022 - Mini Musing: The Medicine of Widening
In this week’s Mini Musing, I share reflections on the far-reaching impacts of widening our posture, as well as our mental and visual perspective.
I draw on Amy Cuddy’s research on power postures and how we can actually change our hormonal composition, our chance at getting a job, and the likeliness that we’ll take a risk.
I also reflect on how one-on-one somatic sessions will often use the widening of awareness when visiting traumatic history. And at the end of the episode, we play with how taking a wider visual perspective alters your breath, posture, and nervous system.
Listen in to learn how to widen your posture and your perspective. Then I invite you to join my 21 Days of Untapped Support to begin widening today.
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Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:05]
Hello, welcome. I'm Sarah Tacey and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love, and life-saving tools. Join us.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:36]
Welcome to Threshold Moments. I'm super curious right now about this idea of widening. In yoga, when I would teach anatomy trainings and I would teach about the planes of motion, I wanted to find a way to make that information digestible. And I also wanted it to be applicable. And so instead of talking about the transverse plane or the coronal plane or the sagittal plane, I decided to make the planes the three primary colors. So if you were in the sagittal plane going front to back, which would look like flexion bending at the hips or extension lifting your chest up towards the sky, that that would be the color red. And this would kind of be like your stop and go when the nervous system is like hot or cold. You'd be running or you stop, or you curl up for a freeze, or you run, or you fight, that these are all happening front to back. In a regulated nervous system, this might just be, you know, I curl up to rest, I stand up when I'm ready, and transverse plane was yellow. Transverse is rotational.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:54]
And I imagine this to be like, and I don't know, I'm going to stop and look around. Yellow, like a yellow light. It's not like straight forward. It's not a green. A yellow is a pause. And I imagine that when we turn, there's so much actually science on body language that when we turn, we're a bit of a mystery to some people. So that sometimes even when I model, I do this rotational looking over the shoulder to add an element of mystery. I've heard it said like when I look to the left, I'm looking at what's in my heart. And when I look to the right, it's how does it fit into the world? I'm in the right, it's in how, how am I in the world? And then I go back into my heart. So rotation is taking your head and orienting to what's around you and letting your body follow. Your organs are shifting to take in different information as well.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:52]
And then going the coronal or the frontal plane, I would call this blue. And I called it blue. So these are the three primary colors. And there's this idea that when we sequence, we can mix and match these colors and we can say, oh, is my class mostly red at the end of class? Does it need any movements that are yellow or blue to balance it out? Was my class mostly a mixture of yellow and blue, like a green class? And so it could also be used if you were doing a final peak pose in the class and it was in one of the planes and you didn't know all the muscles, you could do a bunch of poses in those planes that would warm you up for the final pose and you would hit all the proper muscles. The way I help people remember the blue zone the frontal coronal, which is that your arms and legs come away from center, right? So if you imagine making yourself like jumping jacks are in the frontal plane.
Sarah Tacy [00:03:55]
So the front of your body is always showing, if someone were looking directly at you, there's no rotation, there's no bending forward and back. The front of your body is always forward. And what is changing is that your arms come away from your body and your legs come away from your body and they come back in, abduction, adduction. When you open up your body to a wider stance, This is called a power position. Amy Cuddy did an incredible TED Talk on this. She is a social scientist who is a professor at Harvard in their business department. She studies body language and how we implicitly digest others' body languages and respond to it. What she found was that people who were powerful tended to take wider stances. People who felt powerless tended to curl in. When they did a study on this to take, you know, random people and said, hey, for two minutes, I want you to stand in a power posture, except they would not call it a power posture. I want you to stand with your feet apart and your hands on your hips with your elbows pointing out. And giving them a test of like, how do you feel now? And after two minutes, how do you feel? But they also tested their saliva. And they found in that just in two minutes, testosterone went up. When testosterone goes up, this is the hormone that's going to make you feel motivated in life, make you want to take a risk. It could be a place where passion can move from. Cortisol is the stress hormone.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:38]
So testosterone went up 20% in the people taking the high power stance, and it went down 10% in the people taking the low power stance. The people in the high power stance, their cortisol went down. So their testosterone went up and cortisol went down. People in the low power posture, their cortisol went up while their testosterone went down. So they wanted to see how this worked in the real world. What they did is they had people do a two-minute posture before they entered the room for an interview. There were three interviewers, and none of the interviewers were allowed to make any facial gestures, which according to Amy Cuddy, it's the worst response you could get. You would rather be heckled than have somebody have no reaction to what you're saying. So what that is supposed to do is it's supposed to spike cortisol. So the people take the power postures or they take the powerless postures. When they get into the room, they're no longer supposed to stay in any said posture. They have a five-minute interview. When the interview is over, the recordings go to other coders who look at it. The coders have no idea what this study is for. And the question is, who would you hire?
Sarah Tacy [00:06:59]
And every single person who took the power position before this study took place, before the interview, were people who were hireable. And everyone who took the powerless were people who they started stuttering over their words. They couldn't find the right information. Their energy was lower. As the coders were saying why they chose them, it wasn't that they knew more information. It was about their presence. It was about their confidence. So Amy Cuddy was saying, listen, this is something you could do that could change your life, is to change your posture, to take up more space. And she was saying how in business school, half of your grade was dependent on you participating and that mostly women would come in and get small and they would barely raise their hand and men would come in and spread their legs and throw their shoulders back and put their arms up in the air and There is a huge difference in grades because of the participation. And so she helped teach people that by taking up space with your body, it actually changes your hormones to then take up space in life. She would say to fake it until you become it. So I've touched in just a bit about how widening our posture can help change our hormones. When I said the blue, I also thought about the blue zone.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:25]
So these wide like warrior two would be blue zone. It would be a wide posture. Blue zones throughout the world are areas in which people tend to live healthier and longer, and nobody is quite sure why. I believe Nosara, Costa Rica is one of those places. I believe there's a place in Italy and a place in Japan. So I imagine these wide stances I correlate them with Blue Zone. There's no scientific correlation between those two. I just do that to help myself remember. And then as I started studying alchemical alignment and somatic exploration, I started noticing that sometimes when we get really focused in on a challenge, when we get really focused in on a trauma point, that sometimes the best support that we can give is to help broaden the perspective. That trauma physiology often happens when there's an acute vision around what happened. It's so dialed in. You didn't remember that there was anybody else around you. You don't remember what the sky was like. You can't remember any of the other details except for the trauma or the traumatic event that happened.
Sarah Tacy [00:09:41]
So when somebody is building an intensity, it can sometimes be useful to begin to broaden out Are there any trees around you? Is there an earth beneath you? Are there any ancestors that you might invite in? Are there any other support systems? And you start going wider and wider and starting noticing other details. Hey, friends, if you are feeling depleted today, or even if you're feeling well, I want to offer you my free program called 21 Days of Untapped Support. What this means is that you're tapping into resources that are all around you, possibly within you, that could help shift the equation of stability means more resources than demands. So some resources we look for depend on our financial state. If I have more money, I could afford a babysitter. If I have more money, I could afford better health insurance. I could afford to go to the retreat. I could afford to take that program. And it becomes very dependent. 21 days of untapped support begins to look at what resources are already there, already in front of me, around me, inside of me, that I can tap into. I've put this program together as small, doable pieces of nervous system support. I've also taken it myself. When I first launched it, I took it myself and each day I thought, man, this is an awesome reminder and so useful today.
Sarah Tacy [00:11:31]
And I would even say as you take it, if it's serving you, could do it on repeat because again, it's free and it's digestible and it's highly useful. So check out the show notes at the bottom and go ahead and sign up if it feels like it's calling to you in any way. I also noticed this other physiological thing that has to do with widening. If you start to feel somewhat intense as you're looking at your computer, as you're thinking over your to-do list, Another thing I noticed, and this just came from like years of paying attention to how my breath and physiology would shift depending on posture. And I want to say I was obsessed with this stuff, but I was just so interested. And I was interested in every client I worked with. What is their posture? How are they breathing? Are they overwhelmed? Are they underwhelmed? What postures might balance this out? What mindset? And one day while I was teaching a teacher training about adjustments, we were working through a shoulder adjustment. And then I realized it was so much effort to change this woman's shoulder position.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:56]
And I said, Hey, can you bring the back of your head back into my hand and up? And she pressed her head back, back, back. If you can imagine the back of your ears just moving back in space, back in space, if you were in a car and your head would end up against the car rest. If you're on a chair, you just kind of get the back of your head lines up with the furthest point back on your back, most likely your ears and align with your shoulder. And when this happened, this woman who was ouching before looked like a queen. She looked regal. Her energy was out of this world. She looked so beautiful and it was a beauty that I had missed before. And just as she brought her head back, everything else in her body aligned. I don't know the Alexander technique real well, but I do know that many people feel like they found or like got access to their voice better when they started just with this alignment of head first. And what does this have to do with broadening? So when your head moves back in space, sometimes an easier way to move it back in space than saying, bring your ears back to your shoulder, bring the back of the head back in alignment with the back of your back, is actually just to ask you, hey, as you sit there, imagine you're looking out at the most beautiful sunset you've ever seen. Imagine the colors. Are you looking out over the mountains? For me, it's usually in Nosara, Costa Rica, they have like a three mile long beach and sunset, people gather there every night at sunset. And just as I imagine into sunset, my head naturally shifts back because when our perspective widens to a panorama or a panoramic view, our head moves back in space and our breath widens and lowers down. Can you imagine if that's the medicine? Imagine you're looking at a sunset.
Sarah Tacy [00:15:09]
I know that Huberman does actual studies on this stuff, and I have not looked into his studies. I mostly found it through my own inquiries, but he does studies on the eyes and how the eyes affect the nervous system. And I do believe that I've heard him say something along these lines of this idea of getting a more panoramic view. and how that shifts the nervous system into a sense of safety and rest and digest. And so if you were to do it now, it could be like, oh, how does it feel with my breath when my head moves back? And instead of thinking of the perfect posture, how does it feel when I imagine looking into a vast forest? There's a lot to be said for containment, but in this podcast right now, I'm playing out this idea of widening as a resource. We don't always have to be big and take up space. There's a time to curl up in our bed, to have a blanket, to have a cup of tea, to snuggle with a friend. It's not all or nothing. But when you're standing up during the day, notice what is your habitual familiar pattern. Is it serving you? And when you start to get overwhelmed as you're reading your phone or an e-mail on the computer or you're reading a book, could you take a pause and let your head move back in space? And if you are actually in view of nature to take that panoramic view and just let your body recalibrate without the effort of, I have to take a wide breath, I have to breathe into my back, I have to breathe into my, just nature.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:03]
Resource, widened view, widened perspective, large base of support, which is both metaphysical and physical, widen, widen like the blue zones in the world, where community finds health, where there are systems that feed each other, the ecosystem, the humans that live within that ecosystem. This wide base of support that is not power over, but power with. I often say when people are in Warrior II, for so many, and if you're familiar with yoga, that's like you have one leg that's out front and the toes are pointing forward and the knee is bent to 90 degrees and the hip is about 90 degrees. And your back leg, is parallel to the back of the mat. And it's a really wide stance, I have to say, take up space. And so often people are putting in so much effort. It's so much effort. But there's this amazing thing that can happen because oy often feels like buoyancy. So oftentimes like, well, and not only buoyancy, but it gets muscles to fire. So we're not just jamming up into our joints or leaning all into our front knee or jamming into our back hip. And so I'll say, oh, what if you press into your front heel so that your weight naturally comes back? And so now you're not falling into the front leg, but it's actually lifting you up. And what if you bend your back knee a little bit so that If you're in warrior two, your back hip can come home. It can land in the joint, and you're not efforting it with muscular contractions. And then there's a sense of buoyancy, and then you get to take in all the benefits of this wide stance with joy, buoyancy, instead of effort. So maybe I'll leave that as the inquiry.
Sarah Tacy [00:19:14]
How could you enter your own blue zone? with buoyancy, with right support, with alignment that feels good and not like a should, but like a curiosity, a wonder. What natural view I might want to take. The ocean, the sunset, the mountains, the woods. Wonder how I breathe here. I wonder what wide stance feels comfortable and supportive. I wonder if I could bend my knees so that my big movers could support me instead of just falling into old patterns, old joints. And any time that you're starting to loop in your mind, you feel really stuck on this. And I'm just hoping that like one of my friends is listening to this and if I ever loop, they'd be like, hey, Sarah, remember that thing you said about widening? Because it happens to me. And again, as I said, when they make those hot, not a lot of access to the prefrontal cortex. So if any of my loved ones are listening to this and if you ever see me looping or ruminating, I would so appreciate if you would invite me or maybe right now tell somebody about share this episode with somebody or just tell somebody about it. Say, hey, if you see me looping, would you invite me to widen? And not like a toxic positivity of like, oh, see the bright side, widen your perspective, but just like, are there trees? What else is going on?
Sarah Tacy [00:20:50]
And wow, yeah, that is really hard. And that gets to be there too. That hard thing gets to be there too. And what else is here? And how are you standing? How is your stance? Is there any way that your stance, your posture could be a layer of support? Thank you so much for listening in, for sticking with me for these inquiries. Maybe on Instagram you could message me if you have any feedback, if you have a real life situation that happened with you, for you, with widening, with posture, with a balance of like taking up space with, not over. Yeah, doing this not as a should, but as a, I wonder.
Sarah Tacy [00:21:33]
All right, until next time. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure. If you're looking for added support, I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy. It's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacey.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens. when you scroll down to the bottom, subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.