The Body Language Expert & Motivational Speaker

I’ve been asking people for stories about the power of names. This morning
someone on my newsletter list  shared a wonderful story
about her grandfather. His first name was Welcome. Don’t you think that made
people smile and greet him warmly!? She said, “For many years I wondered how
my great grandfather and grandmother could name him Welcome. Through
genealogy, we have found quite a few Welcome’s in the family…when our
ancestors came to the America’s they came over on a ship called “Welcome”.
Hence, the name of Welcome has been handed down through the generations.

I was watching the Today show today. Head scarves and headbands are de rigour
fashion this summer. It is so bizarre to think of the freedom of choice that
women have in this county. We can choose to wear a polka dotted scarf and
flip flops with our skimpy bathing suit. Meanwhile, according to a news
release Friday, Islamic extremists in the Gaza Strip are threatening to “cut
the throats…” of female TV broadcasters in the area if they don’t wear
headscarves on the air. As poverty has risen in the Gaza Strip women have
had to cover their faces with veils. The nonverbal communication of dress
has affected women throughout history. Odd how poverty makes men feel
powerless and they in turn use what power they have to control women.
When teaching nonverbal communication at Florida State I kept up with the
current research on dress. This recent threat by Islamic fundamentalist has
inspired me to do more research on the topic. It is so difficult to imagine
living somewhere that required I cover my head. I really feel the need to
educate myself. Here is a great article on the effect of rising
fundamentalism in women’s dress.

It says, “For instance, veiling takes place at younger and younger ages. In January 2004, during the World Social Forum in Bombay, I was living in a mixed Hindu-Muslim suburb. For the first time in the twenty-odd years I’ve
been visiting India (and cosmopolitan Bombay), I found little girls, aged four or five, playing in the courtyard, wearing headscarves. One sees this more and more frequently elsewhere, including in the United States.
Yet, in the not-so-distant past, in countries where women are traditionally  veiled and secluded, little girls that age were never subjected to veiling.
It is another invention of fundamentalists, spreading the unique Islamic
dress around the globe.” Think about what effect that has on a girls’ feelings
about her body.

In her pamphlet, Bas les Voiles! (Down with Veils!), Iranian writer
Chahdortt Djavann — who lives in exile in France – focuses on the rights of
the girl child:

“To impose a veil on a minor is, strictly speaking, to violate her, to use
her body, to define it as a sexual object meant for men. … The shame of
inhabiting a body full of shame, a veiled body, the anguish of inhabiting a
body full of guilt, guilty of existing. … What does veiling do to the girl
child? It turns her into a sexual object: an object, since the veil is
imposed upon her and that its materiality is now part and parcel of her
being, her look, her social existence; and a sexual object: not only because
her hidden hair is a sexual symbol and this symbol has a double meaning
(what one hides, one displays, prohibition is the reverse of desire), but
also because veiling puts the girl child or the teenage girl on the sex
market, on the marriage market, it defines her essentially by and for men’s
eyes, by and for sex and marriage.[2]”

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

For six months I sat on the edge of my then-boyfriend Shane’s hospital bed while he recovered from a devastating gunshot wound acquired in a hunting accident. I watched the doctors rush in, check the paperwork, ask one or two questions of my boyfriend with out smiling, making eye contact or touching him and then rush out. His healthcare was poor, he was checked out of the hospital far too early after heart surgery and he ended up back in the hospital with an extra long recovery.
For a year I sat on the edge of my best friend’s Roy’s bed while he hung on to life fighting AIDS. I watched the overworked doctor rush in, look at the paperwork. Ask a question or two without making eye contact or touching him then rush out. Roy’s health care was horrific and he died with in a year.
For many years I have met with doctors around the county dealing with a physical issue of my own. Even when I had waited months to see a particular specialist I experienced the overworked doctor rushing in, looking at the paperwork, then asking me a couple of questions, without smiling or making eye contact, and then often saying my problem was all in my head or giving me a faulty diagnosis and recommending medications with horrific side effects or invasive medical procedures and rushing back out. It took a year for me to be accurately diagnosed. I was lucky the average time for women with my issue to be diagnosed accurately is five years!! And yet my problem is not that unusual and affects one in eight women.

Though my newest doctor is exceptional and does take more than five minutes to talk to me and makes eye contact and smiles, my experience is that most doctors are overworked and under enormous pressure. They have very little time and patience and do not know how to give quality attention and care to their patients and that leads to not just poor diagnoses but to poor health care and recovery.

There is a new book called How Doctors Think, by Dr. Jerome Groopman, a practicing physician and a professor at Harvard Medical School shares stories similar to mine. He explains how the doctors’ thinking process and prejudices can push them to faulty diagnoses. He also how shares how pressure on physicians from HMOs can add to this problem. This book is must for anyone caring for a sick loved one or dealing with any medical issue of their own.
As a body language expert and someone who has spent the last 25 years training people to communicate more effectively, I am on a mission to educate health care professionals in caring communication with their patients. I have a speech and training program called Caring Concern Dealing with Patients Patiently that educates anyone who interacts with patients on body language and other communication skills. It is a program that is near and dear to my heart. If you know of any group of healthcare professionals that need this program please put me in touch with them.

There is a great little article on pet body language on MSNBC today.

It talks about new research finding on the topic by Italian scientists. Among other things dogs’ tails wag more to the right when they feel positive about a person or situation, and a slow, stiff tail wag signals potential aggression. Tails go up on confident dogs while insecure pooches, and in my experience, dogs that have just eaten part of your favorite pair of shoes, approach with tails tucked between their legs…..

You look into your new sweetie’s eyes and think, “Humm, his face looks strangely familiar, and where have I seem him before?” Could it be he looks just like your FATHER? If you had a great relationship with your dad, he very well could be a ringer for him. New research says that the quality of a daughter’s relationship with her father has an impact on whom she finds attractive.  We don’t just create the image of a hunk from watching movies and flipping through the pages of GQ;  instead our brains build a hunk prototype based on those to whom we have a strongly positive relationship. A study by author Dr. Lynda Boothroyd of Durham University says, “… those daughters who have very positive childhood relationships with their fathers choose men with similar facial characteristics to their fathers,” Good thing my dad was a hottie. To read more about your brain and attractiveness go here.

US weekly sent me photos today of Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. I will
be in this Wednesday’s magazine giving you details. A hint, she is working hard
to get his attention, but he is not showing her any interest…

Since falling down the stairs the day after thanksgiving, I have lost weight. I can tell
you that falling down a flight of stairs is not the easiest weight loss strategy; though
several people who have noticed my weight loss have asked how many stairs they would
have to fall down to take off a few pounds.

I have gone from a size 8 to a size 0 or 2. This was a result of 3 months of
feeling nauseous, so don’t think I am bragging about any great feat on my
part. What is odd and actually unsettling is how people have responded to my
weight loss. Friends and family keep complementing me. Telling me I look
better and younger! They are complimenting me so much I wonder just how bad
I have looked the last couple of years. And strangers, well lets just say
that I can’t go the grocery store or pump gas with out getting hit on. And I
am old!! I have wrinkles!

You would think that this would make anyone feel great, but for me this
insight is rather depressing. You may think I am crazy to say that. I know
as a body language expert the impact of attractiveness on relationships, job
success and even getting strangers to do you favors, but I was kind of hoping
my winning smile and sparkling personality would do that for me as I grew wider
and more wrinkled in my old age. Now I guess I have to go without corn chips
and dove bars if I want men to complement me. As much as I love to eat that’s a
high price to pay.

I realize something else: I was more invisible to men as a size eight. And
that is not a large size!! I didn’t know how invisible…or I am sad to say,
how nice it would feel to be seen again.

It kind of makes me feel like the man in the short story “Flowers for
Algernon.” He is not smart and people treat him cruelly but he does not
understand their abuse. Then he goes through an drug experiment and gets
super smart and people treat him differently; he likes how it feels and
falls in love.  Then the experiment fails and he becomes his not-so-smart self
again, but with the insight that people will be cruel to him and he can not
control it. It is a sad story.

I mentioned on a recent blog on my interview with the German magazine“SHAPE”-that the hour glass figure of women is deeply wired into men’s brains. Shapely women send the signal they are fertile and would make great babies. Maybe women should have hour glass t-shirts made. Or maybe we just need to do what I did as a size eight and just be confident that I am fine at any size.

I have kept the weight off for almost half a year now. My appetite has changed, I use
smaller plates and I have walked every day for a year for 45 minutes. I finally bought a new wardrobe. And I have an insight I am not sure I wanted. I know now that gaining and
losing weight means far too much in our culture.

I would love to know what you think about this!

The Crab -Lying face down- The symbolism – Is of someone that refuses to see others viewpoint. They are serious and stubborn. They hold strong beliefs and try to have everything done their way and will use force to gain compliance. They are tense and focused in order to get things done. They do not give ground easily. If their hands are in fists they could showing hidden aggression. They are it needs to be “My way” people. On the Disc it is known as the get it done personality style. DISC: get it Done

Have you noticed how crowded airports are? Ok… I realize that as an Atlanta based speaker I am traveling out of the busiest airport in the world, but I even noticed Monday that the Orlando airport was so packed with people waiting to get through security, waiting for their Starbucks coffee and waiting to get on the plane that I felt like I was in one long line for a Disney ride.  We do not like to be in crowds and research says that North Americans in particular love visual privacy; that is, privacy that comes from not being seen or being able to see others. (Think high wooden fences and cubical walls that allow sound to pass but not the view)

 

A few months ago I blogged about the history of the umbrella. Speaker Connie Merrit recently wrote in Speakernet News that crowded airports give you a new reason to always carry and umbrella. “When stranded at an airport for several hours without an airline club, I opened my umbrella and it afforded me much needed privacy for a quick nap and protected me from people bumping me accidentally. When I woke up I saw several others had done the same.”  So like the umbrella cone of silence that offered auditory privacy from the Old sixties TV show Get Smart you can use your umbrella to create visual privacy. I am not sure how this effects the bad luck you are supposed to get from opening your umbrella indoors but I it is an interesting idea. Perhaps, just like New York City streets are suddenly filled with umbrella vendors when it starts to rain, airports will fill with umbrella vendors when they get crowded.

Here is the link to a body language read I did comparing Nick Lachey
relationships with his current girlfriend Vanessa Minnillo with his ex,
Jessica Simpson.