Stand
tall. Stand up for yourself. Take a stand. Stand your ground. Don’t stand for
less than you deserve.

         It
sounds good, doesn’t it?  It feels
good too. People are obsessed with getting other beings to sit. You see it all
the time with parents and children: “Sit down…Sit there till I tell you to get
up…Can you sit on your bottom on the chair please?” Why? Children are naturally
mobile. If I had the energy at fifty I had at five, I’d have personally
instigated world peace by now, or at least climbed a few mountains and run
several marathons. The exertion of parental control with a powerful “Sit down”
is, however, ubiquitous.

         It’s
the same with dogs: “Sit!” gets Rover a treat and a pat on the head. When my dog,

 Aspen (not in the photo), aged and developed arthritis in her hind legs, she could no longer
perform the universal good-dog act. Then people who had formerly proffered Milk
Bones with abandon developed a marked reluctance to providing a biscuit to a
pooch too uncouth to sit properly.

         All
this sitting has carried over to autonomous adult humans. We know that our
health and figures suffer from the hours we spend sitting every day—at a  desk, in the car, in front of the
TV—but the greater danger may be metaphorical rather than physical. Sitting
through our lives keeps us from being the proverbial “stand-up kind of gal.”
While we need to stand frequently in the literal sense to keep our metabolism
revved, we also need to stand up figuratively–for ourselves and for what we
believe in.

         A
process for bringing this stand-up energy into your daily life is what I call
the red-

carpet technique. When you walk into an intimidating situation, or
simply when you enter a room, imagine rolled out before you a red carpet on
which you are to walk in your fabulous gown to receive your award. It doesn’t
matter if you are, in fact, in your rattiest jeans and about to walk from the plumbing department to the check-out at Home Depot: 

               In
your mind, you’re on the red carpet. When 

you remember that, you’ll stand
taller. You’ll walk with more poise and more purpose. People will take note of
you and they’ll treat you with added respect simply because your very bearing
commands it.

         Do
not let yourself fall into the trap of “Oh, but I’m just me, not some movie star.”
For heaven’s sake, movie stars were ordinary people until they learned to stand
up and stand out from the crowd. This is how you get to be a star in your own
life.

         Once
you’re carrying yourself with dignity–not just when you’re dressed up for a special
occasion, but all the time–it’s easier to translate the stand-up mentality into
standing firm on those issues that matter. Your graceful self can bend and sway
to accommodate circumstances, but when something is important to you, you need
to stand steadfast: “This is my year for Christmas with the kids…My raise needs
to be retroactive to June 1^st…I understand what you’re saying,
Doctor, and I still want a second opinion.”        

         In
yoga, there is a pose called “the mountain,” performed simply by standing with
your feet shoulder-width apart, arms at your sides. That part is easy enough.
Here’s where its power comes from: you’re to imagine your feet rooted into Mother
Earth, anchored there like a mountain at its base, and stretching through your
legs and spine to stand tall like that mountain at its peak. 

        When you practice
this daily, even for a minute or two, and think about what you’re doing and
what it signifies, you imprint yourself kinesthetically with what it feels like
to stand on your feet, in this place and time, and do what you came here to do.
You have the time you need to do it, but not enough to waste sitting around.