Jim Pilmer
Jenny was a super-efficient Personal Assistant to the director of a large company. Staff found her hard to fathom. Some days she looked buoyant, on others hunched over and sad. She always refused invitations to Friday drinks after work and always without stating a reason. Around the office Jenny was intermittently aloof. Her body language seemed to say, keep your distance. Assumptions were made, conclusions reached. They were that Jenny thought she was in some way superior to everyone else and didn’t mix for that reason.
Then one morning Jenny didn’t show up for work. About mid-morning the boss announced to the staff that Jenny was in hospital, having been attacked by her husband the night before. It was subsequently discovered that his controlling behaviour was so rigid that something as normal as attending Friday drinks would have implied that she was playing up behind his back. The so called body language experts got it wrong. Her husband’s voice in the background was always saying: Don’t get close to anyone, or else!
In a very different context is the story of Steve. His next door neighbour, Ally, a single mother, injured her back and was house-bound for almost 4 weeks. Ally’s daughter, Jess, was a mad keen rower and Ally’s situation looked like putting an end to her daughter’s early morning practice with the school team. Steve, still running his own business, got up at 5am twice a week to drive Jess to her clubhouse. The language of getting his body into gear for others gave a fine example to Jess and no doubt contributed to Ally’s recovery.
Graham, a road trauma victim, and permanently in a wheelchair, is completing a Certificate Course in Disability Studies at a TAFE College. His partial lack of the usual body movements is misconstrued by some but he’s one genuine young man. You can read it in his face and in his eye contact. He’s not sure where the course will take him but I’m sure that the messages he sends, overtly and subliminally, will prove of enormous help to others down the track.
Of course, it’s all very well to try and ‘read’ others but what we convey by our own smiles, gestures, actions and general demeanour plays a huge part in whether we make people feel understood, respected or included. They need to be able to read us as well, whether in the course of an ongoing caring commitment or a fleeting encounter. We are all capable of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions.
Nations can exhibit body language as can local communities, the corporate world and individuals. If we expand our understanding of the ways we are perceived and of the many ways in which we communicate we can foster healing in ways which words cannot.
This article was first published in Eastsider News. Edition 20, October 2023