Body Language And Feedback

Do you know that the way you hold your body and the way you use it says much more about you than anything else? It is the first thing other people notice before you even open your mouth, and it is in those first seconds of meeting that someone will size you up, and make decisions and judgements about you. In fact, it is said that you have less than 3 seconds to make a first impression. There is an energy that emanates from you that acts like an advertisement that you cannot hide. Your presence when you walk into a room has the ability to lighten it up or darken it. So how would it be if you could enhance it from where it is now to radiate even more love and light and strength and compassion and joy?

“Who you are shouts so loudly..... I cannot hear what you are saying.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Your biology is literally your biography, and at an unconscious level people can read you like a book. There is a direct correlation between your physicality and what is going on inside your head - your thoughts, feelings and emotions. It shows whether you are happy or sad, depressed or angry, spiritually tuned in or lacking connection, confident or with low self-esteem, stressed or relaxed, how you feel about your body, whether you think abundantly or in lack, truthful or with something to hide, whether you feel loved or are defensive, and even whether you are sexually fulfilled. It also shows whether your diet is good or bad. You see, the body never lies! Your vitality, your sexuality, your creativity, your caring attitude, your connection with other people radiates from you and is on show all the time.

Your emotions and the way you use your body are inextricably linked. The way you move affects the way you think, feel and behave, and conversely the way you feel affects the way your body expresses itself. Everything from running, clapping or jumping to the smallest movements in the muscles of the face affects your body chemistry. To put it another way, emotion is created by motion. So can you imagine how much you can affect the way you show up by changing the way you feel about life and your body, and how you can affect your emotions by the way you move? This is like “emotional keep fit.”

Your body loves to move – we are designed that way, but unfortunately in this sedentary age, we spend far too much time immobile. When you encourage your body’s flexibility through such activities as yoga, pilates and dance, and reconnect with your body through the nourishing touch and caress of a loving massage, then your mind becomes flexible too.

The more fluid you are in your movements, the more integrated you can be in relationship. With fluidity, you are able to adapt and change – in a state of “beingness” rather than in the stuckness of “this is the way I am.” Life itself is fluid – the Universe is in constant motion, and unless we learn to flow with it too, we will find ourselves coming up against hard blocks.

Exercise of Fluidity

Do you remember as children we used to pretend as if we were in zero gravity, and walk around like space men? With childlike delight, find what imagery works for you – moving in honey, walking through marshmallows, walking on the moon or through a fluffy cloud, moving like a fish in water, or like a tree in the breeze, or like the movements of T’ai Chi, move all of your body very, very slowly and gracefully. Practice moving in slow motion so that if you were to bump into someone or something, it would be like the whisper of skin on skin. When you learn to move with poise and elegance and grace, it instills a sense of calm and trust in those around you.

Now practise the delicious sensation and sensuality of lying on the floor or on the bed and stretching slowly like a cat. You will feel your body enjoying every movement. There is something very soothing and calming about moving in this way, and your mind will let go and relax.

Lust for Life

When you wake up your passion and lust for life, you will connect more easily and readily with other people, with your creativity and with nature. Without a passion for life, something inside you will die and you may end up being very lonely.

So what wakes you up? Do you have that lust for life? Are you passionate about what you do? Are you doing what your life is directing you towards?

Apathy and depression are literally a pressing down of the spirit, which shows in your physicality and how you wear your body and whether or not you are in your skin. And it shows, it really shows. If you have lost your passion and zest, something is really wrong.

Exercise

When babies first start to walk, they open their chest and walk as if from the heart, propelled forwards by the sheer impulse of living. When you do the same, stand upright and look ahead, open your chest and walk with excitement and anticipation with your heart open, noticing everything around you, involving the whole of your body in your movement, your whole chemistry will change, and you will view the world through different eyes.

A man benefits from walking with air between his legs, not quite with a John Wayne swagger, but claiming and owning his masculinity.

A woman on the other hand, benefits from using the natural sway of her body when she walks, swaying her hips from side to side. As she does so, all her internal and reproductive organs are naturally massaged, giving her a feeling of connectedness, sensuality and well-being as she steps into her feminine essence.

The Wisdom of the Body

Your body already knows what you need to do, but how often do you listen to it? It is literally like a radar, like a cat’s whiskers – it gives you feedback all the time and when in connection with it, will tell you whether you are safe or in danger. You will feel sick or feel a strong drop in energy if you are in the wrong place, with the wrong people or in the wrong environment.

With the decrease in daily physical activity our bodies have become under-stimulated, and our brain, with all the overwhelming information, over-stimulated. Many people settle into a state of lethargy and interpret their lack of energy as a sign that their body needs to be shut off or rested when in reality it’s crying out to be used.

On the other hand how often do you carry on regardless when your body is crying out for rest, longing to go to bed and sleep, or needing some oxygen? How often do you ignore it telling you to move away from someone who is not good for you? Your body already knows what to do. All you need to do is to become tuned in to the messages it has always been sending you about what it wants and how it can most benefit. When you tune in, you will no longer need to be defensive – your body’s natural instincts will guide you.

Movement unleashes your body’s energy potential and enhances your understanding of what you can do to ensure a youthful and energetic life. Take just one step and you re-create an experience shared by nearly every human being since the earliest of our species took their first upright step nearly a million years ago. It seems that through the ages as we have learned what being upright means, we are now reverting back to the body of earliest ape man, hunch-backed and curled up like a chimpanzee, as we curl ourselves into the sofa at the end of the day, curl ourselves around the steering wheel, curl ourselves around a computer, when our evolutionary process is crying out for us to MOVE.

Listen to your body and follow its wisdom. Marvel at the satisfaction you get when you eat food that your body actually wants, and when the movement you perform is what your body desires. You don’t have to force your body to do the things that it cries out it doesn’t want to do. The ‘no pain, no gain’ mantra which has become so prevalent in society is in fact a barrier blocking the complete integration of your mind with your body and blocking out your emotions. Instead choose the path of least resistance to unlock your innate energy and allow access to your body’s inherent wisdom. The point is that our physiology is exquisitely designed for running, walking and moving in many ways, and when we fail to move, we fail to listen or hear the delicate messages and intuition and innate wisdom our bodies offer. We are magnificently suited through aeons of development to move; yet in the 21st century we seem to have halted progress in favor of the cerebral, but at what cost?

Life is calling you - listen to its invitation. When you respond, joy and vitality literally get incorporated into the cells of your body, into your blood and guts, integrated into every area of life.

Exercise

To engage in movement brings us one step closer to who we really are – imagine instead of sitting at your desk in the office keying in words on a computer, that you are in the jungle with your tribe, your team, all working together to create a suitable environment in which to live. You will be chopping wood, climbing trees, digging and tilling the soil, squatting down to harvest your foods, dextrously weaving leaves together for shelter, tying wood together to make tools, running through the forest in search of food, lifting rocks and carrying the meat you have hunted on your shoulders.

Our attitude towards what we think is possible determines what we do – your mindset creates the possibilities, dreams the dreams and your body lives them. Your body physically experiences the activity your mind is creating! What the mind conceives the body achieves, so even just reading these words will cause a change in your chemistry.

See your movements as part of the total flow of life. Ideally spend as much time as you can out in nature, digging, gardening, being in the wild and using the natural instincts of your body. You will look and feel a million times better, and you will radiate a sense of health as you do what you are naturally designed to do. Make your body feel alive – feel Life coursing through your veins.

Men – dig in the earth and chop wood – feel your muscles responding to the challenge and enjoying the response as the hormones rush in.

Women – put a scarf around your hips, find some Middle Eastern music and belly dance. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just enjoy the rhythm and the sensuality of the movement. Or just dance around the room barefoot with no particular steps with the pleasure you had as a little girl.

Man’s Physiology

When a man shows up in his masculinity, it gives a woman permission to let go of making all the decisions and doing everything for herself, and be in her feminine energy. Like it or not, women get turned on by real men as you will see by the way women respond at the movies. Ideally men need to be in their masculine energy at least 70% of the time, balanced with about 30% nurturing gentleness, poetic creativity and tenderness.

So a man’s physiology reveals moment by moment what is going on in his head. Unconsciously what most women look for in men is an upright stance, head up and body square on, strong shoulders, open chest, strong hands, direct gestures, deep resonant firm voice, committed movements. These body stances suggest achievement, action, competition, results focused, purposeful, trustful and direct - all of which are very appealing.

Woman’s Physiology

A woman needs to be about 70% in her feminine energy of tenderness, and compassion and nurturing and 30% in her masculine energy which is achievement mode. So, unconsciously, most men will look for a woman who displays elements of fluidity, gracefulness, elegance, sensuality, expressive gestures, relaxed shoulders, a tilted head when listening, curved lines to her body, soft gentle and free-flowing movements, showing her caring and attentiveness and a soft expressive voice. It is always about the way in which she owns her body. It is seldom about her rear or her legs even though they may protest – it is about her radiance and her smile.

Movement unlocks our senses, makes us feel alive and allows us to rejoice in the here and now. We are physical beings, spiritual beings in a physical body which is the temple for our soul, and we honour it when we allow ourselves to move in a natural way. Try it for yourself and see the difference it makes.



© copyright www.alovingspace.com 2008