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Friday, April 13, 2012

My Smiley Face

Several years ago, when we started noticing the wrinkles that come with age, my girlfriend said to me, you know what, the only wrinkles I really don’t care about are the smile wrinkles on the side of my lips, they just prove to me how happy I am.
We feel sooo good when we smile… we all have these moments of smiling for no reason. Magical moments. Its not a secret that smiling has a very good affect on us and there is plenty of research to prove to us (as if we really need proof) that smiley people have more fun, are more successful, more loved…
I always wanted to be one of those smiley people but I was very careful with my smiles and kept them only for my friends. As if there were a limited amount of smiles, or as if there was someone who didn’t deserve me smiling at them, or situations where I am not allowed to smile. If I had kept up with my frown faces, I might have developed the wrong kind of wrinkles…
I finally learned to smile when I started practicing yoga. Miri Harouvi, my amazing yoga teacher in tel aviv, emphasizes the smile in every practice. Every single practice and who ever practiced with me knows how much I am strict with it :)
A little smile, maybe even un-seen from the outside.
The practice itself takes allot of effort and when we smile we calm ourselves down and the practice becomes easier.
Smiling also helps to calm down the battles in our minds during the practice; to practice or not to practice to give up or keep on going and when we simply smile we get a few moments of silence and then we can keep on practicing.
The smile has a sense of self acceptance; as if I am telling myself it is ok to think these thoughts and it's ok that i cannot reach with both of my feet behind my head at the same time and then balance on the palm of my hands.
Our mind act like a small child and when we smile at it and tell him it's ok to behave like this, it softens up and usually stops interfering.
So why does this makes us happier?
What is your definition of happiness? When you think of yourself as happy, what does that mean?
To me it always means feeling good. Feeling good, being happy and healthy and vital, and when I am all that, I always smile. So in my picture of myself happy, I am smiling. It's not always a huge smile that spreads from one ear to the other, sometimes it's a much more gentle smile, like the one I am smiling right now as I am sitting here and writing to you, imagining you smiling too.
I simply found out for myself what it is that makes me smile, like hanging out with my friends which I love, or playing with the cat, which I make sure I do every day.
Smiling is something I had to work on, it didn’t come naturally to me. And because it's such a significant element in my yoga practice, it has become a regular thing for me. The beauty of it is, that through yoga I have learned to smile in postures that I love and which are easy for me to do and in postures that I love less and that are very challenging for me. I smile on the days when I enjoy my practice so very much and on the days when I feel like I only practice for the sake of the practicing.
And then all I have done is take it off the yoga mat and I began to smile to the people I love and to the people I love less. I smile when it all comes together just right and when something is stuck and hindering me or not working for me.
The more i smiled the more i was smiling. As I smile to the people around me I get smiles back and then I smile even more. Until the unbelievable happened for me and people have started knowing me as smiley. True, it was in Thailand, where there are no worries and it's all fun and freedom and ocean and sunshine and butterflies. But there are still people on the beach who are not smiling much and I discovered how much I love it. How much I love being smiley with a smiley face, spreading around smiles as if there is no tomorrow.
There is no doubt smiling has increased the level of my happiness quite a few notches and the level of my happiness has increased the amount of my smiles. And nowadays I live with the biggest smiley face you could ever meet :)
Let me suggest to you an idea,
Add a new smile to your daily routine.
For instance, whenever I answer my cellphone, I first smile a big smile and then press the receive button, or whenever I look at the mirror I smile to myself.
And remind yourself to smile in these situations that you picked out so you will not forget, until they become a habit.
Write yourself a note on the mirror or stick a smiley sticker on your cellphone, whatever works, so that even if you had a shitty day, at least you have smiled one big smile and it will for sure bring you some more smiles.

Sending you big smiles,
Love Miri



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