How Posture Reveals Self-Abandonment
This week, while recording a video, I noticed constant hunching. Not slouching lazily, but actively (and also unknowingly) pulling my shoulders inward as I spoke. Chest caved in. My hands were also moving in small, contained ways. My whole aura was making itself smaller.
I’ve been hunching over like this since high school. It’s my default. I’ve known I have poor posture for 20+ years. I’ve worked on it before, but nothing stuck. When I sat up straighter and opened my shoulders back, something felt off. There was this small voice saying it felt pompous. Arrogant. It’s like taking up space felt wrong. It’s, “Not me.”
I notice it in breathwork too. When I take a deep breath, there's this uncontrolled pull to bring my shoulders inward, as if making space for air requires making myself smaller first.
That small voice wasn’t about manners or modesty. It was self-abandonment showing up in my shoulders. Years of learning to make myself smaller to stay connected to people.
My body still believes that shrinking is safer than being my full, true self.
What I’ve learned
Hunching affects interoception which is our ability to sense what’s happening inside us (like our heartbeat, our breath, our gut knowing). When we stand upright, we get better access to those internal signals. We can feel what’s true. We can access our intuition more easily.
I want connection to my inner signals. I’m all about inner attunement and living from self-loyalty. This requires undoing self-abandonment. And self-abandonment doesn’t just happen in our thoughts. It happens in our bodies.
The body remembers patterns longer than the mind wants to acknowledge them. I can decide I’m not going to abandon myself anymore. I can understand everything. But my nervous system learned these patterns early, and they don’t let go easily.
The body is a teacher if we listen to it. But we can only hear it clearly when we’re not hunching.
What feels true right now
My body is saying something my mind is starting to catch up to. I learned early that my whole self wasn’t entirely welcome. I learned to hunch and be small.
Even though I’m choosing differently now, standing up straight feels unnatural. I’m learning to practice it. Be with it. Not resist it. Not forcing myself into some power pose, but staying curious about where my posture is at any given moment.
Why does my body feel unsafe when I stand tall? What would it mean if I really let myself be here? What am I afraid will happen?
These are the questions that matter. Not “How do I fix my posture?” but “Why does my body believe it needs to hide?”
The answer, for me, keeps coming back to self-abandonment—the ways I learned to abandon myself to stay connected to others. The ways I’m still learning to stop doing that.
If you’re hunching right now reading this, I see you. We’re all still learning. We’re choosing ourselves again and again.