Sometimes our anxiety and negative thoughts are a result of our non-verbal behaviors sending messages we can't even hear ourselves send.
What Non-Verbal Communication Actually Is
Verbal communication is the words we use. Everything else, tone of voice, facial expressions, body language, is non-verbal. Our non-verbal communication is always talking for us, and it doesn't always back up the words coming out of our mouth.
Non-verbal communication comes directly from the brain, and it doesn't always check in with our conscious mind first. It pulls straight from our Reticular Activating System, and from our actual, sometimes subconscious, thoughts, to decide how to act. So your words might be coming out carefully chosen, while your non-verbals send a completely different message, because your thoughts underneath are different.
If you've ever had someone pick up on a message you didn't feel like you sent, that might be your non-verbals telling on you.
Hart Habit Six: Non-Verbals
The Ideal State Declaration is: I keep myself cool physically when faced with a tough situation. It gives me time to process before I respond.
How Non-Verbals Are a Tattletale
Our non-verbal communication comes from what our RAS tells our body to do, based on the conscious and subconscious thoughts we're having in the moment. Even deeper than that, it comes from a whole lifetime of things our amygdala has learned to keep us safe, the values and social norms we grew up with, and every layered detail that makes us exactly who we are.
That makes it complicated, and genuinely hard to just control. This isn't a simple fix. If you find it especially difficult, therapy with the right therapist can help you understand why managing your non-verbal communication feels so hard.
The Power of Pause
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." I don't actually know who said this first, it's widely misattributed to Viktor Frankl, but the idea holds up regardless of who said it.
Here's the simple tool: next time someone comes to you with information big enough to trigger an immediate reaction, take a moment and count to ten before you let yourself respond, physically or verbally.
If you need to, close your eyes. Take a breath. Count to ten. Then do whatever you need to do next.
I'm not going to tell you how to handle every situation, but if the information is genuinely hard, give yourself a way to calm down after that count. Walk away for a moment. Or say something like, "pause this for a minute, I hear you, and I need a second to process it, I'll be right back to you, thank you for telling me."
Use whatever gets you into a grounded, thought-out place before you respond. This does two things: it keeps your non-verbals from telling on you before you're ready to say something on purpose, and it gives the other person room to exist exactly as they are, without your immediate reaction crowding them out.
A Story About the Pause
I grew up in a very Christian environment where homosexuality was talked about as one of the worst things in the world. I disagree with that completely, for the record, but that's how it was.
Early on, thinking about this Ideal State Declaration and what it could look like in practice, I thought about people I knew in the LGBTQIA community whose parents were pastors or church leaders. It was common for those leaders to publicly denounce LGBTQIA people from the pulpit. I heard stories constantly about what friends went through when they came out to their families, how nerve-wracking it was to share something so personal with people almost guaranteed to reject them.
I imagined what it might look like if those same pastors, preachers, and parents, reading 1 Corinthians and the line that love does not act unbecomingly, applied it here. What if their child came to them and said, "I'm gay," and instead of reacting immediately, they took a moment. Breathed. Walked away if they needed to. Thought about how much they loved that child, how much they wanted them happy, healthy, and fulfilled. Then came back into the room and did something different.
I'm not saying one Habit would rewrite the course of these young people's lives. But I imagined it could help. Taking that moment opens space for the real questions: What's the truth of this situation? What are my boundaries, and how am I actually involved? How is my Shadow or my Spirit shaping how I'm seeing this?
Once you understand how they work, you realize all the Hart Habits show up here, and Non-Verbals becomes a tool, one more intentional way to communicate exactly the message you mean to send.
Imagine if that pastor, that parent, took the pause instead, breathed, and responded with nothing but a hug. They wouldn't have to decide their moral stance in that instant, or what scripture demands, or how to reconcile it all. In that moment, they could just express love. Imagine what that single small act could do for everything that came after it.
Using Non-Verbals as a Tool
Non-verbals aren't only something to manage, they're also something you can use. If you're feeling down and choose to smile anyway, it can genuinely shift how you feel. If you choose to dance, it wakes your whole body up. Notice what happens to your heart and mind when you let yourself move freely. It has real power to shift your emotional state.
Once you're conscious of how your body communicates, you can see it working both outward, toward other people, and inward, back into you.
If people keep misinterpreting what you think you've said, and it's feeding your anxiety, it might be time to pause. You don't have to understand it all yet, just notice that your non-verbals are speaking. If you don't want to say anything yet, you don't have to. Step back. Breathe. Don't let your body answer for you until you're ready to use it on purpose.
One of the best examples of this in action is Amy Cuddy's TED Talk on how body language can communicate power and confidence, even when you're faking it at first. The science shows your emotions genuinely follow your body's lead, if you let them.
Recommended resources:
Amy Cuddy, TED Talk on body language and power posing
Question of the day: How do you manage your non-verbal behaviors?