Introduction to Body Types

Visibly, we know that bodies come in various sizes and proportions, and that cultures down through the ages have preferred styles. Here is a list of pure forms. Most, if not all, BodyTypes are a combination of two, three or even four (in rare situations) of these forms:

➢ Quiet Authority (Saturn Influence— Tall and Gaunt)
➢ Sporty Action (Mars Influence— Muscular, barrel chest, block shoulders, masculine)
➢ Safe & Supportive (Venus Influence—Curvy, soft, feminine focus)
➢ Group Anchor (Jupiter Influence— Large, Centered, matriarchal)
➢ Speed Communicator (Mercury Influence— Small, quick, wiry)
➢ Inner Brilliance (Moon Influence— Round, flat face, detailed)
➢ Radiant Healer (Under influence of Sun— Ethereal, sensitive, open)

On the Instinctive Level, BodyTypes anchor and reflect a particular contribution to others. Each body type is the primary way that people are initially attracted to the lessons in their lives. In other words, the people we are attracted to typically reflect either the similarity of the lessons with our parents or the polar opposite of the lessons with ourselves.

In the first case, we are learning how to differentiate our lessons from our parents’ lessons. In the second case, we are learning to honor our own lessons as distinct from those of others. Each body type, therefore, has its own distinct lessons as well as lessons that are complementary in a polar opposite way. The polar opposites are Speedy Communicator with Group Anchor, Sporty Action with Safe & Supportive, Inner Brilliance with Quiet Authority. Radiant Healer is a neutral type that complements all other types. Body types are important for three reasons:

1) they provide an important clue as to our life task;

2) they affect us and influence our physical, emotional, and mental growth and

3) they encourage conscious self-acceptance—a key resource to happy living. Becoming conscious of our body type enables a positive self-image to develop into a source of value and strength.

Individuals are usually a combination of one to three body types. An irony of body type is that the influence diminishes as we become more conscious. At an early age (teenage years), body type attractions are used to set up a pre-defined bias that encourages us to complete lessons with others of a particular body type attribute. These relationships facilitate the development of a person’s life task (figuring out what’s important and what’s not). Identifying our body type combination from the following pages will provide significant clues to the type of contribution we will make in the world.

Body type attractions have become distorted by today’s mass media images where women must fit the Radiant Healer / Sporty Action body type (like Cheryl Tiegs or Farrah Fawcett) or the Sporty Action / Radiant Healer type for men (like Paul Newman or Robert Redford). The potential for damage from cultural imprinting is great; many people try to mold their bodies unnaturally into these acceptable forms and, as a result, base their self-esteem on unobtainable forms. The BodyTypes commonly portrayed by the artists of a particular era affect our collective social image. Following are selected artists and the body types they portrayed:

• Rubens—Group Anchor
• Michelangelo—Group Anchor/ Safe & Supportive
• Rodin—Group Anchor/Radiant Healer
• Impressionists—Safe & Supportive
• Gauguin—Safe & Supportive/ Speed Communicator
• Van Gogh—Inner Brilliance

Everyone Has a Perfect Attractive Complement

At the Instinctive Level of body type characteristics everyone is instinctively attracted to polar opposite qualities. This means that every combination of body type desires its perfect complement. After we identify our BodyType and begin to appreciate its strengths and uses, we can identify the polar opposite and read a description of how we have selected our partners in the past. Primary instinctive compatibility is determined by the polar opposite BodyType:

• Sporty Action with Safe & Supportive
• Group Anchor with Speed Communicator
• Inner Brilliance with Quiet Authority
• Radiant Healer (neutral)—combines well with all

For example, typically a man with a Sporty Action body type would instinctively attract and be attracted to a woman with a Safe & Supportive body type. Or to put it another way, the aggressive, endurance-oriented Sporty Action body type—the stereotypical sports jock—would be attracted to the soft, curvy, nurturing and unconditionally loving Safe & Supportive body type, and vice versa.

When we begin to heal, we begin to love our bodies the way they are, and know that we are okay. This usually indicates that we have moved to the Intellectual Level of body-type-attractions. This leads to the possibility of same body types being attracted to each other. At the intellectual level we are more likely to choose someone with our own body type or body type combination. This is due to similar interests. For example a Sporty Action type would not think they have much in common on an activity level with a Radiant Healer.

Ultimately, on an Intuitive Level, all BodyTypes are equally attractive, and individuals are appreciated for who they are, not what they do. This opinion, however, is not yet a reality in our materialistic, form-identified society. Instead, society’s tendency to judge individuals on the basis of body types and mis-assign meanings to certain characteristics, demonstrates some of the most demeaning practices people currently pursue in our world.