, we start to rely on parts of us that emerge from dysregulated states to cope with environmental stressors of daily living. Before we know it, we’re engaging more from these states instead of the true nature of who we are. When you add additional stresses to our systems such as trauma, cultural oppression, sexual orientation discrimination, ableism, sizeism, any marginalized identity, or simply being a highly sensitive person, our system learns to exist from these states in order to survive.
As we start the sometimes arduous journey of healing to return to our true selves, evoking the cooperation of what Richard Schwartz the founder of Internal Family Systems therapy calls “protector parts” is key in creating the space for healing. However, when a system has been more habituated to states of sympathetic arousal or dorsal immobilization, the parts often reinforce a dysregulated state and letting down into the yield response can be truly a daunting task.
“The yield movement emphasizes the importance of surrender and letting go. In infancy, yielding is observed when infants relax their bodies and allow themselves to be carried or supported. In the healing process, yielding involves acknowledging the need for rest, self-care, and self-compassion. By giving ourselves permission to slow down, recharge, and heal, we honor our innate capacity for self-restoration.”
Yield is both at the beginning and end of the developmental movements. As we lean into life and its abundant lesson, yield allows us to complete a cycle. If we never allow the cycle to complete, then we simply reinforce the patterns rooted in trauma and unhealed parts of ourselves. It’s essential for us to pause and nurture a restorative state to allow for integration and healing.
How Practicing Yoga Nidra Supports Our Ability to Find Yield
Yoga Nidra can be an accessible and helpful tool in the yield process. Yoga Nidra is a sleep based meditation that uses the biology of the body to induce a state of deep meditation and relaxation. The type of Yoga Nidra I am trained in is a bit unique in that it works in the energy body, meaning that as the body shifts from thinking and doing to feeling and being, there is an unburdening and energy held in the body releases. It’s hard to explain, but it’s often a magical innate space that is filled with an ease of restoration. I AM Yoga Nidra, as taught through the Amrit Yoga Institute, teaches five tools that support wellbeing: realization, integration, dis-identification, intention, and restoration. These tools are woven into each specially curated Yoga Nidra. As I think about my own personal journey back to Self energy, each of these tools has been integral to my healing.
In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Mate shared that our brains are operating from the theta and beta states until age 7. In other words, our little selves are just absorbing our environmental messages and integrating the experiences as truths to our existence. Not all the messages are bad. For example, if you come from a loving home, you may have imprinted a sense of self-worth. However, chances are many of us took on some beliefs as truths that are at the heart of our human struggles and barriers to our ability to love ourselves and embrace our self-worth.
Yoga Nidra also utilizes the beta and theta brain waves states during the meditation; however, the receiver chooses the intention and while yielding into this deeply restorative and healing space, the burdens of the system are often released and space to disidentify with beliefs and experiences that lead us away from our true nature open us to a new realization of ourselves. The practice can be a potent part of any stage of healing.
We once again find ourselves completing a year while also at the beginning of a new one. There is no better time to lean into yield to allow for integration and space for intentions. Feel free to find a comfortable position and listen to this Yoga Nidra specially crafted to enhance the yield response.
For more information about Shelley, please visit shelleyjoytom.com. For more information about I AM Yoga Nidra, please visit Amrit Yoga Institute amrityoga.org
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Shelley Tom is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Daring Way Facilitator, and Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 200) who has specialized in working with teens, adults, and families in healing from various forms of trauma in residential treatment, wilderness therapy, and outpatient therapy. Shelley has served as the Clinical Director of a residential program with an integrative approach to healing as well as has held clinical positions in a myriad of community settings. Currently, Shelley has a body-centered psychotherapy practice in Mesa, AZ where she enjoys working with individuals. Shelley is passionate about helping others find their personal path to healing, leadership, and wholeness by combining her clinical experience with body-centered practices.
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