10/26/2022
Let’s talk about Resting Bitch Face (RBF)!
Our first line of defense as human beings is each other. This means we are always seeking safety + solace in our relationships.
We don’t realize it but our nervous systems are constantly assessing people, searching for cues of safety or danger in each others facial + bodily expressions.
Our bodies decide who feels safe before we even have conscious awareness of it!
Our faces broadcast our autonomic state. When we get stuck in periods of stress or trauma, those experiences can live on the architecture of our faces + get frozen there. And this can certainly affect how others see and perceive us (below their own awareness). It may not seem like a big deal— but it is! What lives on our faces— plays out in our lives!
I once had the most brilliant teacher. I wanted to study with her but she had a very constricted and wild face, always furrowing her brows, frowning— doing crazy things with her eyes. I thought she didn’t like me.
Even though consciously I wanted to study in person with her, my body was like “um f**k no this lady ain’t safe.” It prevented me from working with her because I never felt comfortable in her presence.
It wasn’t until I began studying the nervous system + the facial broadcasting system aka the social engagement system that I realized she probably had neural toning that was frozen in time from some past experience. This means the architecture or her face, her expressions, did not match or mirror what was actually happening for her on the inside. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in the world who couldn’t work with her because of not feeling safe. That sucks.
Anyhow, the good news is there are lots of exercises you can do to work out that resting bitch face, or a face with poor neural toning or flat affect. If trauma lives in the body, then it also lives on the face.
Great! I’ll ( )be doing a free Instagram live on this topic next Tuesday (11/1) at noon PST. Maybe will join me? I’ll talk a little about this + throw some really bizarre face + jaw exercises at you that will make your face feel like a million bucks! Join us!!