By familiarizing ourselves with a few basic nonverbal signals, we can improve our ability to understand what people are really communicating and become aware of what we are broadcasting to the world with our own non-verbal cues.

A person's body posture, movements and positions more often tell us exactly what they mean (which may be the exact opposite of what they are saying). Many people are unaware of how loudly they communicate with their bodies.

This guy might as well stand up, wave his arms and scream, "I'm a lousy cheat! Please - flunk me, now!"

Our use and reading of body language is largely unconscious. We understand what a person indicates with their gestures and body positions and we send out our own messages - but we rarely stop to think about how we do it.

Often when a person is considered to have great intuition about other people, their understanding is actually due to careful observation of individuals, and conscious or unconscious understanding of non-verbal communication. These people can see and interpret verbal and non-verbal language due to training or years of observation and analysis of people.

We need to recognize and give credibility to our own "intuition" and "feelings" about a person or situation.

One of the most basic instances involves our personal "space." We notice that when a stranger or someone gets too close, we feel uncomfortable. Unconsciously we know the distancing from others that is appropriate for our own culture. Every day we judge our own distance and respect the space of others by avoiding getting too close and follow our "feeling" to adjust to the correct distances from friends as opposed to acquaintances or strangers.