Posture Release Imagery could be described, perhaps, as status imagery… as opposed to motor imagery. Yet, it is most certainly about movement, just as motor imagery is. It moves us away from our habitual status (or posture) to a newer, freer self-image. This new self-image affects all our movements… more profoundly than motor imagery, I would argue.

There can be a problem, however, in the execution of what I am terming here as “status” imagery. A person experimenting with Posture Release Imagery may remain too frozen while imagining the unique, unusual, and sometimes difficult imagery, (though some people, conversely, can be too mobile, swaying too much, seemingly in “search” of change).

Here, I suggest a couple of perspectives or tricks to help… if the body is frozen as the mind attempts the image exercises. First, whether you are sitting or standing while imagining, allow your body a movement range that does not involve overt muscle activity. A tree can sway and yet has no muscle activity. So as you are attempting an exercise, also imagine that wind, perhaps, is lightly blowing about and moving you slightly. My previous blog image exercise, “The floating monkey,” has contained within it this suggestion of minor movement from without (involving gentle waves of water).

Another way to shake a little “life” into an image, if it seems not to be working on you, is to imagine that your eyelids, fingers, toes, nostrils, lips, or tail, as examples, are moving just a very little. Perhaps your eyelids are imagined to be fluttering or opening or closing a very little bit. Or fingers are moving less than can be seen. Etc. It is the imagining of a small movement, not the actuality, which is valuable here. A small movement (or was it? – you may wonder) on some part of the body may be the key to allowing a larger whole-body image, which you are having difficulty with, to come into full bloom.