They say confidence is silent,
while insecurities are loud.
Body language expert and author,
Tonya Reiman, joins us now with a look at messages
we are sending without even saying a word.
(applauding)
Yes, hey Tonya, welcome back.
Thank you.
Tonya, what does insecurity look
like in our body language?
It starts off when people are like slumped over,
and they're avoiding eye contact purposely.
And maybe, they're orienting their body away,
they're putting up barriers instead
of being open and having good body language.
They're sitting there like this.
Things that demonstrate that they don't want to engage,
are not willing to engage.
So one of the tips and tricks that I've learned
over the years is that if you meet someone
and you just line your right eye up with their right eye,
that engagement, that interaction gets processed
in the left intellectual brain,
as opposed to being processed in the right brain,
the emotional brain, where we feel fear, anxiety, stress.
So if we can engage with someone on that left side
and have it done just pretty much
as an intellectual meeting,
that starts the conversation off
in a much calmer fashion than it normally would.
I like to look people right in their eyes.
Is that too much?
Yeah, well there's two things.
First thing is you have to realize eye contact
is very cultural so you want to make sure
you're not offending the individual.
Okay.
In addition you want to make sure
you're not stalker staring them.
And what I mean by that.
(laughs)
Yeah, so.
What?
Yeah so, quite often--
You can be a stalker.
I just want to get in here and say
that Vivica has excellent eye contact.
Whenever I have conversations with Vivica,
I always know that she's paying attention.
I don't think it's stalker.
(laughs)
It can be a little intimidating when people just.
I'm not saying stare you guys.
Okay, I ain't like talking about like, Ay J.
You know I mean, it's just that if I'm talking to you,
like how we're speaking now,
I want you to know that I'm talking to you.
That I'm not talking over here and lookin' over there.
So you know girl, so uh huh.
Right, I think that's rude.
Like it bothers me, if someones trying to talk to me,
I'm like, I'm over here.
There's two things you have to realize.
The first thing is, normally we're comfortable
with eye contact when people are blinking at a natural,
normal rate, which is roughly like 20 blinks per minute.
What winds up happening sometimes,
is people don't blink.
And that's when we get that stalker feeling.
Oh.
(laughs)
Yeah, okay.
Aside from that.
Why aren't they blinking Tonya?
Well, some people, believe it or not,
don't blink as often.
Some people blink once and twice a minute,
instead of 20, 30 times a minute.
How am I thinking my blinking?
I know, I just blinked so many times right now.
We talk about rapid blinking right?
And that makes somebody look anxious and insecure.
So you wanna have an, obviously, a conversation
where you know that you feel good.
So you're blinking at a normal natural rhythm.
The other thing is,
you have to start the conversation holding eye contact,
and then try to keep the conversation going
with that eye contact.
In saying that though, it's much easier
for someone who's uncomfortable in their own skin,
to learn to look like in the eye nose triangle.
Oh, I got a question, I got a question.
Question go ahead, you, Vivica.
So what about people that feel insecure if like
say they walk into a room and people
are more attractive than them.
Listen, there's always gonna be somebody
who's better looking.
There's always gonna be somebody who's more confident.
So you have to make sure that you have the self-esteem
and that takes practice.
