Emotions Are Muscular

When you feel emotions - you move muscles.

You see a friend walk in - realise immediately that something is wrong… 

"What happened?!" 

(you ask without any prompting).

Because you can see their emotion – in their face muscles, in their posture, in the sound of their voice. Emotions are muscular - they are the fabric of your thoughts.

This has huge implications for your posture.

When most people talk about ‘posture’, they think in a very two dimensional way. You know - sitting up in chairs, trying to stand erect. But posture is who you are – it is your emotion, your beliefs, your everyday thoughts.

You cannot be emotionally stressed and having move well at the same time. 

And this is a really, really good thing.

Because often, you (apparently) cannot change your environmental stress. Events happen around you, and you react to them…

But does everyone react the same way to each event? And if not, why?

Because you do not directly react to an event, you respond to your idea of that event (or person or situation). You believe something, and that belief burns itself into your posture.

Clifford Odets – an American playwright – captures it all in this one line:

"The stiff-neck pride of the defeated…"

Posture gives you access to your emotional life – and mental stress. 

Emotions cannot be directly changed, but postural movements can. Alexander discovered that the way your head and spine work together forms the axis of postural emotion.

Fear crushes your spine; love liberates it. 

Not metaphorically, but quite literally. 

Fear (anxiety, anger, sadness): involve increased tension and compression between head and spine;

Love (liberation, joy, freedom): expands your head and spine. You posturally expand into the world, rather than posturally withdrawing from it.

You start concretely with these two basic movements of your head/spine.

Neck and back pain – for example – are indicators of mental stress. And as you figure out how to manage your neck and back pain, you gradually move into the realm of being able to see how your emotions are being expressed into the fabric of your mind.

This can be a revelation – bringing you together with a new life skill giving access to pain relief and freedom.

There is a new language you can use, and easy way to speak to people about that you do, without mentioning much of anything more than everyday talk.

In my coaching program, I will be giving you lessons, and working with beginners, to help you develop a teaching style that adjusts itself to a specific community. The program is Specific, Methodical and Consistent over the long term.

Look out for details, I promise it is coming soon.