OK, I want you all to try a little experiment with me. I want you all to sit “hunched over” for a little bit of time. You know . . . cross your legs, pull your arms in, have your hands touching your face or holding yourself. I want you to hold that pose for a bit; I’ll tell you when to stop.
So, you know the saying, “You are what you eat.” Well, I believe it to be true. I tell people all the time . . . “If you want to be at your best (for example if there is something important coming up) well make sure that you are eating healthy foods beforehand.” I am always amazed how often we sabotage our well-being by eating junk food. Now, don’t get me wrong. There is a place for junk food (for example I love Sun Chips French Onion Chips), but we all have heard that we need to cut back on sugar, salt, preservatives. Sometimes we do, other times we ignore that suggestion.
I remember once a few years ago, I was helping with a weekend retreat for teenagers and the cook couldn’t make it. The leader said, “No problem. We’ll just order out all our meals.” So each meal (Friday supper to Sunday lunch) somebody went and picked up fast food for the group. You know . . . McDonald’s, Hardees, Burger King, etc. Well on Sunday afternoon, I found my body “shaking” uncontrollably. Yikes. I guess my body was not used to that much fatty, fried and sugary food that it reacted. I learned a lesson.
OK, you can stop your “hunched over” body positioning.
There is a powerful talk that you can look up on the internet. It is by Amy Cuddy. You can find it as part of the TED TALKS series. Her talk is titled “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist She are her team from Berkeley have been studying the effects that our body posturing has on ourselves. We all know that our postures can affect others . . .for example if I have my arms folded and you think I am closing you off, or if I have my hands/arms open and you perceive that I am opening myself to you. Well her research says that our body posturing can have an affect our own attitudes.
So here’s another experiment. I want all of you to stand up (if you can) and assume a power position for a little bit. Stand with your hands on your hips. [I demonstrate] This is called the Wonder Woman pose. I’ll tell you when to stop.
Amy Cuddy’s research says that even 2 minutes of various posturing has an effect on two key hormones: testosterone (which is the dominance hormone) and cortisol (which is the stress hormone). With the hunched over positioning, subjects’ cortisol levels went up and their testosterone levels went down. But with the power position, the opposite happened. With this kind of body posture (and others like it, e.g. arms held out with fists clenched – like Rocky) our testosterone goes up and our cortisol (our stress hormones goes down). These positions which she calls nonverbal expressions of power (i.e., expansive, open, space-occupying postures) affect our feelings, behaviors, and hormone levels. It increases our appetite for risk, and causes us to perform better.
Can you feel a difference already? Try the Rocky pose [I demonstrate]. Yea! Maybe we should always start Mass with 2 mintues of this?
OK, sit down. Her talk goes on to say, “A 2-minute change of body posture can re-figure your brain to be either assertive, confident and comfortable . . . or to be stress reactive and have your feelings “shut down.”
Our nonverbals do govern how we think and feel about ourselves.
Our bodies change our minds,
our minds change our behavior
and our behavior can change our outcomes.”
Her advice “Fake it ‘til it becomes you.” We’ve heard the saying “Fake it ‘till you make it.”
She says it is better than that . . . start carrying your body differently: stand taller, shoulders back, smile more, look around . . . and eventually it becomes you.
Well this weekend we celebrate the Body of Blood of Christ Sunday. And I believe that not only does our body posturing affect our minds, which lead to a changed behavior and then to an outcome . . . but also (as I said in the beginning) what we eat also affects our minds, which lead to a changed behavior and then to an outcome.
Bad food does that. Healthy food does that as well. But here at this table we receive the body of blood of Christ. This is the food of hopefulness, the food that empowers us to be more Christ-like. To be compassionate, more forgiving, more giving, more patient, more kind. Whatever qualities of Christ that you want to become your own . . . believe in it. Trust in it.
Recall the opening lines of today’s gospel. Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
Remember with your body position, it is not “Fake ‘til you make it” . . .
but “Fake it ‘til it becomes you.”
I say, not “Eat it ‘til until you make it” . . . but “Eat the Body of Christ ‘till it becomes you.”