Yield ing

Another achievement! Admittedly it has taken the past two hours to figure out how to find/buy images and then how to download and upload however: succcess for, voila! the image appeared!

Have you ever been reading either an article or book and suddenly a word or phrase enters you like a laser beam? Last week I was reading Centering by M.C. Richards and the word yield lodged in my heart. I went to my beloved dictionary and discovered that yield is a glorious word for it has two meanings that tie together into a delightful concept.

The first meaning of yield: to produce or return as fruit, profit or result (syn: bear, supply, bring forth, earn, harvest, gain) the second meaning is: to surrrender, submit or defer to (syn: give, abandon, concede, relinguish, give right of way to.)

I was pondering the meanings of yield and it hit me: in order to produce or bear fruit one must submit; defer to the processes of becoming whatever one desires to be. Just as a seed buried in the ground needs to yield to the work of the soil in order to crack open and become whatever the seed is meant to be, so too must I be willing to take actions of submission toward the unknown in order to expand and grow into life.

To be honest the word 'submissive' leaves a nasty flavor on my tongue. As a woman in my mid-fifties who grew up in a time and place where all "good" females were submissive, I tend to be instinctively repelled by the word. And yet I have learned in my life, that only the disciplines attached to surrender enable true growth. Having said that, I'm aware that getting to surrender is always a process which is why I chose a yield sign for this posting.

Yield as a traffic sign says to stop and look before moving ahead and the sign also cautions to give right of way to oncoming traffic. Wake up and pay attention before moving forward is the directive I hear when I see YIELD within my heart.

Hearts are very tuned to yielding for all forms of love require one to have the ability to give the right of way to. Whether the desire in my heart is for relationship with a person, a dream, dedication to a creative action like writing or painting, scrapbooking or gardening, my Highest Self or the Spirit of the Universe, in order to expand and grow into the love, I need to create space in my life for the development of what I desire. Creating space whether psychically, spiritually or in my bedroom closet is an act of will: it cannot be simply 'thought' into being; physical action is required. Yielding is all about choosing and taking action.

Stop and look is the first actions of yielding: Is something nagging at you in your gut or heart? Are you lonely, resentful, irritable and/or bored? Stop and look at your feelings and ask what they are telling you. Yield to them as yours. If you are feeling them then they belong to you. That's the good news since if they are your feelings: your responses to your life, then you may change them. The people I know who remain unhappy and anxious in life are people who refuse to accept their feelings as theirs: they tend to blame other people, places and circumstances for their feelings. They are wrong: feelings belong to the person having them.

About a month ago I was ridiculously frustrated with time and it was making me very irritable. I did not seem to have enough to accomplish what I wanted to do and kept thinking 'there's just not enough time.' And then one day I actually heard myself and realized that I did not believe what I was saying: in fact, I believe there is enough of virtually all that I need. And so I yielded to both what I was saying and what I believed and stopped. I listened and looked around and said 'what can I do to change my perception?' By asking the question, I woke myself up and the answer that appeared [kind of like oncoming traffic that I saw because I stopped at the yield sign] was rather simple: begin getting up early again. Winter is the one time of year I find it easy to sleep in until 6:30 or 7 whereas normally I'm up between 5 and 5:30. I had been allowing myself to sleep in and so I was losing my favorite time of the day. I truly did not have enough time because I was sleeping in! Yielding to what I desired, more time, meant setting the alarm and getting out of bed when it rang. Simple.

Simple but not necessarily easy for choice demands using ones will to take action. Yielding always demands the use of will for stopping, looking around, making choice of direction and then setting the actions in motion. Without actively using my will, desires are simply wishes. And wishes rarely become anything except dis-ease with life for wishing is the province of children who are rather powerless about the conditions of their life.

The easiest way I know of to feel a healthy sense of adult power is by making the choice to use my will to connect to a power greater than myself. I learned this trick twenty some years ago when I was very unhappy because with 3 very young children I felt as though I never had time for myself. When I realized that the cause of my unhappiness was a day filled with the demands of other people, I made the decision to set my alarm 30 minutes before the rest of the house woke up. The alarm would go off and before I could talk myself out of the extra sleep, I got up so I could go sit on the patio and for coffee and conversation with my HP [Higher Power] while I was completely alone.

When I made that decision I yielded to both the fact of my unhappiness and the fact that I could change my feelings by changing my actions. It was one of the best choices I have ever made and I still begin each day with coffee and conversation with my HP on the patio. It has been those early morning conversations that have taught me how to learn to yield to love.