Issue #1 Article#11
Unconscious Signals by Pietro Abela
I had
the pleasure recently of accompanying my cousin Graham, chief inspector of the
RCMP in Taber, Alberta on his Saturday night patrol. As we cruised the streets
we shared our interpretations of people’s body signals as we passed them in the
street. We acknowledged the difference in our approaches: he looks for the
behaviours which betray underlying motives while I tend to assess the
individual’s background, history and lifestyle. We play the game of swapping
our perceptions. I become the cop looking for trouble, he wears the hat of the
therapist and discover it is like wearing each other’s shoes, a common
language, but a view of the world alien to each other.
The two
inhabitants of the Chevy truck in front of us betray what we both recognize as
incongruent behaviour, meaning the perceived normal rhythm of body signals and behaviour
has radically changed. We notice the change in their head movements, the sudden
rigidity of the inhabitant’s bodies, the shallow movement of the shoulders
indicating a holding of the breath. Their body expression is telling us there
has been a surge of adrenaline into their systems: in other words they have
suddenly become intensely fearful. Graham suspects they have something to hide
He pulls them over and instructs the driver and passenger to get out of the
truck .
Within two
minutes Graham finds a stash of marijuana that has been hidden under the front
passenger seat. A subsequent body search reveals nothing more than that. Graham
confiscates the marijuana, proffers a warning and lets them go. I am sitting in
the police car during this time watching it all on a video screen. When he returns to the car we greet each
other with a congratulatory shake of the hands, taking pleasure in the accuracy
of our reading of body language.
A face-reading
teacher I studied with, Narayan Singh, once said, “We are all books waiting to
be read, we just need to know how to read them.”
Our bodies
elicit information to one another all of the time. We tell each other our joys,
our problems, our likes, dislikes, grievances, life’s history, motives,
successes, health issues, the precise location of these health issues, the
interactions we had with others, our defenses, addictions – you name it – we
share these with each other constantly. This information is communicated
through our body signals. How we stand, walk, move our hands and head, where
and how we move and the extent of our movements, how we breathe when we make
the movements, how deep or shallow the breath is and the words and the
syllables we emphasize are the words of the body language.
This is not
something you can attach equations to. Unlike the decrees of many a book, an
action or movement does not, in fact cannot, equal a certain emotional
condition, a childhood lack or dysfunction or an emotional state. When the
combination of all of the given body signals are put together a complete
picture of a person emerges, in much the same way each piece of a jigsaw
reveals more and more of the whole picture.
It is ironic
that society as a whole attaches such importance to character analysis by what
a person says and does when such a wealth of information is there for the
taking. The choices we make in life would be enhanced, our needs would be met
if we were to listen to what we all naturally do in life. Maybe reading unconscious body language would
result in more coherent choices of government leaders, people we would wish to
study with, the anticipation of criminal activity, the health of our family.
The potential benefits are profound.
So how did we
come to usurp these gifts? Why do we limit our intake of information so that we
largely assess an individual on their spoken word and accomplishments and lack
of accomplishment in life? It would be too easy to say that we are not taught
this in school. It would be more accurate to say that we relate to life
utilizing predominantly masculine traits.
Despite gender
we are all blessed with masculine and feminine sides. Succinctly put, activity,
intellectuality, curiosity, forthrightness and exploration are examples of
masculine qualities we all possess. These are qualities that are prepared to
defend territory, to “explore strange new worlds and boldly go where no man has
gone before,” to express opinion, to seek and stretch the boundaries. Alternatively, our feminine side prefers a
more inactive existence. The feminine is prepared to wait for the information
to come, it is patience encumbered, it sees value in emotion and relationship,
it is the sensual and the artisan, earthy and
nurturing. A balanced individual possesses the capacity to straddle the
two sides, dipping into either as life demands.
We cannot look
for body responses. This is a masculine approach and the masculine is not
equipped elicit such response. At best the information we receive will be
limited. We have to allow body-based information to come to us and it is the
feminine within who has that expertise. The masculine is versed in seeking
knowledge and information. The feminine is prepared to create the space to let
whatever the person before them has to share to come to them. In a way this is
acknowledging that the person before us, or to be more precise, the body parts,
have both the reason and ability to communicate to us on their own accord. This
is not new. Apache scouts, in assessing the land for indicators of the presence of their enemies would create for
themselves an inner silence. The inner silence would widen their vision to a
20-20 viewing level allowing them to survey huge chunks of land – or more
accurately – allowing the information from the landscape to reveal itself to
them. As ARC students form relationships with the feminine they talk about
their senses widening – they hear hidden nuances, see from all sides, feel
energy around them to much greater depths. These are inevitable outcomes of a
relationship with the feminine within.
Then how do we form a relationship with the inner feminine? The question beneath the question is how do we create inner quietness. From this emerges the still deeper question how do we deal with the inner distracting parts of ourselves that take us out of quietness? This is one of ARC’s most important tenets and one of the keys to the sustained relationship to the feminine. To create inner quietness is to hold a mindful state. Inevitably from this state, distraction will emerge