Happy Smile Day! Did you know that smiling not only makes others feel better, but you yourself too? I’m Hannah Telluselle and this is The Source Podcast, your source of inspiration and good things. Today, we’re focusing on smiling and how important that is.
Imagine, if you were forced to keep your mouth shut and never be able to smile. This is in fact, what I had to endure for almost three years in Sweden, when my teeth broke down and before I could have them surgically removed and replaced with dental implants. For sure, I was not a pretty sight, and I felt both ugly and stifled. Of course, it was even worse to not be able to eat properly, but nonetheless being able to smile as a token of love, of appreciation, of joy, should be a human right of its own.
In another way, I haven’t always liked smiling at myself in the mirror in my younger years either, but that was due to overall not feeling at home in my body and constantly aware of my looks, especially when dancing, which made me a little insecure. This all changed, when I became an exchange student at Ticonderoga High School for the senior year. I participated in many activities, including performed in the Ticonderoga Junior Miss Pageant both in a gown and dancing solo as my talent. Here, I learned that it was important to smile on stage and to use Vaseline on our teeth to not get our lips stuck. It’s true! And somehow, it made me feel like I looked a little bit better too. I became the 2nd runner up and received an award together with some local fame. I loved it!
Dancing jazz and modern, including Isadora Duncan, otherwise require us to keep our mouth shuts when we perform, to let our bodies do the talking and often set to music with sometimes a bit somber mood.
Dancing Hawaiian Hula is a whole different story. In Hula, our facial expressions are part of what we can be judged on and is an important part of how the dance is used to tell a story together with the music or the chant.
I’ve always been told that my face is like an open book and I show my emotions very easily. I’ve practiced this at an early age, when I took drama classes and we sometimes did pantomime and improvisations.
In Qigong, there’s something called an inner smile. We offer ourselves this inner smile when we do our motions to greet our organs with appreciation and self-love, which helps us balance and heal from stress. We can also do this when we meditate, to relax and find inner peace. When we do, we naturally smile!
And of course, whenever we greet others, it’s much nicer to offer a genuine smile to improve the mood for both the other and ourselves. It’s been scientifically proven that a smile enables our brains to release happy hormones. So, while we often smile when we feel happy, we also become happier by smiling!
In Hawaii, a smile is natural to attach to the Aloha-greeting, often together with a shaka-sign. Do you smile when you say hello to someone? And do you smile towards yourself in the mirror?
One of the most famous self-help authors Louise Hay, invented something she referred to as mirrorwork. This is done by looking yourself in the eyes in a mirror, especially in the morning before you set out to go to work, and express love and appreciation for yourself. Look at your body and learn to accept it, while you still might want to improve something. It’s very profound to be able to say I love you to yourself and really mean it. But it takes some practice!
Similarly to this exercise, is cultivating an awareness and capability to embrace and be able to laugh at your own mistakes, just as you can laugh at situations and what others have said or done in your own solitude. This releases stress and enables us to relax more. It also makes it much easier to meet hardships in life, when we remember to acknowledge both our own shortcomings and the shortcomings of others often taking themselves too seriously. It can be a way to detach from drama.
Embodying radical acceptance and learning to express and feel self-love, enables our bodies to heal and to reach a higher vibration that naturally raises our ability to attract and sustain more loving relationships. Love creates harmony, when it’s genuine.
So, whether it’s to yourself, to your loved ones, to your boss or simply to your neighbors and your fellow commuters, smile today. See how better you feel and how many smiles you get in return!
The next episode of The Source Podcast is published on October 10th, to honor World Mental Health Day. Tune in on October the 10th, to think about what you’re thinking about.
To listen to this blogpost as a podcast, find The Source Podcast on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.
