Your Body Speaks Your Mind

Have you ever seen a person who just looked tight? From across the room you may have made assessments regarding that person’s disposition based on their structural expression. Maybe it’s the way they held their shoulders, the disturbingly solid hunch in their spine, or just the zero-position face they made between emotions.

We’re all expressing who we are through our body. Both consciously and unconsciously every single moment of every single day. All our fears, suppressed rage, broken dreams, fake personalities, sleaziness, control, manicness, abandonment, secret desires, pain, stillness, clarity, wisdom, joy, genuineness, confidence, worthiness and love. Every single thought, emotion and state of mind has a distinct body language unto itself. Each one a note in the symphony of your daily life, played to the tune of your conscious and unconscious choices. You write the notes, it’s your biomechanical jazz, we’re just listening to it.

This is not a mind blowing concept; people reflect who they are outwardly. This is how we read people. Poker players call this “tells”, I just call it energy. There is no separation between mind and body. It’s all energy expressing itself through outlets and chains of kinection. Your body’s systems are expressing all the energy moving from your conscious and subconscious minds. You are choosing at every moment, whether you know it or not, how the energy will flow through your body. Posture, digestion, breathing, facial expressions, movements, muscular tension, bone alignment, heartbeat and more are all expressions of YOU

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Understand that movement is a state of mind first, and a physical state second. There’s a reason people with rigid personalities are tight; people with bubbling rage lift heavy; chilled out people do yoga; overactive minds don’t sit still; or people with suppressed rage develop hunched shoulders. We are generating our movement internally first, then expressing that outwardly second, even when we are unaware! As a very wise woman once told me, “we are energy first; matter second.”

So it is with everyone, everyday, at every moment; we’re all expressing who we are outwardly through our bodies. This can be instantaneous things like facial movements, hand gestures, vocal pronunciations; but also things that could only have been developed through years or decades, like neck posture, shoulder posture, hip control, muscle size, flexibility, gait, breathing and more are all signs of who you are, and were.

You have to generate the movement from a trigger inside of yourself first, then move the body second. That trigger reinforces a pathway from thought/emotion to body. The more you work on reinforcing that pathway, the more you’ll naturally express it. You can reinforce it consciously, or unconsciously. If you think, feel or act a certain way long enough, or if the thought, emotion or action is powerful enough, it’ll reflect itself in your body. Therefore, be aware of who you are, right now, every moment.

 

Bringing awareness to your unconscious movement patterns helps bring awareness to the thoughts and emotions that built them in the first place. So in reality, this energy-->matter bridge is actually a two way street:

 

Do angry people lift heavy? Or do people lift heavy in order to be able to express anger in a positive way?

Do weird people do yoga? Or do people practice yoga in order to express extended mental concepts not otherwise achievable in normal everyday social interaction?

Do competitive people play sports? Or are sports an outlet for expressing goal oriented thoughts and emotions?

Which came first; the chicken or the egg?

The answer is “Yes”

Want to become stronger? Do things that get your stronger. You will be plugging yourself into an outlet to express a strong state of mind through your body, and that pathway inside your mind and body will be reinforced over time.

Want to become more calm and centered? Do things that calm and center you. You will be plugging yourself into an outlet to express a calm and centered state of mind through your body, and that pathway inside your mind and body will be reinforced over time.

Want to become more flexible? Do things that make you more flexible. You will be plugging yourself into an outlet to express a flexible state of mind through your body, and that pathway inside your mind and body will be reinforced over time. 

 

The more mind blowing concept could be in reverse engineering movement for mental, emotional and spiritual health:

Does aligning the body, and learning to move proficiently through the widest possible range of skills, methods and programs balance the mind and spirit as well as the body?

I submit the answer as “Yes”

To me, a good mover is someone who understands themselves. Someone who has taken the time to explore their weak spots and translate those into the thoughts and emotions hiding within their physical structure. A good mover understands and can generate the frame of mind, thoughts, emotional fuel and reality paradigm that are needed to be express things like a 400m sprint, Murph, max deadlift, sun salutations, meditation, a lead punch, atlas stone event, sitting well, walking well etc…

Furthermore, a good mover is not only mechanically sound in technique and internal working, but also in creativity and adaptation; retaining a sense of fluidity and plyability needed to bend but not break. A good mover learns the skills and techniques of structured movements and programs, but can then apply those same biomechanics to spontaneous movements. Biomechanical jazz baby!

Bruce Lee had this awesome three stage growth pattern to explain this. He called the stages:

"Sticking to the nucleus"

"Liberation from the nucleus" and

"Returning to the original freedom."

But I digress! What’s a blog post without a little Bruce Lee…?

You cannot cultivate what you’re not aware of. Most of us are unaware of problems we have in our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual paradigms. This is a basic human trait, to be blind to the plank in our own eye. Therefore, use movement and fitness as a way of illuminating and uncovering weak spots to help you grow. We are built to express thoughts and emotions, otherwise that energy remains stored inside ourselves until it builds up so much that we burst at the seams. Get in touch with it and express it! If you look at movement as a way of being able to see your thoughts and emotions as they are expressed through the body, you’ll see past the lame ego-driven layer covering the fitness industry into something beautiful and much more precious. It’s from this place that we want to run, jump, lift, swing, breathe and move. It is from this place of self awareness that real profound movement can occur.

Remember: a good overhead squat can be a life changing experience if you’re present enough to be a part of it.

For even more mind-blowing reading on this subject; check out "Your Body Speaks Your Mind" by Deb Shapiro.

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Body-Speaks-Mind-Psychological/dp/1591794188