THE MARION METHOD, THE NEO NO AND THE NEO YIELD – PART ONE
The next piece of Marion Method theory and practice is coming to me, via a Message from Life (where else!?)
This work is about the evolution of our capacity to respond to what we perceive as a threat.
Our original – PALEO – response to danger was to freeze,
the next evolutionary step – MESO – was fight or flight,
then came fawn,
our next responses on the evolutionary ladder – NEO – are the Neo No and the Neo Yield.
The Neo No is the capacity we develop instead of to fight – when we energetically, physically and in words speak our, “I am not willing for…” without aggression.
The Neo Yield is from our increasing capacity to be like water – soft, but with the capacity to erode rock. – rather than to dissociate or flee or fawn.
These responses are part of what develop as a result of working with the Marion Method processes and practices.
These responses have physical movements that can literally be felt in the body:
We can feel the Neo No by putting up our hand, expressing a clear, “No, I am not willing!” and being unwilling to be hurt, whilst feeling a deep sense of our verticality and connection with the earth and the sky, our willingness channel which is the centre of our toroidal field and where we connect with our true power-with.
We can see this Neo No in physical terms in the scene in The Matrix where Neo has been brought back to life by Trinity and then says “No” to the bullets, which then stop flying and fall to the ground. It’s deeply significant that Trinity brings him back to life first.
We can see the Neo Yield by watching this video of Benoit Richaud the ice skating choreographer HERE again, inspired by The Matrix.
I invite you to play with this Neo Yield movement – I found myself doing it over and over again. Here, we are again unwilling to be hurt, but instead of fleeing, we remain deeply connected with the ground, yet our flexibility supports us in escaping from hurt.
The etymology of “escape” fits with this: from Vulgar Latin *excappare, literally “get out of one’s cape, leave a pursuer with just one’s cape,” from Latin ex- “out of” (see ex-) + Late Latin cappa “mantle” (see cap (n.)).
I am curious that this information first came to me via this ice skating video – the Message from Life just after I’d finished writing a post about the Neo No.
In the video, Benoit Richaud, the ice skating choreographer who is a profound part of the next evolutionary wave of ice skating, is literally on ice (frozen water, freeze).
This Neo Yield response stands upon the freeze response, just as in evolutionary terms, the Neo Yield stands upon – transcends and includes – the freeze response.
In evolutionary terms, this work is an integration of the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system, which gave us Freeze (which, in its protection and stillness is related to the Quality of Love), and the sympathetic nervous system, which gave us Fight or Flight, (which in their movement, are related to the Quality of Will.)
In The Matrix, HERE – the Neo Yield scene is where Neo is on the roof, being faced by an Agent.
He says, “Trinity, help!” then drops his guns, and as the bullets come, he does what I am calling the “Neo Yield.”
Neo asks for help from Trinity, and then drops his guns. He knows he cannot fight or flee. But instead of freezing, he asks for help from ’Trinity’, and Neo Yields.
Then Trinity comes and says, “dodge this!” and shoots the Agent, who represents the colonised, domination system virus.
To Neo Yield, we need to already have developed a deep sense of interconnectedness, a deep psychospiritual sense of being held by Life and by the Inner Loving Mother, a deep sense of connection with our indigenous Self.
I love that ‘Neo’ means ’new, young, recent.’
And ‘Trinity’ is from the Latin “trines”- ’threefold, triple.’ It’s most well known in Christianity, but has deep pagan origins in many spiritual traditions, often referring to Creatrix, Preserver and Destroyer of the worlds.
As I wrote this on the morning of my daughter’s birthday, I also read this, which seems profoundly symbolic to this work, and I thank my daughter for this gift:
“God the Mother as Creatrix is a familiar truth. It is She Who has brought all things into being and Who is the Mother of All. When, at the dawn of time, souls became separate from Dea, ceasing to live in perfect union and bliss with Her, it is said that the Light of the Solar Mother became “too bright for us to look upon”.
It was then that the Mother gave birth to a Daughter that was one with Her and yet apart from Her, so that the Daughter could take the Light of Dea into those places where Dea was not.
Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun in a gentler radiance, so the Daughter reflected the Mother’s Light with a radiance that mortal beings can look upon.
However, there is also a Cosmic function performed by the Daughter: for if the universe were ever truly separated from the Mother, Who is its Creatrix and sole Source of being, it would instantly cease to exist. Thus the Daughter, in mediating the Mother to the created world, is the Preserver of its very existence.
Yet the world must end eventually, and the Dark Mother is called the Destroyer. This understanding of her, however is from the worldly perspective. She is the First Cause of all things and will be their Final End. “
She is described as “Dark beyond the Light and Light beyond the Darkness”. This means that she is the Dark that lies behind the Light of the Bright Mother, yet she is also the Light that lies beyond Her Own apparent darkness.
Just as, in Buddhism, Nirvana is confused with extinction (and from the mortal perspective is extinction), and yet is in fact the final bliss and liberation, so the “destruction of the world” is also its redemption; and the Daughter’s vow to save all beings “even to the last blade of grass” will, in its fulfillment, also be the in-breathing of the Dark Mother. So the Great Wheel of Creation comes full circle.”
I’m in awe as I read this, given that I live here with my mother, where our relationship has been healed by my Inner Loving Mother work, and I am writing this on the birthday of my daughter, who is called Lana, who in her character deeply represents Luna, the lunar light.
These Neo responses are part of what develop as a result of working with the Marion Method processes and practices:
Developing the Inner Loving Presences and feeling a deep sense of inner presence, support and holding.
Working with the Inner Loving Presence Process so that the younger parts of us feel deeply heard and protected and have received many reparative experiences.
Developing will and willingness and using The Willingness Practices so that our agency and true power becomes deeply embodied and we feel increasingly connected with the life force of Life itself.
Increasingly feeling and embodying a deep sense of interconnectedness in our day to day lives through Conversations with Life.
This is the healing work of Love and Will, the Marion Method, the Inner Loving Presences and Psychospiritual Parenting.
Reconnecting with our indigenous self.
Reclaiming our true nature as Love and Will.
Feeling deeply interconnected, loved, held and supported.
Welcoming grief and outrage.
Developing our capacity for the Neo No and Neo Yield.
P.S. I had an opportunity to develop my understanding of the Neo Yield just a few hours after writing this. I was cleaning the house, getting ready for my daughter and her birthday guests to arrive and suddenly got a call that they would be arriving in 30 minutes, several hours earlier than I thought, and I wasn’t ready at all. I said, “Oh no, I’m up a ladder and not ready!”
My daughter’s dad, with whom I’d been talking earlier on in the day about the Neo Yield – because he is a Tai Chi teacher and we often correlate the Marion Method work with Tai Chi – said, tongue in cheek, “well just a few hours ago you were talking about yield rather than cleaning the house.” And I said, “Aaaahhhh, YIELD!” And I literally felt an energetic sense of my body moving backwards and not being affected in any way by what he said.
Several years ago, when I used to shame myself ALL THE TIME, I would have shamed myself and guilted myself. Here, none of that. Just the Neo Yield. So, where the Neo No is, “I’m not willing for…” The Neo Yield supports us in being increasingly unaffected by new domination culture hurts because of our deep grounding in our connection with our Inner Loving Presences, our true nature as Love and our deep care for our inner children who were shamed.
In part 2, I will share about how we can use these practices in everyday ways, such as when another adult is shaming or judging us, or when our child is hitting another child or us.
THE NEO YIELD PART TWO: The Love and Will Embodiment practices, Psychospiritual Parenting and Aware Parenting
The Love and Will Embodiment practices are an evolutionary step in our response to ‘attack.’
That ‘attack’ might come in the form of judgment or shaming from someone, or from our 5 year old hitting us or their sibling.
PALEO RESPONSE: We might notice our most ancient ie. Paleo response – to immobilise, or to freeze.
That might mean that the person continues to verbally ’attack’ us and we are unable to do anything, or our child hits us or their sibling and we are frozen, unable to protect ourselves or them.
MESO RESPONSE: We might notice our next response – our Meso response – to fight or flee.
If the person is judging us, that might mean that we judge them back. If it’s our child, we might move to punishment or to threats or a desire to hit them, or to just leave them alone and go away.
NEO RESPONSE: Our next responses are the Neo responses, the Neo No and the Neo Yield.
With another adult judging or shaming us, that might mean that we hold our energetic Neo No; “I’m not willing to be talked to like that.”
Or we might move to a Neo Yield where we stay deeply connected with our Inner Lovingness, so that the shaming or judging really and truly have no impact on us (ie. we’re not dissociating or fawning).
If we look at parenting, and it is our child hitting us, rather than an adult judging and shaming us, The Neo No and the Neo Yield would correspond to, in Aware Parenting terms:
The Neo No becomes the Loving Limit – which is saying and expressing a loving No to the behaviour and a loving Yes to the feelings that are causing the behaviour: “I’m not willing for you to hit me, and I’m here and I’m listening” whilst doing the minimum physical action to prevent the behaviour.
The Neo Yield becomes attachment play – that might be moving into a power-reversal pillow fight, or the game that I made up, the “Shall we Dance?” game.
Why the difference between when there are adult emotional ‘attacks’ and a child and physical ‘attacks?’
With an adult, our Neo No and our Neo Yield are about us caring deeply for ourselves without hurting others.
With a child, our Loving Limits are based upon a Neo No, but the extra piece of the Loving Limits is that we are taking responsibility as the adult to listen to the child’s feelings that underly their behaviour.
With a child, our attachment play is based upon our Neo Yield, but the extra piece of the attachment play is us supporting the child to feel reconnected, loved, and to express some of the lighter feelings causing the behaviour, through laughter and physical movement of the play.
These are capacities that can be developmentally acquired for those of us who have grown up in the domination culture which is based on judgment, punishment, shaming, coercing, and shaming and repression of beautiful natural frustration and outrage.
If we are to develop a deeply embodied Neo No and to be able to respond with a true Loving Limit, Psychospiritual Parenting asks us to listen lovingly to our inner children and their past experiences of coercion, force, punishment, and anywhere their no was not welcomed or embraced.
It asks us to welcome home the beauty of our will energy including our frustration and outrage.
It asks us to develop a deep embodied sense of belonging through developing our Conversations with Life and our relationship with our Inner Loving Mother, so that we increasingly know that we are unconditionally loved, deeply held, and profoundly belong here.
It asks us to develop our relationship with our Inner Loving Father so that we know that we are supported and protected in the clear expression of our No and our embodied power and that our No is deeply honoured.
In this process, we develop an increasing capacity to stand in our Neo No and express Loving Limits, and to stand in our Neo Yield and respond with attachment play.
Neo No and Loving Limits.
Neo Yield and attachment play.
Love,
Marion xoxo