Listen to Your Gut

I hate body language analysts. 

My brows are furrowed and legs crossed even as I write this— so obviously I’m a bit off-put! Maybe I don’t particularly enjoy being analyzed, or maybe I believe humans are more complex than neatly packaged positional descriptors. At any rate, I keep my distance. 

Still, some stories told by the body are compelling. 

I’m sure you’ve seen a person pull a pillow over their stomach when they sit or cradle crossed arms over their belly. To the body language analyst, this may be a sign of thwarted vulnerability, a protection from pain. After all, our vital organs live in this very visible section. 

I wonder, then, how weight might interact with this. On one hand, weight can make us more visible, more subject to perception, to pain. This already vulnerable home becomes all the more open for hunting. Shrinking is securing safety. 

And yet, for some, weight added is a sort of pillow-bearing, cradle-crossing of its own. It provides a boundary, a prevention of proximity. You are safe, within these walls. 

And so, if there ever was a time I could partner with the body linguists, it would be to ask you to look within the language of yourself. What story are you telling your body out of safety? Can that shift out of survival? 

It really is all in the gut, huh?

at the Root Beer Barrel in Douglas