Communication and movement

Jeff: What I’m hearing in a lot of in the interviews is that it’s of great interest how you apply this stuff to your life and use it in ways that help you do what you want to do. A big part of our lives is communication, right? And the studies—I can’t think of percentages [unclear]—they demonstrate that a good portion of what we communicate to each other is through movement cues. So we usually think that we’re just listening to words, but a lot of the information we get is by observing how another person is moving or how they hold themselves. So we’re going to do a few things to both bring more awareness to you of being able to see movement in another person and kind of have a clue what’s going on. And let you experience what moving in certain ways brings up in you.

Like everyone pretty much has a repertoire, and that repertoire of movement can be large or small. And we tend to carry certain movements with us into everything we do. As I demonstrated yesterday, it can be that you kind of retreated in that chest, head-forward position, and that might be appropriate in some situations like if you’re feeling overwhelmed, just go ahead and feel overwhelmed. It’s a good thing. But if you’re in a position where you’re trying to be in a leadership position, but you’re standing like this and trying to talk to people and have them listen, it doesn’t work very well. Okay. So things like that. What are you actually cuing people to do? So I’m going to introduce what I think is a small vocabulary, but you might find it too much. So let me know if it’s too many options. Or if it’s too many options, you can just choose a couple of them. So give yourself a little room. You can be in a chair or on the floor, whichever you’re comfortable with. It doesn’t matter. Eventually we’re going to pair up and have conversations, movement conversations. Okay.

So just get where you have a little bit of room and if you’re comfortable on the floor, be on the floor, if not be on a chair. If you’re more comfortable standing, you can stand. So some of these we’ve we’ve looked at already. Just for language sake, I’m going to call this retreating and this advancing. So just try that on for yourself. And for now, you’re doing it more completely. So as you retreat your spine rounds, it rounds, you make a convex shape. Maybe your chin drops, maybe your head stays level that’s okay. And as you advance, I’m sorry, that was concave more convex shape. So your whole torso is rounding forward. Maybe your stomach comes forward the most, or your chest. So just try that a few times, just get familiar. And as you do it, notice if one feels more familiar to you than the other. You probably do it on a much subtler level, but just notice if you really like to go back or if you really like to go forward, okay. Then come back to whatever your neutral is. So, advancing, retreating.

Student: I just wanted to say it’s about the movement not the place you get to.

Jeff: Thank you. Yes. Chime in whenever you wish. Gail knows a lot about this and what she was pointing out was it’s not about getting concave. It’s not about getting convex. It’s your experience as you’re moving in and out of those.

Okay. Another piece of vocabulary here: rising, sinking. So we usually think we ought to be rising when we’re sitting in meditation. We frequently find that we’re sinking in meditation. Okay. Just notice. Notice what kind of feeling tone you get from rising up? What kind of feeling tone you get from the language as it’s sinking down? Just rising up a little bit. It doesn’t have to be very big, just enough that you can tell you’re doing it. Okay. So rising and sinking. I feel like a crocodile is going to appear at any second by this.

One more would be widening and narrowing, so you don’t have to stick your arms out, but that might help to feel wide. Narrow is just kind of bringing everything in. So just try it. You can try widening without extending your arms. Just kind of getting wide all through your trunk, feeling wide, feeling wide cheeks wide ears, wide eyes, get narrow.

So, what’s it like to be widening? Does this feel like a familiar place? What’s it like to be narrowing? Does that feel familiar?

Okay. One more: twisting. And that’s just letting yourself twist. You can either keep your head oriented forwards as you twist, or you could take your head with you. Okay. And you’re not trying to stretch. You’re just trying to twist. So the way I think of a twist is one end of you is either stationary or going one direction while the other end goes the other. Okay. Like wringing out a towel. So for instance, a lot of us have trouble with confrontations, but we also have a built-in belief that we need to face things head on. So you’re basically screwed. Now this was no twisting. This was head-on. But if you don’t like confrontations, but you need to be involved in one, you can twist. Things just go right by. It’s a real different experience to have somebody brow-beating you if you’re taking it all in versus letting it slide by. They don’t even have to notice you’re doing it.

Student: Does it work on a phone?

Jeff: Yeah. It would work on a phone for your own experience. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a nice point. I mean, I’ve run into people that work in call centers and they’re just abused all day long. Just taking it all in.

An exercise in movement

All right. Let’s try this in pairs. So find a partner and pair up. Gail, could you step out with me? No, I want you to watch. So just go with a partner, maybe someone who’s not your lifetime partner. And I think let’s have you seated either in chairs or on the floor, whichever you’re both comfortable with. Can we swap you guys out? Thank you. Whatever. That’ll put you in a power position right away.

So, notice right off what kind of space you chose to put between yourselves? You know, what’s comfortable for you. What did you decide upon? And you can continue to adjust. If you find that you’re just too close for comfort and you haven’t the capacity to rest with that, then you can move away. All right. So to start out with, I’m just going to name the things we just went through and mirror each other. So you’re both doing it. And just so you can get this more in your sense of possibilities. I’ll call it out if I can remember these combinations. So both of you advancing. And retreat. And then advancing again. And then retreating again. Do it a few more times.

Okay. Come back to neutral. Now I’m going to ask you to slow it way down. Maybe I’ll try to say it a few times. When you sit down, you have more opportunity to experience the transition and notice what comes up. Okay. So advancing very slowly. So you’re advancing, advancing, advancing, advancing, advancing, and then retreating very slowly. Okay. Try that again. All right. Okay. Let’s try rising and sinking. So both of you rising together. Go ahead and just try it slowly. So both of you rising together. Okay. And both of you sinking together. Try that again, rising and then sinking.

And once more. Rising. And then as you sink, consider whether sinking is a deflation or whether it’s merely sinking downwards, One more time, rising and sinking. All right. Let’s try widening and narrowing. So widening. So how does that change your relationship? If you’re both wide now and both narrow? I just suddenly thought of two cobras facing off. I saw that. So it’s on your own. Do it together with each other, mirroring. So, you’re both widening and then both narrowing.

Couple more times. Good. All right. Just try twisting, just try twisting. So just cue off each other and you can twist, twist in the same direction. Yeah. Which would mean you would each be going in the opposite direction. So if Peter’s twisting to his right, yes. To the left. Yeah. You’re still mirroring each other. Yeah. Try it without maintaining eye contact or still looking. Your head looks at each other, but the rest of you twist away. What’s that like? All right. Okay. I just want to check in and what did anybody notice during this? Did anything come up? Did something seem familiar?