Meditation Articles Series

I met a gifted healer, and spiritual teacher this week. In the course of the session the core beliefs that are still imprinted within me were exposed. These are still running the life, and not just this life! The healer told me, “If God wanted you to do anything it would be to smile.” Well, nearly sixty years of looking so serious could be a big ask for someone like me! Anyway I’ve been much more conscious of smiling ever since. I don’t mean one of those false, wooden smiles that I have seen plastered on faces, but more the smile of a young child that smiles and laughs so spontaneously, often just out of the sheer joy of being alive. You’ll know what I’m talking about.

It’s amazing what lifting the muscles around my mouth is doing to the rest of my body. I feel the smile going into my eyes, and I imagine that they’re starting to sparkle. I feel my breath slowing in a gentle, sweet rhythm. I feel my heart open to give and receive in the warmth of love. I also feel what I have always called “the bubble of joy” expanding in my belly.

In the next blog, I’ll give you some hints on how to bring a smile into your meditation practice, and how smiling which babies and young children do so easily can be reawakened. In the meantime affirm, “I love to smile”, and you’ll find how true that is.