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Our thoughts do not occur entirely separately from how we are holding our bodies at the time when we are thinking such thoughts - this is called the concept of our thoughts being ‘embodied’.

Putting ourselves into a more confident, expansive, posture can result in us being more confident in our beliefs about ourselves. For instance, standing in a more expansive and upright posture, speaking more loudly and looking the other person in the eye can make us seem more confident and it can actually give us more confidence.

Research shows that people who are in slumped-over postures versus upright postures immediately prior to undertaking a difficult task, give up more quickly on that task. People in slumped-over postures are also more likely to be viewed as more threatened by others and they are likely to become stressed more easily. They also feel more helpless and powerless, they recall and are ore captured by negative memories and they find it harder to do mental tasks.

On the other hand, being more upright not slumped leads to people feeling they have more energy, feeling stronger, finding it easier to do mental tasks, they feel more confident and empowered and they recall more positive memories.

If we want to practice being more confident, it is useful to first challenge any negative thoughts that we have about our confidence and to replace them with more positive thoughts. We can do this by challenging negative thoughts. Using the RULES Tool can help us to challenge negative implicit ‘rules’ we have about our ability and it can encourage us to be more confident. This is called reframing. Once we have challenged our thoughts and moved into thinking more confidently, we can then move into a more confident and expansive posture. This posture can then reinforce our more confident thoughts. Research has shown that combining reframing of negative thoughts with changing to a more positive posture is more useful than just attempting to reframe thoughts without changing your posture.

You can practice the postures below by roleplaying a difficult communication you want to have with someone and then examining how you feel when saying it in each of the postures below. You can use the CLEAR Communication Tool to structure a difficult communication with someone.

Please note that when you are dealing with issues around child rearing, relationships, dealing with stress of any type or doing psychological or self-development work, if you find yourself feeling overwhelming emotions, troubling thoughts or actions, you need to talk to a health professional.