I suppose it is a good day to write a diary about what I know of the Kinesthetic communicators among us.  Feeling yucky today about the plans for military bases in Iraq and that tells me my Kinesthetic is turned on.  I lack the gentle patience though of the people who use this mode of communication primarily.

I think that the blogs are full of Kinesthetic individuals and I like to think that whoever is in charge up there has a plan.  Kinesthetics are computer cracks and hacks since it involves participation of their body to turn on their minds.  The things that Kinesthetic people soak up about computers like sponges just blows my mind sometimes.  They are also very feeling sensitive and very gentle and very patient and during this time in history when so much info is falling through the cracks and being pushed to the side and I’m yelling at the computer and turning off the T.V.s in frustration and having to take days off due to frustration, the gentle patient Kinesthetics are doing their thing day in and day out.  They don’t attack either/they hug, so whatever they oppose never gets any footing to claim victimization and it isn’t a strategy with them because that is how they are built.  They just keep informing one day after another after another and one foot in front of the other is easy cheesy for them.  They have worked for thousands of years in this fashion and they have a deep faith in this approach that I utterly lack, but I believe I am now seeing the erosion of denial due to many of their daily chipping away at it efforts.

Kinesthetics really inhabit their bodies fully, taste, feel, and smell.  They are good cooks because food must taste good to them……if I’m in a hurry and starved I’ll eat burnt toast with butter but people who are very Kinesthetic would most likely just pass on that taste and texture.  Shoes must feel good.  My father is Kinesthetic and I wanted to buy him a good pair of shoes last Christmas since he has Diabetes and he tried on every single pair available to try on in the store…GOOD LORD!  When Kinesthetics buy a car they drive every car on the lot to “feel” the driving of it.  Kinesthetic like dangling earrings too…they can feel them, and sometimes they are very loud colors too.

Clothes must feel good and not itchy or scratchy.  If you go clothes shopping with a Kinesthetic person notice that they touch all the clothes.  I’m looking at the clothes judging the fit and “style” and whether or not it matches but Kinesthetic people are TOUCHING EVERYTHING and they fear no bright color.  All colors look good them, in fact all of the colors at the same time look good on them.  Auditory folk like stripes and plaids and I still don’t know why, they told me that in the class and it holds true with my husband and daughter.  Visual people like things tailored and matching even if it is a bit uncomfortable because it is okay for beauty to be painful.  For Kinesthetic people pain and suffering is overrated and it is hard for anybody to appear beautiful with their forehead all furrowed while their toes are all scrunched up so forget that.

Kinesthetics speak slowly and sometimes softly if they use their auditory skills the least.  Many people who make things are very Kinesthetic.  My father was a construction contractor and built houses and schools and such his entire life.  It was his passion.  My mother’s father was very Kinesthetic and he was a bricklayer and used his whole body doing what he did every day wrestling around with sometimes enormous rock, and he was so gentle……like a big bear, like a huge teddy bear.

Kinesthetics live for and survive and thrive on touch and hugs.  They must have these things.  Kinesthetics are also most at risk in our culture for not getting what they need because we are kind of weird sometimes about touching…..maybe some Victorian Puritan thing still hanging around or something.

If you discover you have a Kinesthetic child never allow any teacher to tell that child that they can’t follow a line in a book while reading with their finger or tell them that they can’t move their lips while reading silently or jiggle their foot while they study.  Touch and movement turn on the Kinesthetic brain and to demand things from such people but attempt to take away the means by which they could give it is abuse.  Most teachers are visual and auditory and if they don’t understand the Kinesthetic they either need to take a class in it or maybe find a different job.  Sorry so blunt, but I remember what they did to some of the Kinesthetic kids that I went to school with when we were stupid about such things and I have no tolerance for it any longer ever again and I’ll say so right to a teacher’s face now.

To let the Kinesthetics in your life know how much you appreciate them, give them a hug or a small touch on the shoulder or arm……..a pat on the back.  Until I took this class I walked around like someone had taped my arms to my sides.  Hell, I didn’t know that touch could be a good thing……it disturbed the thinking of most of the visuals in my family and all the dads were huggers but they worked all day and were usually tired at night.  I thought you hugged people when they were tired!!

To put things in order Kinesthetics make piles.  I don’t know how they do it, but they know where everything is too just about as well as I do.  If I’m looking for something sometimes I have to look in two cupboards, sometimes they have to look in two piles.  Because I can’t function in piles very well I used to call this person’s office a mess, now it is the office of a Kinesthetic person and nothing more or less than that.

Kinesthetics usually sit in a comfortable position or stand leaning against a wall.  Sometimes it is like the more contact points they can make the better they can feel their surroundings.  My daughter laughs at my driving sometimes because I look like a bird on a perch surveying the landscape when I get nervous or scared and lose touch with the other two communication modes……as a visual person I have as little of my butt touching the car seat as possible.  This totally cracks her up.

Don’t want to hurt anybodys feelings either but the Kinesthetics are the best lovers too.  We can learn though.  We can close our eyes and put in some ear plugs and get into that Kinesthetic groove when it is all we have left to experience through, who knows, maybe we can get real good at it with enough practice!