“You have an amazing body.”

When spoken, these words can open the door to a delightful adventure, earn a scathing rebuke, lead to a slap in the face and may even cost you a job.

And yet those words speak a profound truth that if understood by all, could go a long way to reduce or eliminate feelings of doubt, anxiety, depression and stress in many of us.

Imagine holding in your hand a menu that lists, in alphabetical order, every known possible human emotion. And while holding this menu you can simply reach out and touch any one of the emotions listed on that menu and instantly feel those feelings throughout your body.

The truth is that is exactly what each and every one of us can do and yet surprisingly, only a very few of us, once exposed to this life-altering piece of knowledge, will practice the steps necessary to enjoy a lifetime of “Touch-Menu” feelings

Imagine walking down the hallway in your office and glancing through a colleague’s doorway.

You notice him slumped in his chair, with a dejected look on his face, his shoulders rounded, his head down, eyes gazing at the floor. You stop and say “Hey Bob, how’s it going”

Bob, in that slow, flat, lifeless tone we all use when feeling dejected, without raising his head, replies, “Great. Today is one of the best days I’ve ever had. You cannot imagine how happy I feel right now.”

Would you believe a word that came out of Bob’s mouth?

Of course not because the image you see of Bob – his body language – is not that which we know to be true of how people align themselves when they feel the way Bob described himself.

And so you continue down the hallway and glance through another doorway and notice Sally, standing tall, straight, her head up, shoulders back a huge smile on her face.

You say, “Hey Sally, how’s it going?”

Sally looks at you and, in an excited upbeat and enthusiastic tone answers, “You won’t believe what a crappy day I’m having. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and I think I’m about to get fired. This is the worst day of my life”.

Do you believe a word that Sally has just said?

No, of course not because, like Bob, there is a giant mismatch between the words you heard and the body language you observed and while most of us can, when we choose, lie or distort the truth quite elegantly with ours words, we are not very good at doing so with our bodies.

Try this for yourself.

Stand up.

Now!

Go deep inside yourself to a time when you felt truly happy, exhilarated, strong, confident, – in other words just amazing.

And as your mind drifts back to that time notice how you begin to float freely back to that experience as if it were recurring right at this very moment.

The more you recall those memories – the more intensely you focus on recapturing that moment and allow your thoughts to go back to the memories of that occasion and flow through your mind – the more you re-experience in your body the same feelings that you felt way back when all this was happening.

Now stay there and focus. Make any changes to your memories that allow that experience to be even better and you will become aware that as your make those changes the feelings will get better and better.

And when you are feeling really good, strong, happy, confident FREEZE.

Don’t move a muscle and become very aware of your body and how you are standing.

In all likelihood you are standing erect with your head up high, shoulders back, chest out and, if you pay attention, you will realize you are breathing high up in your chest.

Let’s recap.

You have achieved these great feelings simply by allowing strong positive thoughts to occupy your focus and by aligning your body in the position it needs to be in in order to experience ad enjoy these feelings.

Next time you want to enjoy these feelings, repeat the steps above.

That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

So you see, you really do have an amazing body, for it is your body, and how you use it, that plays a great role in determining how you feel. At those times when you find yourself feeling stressed, down, depressed or just plain yucky, pay careful attention to how your body has aligned itself.

It probably looks something like this:

Your shoulders are most likely rounded;

Your head is down;

You are looking at the floor;

You are breathing low down in your abdomen and;

The thoughts going through your mind are not very pleasant.

Now imagine owning the menu that lists every known human emotion.

You touch it, you feel it. You think of any way you want to feel, allow your body to naturally drift into the positions it would adopt in order to feel that way and, presto, you have it.

And this is really interesting. If you’ve never had the feelings you would like to have, fake it. Pretend it, realign your body and thoughts and then enjoy the moment.

All of us can live our lives with this gift if we are simply willing to practice. Do this a few times every day and stick with it until you have it mastered.

I know many people have tried this two or three times, didn’t get the results they wanted and quit.

How sad for by so doing they are denying themselves the gift of the Magic Menu.

So if I meet you and tell you that you have a great body, don’t call me a dirty old man. Thank me for showing you the pathway to a lifetime of happiness.

That’s really all each of us wants, isn’t it?

Till we read again.