As it happened I was heading into town... via the petrol station as the warning light was on :o I was standing there filling the tank when I realised I was standing differently... stronger... It was because of the boots, and it felt good.
Which got me pondering...
At a couple of work events, the topic of body posture has come up, specifically the physical impact your posture can have (Power Poses, Amy Cuddy). The way you stand doesn't just affect the impression other people have of you, in affects your own body chemistry. Adopting a power pose changes the levels of key hormones in your body.
There is an interesting cycle between the physical and the emotional - where adopting a smile, even where "faked" by holding a pen in your teeth, affects your mood. And your mood affects your posture.
We choose the face(s) we present to the world.
What occurred to me while fuelling my car was how the clothes and shoes we choose don't just have a direct affect on the people around in terms of the impression we make. They also affect how we feel about ourselves, which will affect our body language (and body chemistry), and that will also influence the people we meet.
Once upon a time I used to wear heels and putting on heels, glad rags and make up was enough to change my body language. But then I damaged my knee and heels were banned for quite a while. Even when I was given the all clear, I was physically unbalanced and fairly unconfident in crowds of people. Feeling vulnerable affected my body language, and hence the impression I made. I've never really made it back into a "heels" state of mind. I have tried wearing low heels a few times and while it does change the way I walk, I don't feel confident. Plus my joints hate me by the end of the day. So I don't do it very often, which means I don't get into "heels" state of mind very often.
One of the other things that came up in the work course was the ability to choose your "state". We did a practical exercise choosing what "state" to greet people in, and it was interesting how the extremes of the state spectrum felt false and difficult. I felt I could probably choose state within a range, but would struggle to choose outside of that range.
[Quick side bar on "state": I realise I didn't really challenge what was meant by "state" when I was on the course. I just made an assumption that it was about "positive mental attitude", but somewhere in the mix you also get energy level, confidence, in fact probably the big five personality traits. The exercise was to greet people at a zero, five and ten level of "state". And they would be doing the same but you wouldn't necessarily get a zero:zero meeting. I think most people found the zero and ten states were not very comfortable and took some effort. What a "ten" was varied between people. And a big mismatch between states e.g. a zero:ten meeting also caused some frustration on both sides.]
I have been updating my wardrobe anyway as changing job always means some adjustment to the new dress code. But I think I need to spend a bit more time thinking about how that also affects me; how the clothes and shoes I choose affects my posture and also my mood.
However "state" isn't just about clothes and shoes. Horses don't judge me by what I wear, but they are very good at reading body language. How I am feeling, what I am thinking, these things affect me at the level of minute differences in my muscles that might not be visible to the eye (at least to a human) but can be felt by a horse, even with a saddle in the way.
Us humans probably used to be better at doing this than we are now, but we've got lazy because we can listen to what someone is saying (and the tone and so on). And our survival doesn't depend on it.
There seems to be a fine line where "faking" confidence or calmness works and the horse responds to a not-entirely-genuine state. But at the same time horses seem to have a pretty consistent ability to see the things you are not even aware of yourself - when you have doubts about a jump, or "don't really mean it" when you ask them to do something.
Somehow there is an aspect of "authenticity" to faking it - you need to mean it.
If I choose particular clothes or shoes in the short term, that will change my mood, and my body language in the short term. And that will affect my body chemistry in the short term. But if you choose to do this again and again, you start to embed that mood, that "state" in the long term.
There is a lot of research about how often you need to do something for it to become a habit - and it is only a matter of days. So if I have been moping around for 20 or 30 days, that is effectively a habit I have created for myself. I have been inadvertently choosing a whole load of habits for myself.
It isn't just a question of accepting that I can choose my state. it is a question of what state do I want to choose ? What 'me' do I want to be (a 'me' that I can be with enough authenticity) ?
Which is a fair amount of pondering given I only have a small petrol tank !
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