The Secret Conversation You’re Having With Yourself
Ever notice how crossing your arms makes you feel more defensive, not just look it? Or how standing tall actually makes you braver? Turns out, body language isn’t just about signalling to others—it’s a direct hotline to your own brain. This article explores the fascinating two-way street between your posture and your psychology, complete with a cringe-worthy (then triumphant) story about a woman who discovered that changing how she stood literally changed her life. If you’ve ever wondered whether “fake it till you make it” has scientific backing, keep reading.
Five Key Takeaways
- Your body language doesn’t just communicate outwardly—it fundamentally shapes your internal emotional state and self-perception.
- Power poses and open postures can biochemically reduce stress hormones and increase confidence within minutes.
- Closed, defensive body language creates a feedback loop that reinforces anxiety and self-doubt.
- Conscious body language shifts during challenging moments can create immediate psychological transformation.
- Practising intentional posture in safe environments (like storytelling circles or walking retreats) builds lasting confidence for real-world situations.
Introduction: The Body Knows Before the Mind Admits
Here’s something peculiar: your body is having a conversation with your brain, and you’re not invited.
Well, you are invited—you’re just not consciously listening. Whilst you’re busy thinking thoughts and making decisions and wondering whether you remembered to lock the door, your shoulders are hunched forward whispering to your amygdala, “Danger, danger, make yourself small.” Your clenched jaw is texting your nervous system: “Stay alert, trust nothing.” Your crossed arms are sending a memo to your confidence: “We’re not ready for this.”
And here’s the truly extraordinary bit: your brain believes every word.
We’ve long understood that body language affects how others perceive us—that standing tall communicates confidence, that eye contact builds trust, that open gestures invite connection. But the revelation that’s transforming how we understand human psychology is this: body language doesn’t just change how the world sees us; it fundamentally rewrites how we see ourselves.
Your posture isn’t merely a reflection of your emotional state. It’s an active participant in creating it.
This isn’t mystical thinking or positive-psychology fluff. It’s neuroscience. When you adopt a confident posture, your body produces less cortisol (the stress hormone) and more testosterone (associated with confidence and risk-taking). When you make yourself small, the opposite occurs. Your body language is literally changing your brain chemistry, which changes your thoughts, which changes your behaviour, which changes your life.
The question isn’t whether this happens. The question is: are you going to use this knowledge intentionally, or let your body continue having conversations behind your back?
Nadia’s Story: The Woman Who Couldn’t Look Up
The first time I met Nadia Lewis, she was apologising.
Not for anything specific—just a general, ambient apology that seemed to hover around her like midges on a summer evening. “Sorry, is this seat taken?” “Sorry, could I just squeeze past?” “Sorry, I’m probably in the wrong place.”
She’d joined our Camino de Santiago walking retreat near Eauze, and within the first hour, I’d counted seventeen unnecessary sorries. Her shoulders curved forward as though protecting something fragile. Her gaze rarely lifted above chest height. When she spoke, her voice emerged quietly, almost as if hoping not to be heard.
During our opening circle that evening, when I invited each guest to share what brought them to the Camino, Nadia’s hands twisted in her lap like wrung-out dishcloths. “I’m Nadia,” she said to the ground. “I’m here because I’m tired of being invisible.”
The irony, of course, was that her body language was a masterclass in making herself disappear.
On our first morning’s walk, I positioned myself beside her. The path stretched before us, golden with late sunlight, the air thick with the scent of wild thyme and warm earth. Other walkers chatted easily, their voices carrying across the fields, but Nadia walked as though treading on ice—careful, contracted, every muscle held tight.
“What do you notice about how you’re walking?” I asked.
She glanced at me, startled. “I… I don’t know. Normal?”
“Look at your hands.”
She did. They were clenched into fists, white-knuckled, as though preparing for impact.
“Now look at Sarah up ahead.”
Sarah, one of our returners, strode along with her arms swinging loosely, head up, practically conducting an orchestra with her enthusiasm for the landscape.
“I could never walk like that,” Nadia said immediately. “That’s just not who I am.”
“Or it’s not who you’ve been practising being,” I suggested.
Over the next few days, I watched Nadia wrestle with this idea. During our morning meditation sessions, I’d catch her peeking at how others sat—spines straight but relaxed, chins level, hands open on their knees. She’d try to mirror the posture, then within minutes fold back into her habitual hunch.
The breakthrough came on day four, during our storytelling circle.
For those unfamiliar with how we work, our storytelling circles are simple but profound: we sit in a circle (revolutionary, I know), and each person shares a story from their life—no workshopping, no critique, just witnessing and being witnessed. The only rule is that you must stand to tell your story.
When Nadia’s turn came, she stood reluctantly, eyes fixed on her feet. She began speaking about her mother, and how she’d learned early that taking up space was dangerous, that being noticed meant being criticised. Her voice was barely audible, her body curled inward like a fern frond.
Then something shifted.
Perhaps it was the safety of being truly heard without judgment. Perhaps it was the fourth day’s accumulated courage. Perhaps it was simply that her story demanded more breath than her constricted chest could provide. Whatever the catalyst, I watched her spine slowly lengthen. Her shoulders rolled back. Her chin lifted.
And her voice changed.
It wasn’t dramatic—she didn’t suddenly boom like a Shakespearean actor. But there was a clarity, a resonance that hadn’t been there before. She made eye contact with someone across the circle. Then another person. Her hands, which had been clutched together, opened and began to gesture, sketching her story in the air.
When she finished, there was a moment of profound silence—the kind that holds respect and recognition. Then the circle erupted in appreciation, and I saw Nadia’s face transform. Not with pride, exactly, but with a dawning wonder, as though she’d discovered she could fly and had simply never tried before.
Later that evening, she found me watching the sunset from the garden. “I felt different,” she said, sitting beside me. “When I stood up straighter, I felt… I felt like my story mattered more. Like I mattered more. Does that sound ridiculous?”
“Not remotely,” I said. “Your body was telling your brain a different story about who you are.”
She sat with that for a moment, then laughed—a real laugh, unguarded. “So I’ve been lying to my brain for forty-three years?”
“Not lying. Just telling it a very old, very outdated story.”
By the final day of the retreat, Nadia walked differently. Not with false bravado or forced confidence, but with something quieter and more sustainable: a sense of rightful presence. Her gaze met the horizon. Her stride had lengthened. When she spoke, there was no ambient apology, no preemptive shrinking.
At our closing circle, she stood to speak—really stood, grounded and open—and said simply: “I came here invisible. I’m leaving visible. Not to everyone else. To myself.”
I’ve stayed in touch with Nadia since that retreat. She tells me she now teaches an art class at her local community centre, something she’d dreamed about for years but never dared try. “I practise the posture every morning,” she wrote in a recent email. “I stand the way I stood when I told my story in your circle. And then I go teach. It sounds simple, but it’s changed everything.”
It does sound simple. That’s because it is.
And that’s precisely why it’s so powerful.
The Science Behind the Stance: Why Body Language Rewires Your Brain
The relationship between body language and self-perception isn’t metaphorical—it’s measurable, observable, and rooted in how our nervous system processes information.
Consider the work of social psychologist Amy Cuddy, whose research on “power posing” sparked both enthusiasm and controversy in the scientific community. While some aspects of her original findings have been debated, the core insight remains robust: adopting expansive, open postures—even for brief periods—correlates with reduced stress and increased feelings of power.
But why? How can simply changing your physical configuration change your mental state?
The answer lies in something called “proprioceptive feedback”—the constant stream of information your body sends to your brain about its position in space. Your brain uses this information not just to coordinate movement, but to assess your emotional state and your relationship to your environment.
When you adopt a closed, protective posture—shoulders hunched, arms crossed, gaze down—your brain interprets these signals as: “I’m in a threatening situation. I need to protect myself. I’m not safe.” It responds by triggering your stress response: cortisol rises, your thinking becomes more rigid and defensive, your perception narrows to focus on threats.
Conversely, when you adopt an open, expansive posture—shoulders back, chest open, head up—your brain receives different information: “I’m safe. I have space. I can engage with my environment.” The stress response diminishes, cognitive flexibility increases, and your perception broadens to notice opportunities rather than just threats.
This isn’t about positive thinking or visualisation. This is about your body literally telling your brain what to feel, and your brain listening.
The implications are profound, particularly for women. We’re often socialised from girlhood to make ourselves smaller—to sit with knees together, to not take up too much space, to soften our presence. These learned behaviours aren’t just social performance; they’re shaping our internal sense of self-worth and capability.
In my storytelling circles, I’ve watched this pattern play out many times. Women arrive practised in self-minimisation—crossing their legs tightly, tucking their elbows in, tilting their heads in perpetual listening mode. When invited to stand and share their stories, they initially maintain these protective patterns. But storytelling demands breath, and breath demands space, and space demands a body that’s open rather than closed.
As they speak—particularly when they speak about moments of strength or joy or righteous anger—their bodies naturally expand. Shoulders drop and widen. Chests lift. Gestures become broader. And you can see, in real-time, their relationship to their own narrative changing. The story they’re telling shifts from something that happened to them to something they survived, chose, or created.
This is embodied cognition at work: the recognition that our thinking doesn’t happen in isolation in our brains, but emerges from the dynamic interaction between our minds, bodies, and environments.
Your body isn’t a vehicle for your mind to get around in. Your body is part of your mind. And when you change one, you inevitably change the other.
Practical Applications: Rewiring Through Intentional Posture
Understanding the theory is one thing. Applying it in your daily life is where the magic happens—and where most people stumble.
The challenge isn’t complexity; it’s consistency. Changing habitual body language requires the same patient attention as changing any deeply ingrained pattern. Here’s how to begin:
Start with awareness, not correction. For one week, simply notice your default postures throughout the day. How do you sit at your desk? Stand in queues? Position yourself in meetings? Hold your body during difficult conversations? Notice without judgment—you’re gathering data, not criticising yourself.
Identify your “stress signature.” Everyone has characteristic ways their body responds to stress. Some people clench their jaws. Others raise their shoulders. Some collapse their chests or cross their arms. What’s your pattern? Once you can recognise it, you have the power to interrupt it.
Create “posture anchors.” Choose specific moments in your day to consciously check in with your body language. Perhaps every time you walk through a doorway, or before you send an email, or when you first wake up. These anchors help build new neural pathways without requiring constant vigilance.
Practise power postures in private. Before challenging situations—a difficult conversation, a presentation, a social event that intimidates you—spend two minutes in a private space adopting an expansive posture. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, hands on hips or raised in a V shape, chest open, chin level. It feels absurd. It also works.
Use breath as a bridge. Your breath is intimately connected to your posture. Shallow breathing reinforces stress; full breathing requires an open chest and relaxed shoulders. When you notice closed body language, don’t try to force your posture to change—simply take three deep breaths. Your body will naturally reorganise around the breath.
Seek environments that support openness. This is why walking retreats and storytelling circles are so powerful: they create safe containers where practising new ways of being doesn’t feel risky. You need spaces where you can experiment with confidence without fear of judgment or consequence.
The goal isn’t to maintain perfect posture every moment. The goal is to develop flexibility—to have access to open, confident body language when you need it, rather than being trapped in habitual patterns of self-protection that no longer serve you.
Further Reading: Three Unconventional Books on Body Language
1. “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk
While not specifically about body language, this groundbreaking work on trauma explains why our bodies hold memories and patterns that our conscious minds may have forgotten. Van der Kolk demonstrates how trauma literally lives in our posture, our breathing, our muscular tension—and why talk therapy alone often can’t shift these embodied patterns. I chose this book because it illuminates why changing body language isn’t superficial; it’s a profound intervention in how we process our life experiences. If you’ve ever wondered why you can intellectually know you’re safe but still feel anxious, this book explains the disconnect between mind and body.
2. “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” by Jenny Odell
An unexpected choice for body language, perhaps, but Odell’s exploration of presence and attention is fundamentally about embodiment. She argues that our constant distraction isn’t just mental—it’s physical, manifesting in hunched postures over screens, shallow breathing, and disconnection from our sensory experience. The book offers no specific body language techniques, but it reframes the entire question: instead of asking “How should I hold my body?” it asks “How do I become present enough to inhabit my body at all?” In our overstimulated age, this is the necessary first question.
3. “Reclaiming Conversation” by Sherry Turkle
Turkle’s examination of how technology has changed human connection includes fascinating insights about body language in the digital age. She explores how our device-dominated lives have literally changed our posture (the “iHunch”), reduced our ability to read others’ non-verbal cues, and diminished our capacity for the vulnerable eye contact that builds intimacy. I included this because understanding body language isn’t just about individual transformation—it’s about maintaining our human capacity for genuine connection in an increasingly mediated world.
What Others Have Discovered
“I’d spent so long making myself small that I didn’t realise how much energy it took. On Dr Montagu’s retreat, during one of the meditation sessions, she invited us to simply sit with an open chest and relaxed shoulders. I felt this wave of emotion—almost grief—for all the years I’d held myself so tightly. By the end of the week, walking those beautiful Camino paths, I noticed I was taking up space without apologising for it. It sounds small, but it’s changed how I move through the world. I’m not invisible anymore, and that’s both terrifying and liberating.”
— Claire Thompson, Camino de Santiago Walking Retreat
“Joining the storytelling circle was the first time I’d travelled alone, and I was convinced everyone would see right through me—see how nervous I was, how I didn’t belong. But something about standing to tell my story, seeing other women’s faces really listening, not judging—it shifted something. Dr Montagu creates this space where you can be vulnerable without feeling weak. I went home and booked a solo trip to Iceland. My friends were shocked, but I wasn’t. I’d practised being brave in that circle, and my body remembered how.”
— Amara Singh, Storytelling Circle Member
Five Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Isn’t changing my body language just another form of “fake it till you make it,” which feels inauthentic?
Not quite. “Fake it till you make it” suggests pretending to be something you’re not. Shifting your body language is more like removing the costume you’ve been wearing—the protective slouch, the apologetic hunch—that was never really you in the first place. You’re not faking confidence; you’re removing the physical barriers to the confidence that’s already there. Authenticity isn’t about maintaining patterns that feel familiar. It’s about aligning your outer expression with your true capacity.
Q: I’ve had anxiety for years. Can simply standing differently really make a meaningful difference?
Body language work isn’t a replacement for therapy, medication, or other treatments for clinical anxiety. But it can be a powerful complementary tool. Anxiety often manifests in protective postures—hunched shoulders, shallow breathing, closed-off stances—that then signal danger back to your brain, creating a feedback loop. Interrupting that loop through intentional posture can help break the cycle. Think of it as one tool in your wellbeing toolkit, not a miracle cure.
Q: What if adopting confident body language makes me seem arrogant or aggressive?
This is a particular concern for women, who are often punished socially for displaying confidence. But there’s a vast territory between shrinking yourself and being overbearing. Confident body language doesn’t mean puffing yourself up or dominating space aggressively. It means standing with dignity, making appropriate eye contact, and allowing your body to occupy the space it naturally requires. If others perceive your basic self-respect as arrogance, that says more about their expectations than your behaviour.
Q: How long does it take to change ingrained body language patterns?
There’s no fixed timeline—some people notice shifts within days; others need months of consistent practice. The key is approaching it as a practice rather than a project with an end date. You’re not trying to achieve perfect posture and then maintain it forever. You’re developing awareness and flexibility, so you can choose how you hold yourself depending on the situation. The changes compound over time, and one day you’ll realise the open posture that once required conscious effort has become your new default.
Q: Can I practise this on my own, or do I need a group setting?
Both are valuable. Solo practice—checking in with your posture throughout the day, doing power poses before challenging moments—builds personal awareness and capability. But group settings like storytelling circles or walking retreats offer something irreplaceable: the experience of being witnessed in your new posture by others, and the safety of practising vulnerability in a supportive community. If possible, combine both: daily personal practice supplemented by periodic immersion in a group that supports your growth.
Conclusion: Stand In Your Story
Here’s the truth that no one tells you: the person you’re becoming has been waiting patiently inside the person you’ve been pretending to be.
Your body has been trying to tell you this for years, but you’ve been too busy apologising, shrinking, and making yourself smaller to hear it. Every time you hunched your shoulders, you were having a conversation with your brain: “I’m not important enough to take up space.” Every time you avoided eye contact, you were confirming: “I’m not worthy of being seen.”
And your brain, bless it, believed every word.
But here’s the equally important truth: you can start a different conversation. Right now. This moment.
Not by becoming someone else. Not by pretending or performing or achieving some impossible standard of confidence. Simply by standing as though you have the right to exist fully in your own skin—because you do.
The path to becoming yourself isn’t complicated. It doesn’t require years of therapy or radical life changes or waiting until you feel ready. It requires standing up straight and telling your brain a truer story about who you are.
Your body and your mind aren’t separate entities. They’re in constant dialogue, shaping each other, creating each other. When you change the conversation your body is having with your brain, you change everything.
So stand. Breathe. Take up the space you’ve been given. Not aggressively, not apologetically, but with the quiet certainty that you deserve to be here, fully present and fully yourself.
Your body has been waiting for permission. Consider this it.
Walk Your Way to Confidence: Camino de Santiago Retreat
Imagine walking ancient pilgrimage paths through the sun-soaked landscapes of south-west France, each step loosening the tension you’ve carried for years. Imagine sitting in circle with others who understand the exhaustion of making yourself small, sharing stories that matter in voices that grow stronger with each telling. Imagine discovering that confidence isn’t something you achieve—it’s something you already have, waiting to be uncovered beneath layers of learned self-protection.
My Camino de Santiago walking retreats near Eauze offer exactly this: a week of gentle walking, mindfulness meditation, and storytelling circles designed specifically for women ready to reconnect with their bodies and reclaim their presence. This isn’t boot camp or therapy or performance. It’s simply creating space—physical, emotional, and spiritual—for you to remember who you are when you’re not trying to be smaller.
Each day includes morning meditation to ground you in your body, walks through stunning countryside that invite you to breathe deeply and move freely, and evening storytelling circles where you practise being witnessed without judgment. The meditation and mindfulness exercises specifically target stress management, helping you recognise and release the physical patterns of anxiety and self-protection you’ve been carrying.
The retreat is limited to small groups, ensuring everyone receives personal attention and the intimacy necessary for real transformation. You’ll stay in comfortable accommodations, enjoy nourishing meals, and spend a week doing something radical: inhabiting your body as though you have the right to exist fully.
If you’re tired of apologising for taking up space, if you’re ready to stand in your own story, if you’re curious about what might emerge when you finally let your shoulders drop and your chest open, come walk with us.
Learn more and make a reservation
Recommended TED talk – lasts 20 minutes
I got the idea for this post from this TED talk.
Wednesday was International Women’s Day – a celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality – and also, March is Women’s History Month.
In this month’s recommended TED talk, social psychologist Amy Cuddy argues that using body language, ex “power posing” -standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident – can make us feel more confident.
In the comments on Youtube, Maggie says “I watched this for one of my classes and sometimes, I admit, I only half pay attention to required videos but this one completely captivated me. When she told her personal story I literally started to cry because I used to be that girl she was describing.”
During myretreats, I show my guests how horses communicate with remarkable accuracy using posture, gesture and breath to express their needs, wishes and emotions to each other. By discovering how effectively horses can communicate using body language, we can become more aware of how we communicate using body language ourselves. This TED talk, with practical examples, will help you adjust your body language so that you can communicate more confidently, intensionally and accurately. Especially if you are a woman.
This TED talk is one of the most powerful that I have ever watched. Incidentally, it reflects the subject I address in my latest LinkedIn article: Fight/Flight or Connect/Encourage?
My Burnout to Breakthrough – A Road Map to Resilience Online Course is now accessible. Please go and have a look and tell anyone you may know who already suffers from burnout already or teetering on the edge, about it. I want to help as many people as possible with this, my first ever online course, while earning enough to keep the Friesian mares in the style they have come to expect!
I wanted to reach out and let you know how impressed I am with the Burnout to Breakthrough course you’ve created. It’s such an important topic, and I think the way you’ve approached it is really insightful and helpful. In particular, I appreciate how you’ve focused not just on the emotional and mental aspects of burnout, but also on the physical symptoms that can come along with it. I also wanted to tell you that I’ve learned so much from the course already. Your explanations of what burnout is and how it can happen were really eye-opening for me, and I’ve already started to recognise some of the signs of burnout in my own life. The strategies you’ve shared for preventing and managing burnout are also really practical and useful. I found the guided meditation particularly engaging. Overall, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for creating this course. I think it has the potential to help so many people, and I’m really excited to continue learning from it. Keep up the great work! D.S. 2023
Author Bio: Dr Margaretha Montagu – described as a “game changer”, “gifted healer”, “guiding light” and “life-enriching author” – is an experienced medical doctor, a certified NLP practitioner, a medical hypnotherapist, an equine-assisted psychotherapist (EAGALAcertified) and a transformational retreat leader who guides her clients through life transitions – virtually, or with the assistance of her Friesian and Falabella horses, at their home in the southwest of France.