Embodied communication – using body wisdom to support difficult conversations
Dealing with disagreement
It’s an interesting and turbulent time here in the UK and further afield, politically speaking. I’ve found myself having lively debates at the pub, emotionally charged conversations with family members, colleagues and acquaintances, and difficult interactions with people who hold fundamentally different views and values to my own. This has led me to think about how we might connect with the wisdom our bodies have to offer in order to support us with sensitive, challenging and potentially triggering conversations. How might we tune in to signs and signals of potential overwhelm, re-regulate our nervous systems during and after a charged interaction, and stay grounded enough to actively listen and speak from a thoughtful place?
I have had an embodiment practice of some kind in my life for many years. I know what works for me when I need support, and I help others to connect with their bodies and to communicate from as calm and grounded a state as possible. And yet, I don’t mind admitting that there are some times when all of this awareness temporarily goes out of the proverbial window, and I find myself reacting from a place of emotional impulsivity, waiting impatiently to speak instead of listening and finding myself in a state of hyperarousal. The reason I got into embodiment work and found it so transformative is that I have a highly sensitive Autonomic Nervous System, and I tend to feel things intensely on a physical and an emotional level. Recently, I found myself in one of these situations, as I found myself hooked into a discussion where someone expressed views that I found distressing. The sudden and unexpected feeling of being unsafe had me holding my breath, feeling a little dissociated and ‘spaced out’, and then moving into a state of preparation to fight it out. I did my best to maintain a level of diplomacy and to try to listen to what the other person had to say, though no doubt on some level, they will have sensed a disconnect between my attempts to maintain a calm, curious and measured approach and whatever signs of stress were visible in spite of my efforts. In the end, this wasn’t the right time and place to delve further into a sensitive, contentious topic, and we left the discussion feeling unresolved. I was aware of carrying some of the tension created by the situation into the rest of my day, and had to make a conscious effort to decompress later. I’d like to give myself some grace and consider that this might have been the best I could do under the circumstances. But what could a really good version of this conversation look like, and what else could I have done to use an embodied approach to support myself in this situation?
Re-regulating our nervous systems and listening to our bodies
Firstly, it’s worth considering the environment in which a difficult conversation is taking place. Are there distractions and external stressors? Can you and the others involved in the discussion give each other your full attention? Is there some level of privacy and a sense of containment offered by the space (particularly if you are sharing deeply personal experiences, feelings and views)? Personally, my neurotype means that I am easily distracted and stressed by conversations in busy, noisy environments – putting a lot of energy into blocking out conversations happening at the next table in the pub doesn’t leave a huge amount of capacity to keep myself grounded and regulated. If stress levels begin to escalate during a conversation, it can be helpful to check in with how your body is feeling, and notice if anything external is contributing to any sense of discomfort. You might consider suggesting that the conversation is moved to a space that offers a sense of containment and calm, or rescheduled to a time when you’re able to focus more easily.
In our fast-paced, dopamine-fuelled world, it’s easy to forget that it’s okay to slow down. But when a difficult conversation begins to feel stressful and escalate into a place of conflict and distress, hitting the brakes can offer an opportunity to check in with ourselves, breathe and consider what might help us to begin to build bridges instead of putting up walls. A simple way to slow down is to pause and consciously notice what your breath is doing. Do you feel it high in your chest, shallow, fast, or are you holding your breath and bracing for impact? Taking a moment to send the breath lower into the body (in other words, ‘belly breathing’, which engages your diaphragm) can instantly help to re-regulate your nervous system and let you think more clearly. Related to this, getting comfortable with moments of silence can help – we don’t need to respond to another person’s point straight away, and we’re not communicating at our best if we’ve been waiting to get our tuppence-worth in, rather than listening to what’s being said. Taking a moment to ponder and consider our response can help to slow down a potentially escalating conversation, and also offers a chance to check in with and adjust what’s going on in our bodies. When I unexpectedly found myself in the aforementioned difficult conversation, I was vaguely aware of the fact that I was holding my breath and physically bracing against the psychological impact of the other person’s words. But I was also aware that time to continue the discussion was limited, and it seemed as if I couldn’t possibly slow down for long enough to take a breath and consider my response. Of course, this wasn’t true, and if nothing else, taking a moment to ground myself would have allowed me to walk away from the situation feeling calmer.
Responding to warning signs for stress
Are you aware of your body’s equivalent of warning lights on the car dashboard, alerting you to a need for something to shift before you find yourself in an inconvenient or dangerous situation? There may be some experiences that many of us will share in common in terms of early warning signs of stress or trauma triggers (such as changes to our breathing patterns), but each person and body is so different, that it’s useful to spend some time getting to know your own patterns. Often, our bodies react to a situation well before our conscious minds have a chance to process and interpret what’s going on and how to respond. Some of my own warning signs now feel so glaringly obvious to me that I sometimes wonder whether people around me notice them too (for the most part, I’m pretty sure they don’t). Developing a sense of what our bodies might be trying to tell us can save a lot of time and energy, particularly in stressful situations where we might lose our ability to think and express ourselves as clearly as we can when we’re calm. The next step in the process of connecting to this part of our body wisdom is considering what we might need when the ‘warning light’ we’ve identified is illuminated. Is it trying to tell us to take a break, to ground ourselves, to re-energise, to leave the situation entirely, or something else? Developing this awareness and slowing down to tune into our bodies can really help to strengthen connections with others and improve communication, as well as reducing the stress often associated with conflict and difficult conversations.
What are our bodies communicating?
It can also be interesting to consider what we’re communicating with our bodies – much has been made of body language, and I’m sometimes a little skeptical about the idea of consciously trying to manipulate what we want to convey through careful use of body positioning and movement. But, as previously mentioned, people are often skilled (whether consciously or subconsciously) at picking up incongruence or mismatched words, actions and signs of emotional states. So if body language, words and the slightly harder-to-pin-down ‘feeling in the room’ seem to be at odds, we might experience a general sense that something isn’t quite right. As such, I’m advocating for an approach based on authentic, honest communication. But we can nevertheless use our bodies to help us change our psychological and physical state, and to convey the message we want to get across without being inauthentic. Sort of a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ approach, but I don’t consider it to be ‘faking’, so much as embodying the state we’re aiming for, and noticing any shifts that happen in our emotions and communication as a result. For example, coming into a conversation that we feel nervous about having, perhaps with an uneven power dynamic or with a person who we think might not take us seriously. It might help to engage supportive muscles in our lower body and to feel a sense of having a solid base, as well as considering how we take up space in the room. I’m not suggesting the full ‘power stance’ option favoured by key players at the Tory conference a few years ago (I still remember the memes that circulated off the back of a slew of pictures of MPs in identical power poses). But sending subtle signals to ourselves through our physical state and how we position ourselves can help to shift our emotional state and the relationship dynamics in the room. This isn’t about getting ‘one up’ on another person or playing games, but it can be a useful experiment to consider how we are reinforcing or undermining what we want to communicate through what we’re doing with our bodies. With all that said, it feels important to offer nuance – this isn’t about being constantly aware and ‘in control’ of what we’re doing, or about shaming different ways of being in a body and taking up space. Before I understood my neurodivergent identity, I remember being hugely shamed at a leadership programme by a fellow participant who told me that she couldn’t take me seriously as a leader because I ‘moved around too much’ and ‘talked with [my] hands excessively’. For a while, I considered how I might be able to shift my way of being in order to convey a bit more gravitas. And there are some situations, like giving a formal presentation, where I might be more conscious of slowing down and stepping into my power in a more physical way. But otherwise, I came to realise that I don’t need to change who I am and how I move in order to be ‘taken seriously’ – that was the other person’s issue, not mine.
Decompressing after difficult conversations
Finally, let’s explore what happens after a difficult interaction. How might we decompress and let go after a situation that’s caused us stress and filled us with adrenaline? Maybe you already have a practice around this, whether it’s talking to a trusted contact to process what happened, going for a walk, or making a cup of tea. If there are residual feelings of tension, it’s worth considering how you might let them go, and whether there are physical ways of doing this. A good start might be to notice what your breath is doing, and whether you’re holding it. Breathing exercises can offer a mini reset, a bit like switching yourself off and back on again. You might feel like you need to move your body, in order to let go of the tension and ‘shake off’ anything you’re left with that you don’t want to carry through your day. Or you might feel spaced out and disconnected, and need something that offers a sense of grounding and containment, like using your arms to ‘give yourself a hug’ (or getting one from someone else, if you enjoy that). You might have words or sounds that need to be released in some way, whether through talking, journalling, singing, or screaming into a pillow. Decompression looks different for each person, but it can be a good way of drawing a line under an interaction, and releasing anything you don’t need before moving on to the next task or interaction. I’d suggest taking a few minutes to note down what you find helpful after a stressful situation, so that you have a list to refer to when you’re feeling too stressed to recall what you need in the moment.
If you’d like more information and support with embodied communication, please feel free to contact me.