The study of body language also known as Kinesics has becomegenerally known and understood. This whole new science started out asa curiosity soon was looked into in more greater detail then it wasdecided to be a new science.
The fact that under stress people do certainthings, or that babies will suck their thumbs, a man will bite his nails orknuckles or a women will spread her hand across her chest these allcaused people to wonder why this happened. They wanted to know whatthe reason was for doing certain things, who had taught them that? This is an example I want to try on you. Picture this. Imagine inyour mind a women is sitting in a chair her arms are crossed and so areher legs, she has no shoes on and she is wearing a black dress with shortdark wavy hair and a cigarette. What does the way she is sitting tell youabout her, What does her short black dress say? What is the meaningbehind her crossed legs? Crossed arms? No shoes? The way she islooking at you? These are all things that her body is sending to you insub-semi-unconscious ways that she may not even know of herself.
Does her body tell you she is a loose women? Does her body say shes amanipulator? Does her body say that shes lonely and requires attention?Maybe its screaming Im a PHONY or more than likely her crossedarms and legs are demanding you to LEAVE HER ALONE what everthe reason its certainly being sent to you. You have to understand that what ever the reason is, you proudlyalready know it. This actual women was on the front cover of the book I chose towrite the 2500+ word paper on, and the following is my thoughts,expressions, comments, ideas, and my ways of trying to help the readerbetter understand this extremely interesting and useful book intitledBODY LANGUAGE. It was written by a man named Julius Fast andI would seriously recommend this book to anyone that needs aninteresting book to do this paper on. Even though Ive written this papertwice now, torn my house upside done and inside out trying to find itafter Id lost it twice and by the way I dont have it now.
This is bookwas still worth it and this paper explains why. Body language, a very powerful way that people expressthemselves in a way that they might not be aware of. This in fact is thesecond time Im writing this paper. The first time I wrote it wasyesterday it took me 1 1/2 weeks to finish it I had just finished it andnow after tearing up the house looking for it. The terrible truth has setin, I have had to rewrite it and now I have to start all over again. That isan awful thing and Im angry about it and I have a good way to start thisnew paper.
Body language is shown through out many different ways,such as facial expressions and other things such as tone of voice, levelof breathing and so forth. Ill be extremely forward and frank Im pissedoff that I have to rewrite a paper Ive already wrote and after looking allover the house I decided to rewrite it. My dog wont come near me rightnow, my sister just looked at me funny and said geeze whats yourproblem I hadnt even said one word about anything. Its sorta like shesensed that I was upset or frustrated and she was correct I am. The first thing Id like to share and talk about my ideas in the bookis from the chapter called Positions, Points and Postures. What doesposture exactly say? Is it an indirect way of saying something? I beganto wonder this when I started this chapter.
I soon came to another partthat talked about a patient a therapist had had. Looking back on thepatient and what happened to this person I realized how much peoplegave things off, this patient had been threatened suicide for some timethis time things were different. The patient looked dull dressedmessy and care freeeyes vague, movement was tight and restricted, slumped over andpassive. He also had an inability to hold the therapists eyes, voice was flat,lifeless, passive. These were all signs to the therapist that these werentthreats they were real, and the therapist was correct the boy didattempted suicide and he saved his life.
The point of all this was to showsome of the parts of the body people use to get their message across. The reason I choose to explain that story was to try and see whymy sister could tell I was angry just by looking at me. I have beenwondering this and I think I have an idea on exactly what people do toexpress what they are feeling. People in general use body languagebefore verbal language. Verbal language I think is not as effective incommunication as it is when its combined body language. I think fromwhat Ive learned in this book that in order to receive the full messagethe person could and would have to use both body and verbal languagein order to get it across.
The Masks Men Wear is a great topic for the next section of mypaper. I found out that people wear masks that protect them from theirenvironments. We are fakes that hide our true selves by pretending to besomething we arent. We hide ourselves with things like personalappearance, the clothes we select and the hairdos we have. The simplefact is that day after day we cover up our true human being. We controlour emotions in public and a simple smile says a lot more than a sign ofhumor or pleasure.
We smile for a lot of different reasons, a smile issometimes a sign of apology sign of defense or even an excuse. I readthat and I believe thats true, just look around you everyday at schoolthe office or even walking around in any crowded place. The book saidfor instance that a weak smile may mean something like I dont meanto intrude, but this is the only vacant place this type of smile is usuallyseen in a place like a small busy restaurant I have seen this in therestaurant I work at. You might accidentally brush against a person inan elevator and give a different type of smile with a certain look of youreyes that says Im not really aggressive, but forgive me anyway. Thesesmiles are given as fake signs when in reality we may be frustrated andangry at the way your days going.
Why are you lying to yourself and thepeople around you? This is called a mask and believe it or not you aregiving out these signs all the time. These masks go as far as in yourverbal communication, going back to me losing my paper, a friendcalled me while I was looking around the house, she could tell by myvoice that I was upset and frustrated but, when she asked Whatswrong? I replied Nothing and then she said So, How are youdoing? I then replied Good but I most certainly wasnt OK I wasextremely aggravated and annoyed and frustrated. This is an example ofThe masks we wear. We have every type of masks needed for every occasion, like if wedont like someone and we want to be fake and unhonest with theperson we dont like.
We have the party faces the campus face ourfuneral faces and there is a face we hold for every type of occasion thereis. Taking off the masks there are certainly situations in which wehave to drop that mask, for instance we are driving in a car andsuddenly a car rips out in front of us and you have to stop suddenly orsomeone is tailgating you. The personal space you consider for yourselfhas been violated. You drop the mask and let out every cuss word youknow because your angry and you feel violated and sometimes evenscared because they may have come so close to hitting you.
This is justone of the examples of dropping the mask, the masks are however veryrarely dropped. Sometimes certain people wear certain masks to protect thembecause they had a bad experience and as part of the traumaticexperience they want to, but cannot drop a mask. This mask might be aunhealthful protective measure that you need to drop to get on with yourlife for example, there is a similar example in the book but Ive changedit too better explain. There is a girl named Jane who has a nice job, nokids and is very attractive.
She wants to have an active dating life andshe tries to date around however every time she goes out on a date theguy never wants to go out again or even call her again. What exactly isthis women doing thats so bad that these guys lose interest? Well themen were later asked and there replies She turns you off Hell, I likeJane. At work shes a great girl and Ive taken her out, but the momentsomething begins to happen she freezes up and stops talking andbecomes cold the message is then very clear and it isnt good. Shessaying Dont touch, Dont talk to me, I wanna leave.
The message isclear and the men read it loud and clear. Sometimes dropping the maskalso means losing up, the problem however is that after wearing a maskfor a lifetime it isnt so easy just to drop it. There are lots of people whowear these masks that hender their lives and trying to move on from abad experience is often difficult to do, the body uses these masks inorder to protect the individual from it happening again. Many people donot understand this and dont have any idea why they have certainproblems the reason is because of the masks and body signals that theygive off, such a Jane as above.
The next section was a great one and it had a lot of interestinginformationabout how it is that certain individuals have betterchances with women and it doesnt have everything to do with looks. Everyone knows a Mike you know a person who can walk into a partyand with in 20 mins or less can be on intimate terms with one of thegirls and he seems to have no trouble at all. How does this Mike persondo it? What is about him that attracts all these females? Well the answeris a lot more simpler than youd expect. Mike has a unconsciouscommand for body language and he uses it expertly in some strangeway Mike is saying Im available, Im masculine. Im aggressive andknowledgeable. Then he fines or sees a girl he feels attracted too, hezeros on them and sends the message Im interested, in you.
Youattract me. Theres something about you that captivates me and I wantto know what it is. How does he signal all this just with his body? Is itin the way Mike looks? Maybe in the way Mike walks? Talks? Moves?Dresses? or maybe he has captured some type of Aura that he haslearned to contains or has? The truth is that Mike has learned to walkwith a certain grace and move in a arrogant cocky Im a guy and Ill getyou type of walk and movement its quite beautiful the way this guydoes it and its funny. Its the type of grace that arouses a mans envyand a womens interests. Then after he has captured their interests thenext step begins and oh it gets better!He stolls over to lean against something and then his Posture andstance adds to the easy confidence of his movement.
He finally leansagainst something and then he stands there finding and checking out thewomen in the room all the while doing something while he stands there. In some type of primitive way he sends out dozens of little gestures in aunconscious way. They scream sex and he stands their in a way thatdoes the screaming. He may stand with his hips thrusted outward andhis legs slightly apart he looks like a guy out of a old western movie. Heis saying Im looking for a women anyone interest give me a signal.
Thesignal is the eyes and the way they are sitting. He needs to catch thegirls eye, and if that eye exchange is made then he knows that they areinterested. He makes eye contact and holds it just a little longer than heshould. He doesnt allow her eyes to slide away and then he makes hisway over to her. This is the best part of what the book calls a psychological game. He sits down next to the girl.
He needs to breakdown her defensive barrier so he notices certain things in order to dothis such as, are her arms crossed, this is a sign of protective measures,how is her posture, and other personal things that he has mastered theability to read. This guy Mike had an extremely high success rate atgetting any girl and he used body language to read and to communicateto each and every one of them. The women that are interested let Mikeknow and then he goes over to where they are sitting. He makes smalltalk and then he begins the next step to his pick-up he begins to flatterthem with his un divided attention something that maybe they need intheir lives and then he sits a little closer than whats comfortable but,not too much to really discomfort them and he usually gets the girl. Weall know a Mike and now I have a better understanding of how Mikeworks. The next section of this book that Id like to discuss is over the useand abuse of body language.
Sometimes people who know how toexpress themselves in body language begin to overuse its powerfulmeans of communication. You need to be made aware that your bodydont know how to lie. Unconsciously, it telegraphs your thoughts asyou fold your arms, cross your legs, stand, slouch, walk, tone of voice,eyes and the way you move them and hold them, and even the way youhold your mouth in certain positions. There are thousands of gesturesyou can make and use to over use or even abuse these signals to getanything you could want or need from people. You can incorporate yourknowledge of manipulation and your body to make a pretty powerfulcombination of power over another individual.
There are very few people who have gain such a know how as thatIve described above but, those who can definitely have a unique powerand should be careful not to abuse or over use this power. There were quite a lot of interesting chapters in the book and lotsof interesting stories that explained the interesting details in this bookagain Id like to recommend this book to anyone in need of a book thatwill take you into an amazing world of semi-sub-unconsciously sentmessages. Body Language. . .
. an intrepid journey into a little-known world. It is full of unexpected revelations and gems of insight- David Reuben, MD.
