Body Language of Lip Picking
Cue: Lip Picking.
Synonym(s): Picking The Lip.
Description: The skin of the lip is picked or plucked with the index and thumb.
In One Sentence: Picking the lips is a way people self harm as a way to retain perceived control over a world they see as working against them.
How To Use it: One should avoid picking the lips as it is universally perceived as a negative cue.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “I’m anxious and can’t do anything about it or control it so instead of acting outwardly, I’ll pick my lip causing me pain, but it is at least pain that I can control.”
Variant: Sometimes the lip is rolled or squished together from corner to corner. See Lip Chewing or Chewing The Lips, Lip Biting or Biting The Lip, Lip Picking, Self Harm.
Cue In Action: Exam time coupled with missing her family was the worst for her nerves. She frequently picked her lips as a result of her discomfort and anxiety.
Meaning and/or Motivation: Picking the lips indicates hidden insecurity, anxiety, embarrassment, vulnerability and a lack of self confidence.
Lip picking is a form of self-harm that a person uses to attempt to regain the loss of control they feel surrounding their anxiety. When done out of habit and in extreme cases, it can produce visible marks on the lips such as cuts, bruising, and even bleeding. In these cases, it can indicate a pathology and even depression brought about by extreme anxiety.
The lips are highly sensitive and when they are manipulated through pain, they are a reflection of an internal battle that is being waged to which a person has no external method of resolving. Biting the lip indicates a reserved demeanor and an inability to speak up, as does lip picking, except this is more to do with negative self-judgment rather than a judgment stemming from others.
Cue Cluster: Lip picking is accompanied by eyes turned downward and glazed over, head down, the shoulders slumped and body turned away.
Body Language Category: Auto contact or self touching, Emotional body language, Energy Displacement, Frustration or frustrated body language, Hostile body language, Low confidence body language, Negative body language, Nervous body language, Pacifying body language, Stressful body language.
Resources:
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