Your body has a mind of it's own. It's quite hysterical how the same person can convey different messages in different situations by just varying their body language. One moment we perceive the other person to be sweet, the next moment the same person may appear mean, bitchy, under confident, easy to fool, sharp, intellectual and the list goes on. And all of this only because of a shift in our posture, gesture or expression. Being from a background of life sciences I have come across quite a few cases where people express their concerns about shattering relationships, friendships and marriages. Not surprisingly though, one of the most important factors for all this conjecture is, I believe, an inability to comprehend what the other person meant to 'actually' convey. This lack of understanding about the thoughts and beliefs of the other may not be necessarily due to a lack of compatibility (as one always ends up perceiving) rather it may just be due to a void in the understanding of your own self expression. We don't seem to realize what our own body conveys simply because we are unaware of the impact that our gesture/posture can make on the other. Lately, an incident happened in which the above stood true and led to the end of a long standing married life. The husband only in order to express his concern for his wife (who happened to come late from her office, now, for quite a few days) instead of asking her politely 'where she had been all this while?' (which he actually intended to do) seemed to shout at her the moment she came back home without realizing that his wife could mistake his 'concern' for his 'suspicion', which she actually did. The actual message thus took a wrong turn and became the cause for this debilitating marriage. There have been many such similar instances that I have witnessed in the recent past but it hadn't struck me until now that all of them shared in common the need to 'perceive the unprecedented'. We are so involved in our own confirmation biases that the real message that we ought to convey somewhere gets amiss. Although I understand that being empathetic especially when you are yourself involved in a situation can be tough but it's not unmanageable. Something so fragile as a human bond can take a jiffy and break, so we have to be really wise in the words we choose and the way we portray our expressions about our concern or deprecation. This not only applies to our personal settings but also to our professional scenarios. Studies tell us that it takes the first 3 seconds for an employer to make an impression of his employee. That's really temperamental I must say. So till the time we come to realize what may go wrong, it might have, already! Certain quick tips that may help you come out of your ignorance of self expression are:
- Make sure your first impression is always good, remember the first '3' seconds count ;)
- Before drawing any conclusions make sure you 'listen' to what the other person has to say.
- Be aware of your own body language before confirming what the other person's body language is conveying.
- Do not have any preconceived notions of a particular situation or a person until you've been their and done that!
- Do not be too loud or too sober in your usage of gestures or postures.
- Make it a point to convey what you want 'to' instead of letting the real message being lost in the heat of the moment.
- Remember 'words can never be taken back', so be sure you speak wisely.
Body language is no rocket science, it come's from observing people like 'me' and 'you' in different situations however it is a very essential a component to foster healthy and meaningful relationships.
