IN THE SIX HEALING SOUNDS PRACTICE, we smiled into five major organ pairs. In the Inner Smile, we deepen our smile energy and mentally direct it into all the major organs and glands, the brain and spine, and the autonomic nervous system.
The power of a genuine smile is undeniable. When a baby or a small child smiles at us with delight, we feel blessed. When our energy is low or we’re clinging to painful emotions, a spontaneous smile, even from a passing stranger, lifts our spirits and our energy.
Even smiling mechanically, without any emotion, raises our energy. Try this experiment: Close your eyes. Now smile automatically, without any emotion, by raising the corners of your mouth. Notice how your body feels. Next frown automatically, without emotion, by turning down the corners of your mouth. Notice how your body feels. Once more, turn up the corners of your mouth and note how it feels. Even automatic smiling improves our energy level.
We’re not talking about phony smiling, about smiling because we think it’s expected of us or it will be advantageous. Phony smiling is dishonest, and the recipient usually knows it’s false.
Living our lives with habitual tension or turbulent emotions lowers the vibration level of our chi, our life-force energy. Daily practice of the Inner Smile creates a higher vibration: a calm, peaceful, and joyful chi, energy that warms and heals our body, mind, and Spirit.
The ancient Taoists said that Inner Smiling causes the internal organs to produce a honeylike secretion that nourishes the whole body. We can use the Inner Smile to create a sweeter life.
In our competitive, materialistic society, so many people have low self-esteem. They feel inferior to the role models they see in the media, those who are more successful, more renowned, and supposedly more attractive. (Skillful makeup and special lighting can make anyone look more attractive.)
Even accomplished and successful people may have poor self-esteem. In a recent interview, actor Dustin Hoffman revealed that, when he received the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 and viewed a film commemorating his many outstanding roles, he had a panic attack, became depressed, and decided to quit acting forever. He added, “I never felt I deserved success.” Luckily, his wife persuaded him to see a therapist and work through this problem.1 It’s fairly common for professional actors to be shy in their private lives. Acting a role allows them to hide behind the character they’re playing.
Practicing the Inner Smile daily makes us love ourselves more, in a healthy way. It lets us appreciate the miracle of our physical bodies. They’re incredibly intelligent and complex. Most of our marvelous body systems function automatically and interact with each other harmoniously — unless we harm them with adverse habits or environments.
The Inner Smile fosters love and gratitude for our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our Spirits — no matter what imperfections we have. (And we all have imperfections.) We look and feel relaxed and radiant. We’re more likely to attract the relationships and circumstances that we desire.
When we’re first learning the Inner Smile, it takes twenty to thirty minutes to do it. After we know it by heart, it can take five or ten minutes. It can be practiced any time of the day or night. If we do it early in the morning, it will improve our whole day. If we do it during a midafternoon slump, it will give us a boost. If we do it after a stressful workday, it will relax and refresh us for the evening.
The Inner Smile is remarkable for easing distasteful tasks such as dealing with a difficult person or having to communicate bad news. Doing an Inner Smile just before such challenges can make the outcome more beneficial for everyone involved.
1. Meg Grant, “Just Dustin,” AARP: The Magazine, March—April 2009, p. 33.