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You can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their posture.
Our collective life experiences shape the way we carry ourselves in this world. Physical injury and emotional trauma gets stored in the body as tightness and aberrations. Over time, these aberrations cause one shoulder to be higher than the other, one leg to be straighter, one side of the back to hurt. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, these aberrations are more evident as you notice that you can twist further to one side than the other or extend toward the floor with one leg, but not the other.
This is normal. But here’s how the physical characteristics can affect our emotional and psychological stability:
Have you ever come across a person who is genuinely positive most of the time. Someone who is confident and resilient (even in times of adversity)? That person probably stands up tall, chest up, shoulders down, head held high. This person takes initiative and responsibility and acts with integrity. This is the posture of an enthusiastic person.
On the other hand, it’s relatively easy to spot the posture of a victim. This person carries their fear and their hurts as demonstrated by a caved in chest, shoulders curved forward and head hanging forward. It is the posture of someone who can easily get stuck in the negative. Someone who speaks defensively and frequently blames or judges.
If you look for it, these attributes are easy to spot. You can consciously identify people who will be a positive influence in your life and who will likely be draining. The real key is to watch for both the emotional and physical attributes in ourselves. Basic awareness can help us improve our our attitudes and emotional stability. A variety of other practices can help us improve the physical postures and ways we carry ourselves. The International Association of Structural Integrators has a practitioner finder who have gone through rigorous training programs on structural alignment and employ various techniques to help you improve your posture. Here’s a short list of practices that improve posture: Iyengar Yoga, Feldenkrais, Zentherapy, Rolfing, Hellerwork, Alexander Technique.
Related Articles:
Posture Bird Makes You Sit Up Straight from Shiny Shiny
Stand Tall from Life of a Lady Bug
LeAnn Rimes Yoga Workout from iFitandHealthy
Technorati Tags: Glam Media, Glam, GlamSpirit, Wellness, Health, GlamNetwork, Posture, Structural Alignment, Positive Attitude, Zentherapy, Iyengar Yoga, Yoga, Rolfing, Hellerwork
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Yogamum | 04-Sep-07 at 8:15 am | Permalink
Lots of good information and resources here, thanks! I think the slouching posture can be related to being an inward-focused person, someone who is immersed in thought or their own inner world, rather than a victim or a negative person. That is — the same outward manifestation (poor posture) can express quite different things. Just a thought.
Bill Vroom | 04-Sep-07 at 12:15 pm | Permalink
The Alexander Technique helped me make a huge difference in my own posture.
Jen | 06-Dec-07 at 9:33 pm | Permalink
What? Two postures? That’s the entire theory? What kind of dribble is this?
Rebecca | 07-Dec-07 at 9:52 am | Permalink
You bring up a good point, Jen. There are definitely more than 2 different emotional tones (victim and optimist). I was just giving the most obvious ones because most people can’t see the ones in between. People hold themselves differently posturally when they’re stuck in anger, grief, covert hostility, antagonism, etc. Thanks for your comments everybody!
lailani beth pinch | 12-Dec-07 at 1:44 am | Permalink
i get an adjustment occasionally but i cant always do the whole youga thing.
Sheaya | 31-Dec-07 at 9:40 am | Permalink
I tried yoga for a year, and I couldn’t stick to it.
Kind of a dumb question- Does having a bad posture eventually cause bone damage?
divia | 04-Jan-09 at 5:52 am | Permalink
its a very good web site .it helps me to look younger.