Posture 4: I'm Fine
In his original work, this pattern was referred to as Passion, or lack of. The more I’ve worked with these postures and patterns, I think the best way of summing up this person is “I’m Fine”. Because that is what they say, even when things are totally horrendous, their partner is sick, their job in on the line, they can’t get pregnant, they hate their life or whatever it is. They still say when asked how they are that they are just fine thank you very much.
There seem to be two key variations on this posture.
Their inner dialogue is often one of overwhelm, too many thoughts, too many choices or decision. They have too much to think about, so making a choice or decision is often a big challenge. They may be talented and capable and feel that they just have too many options and want life to be more simple. They may talk of not being able to sleep because they just can’t turn their mind off. Their mind is often delivering a list of criticisms and ideas that get in the way of moving forwards. This state can be exhausting.
The second way this presents is someone who is often very sensitive and has become overwhelmed with emotions and just feels too much. To cope with this, they try to turn the feelings off and often become very rational and logical. Life becomes about not feeling, and often over the years these people become very disconnected from their body and may find it hard to feel many sensations other than pain or discomfort. When asked what they feel, they will tell you what they think instead, and it’s not that they are consciously avoiding answering you, this is just their survival strategy to avoid overwhelm.
And then someone who is expressing this posture in a truly positive way, will be the person who lights you up at a party because they are so passionate about their subject. Even if it’s something that holds no interest for you, you are attracted by their passion, their aliveness, their commitment. These people feel their emotions and are happy to express them. They don’t have the constant voices in their head, instead they live very in their body. They often feel very alive and people are very drawn to be with them.
So if this is a strong pattern for you, you may not have the best body awareness. When I ask you to pay attention to your posture, you may dismiss this as nonsense, because actually not being able to feel what is going on in your body is judged as a failure or problem and that creates some of the pain you are trying so hard to avoid.
Bare with me. I had a very strong “I’m Fine” in my body, and it did take some work to get reconnected to my body and out of my head, but it’s been more than worth it. And as I continue on this journey, it’s like finding sea shells on the beach. There are loads of them, and they are endless and each one more beautiful than the last. They just take a bit of work and commitment to uncover.
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