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Personal Power and Posture
Published by Businesswomen's Calendar, February 1995
How you hold your body is a major part of what you communicate about yourself to other people. What you communicate about yourself, consciously or unconsciously, has a lot to do with how others respond to you. How others respond to you is a major factor of personal power.
Everybody in business wants personal power! Personal power can be defined as personal influence and authority, and the ability to get things done. Therefore, I suggest conscious attention to your posture, to better control your effect on others.
This article will discuss the physical factors of posture, and how to have "good posture" physically; and also the emotional components of posture, and how to use posture to clear your emotions.
Most people have some idea of what correct posture "should" be, and can even arrange their body in that kind of shape when they think about it. The problem is, the moment you stop thinking about it, the body reverts to some old habit of holding or collapsing.
Why?
In our emotionally repressive culture, people from an early age learn to suppress feelings. Feelings are a force of nature, our moment-by-moment responses to our world. Feelings normally move and change like liquid colors in a kaleidoscope. Once you feel that emotion, it changes to the next one.
Following are some specific guidelines for more clear and powerful posture:
- Open up your chest and ribcage. The mid-back, called the thoracic spine, is the least flexible area of the spine, and tends to be rigid in many people. People hide their heart and feelings by collapsing the rib cage and suppressing breathing. Practice arching that mid-back area backwards to stretch the spine opposite its normal forward curve. Drop your shoulders and relax into that open posture. Chiropractic adjustments can be very helpful for gaining flexibility in this area.
- Once the chest and rib cage are opened up, practice taking a few deep breaths, concentrating on the exhale. Sometimes this in itself will bring up strong feelings "out of nowhere". This is good! You're clearing out past suppressed emotions! Breathe into those feelings and enjoy the increased energy you may feel. Working with a practitioner of Neuro-Emotional Technique at this point would clear those old feelings out of your body and nervous system, as well as give you specific information about what the feelings are and where they came from.
- Align your head so your ears are lined up with your shoulders. If you're like most people, this may be much further back than you're accustomed to. Notice that when the chest and rib cage hunch forward into a protected position, this automatically puts your head forward too. In this position, your neck muscles have to work hard to hold your head up, and voila! - stress and tension across the neck and shoulders. What is the antidote to neck and shoulder tension? Open your chest and bring your head up and back!
- The lower back, or lumbar spine and pelvis, is the foundation for the spine above. Therefore, low back posture has major impact on the whole spine. When the lower back is rounded out, this increases the common tendency for the head to be too far forward and the thoracic spine collapsed. Try it and see for yourself. When seated, bring your knees up and see how your low back rounds out. Feel how that puts your head forward. Still seated, bring your knees lower than your hips and feel how your lower back arches, your chest can open up and it's easier to hold your head up.
- Standing position for the lower back is not "tail tucked under" as you may have been told. That position puts stress into the spine and makes it more difficult to open the chest and hold your head up. I believe that particular instruction was based on embarrassment of female anatomy and a wish to hide it! Instead, relax and let your tailbone rise to comfortable position that allows the open chest, lifted head and relaxed neck.
- Pay attention to your feet. With the head and mid-back extending up and back more, you may find your balance tipping backwards. If so, bring your weight forward to the ball of the foot so your center of gravity is "planted" solidly, yet you could shift easily in any direction.
- Throughout the day practice opening your posture, breathing, and relaxing - while on hold on a phone call, or meeting a new person at a networking event. Especially when experiencing a feeling. When the feeling gets stronger, breathe faster, concentrating on the exhale.
As you keep practicing these actions over time, you will recreate your body and integrate your emotions into a new freedom. You will release the energy locked in your body and be able to access it to achieve your goals more powerfully.