Yogaglamgirl: What does Your Posture Say About You?

Did you know that the body stores emotions?  Our posture is a reflection of our life experiences.  Positive and negative emotions that are stored in the body affect a person's overall tone.  What does this mean? 
FLEXORS (storing negative emotion)
A person who is depressed or has felt like a victim tends to have curved shoulders and caved in chest.  If you've ever felt fear, did you notice how your stomach tightened?  If you tighten your stomach right now as you read, you may notice that a tight stomach makes the whole back curve a bit and the chest drop (just a little).  If you do this kind of movement repeatedly or if you've experienced emotional trauma that caused some kind of tightening these muscles are likely to harden in a contracted state.  This is why too many situps are really terrible for posture and typically have a negative effect on a person's tone. 

EXTENSORS (storing positive emotion)
On the other hand, a person who is enthusiastic walks with their head held high, chest up, and shoulders back.  To see what I mean, think of a World Cup soccer game.  If you watched the game with no sound, at the end of the game it would be obvious who won and who didn't based on the posture of one team.  The winners are running, chest up, arms extended high while the losers walk heads down, chest down, shoulders stooped. 

So there are 2 different types of muscles that store emotions in the body.  The flexors are the muscles that contract.  They store emotions like fear, grief, anger.  The extensors are muscles that extend.  They store emotions like joy, enthusiam, contentment.
HOW TO BE MORE POSITIVE
So what do we do to improve posture as it pertains to flexors and extensors?
Most of the weight lifting exercises use flexor muscles.  After learning all of this in my Zentherapy training I stopped going to the gym (I used to work out 6 days a week~I also used to be 10 pounds heavier).  I started focusing on yoga, bodywork, hiking and swimming instead.  A friend of mine who lifted all the time told me how he noticed how much angrier a person he was when he was lifting all the time.  When he switched to rock climbing (extending his arms and body upward) and surfing (chest up before you stand up on a board) he felt like he was a much better person.  Judging from his posture I think he was absolutely right.