Dr. Ed Tori argues that body language follows your internal state, not the other way around. Instead of forcing better posture or gestures, fix your physiology, energy, and mood first. When your internal state shifts, your voice tone, word choice, and presence naturally align.
Managing your state is— your state is so important because your word choice, your body language, your memory, your learning, all of these things are state-dependent. And in hypnosis, we call— we speak of a thing called BMIRs. They're behavioral manifestations of internal responses. In other words, what's going on inside shows up outside, okay? It shows up in your tone of voice, it shows up in your word choice, it shows up in the stories you have available to you. And so if you can control your state, or at least manage it, right? You may not be able to control it. You manage it. You can affect the way your voice comes across, the way you're standing, all of this. A big mistake would be to try to go learn body language and then adjust your body language amid conversation so that you fit the thing. No, you do the opposite. What impacts body language? Your state, your energy, your physiology, your mood. All these things affect your body language. Fix that first, and if you fix that, the body language flows.
