So my 9-year old son and I are standing in line at the grocery store and I'm zoning out, thinking about making dinner and getting him started on his Cub Scout project. My boy is looking at the magazines at the checkout stands and says, "Mom, that lady's lips are weird." It cracked me up because I didn't know which celebrity he was looking at, but I was already agreeing with him. Yep, most of them are definitely weird.
Turns out he was looking at a "plastic surgery gone wrong" issue, and the photos on the cover were amusing yet horrifying. I was explaining that some people use surgery to look pretty and sometimes end up having to talk weird with great big lips. So I was imitating how someone with lips-gone-wild would talk. And I had an interesting experience: I found out just how much tension I was holding in my mouth and lips. And I also learned how tension in mouth-and-lips translates into neck tension. Hm!
Here's how you do it:
Imagine you have these lips
Wow - that's a whole lotta lippa. How would your mouth feel if you had that much lip? Close your eyes, and imagine your lips as being inflated like these. I don't necessarily want you to stick your lips out into a pout, just relax your muscles and let your mental imagery guide the sensation. Would these lips be projected outward, tense, squeezed? Maybe yeah, if they were overstuffed like sausages. So let out some of that inflation, until your lips feel like the next photo. In your imagination, release the imaginary valve that will deflate your lips until you have Brigitte's lips:
Ok, too much lipstick. And that's still kind of an over-filled lip. Do your lips feel relaxed? Do you like how they feel? And, by the way, I don't mean "feel" like reach up with your fingers and touch your lips, I want you to use your internal sensations of how tense your lips feel. This is called proprioception; it's your ability to sense yourself (such as your body's position, posture, and muscle tension). In my own imagination, Brigitte's lip feels a little ... umm... turgid. And I still feel a bit of tension in my puckering-up muscles.
How 'bout Jessica Alba's lips? Yep, they look pretty good. Ok, so in your imagination, deflate your lips a little bit more until they are at Jessica's plumpness. Now smile. Now pout. Now open your jaw slowly, and close it. Can you feel the relaxation across your cheeks and even in the back of your neck?
If you're a guy, you can aim for this:
Oh Lordy lordy lordy. What a mouth. (Y'know, I had a very interesting experiencing googling on Rudolf Nureyev and looking at the resulting images. VERY interesting. And that is ALL I am going to say about that. Lordy lordy lordy.)
Okay, so let's keep going, deflating our lips (this sounds very strange, I know) beyond what we like. Close your eyes, inhale and as you exhale, imagine your lips deflating more until you've got this:
(Mary Pickford.) Do you notice the new tension in your face? Open your jaw and close it. Smile. Frown. Which is easier with this amount of tension? Smiling or frowning? For me, it's easier to frown. That's not good! Okay, close your eyes and inhale, then exhale and deflate your lips until you get this:
Hee hee hee!!! I know, it's not a very nice photo. But what's interesting about this is that her lips are actually fairly plump. It's the tension in her face that is making her lips look really thin. When I look at this photo, I actually feel the tension in my own face. It's one of the skills of being a teacher of movement, when your student moves, you can anticipate how she feels as she's making the movement. If I see your shoulders hunched up, I know how your neck is feeling and if I let my attention lock onto that for too long, I'll actually feel it in my own neck.
Last time now, inhale and exhale, deflating your lips until you've got this:
Do you recognize her? She's Margaret Hamilton, she played the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. She had the perfect lips for that role: thin and tense. Okay, now that your lips are that thin, do you like the kinesthetic sense of it? No? Me neither. Check your cheeks and neck. Tense and icky, huh.
Some people say that we deserve the face we have after 40. I think that's a little harsh, but I like the sentiment. Our facial posture, just like our spine posture, can change. We don't have to have injections or buy expensive lip plumping gloss or hire a private makeup artist or inherit the perfect genetics. You can maximize your natural features through mental imagery and by altering the way you hold your face.
These lips below are gorgeous, and yet not obviously plastic (surgery):
Audrey Hepburn
Marilyn without makeup and with....
the Marquise de Pompadour...
If you would like to maximize your natural lips, hold them softly. Don't tense your neck, cheeks, and lip muscles. It's unnecessary and probably leads to you looking like the Wicked Witch of the West. (Did I ever promise I wouldn't exaggerate?) Beyond looking like the Wicked Witch, how do you think a tense face contributes to your mood?
Imagine if your lips were like tubes of toothpaste, all that tension would squeeze out the paste! And then your lips would look like shriveled up empty Crest tubes. Do you want that for YOUR lips? Of course not.
Next time you are in an argument with someone, look at their lips. Are they tense, tight, and thin? Do you want that for yourself? Notice your own mouth and lip tension. Do you spend the majority of your time with tight, tense lips? No amount of lip-plumping gloss is going to overcome that, no matter what Maybelline writes on their packaging. Next time you notice someone else's beautiful plump lips (celebrity or girl-next-door) I want you to practice softening and releasing the fullness of your own. (Yowza!)