Gesture and body language is part of our heritage received through our ancestors, and therefore is also part of our subconscious.

Our muscle movements speak for us independently of verbal expression. Although it is true that gestures and movements usually accompany our words, the moment the consciousness decides to lie this parity dissolves, because our deepest self is incapable of giving false signals, unless it is, in addition to giving false information, believing it to be true.

From birth to age three, the child expresses himself almost entirely through movements and gestures partly innate and partly learned by imitation. With his advancement in the capacity to speak, gestualization takes a back seat; it is at this point that the child also acquires the capacity to lie, as part of his development from imagination, all of which leads him to the construction of the game that will serve as training for him before real life.

However, body language was learned before lying , so gestures will always be associated with the subconscious and the truth.

The importance of improving body and gesture language

Between 60 and 70% of our communication takes place through body language: gestures, appearance, posture, look and expression . Even at an unconscious level, we capture all this information and transform it into meaning, which is why some people seem more or less trustworthy to us, depending on the amount of incongruence we have detected during the conversation.

We don’t necessarily get all the information, it depends on how much attention we are giving. If we also know the mechanisms of sign language, we can consciously interpret the messages as if they were a language . Obviously, it works in both directions, and if we learn to interpret them, we can also learn to transmit our thoughts through the gestures of our whole body, thus enhancing the quality of the message sent and ensuring greater empathy on the part of the receiver.

Studying our body expression allows us to observe our psychomotor apparatus and to erase our habitual expression , to a great extent regulated and even self-imposed, and allows us to find our own language for communication with others.

Enhancing the free expression of the body also helps us to optimize computational intelligence. From the first contact with his mother, the child, in the absence of words and symbols on which to rely, imprints his physical and emotional sensations on the body’s memory, which registers and preserves all this information in the motor of the subconscious. By means of the corporal expression we can accede to this memory, recognizing the registries to neutralize them and thus to avoid automatic movements that can give an erroneous and inadequate information in certain situations.

Empowering Sign Language

How do we do it? The ideal, without a doubt, above all for the recreational component, is to go to workshops of clown, theater, dance … however, with the help of a simple mirror we can do it without difficulty in our house following these simple guidelines:

1. Controlling our gestures

The gesture is the body movement of the joints, mainly the body movements made with the hands, arms and head . Before moving, we will visualize the movement with our eyes closed and decide whether or not it is suitable for what we want to express.

2. Relating to objects

A fork or a pen can be taken in many different ways… let’s observe ourselves, let’s try the movement, let’s make the objects ours.

3. Learning to relate to other bodies

Reacting in a controlled and conscious way to what the other expressions around us provoke is very useful in this sense.

4. Relating to space

It consists of observing the dimensions of space, the sounds around us, the aromas, the sensations produced by the environment. This will make us move through it more safely.

5. Learning to breathe

We carry out breathing exercises on a regular basis until we manage to naturally adapt your rhythm to that required by our body; in this way you will be able to move organically and integrated into your environment.

Exercising free expression gives us the awareness that we have a unique and extremely useful tool for communication: our body.