Let's Talk Looking Up
Let’s talk looking up.
“Look on the bright side”
“Just change your mindset”
“Keep your chin up”
We’ve heard it all when we’ve been feeling, well, like looking down. Gravity is there to assist us in ever so subtly gazing down, limiting our sight, providing tunnel vision of a future that is only as far as a step’s length away.
Can I get a “hell yeah” for every time that we have been feeling less than 100% and someone has suggested with all of the love and compassion to you to simply “change your mindset”, with this to result in a colossal eye roll (figuratively, literally, or both) accompanied by an ever-so-polite “Duh” as a response.
I know I have been there.
So what do we have to gain by doing something as simple as just changing the attention of your gaze from the ground in front of you to “up”, to the beyond, to the “far away” as far as the eye can see?
Only everything.
The biochemistry of our bodies respond more quickly to a postural change than it does by taking a pill.
Allow me to repeat that.
YOUR BODY (yes YOU!) responds MORE QUICKLY to a CHANGE IN YOUR POSTURE than it does to TAKING A PILL.
A change from a flexed posture to one of extension and openness (and an upward and outward gaze) has a tremendous affect on human physiology. For starters, it allows for a flood of “happy hormones” and neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin to run through our system and bind to receptors that are craving connection. These are neurotransmitters that allow for us to not only FEEL love and connection, but allow for us to also GIVE love and connection. They allow for greater states of empathy, for compassion, for kindness.
Next, flex forward, and take a breath, filling your lungs with as much air as you possibly can. Now, sit up tall, let your shoulders roll backwards like you are tucking them into your back pockets, chest up and out (a power position), and fill those lungs with fresh and clean air. Which one was easier? Which one energized you? Which one did not feel like a chore? When we sit up tall and allow air to saturate our bodies, our brains are happier. Our blood is saturated with more oxygen, providing greater amounts of nutrients for our muscles, organs, and tissues to function more effectively.
Not to mention, a breath allows for a moment of pause when the external world might exist in chaos. A breath is your moment to come back to you. To recenter, refocus. When we feel centered, we feel more connected to ourselves, more on purpose, more intentional. Perhaps we have a greater bandwidth within which we can A D A P T . Dare I say, BE even more resilient? Adaptability and resiliency allow for the humanness in us to come through, instead of getting mad and frustrated when we are already feeling vulnerable and “down”.
So the next time that someone suggests to “look on the bright side” or “focus on the good”, instead of closing with that habituated eye roll, why not try to change your physical state, giving your mental state a chance to catch up?
What do you have to lose?
