I Heart Me (9 page)

The judges were also asked whom they would employ if the presentation had been part of a job interview. Their choices were always those who had power-posed.

In some of my talks and workshops on self-love, I enjoy getting the entire audience power posing for two minutes. I time it. It's surprising how long two minutes feels when you're standing in a silent room full of people in a power pose. It's actually a lot of fun and produces quite a bit of laughter.

Think of how your own daily interactions might be different if you practised power posing!

A few weeks after I taught power posing during a talk I delivered at a conference, I received an e-mail which said:

New research studies are adding weight to that fact that body posture affects how we feel. In a 2014 study by scientists at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, 74 participants were asked to sit in an upright or slumped position. They even had their backs strapped with physiotherapy tape to ensure their posture remained constant. Then they were given a stressful task whereby they had to tell a panel why they were the best candidate for a fictitious dream job, having only about five minutes to prepare. Those who sat in an upright position reported higher self-esteem than those who sat slumped. They also had more positive moods and lower fear. The scientists even noted that they used more positive words than those who sat slumped. They were also more effective.
⁸

Our muscles, posture, body language, breathing, heart rate and many other physiological parameters not only affect our physical chemistry but also affect our brain networks. Furthermore, consistent changes in any of these also change our brain networks. For example, people who meditate regularly tend to have more connections in the front part of their brain above the eyes, an area
known as the prefrontal cortex. It thickens and becomes denser in connections
on account of
the meditation practice.

Most of us never change how we hold our body unless we've had an injury and have been taught by a physical therapist, osteopath or chiropractor to stand or walk in a new way. So our brain networks don't change that much. But if we were to stand or walk differently – say, moving from
not
enough to
enough
–then our brain networks would change to reflect this.

Why is changing brain networks important? Because when the wiring in the brain changes, we don't have to think about something anymore. It becomes automatic. In this case,
enough
becomes our natural state.

This all happens because the brain is highly
neuroplastic
. This means it changes all the time in accordance with how we move, what we learn and even how we think. Remember the thicker prefrontal cortices that were caused by meditation practice? Practice is the key. The brain doesn't change on its own –
it's the things we do that change our brain
.

So, as we learn to stand, walk and behave in a way that says ‘I
am
enough', the circuit wiring in our brain will start to change. Before long, the wiring of ‘I
am
enough' will take root and what started out as a practice of remembering to hold and move our body in a certain way will become a habit. It will become effortless, because our brain has changed. And as we keep up our effortless new habit, the wiring of ‘I'm
not
enough' will begin to disconnect and dissipate.

Simply through holding our body in a certain way, we can actually wire a neurological state and emotional feeling into our brain and body.

SELF-LOVE GYM:
Your ‘I Am Enough' Pose

OK, so I want you to practise this. Brain changes occur on account of consistent practice, not through trying something out once, thinking,
Oh good, I know how to do that now
, and then doing nothing more about it (which is what a lot of people do).

• Play around with your posture, breathing and facial expressions until you get a sense of what would say ‘I
  am
  enough' for you. It might simply be the Wonder Woman pose. Or it might just be a relaxed posture with an erect spine, loose shoulders and hands by your sides. Find the posture that's right for you.
  
• Also, play around with the way you speak. Let ‘I
  am
  enough' be reflected in your vocal tone and the rate and control of your speech.
  
• Test it out walking, too. A good way to do this is to take an empowering affirmation and literally wear it! For example, the first time I did this was after a situation with an aggressive person. The affirmation I created was ‘
  Today I love myself more than I've ever done before. I have only positive interactions with people and I carry myself with confidence and pride.
  ' I wore that affirmation all over my body as I walked. I let it diffuse through my face, my shoulders and my breath. The effect was huge and it happened very quickly! An affirmation does become much stronger when your posture helps wire its meaning into your brain.
  

Once you've got your body posture sorted, here's what to do next:

• Pay attention to your body language over the next few days and practise changing how you feel by changing your body: how you walk, stand, sit, breathe; what you do with your head, shoulders, chest, etc. The more you try it, the easier it'll become and the faster it'll work.
  
• Practise your ‘I
  am
  enough' pose as often as you can.
  
• Choose a specific situation where you typically show low self-worth. For example, do you feel self-conscious in some social or professional situations? Do you act submissively around certain people, effectively giving your personal power away? Whatever the situation, do your ‘I
  am
  enough' pose before you enter it and then enter it walking and talking in ‘I
  am
  enough' mode. Notice how you feel. Make a note of any differences from the usual outcome.
  
• Any time you feel you're not enough, shift into your ‘I
  am
  enough' pose. The more you practise it, the better you'll get at it. This is because each time you're wiring ‘I
  am
  enough' more deeply into your brain networks.
  

Taking ‘selfies' – a photo of yourself taken by yourself while holding a camera – is a bit of a craze these days. I've taken quite a few myself. It's fun. Each time I put on a big smile. It always looks as though I'm having a great time. When we take selfies we all go into ‘autopose', an automatic smile or gesture that gives the impression that we're having the time of our life. But are we?

As you know, I'm a firm believer in ‘fake it 'til you make it', but the faking has to be done with
intent
. It has to be a full-on
conscious
pretend, performed with the awareness that pretending with intent can actually bring about the feelings you want.

But it's also OK to have a bad day and not feel under pressure to do your ‘I
am
enough' pose. It's OK to feel a little sad. Sometimes it's needed and can lead you to an insight about something that's causing some pain in your life. Sometimes, it can lead you to nurturing yourself. It's perfectly OK just to be yourself, however you're feeling. It's a big part of what self-love is. If that means happy, so be it. If it means sad, so be it.

Love your selfie regardless!

Chapter 4

Visualization

‘See things as you would have them be instead of how they are.'

R
OBERT
C
OLLIER

When Oscar was seven months old, he jumped up on a man on the street outside our house and dirtied his light grey suit.

The ground was damp, Oscar had been trying to dig a weed out of the garden and I'd taken my eye off him for a few seconds. He's a Labrador and if you know dogs at all, you'll know that a Labrador is everyone's best friend. Or at least that's what
they
think. So Oscar said ‘hello' in his usual fashion: paws on the man's midriff, eyes playful, mouth wide open and tongue hanging out.

The man didn't take it well. He shouted angrily at me.

As it was still the early days of my self-love project, I didn't deal with the situation very well at all. At that moment I was no longer an adult (I was 42 at the time), I was a six-year-old child being scolded by my schoolteacher.

Wouldn't life be amazing if we could have another go when we don't perform at our best? How amazing if I could have said to the man, ‘Thanks for that! I don't suppose we could do it again? I don't think I stood up for myself very well there, so if you could just step back a wee bit, I'll get Oscar to jump up on you again and then if you give me a dressing-down like you did before, I'll see if I can act like a man this time. Thanks so much.'

Then he says ‘yes', we have another go, I perform a wee bit better, ask him if it's OK if we do it again, he says ‘yes' and we're off again… We end up doing it 10 times for good measure, then we shake hands, Oscar jumps up at the man to see him off, he and I flash slightly coy smiles at each other and we go on our way, Oscar and I to the park and the man to the dry-cleaner.

Wouldn't it be great if life were like this? In some ways, it can be. At least it can be
inside our mind
. And the cool thing about that is, our brain can't tell whether it's really happening or whether we're imagining it.

No, really, our brain doesn't distinguish real from imaginary. We can replay a situation over and over in a new way in our mind and it will become real for our brain,
at least for the wiring of our brain
. And that's the key thing.

So, if we imagine behaving as
enough
, our brain networks will change to reflect ‘I
am
enough.'

There are three important things to remember about using this technique:
Repetition! Repetition! Repetition!

OK, so there's really just one thing to remember: you have to do it over and over again.

It's really much the same as going to the gym to get fit, to have a cardio workout or to build muscle. No one ever became Olympic champion after going to the gym just the once!

I've noticed that when people engage in self-help work, they're looking for the magic bullet, the one insight that will effortlessly change their life forever. But here's the thing: that insight is that
change takes repetition
. Change comes when we put insight into practice and do it
consistently
! That's what most people miss. It's the consistency that wires neural networks.

Basically, consistent practice – physically or in our imagination – can wire networks of ‘I
am
enough.' And once the networks have built up, our
enough
thinking and behaviour will become automatic. Our brain isn't hardwired. It's in a constant state of flux, responding moment by moment to our thoughts and movements and what we learn and experience in life.