Closed Body Language

Defensiveness is shown through gestures that protect the body and defend the heart. These gestures suggest resistance, frustration, anxiety, stubbornness, nervousness and impatience. They are negative gestures, and they say "NO!"

Crossed arms are common to all manifestations of defensiveness. They hide the heart and defend one's feelings. Although you can also be relatively relaxed with your arms crossed, the difference between a relaxed crossed-arm position and a defensive crossedarm position is in the accompanying gestures. For example, are your arms loosely folded or pressed close to your body? Are your hands clenched or open?

Defensive gestures are often fast and evasive and beyond your conscious control. Your body has a mind of its own and is ruled by your attitude, useful or useless. In addition to crossed arms, the most obvious defensive gestures are avoiding eye contact with the other person and turning your body sideways. Fidgeting is another negative gesture, which can also show impatience or nervousness.

Right away, you can see the difference between a person who faces you squarely and honestly, and someone who stands sideways to you with crossed arms and hunched shoulders while the two of you talk. In the first instance, the person is openly pointing his heart directly at your heart. In the second, the posture is defensive;

the person is pointing his heart away from you and protecting it. One is being open with you, the other closed. Being in the presence of these two postures produces very different feelings.