Anyone here fallen asleep during a production of Hamlet? I may have…Certainly the text is pretty extraordinary. So why might someone be bored or not able to connect to this most human drama? Most likely be cause the story is only told verbally and not inhabited physically. There is no coherence between the words, the expression, the body, and the intention. And haven’t we all experienced the strange pit in our stomachs when someone’s words do not match their expression? Maybe they tell us that everything is “just fine,” while tears pour down their cheeks. Or that they are not angry, though their jaws are clenched tight. Or that they’re listening while scanning social media. When our physical communication is incongruent with our words, the other, the audience, the group, feels that tension. They hear one message and receive another.

Most of the time we communicate without words at all—just gestures, expressions, sighs…read on for ways to find congruence…