It felt like resistance, but it was a need to yield, first.

She sat across from her client—shoulders tight, breath shallow, heart quietly weary.

“I’ve said it ten different ways,” she thought.
“Nothing is landing.”

This therapist—a warm, thoughtful clinician and participant in the Integrative Trauma Training Certificate—had been showing up week after week.
Bringing her full presence.
Offering insight, regulation tools, EMDR, parts work…

And still, her client kept spiraling in the same loop.
Stuck. Not taking anything in. Seeming Resistant.

Her therapist wasn’t just discouraged.
She felt confused. Tired.
And… a little defeated.

As therapists, when we’ve tried everything we know, when we care so deeply but feel like we’re standing still— it’s easy to start wondering:“What am I missing?””

Her client had been talking about how lonely she feels.

And how much she efforts in relationships, and then, the people don't stay.

And here the therapist was… having her own quiet urge to retreat. Not because she didn’t care—but because the any time she made a suggestion, the client would shut it down. The therapist kept feeling like her hands were tied, but still wanted to help her client.

She wondered if her client was choosing the wrong friends or if her clients doing something to turn her friends off. Maybe also being resistant to them - the same way she resisted the therapist.

She knew she needed help, so she jotted a few notes after the session. Then she submitted the case to our consult group for review.

“I think I’m hitting a wall. I want to help her so much… but it feels like nothing is working.”

The following week, she joined our live training call. There, in our consult, we paused.
And I gently offered:

“If she’s not taking it in… it’s not resistance. It’s a signal. She may be missing a foundational skill. She may be terrified. Or she may need a different kind of support before being open. I also wonder if we can look at her patterns as it seems like the client may need to learn how to Yield, first.”

We reviewed Module 7 on Yield—Part of our Neurocellular Patterning series, based on Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen’s work with Body-Mind Centering.

We explored:

• What it means for a nervous system to be in a chronic pattern of effort

• Why some clients can't receive, soften, or rest—because their earliest cellular experience of yield was disrupted

• The neurodevelopmental sequence: yield → push → reach → grasp → pull

• And how clients who never experienced safe yielding often live in constant push-pull, tension, and self-protection

In infancy, yield is the experience of settling, of letting go into support.
It’s how a baby lies against the chest of a parent and rests—held by the environment.
It’s not collapse. It’s a co-regulated surrender into safety.

Without that early pattern, the body never learns how to soften into being received.

And, then it cannot receive either. It gets stuck in fight/flight on overdrive.

We practiced the Yield Skills together on the call—hands-on experiments, video demos (, and explored how to use somatic language to guide a client into feeling held, supported, and anchored.

As we reviewed this, the therapist’s face softened.
She was already seeing something new.

“I think I’ve been trying to ‘fix’… when what she needs is to feel held.”

The therapist left the call with a calmer nervous system and something new to try.

She returned to session the following week and offered something simple—but profound.

“Can we try something?” , she asked her client.

“I’d like to experiment what it would be like for you to feel what it’s like to be held. To not carry it all alone, for a few moments.”

After getting consent from the client, she tried this somatic technique:

She cupped her hands gently under the client’s triceps, and said “allow yourself to lean all the weight you’re holding, onto my hands holding you.”

For some therapists, this might mean placing a pillow under the client’s arms and resting your hands underneath that pillow—creating an experience of being supported without weight bearing.

At first, the client resisted, but then softened, and let her body weight lean on therapists arms. And she exhaled deeply.

In a quiet voice the therapist said “I got you. I got you”.

And stayed there for a few minutes as the client took in the feeling of being held.

This is what the client needed - to yield.

Not with words. Not with a script. But with her body. She felt held.

And only once she was held, was she able to settle a bit. She no longer had to grasp.

In session a few weeks later, the therapist added another somatic practice: Reach.

This time, she reached toward her client—offering her nervous system as a safe, present invitation. And her client, who had always been the one grasping, began to soften.
To feel someone reaching for her.

That subtle, somatic movements began creating a shift. Her client was a bit more open, receptive even. It was like she needed to connect, and settle first.

And her client shared:

“I don’t know what has been shifting, but lately I find that I don’t feel the same urge to to over-explain to my friends as much as I used to. I feel like I can hold myself a bit better.”

This is the power of somatic neurocellular repatterning.
This is why we integrate it in our Trauma Training Program:

This isn’t surface-level technique.
It’s re-patterning for therapists and clients alike.

After one of the consult calls, this therapist turned to the group and said with tears in her eyes:

“This is why I joined. This space… this work… this community—it’s exactly what I’ve been needing.”

She felt relief.
Not because she got “quick fix” tools [they’re not].
But because she had an anchoring support, language, and skills to meet her clients at a deeper level.

And that’s the heart of the Integrative Trauma Training Certificate.

When you join, you get:

✅ 12 live, 90-minute case consult and training calls
✅ Lifetime Access to our full training portal, including demos, practices, and techniques
✅ In-depth study of neurocellular patterns like Yield, Push, Reach, Pull, and Grasp
✅ Techniques you can use immediately—with props, positioning, and somatic language
✅ A solid, grounded community of clinicians who get it
✅ And deep support for your work, your growth, and your nervous system

Because we all hit moments where things feel stuck.
Where the client can’t take anything in.
Where you feel like you’re failing, even though you’re doing your best.

You don’t need to carry that alone.
We’re here.
Doing this work—together.

Join us.
Let’s bring depth, safety, and transformation to the clients who need it most.
And let’s nourish you, too.

Apply for the Integrative Trauma Training Certificate today!