The Satisfaction Cycle

The Satisfaction Cycle: Use of Developmental Actions As A Pathway of Support

Yield, Push, Reach, Take Hold, Pull and Yield

Annie Brook, MA LPC

In the field of body psychology you often hear people speak of the sequencing of energy, the flow down into the legs for grounding or into the heart for intimacy and contact. Psychotherapists often look at containment of energy and how to find support.

BodyMind Psychotherapists, and Body-Mind Centering® teachers and practitioners also look at these phenomena, viewing them from the lens of developmental movement and actions. We look at how physical development supports cognition and emotional integration. Body-Mind Centering® correlates movement patterns with stages of brain development. Knowing these developmental stages and movement patterns allows us to support infant development and to assist repatterning work with adults. This repatterning support provides the opportunity for fulfillment and pleasure in life. (Or supports our human nature of desire and need fulfillment, or attainment of pleasure.

To gain pleasure in our lives, we need to know how to feel our desire and to have the support to reach for what we want and to embrace it. Infants explore this when they learn to reach and crawl. It is an organic aspect of life, and often forgotten. Remembering how to attain satisfaction and actually feel it in the body can transform the way you view your world.

A simple and effective tool of developmental integration is the developmental action sequence. This is a cycle of actions an infant performs in task completion; actions of yield, push, reach, take hold, and pull. The cycle goes through each action and completes with a final yield, which starts the cycle anew. Having full range of the developmental action cycle allows a person to feel desire, to move into action and to complete that action. By feeling desire and being able to sequence toward completion of desire, people develop a sense of confidence and capability. They are able to participate in the world and to meet their essential needs.

To understand how the developmental action cycle functions, watch this cycle in action. Take a small toy and play with a baby. As the baby becomes aware of the toy through stimulation of the senses, the baby yields and takes in the new information. As this information comes in, she will gather energy and push down into the support of the earth. A counter push moves back up and through her body, sequencing out her head and tail and giving her the support to look with awareness at you and the toy. Watch as she reaches out and takes hold of the toy. Feel the strength of her grasp and the pulling force as she pulls this toy towards herself. Notice how she yields again as she explores the toy and then decides whether she likes it or not. She may take it further in, or push it away and explore elsewhere. This is the natural progression of yield, push, reach, take hold and pull. It is repeated over and over as a young one explores her environment.

Let’s look at the psychological implications of this sequence. Each action in the sequence needs the underlying support of the previous action. Push needs active yield underneath so it is organic and healthy. If active yield is lacking, meaning tissue tone is too taut or too collapsed, it will cause the push to be demanding or weak. The free flowing energy is not available to push. Without proper push, the ability to reach is affected. A person will not go directly for what she wants, or can be incessant and never satisfied. Reach needs a free flowing supported push so that one can reach fully with support rather than overextending.

Imagine what happens when this sequence is interrupted in both adults and children. Most often the actions get interrupted through fairly normal circumstances. I worked with one person who had a brother two years older then himself. As an infant this man had the experience of getting his hands on something only to have it immediately pulled away by his brother. This happened over and over throughout childhood, and resulted in the experience of a low grade lethargy within my client about really going for what he wanted. This lethargy showed up physically as a push that was a bit resigned and a reach which was not fully extended. In another person her desire was self thwarted. She moved away from what she actually wanted and towards something else as soon as she felt others were watching her. In her experience, it had been unsafe to go for what she genuinely desired. As a consequence, her reach became distracted and her taking hold had little energy.

Think about the impacts of these actions on behavior. Have you ever met people who don’t know how to yield? They respond before processing all the information at hand. They may finish the ends of your sentences, or not listen fully; they may start things when only partially prepared. People who lead with a push that does not have an underlying active yield are often unaware of the impact of their energy. They work very hard and push into life without getting much support. They may be obstinate or difficult to be around. They are often tired. They may try to dominate in conflicting or intense situations. Other people might have the opposite problem, they are not yielded but collapsed. They have no available energy to take in and process information. They approach life already defeated.

What about those who are always reaching, yet never getting their needs met? They either may not have enough underlying push, giving the reach a place to anchor from, or they may not know how to take hold of what they reach toward. They may have the world at their fingertips, yet cannot meet nor enjoy it because they cannot take hold. Perhaps they do not know how to pull in. Have you ever met people who have support all around them, yet don’t know how to use it? They may not take hold of the support. What about those who gather a lot of material things, or are always very busy doing activities? They may take hold of experience, yet not digest these experiences. They may compile numerous material things, yet not appreciate their material things because they cannot yield into them. They can get frozen in a continuous cycle of reaching without satisfaction.