How to Train a Wild Elephant_ And Other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays [66]
Often people are resistant to send loving-kindness to themselves. They feel it is selfish and that they should be doing it for others who are in worse shape. Loving-kindness for ourselves is not selfish. It is a prerequisite for extending it to others. If our own reservoir of loving-kindness is full, it will naturally spill over and flow to others.
Final Words: Do loving-kindness practice for your body at least once a day, every day. It’s the best kind of alternative medicine.
52
Smile
The Exercise: For one week, please allow yourself to smile. Notice the expression on your face. Notice it from the inside—lips turned up or down? Teeth clenched? Tension and frown lines between the eyebrows? When you pass a mirror or reflective window, sneak a look at your expression. When you notice a neutral or negative expression, smile. This does not have to be a wide smile; it can be a small smile, like the smile of the Mona Lisa.
REMINDING YOURSELF
Post the word smile or a picture of smiling lips in various places, including on mirrors, and perhaps on your computer, on the dashboard of your car, on the back of the front door, and on your phone. You can try smiling when you talk on the phone, at stop lights, or whenever your computer shows the wait icon. When you meditate, try a soft “inner smile” like the smile on the face of the Buddha.
DISCOVERIES
Some people feel resistant to doing this exercise. They feel that it is “fake” or unnatural to smile all the time. If they check a mirror several times a day, however, they may be quite surprised to find that all the time they were assuming that their face held a pleasant look, their habitual expression was actually negative—a slight frown, a downturn to the corners of the mouth that looks disapproving. Once people realize this, they often undertake to adjust their face to look more positive.
At the monastery we once tried a more extreme version of smiling practice called “laughing yoga.” No matter how we felt, at nine A.M. we all gathered in a circle, rang a bell, and laughed for two full minutes. Laughter that seemed “fake” at first became genuine as we watched each other laugh. People found that once they overcame their resistance to smiling or laughing even when they didn’t feel like it, these practices were quite enjoyable and induced a positive mood. Once a teacher assigned a somewhat morose student the practice of “grinning like an idiot” for an entire weeklong retreat. The man, a veteran of many long retreats, said it was the most relaxed, enjoyable one he’d ever done.
There is a lot of interesting research on smiling. In all human cultures, smiles express happiness. Smiling is innate, not learned. Every baby starts to smile around four months, even if they have been blind from birth. Babies show different smiles when they see their mothers (“genuine”) and when approached by strangers (“social” smiles that involve the mouth but not the eyes). Smiles are powerful social signals. People shown pictures of different ethnic groups are more positively inclined toward any group shown smiling. Smiles help defuse anger in others; they can be distinguished from negative facial expressions at a hundred meters—the distance of a spear throw.
Research shows that smiling has many beneficial physiological effects. It lowers blood pressure, enhances the immune system, and releases natural painkillers (endorphins) and a natural antidepressant (serotonin). People who smile in a wholehearted way live, on average, seven years longer than those who do not have a habit of smiling. Smiling also makes people more likely to see you as more attractive, more successful, younger, and as someone they like.
DEEPER LESSONS
Smiles are contagious. Often people who emerge from retreats are puzzled to find other people smiling at them, even strangers they encounter on the street or in a grocery store. Then they realize that their inner relaxed state has emerged as an