Why Posture is Prosocial: the Case of the Mona Lisa Smile.

Embodiment Workshop at Prosocial Commons, online, Monday May 20 2:30-3:30PM PST

Please join me in this conscious exploration of our own bodies and the meanings and connections that we find there.

The smile is an example of orofacial posture. The smile has obvious and important neurological, emotional and social functions related to Prosociality. It also has an important structural role in our posture and the mechanics of the axial line. This gives us a lot to talk about in somatic terms.

This is an area where the biopsychosocial body is most expressive and I believe it is a gateway to inner truth.

In this workshop I will describe the anatomy of the smile in the context of our postural axial structure. We will explore the orofacial region, the neck, and throat through gentle embodiment activities and guided meditations.

We will use some wonderful guided body meditations by Mary Bond, author of Your Body Mandala.

More about the smile 🙂

We are basically tubular creatures and the mouth is the orifice at one end. As such the orofacial region has tremendous structural and somatic complexity and importance. It has very rich relationships with the rest of the body. The actions that occur at the intersection of the neck, the jaw, and the skull are profoundly integrated with the rest of the axial structure, with the arms on our backs, and with the our guts.

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Please join me in this conscious exploration of our own bodies and the meanings and connections that we find there.

Agenda for Monday May 20 workshop:

1. 15 min discussion of the smile and orofacial posture with interoceptive activities.
2. 15 min. Open discussion with further activities.
3. 20 min discussion about our needs and wants and roles for the workshop were we to continue.