Spread love - smile with your heart

Spread love – smile with your heart

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Our mind and our body are not separate entities! The more we embody feelings of love, joy and compassion, the less we will struggle with the inevitable ups and downs of life we’re facing. The more we are detached from feelings of hatred, aversion and greed the freer we become.

Spread love - smile with your heart
“Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you’ll start to see a big difference in your life.” – Yoko Ono

Western medicine slowly starts to acknowledge the effect the psyche has on the soma (body), but specialists still treat either psychological or physical disorders.

Harnessing the mutual influence of our minds and our body, learning to feel our feelings, articulate them and use them is an art that should be taught at school in my humble opinion. Training one’s empathy should be mandatory along with communication skills and other aspect of emotional intelligence.

I still nurture hope that our societies will evolve in a way that will allow this. Our educational system insists very much on knowledge that can be measured and reproduced ‚objectively‘. Facts that can be memorized, compared and sometimes applied in real life, too.

Just feel, but watch your thoughts

I strongly believe that if we learn to be well here and now, if we master the art of happiness in the present moment, everything else will ‚fall into place‘. Outer success follows happiness and not the other way around.

Learn to embrace your feelings, the ‚negative‘ and the ‚positive‘, learn to watch and master your thoughts. (see post Spread Love – trust life)

In one of the upcoming posts we’ll discuss how you can actively overcome the negativity bias that keeps us trapped in a way of focusing on what is wrong and what should change.

Your turn now

We take the smiling exercise a step further:

  • Make sure your body posture is relaxed
  • You close your eyes
  • Smile with your face (mouth and eyes!)
  • Think a thought that reinforces the emerging state of happiness inside you
  • Now you focus on your heart.
  • Embody the smile and happy feeling further
  • Try to smile with your heart*

* I learned about the concept of ‘smiling with the heart’ while reading the a book about the Tao of Love. It’s an attitude of benevolent care and kindness toward oneself whit the aim to suffuse every cell of our body.

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PS: this post is part of a 30 day blogging challenge.

 

Photo: Wikimedia commons, Jopparn

 

 

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Comments

12 responses to “Spread love – smile with your heart”

  1. Nicky Claydon avatar

    Great tips here Patricia. One of my favourite things is smiling. “Smile and the whole world smiles with you” as the old quote goes. 🙂

    1. Patricia Mauerhofer avatar

      I Love that quote Nicky, it wasn’t familiar to me. Smiling is great, and the healing power of laughing is scientifically proven, too.

  2. Nasilele avatar

    I always enjoy reading your posts as they are so uplifting and usefull in my daily life. Thank you so much.

    1. Patricia Mauerhofer avatar

      Thank you so much for your feedback Nasilele. What I write comes from my heart and I’m happy you can apply some of it in your life.

  3. Judy avatar

    Great practice, thanks. Yesterday I spent the day with my 13 month old granddaughter who is full of smiles and curiosity about everything. The memory of her smile as she discovered that the cats water bowl could be dabbled in will be a good image to put into this practice.

    1. Patricia Mauerhofer avatar

      Yes Judy, toddlers are great sources of joy and inspiration. It even seems that their anatomy triggers something in us that makes us wanting to protect them. And the smile of a child always goes straight to the heart.

  4. Jenny Andersson avatar

    Another lovely exercise Patricia. I shall incorporate this one into my daily meditation 🙂

  5. Patricia Mauerhofer avatar

    What an honour Jenny, I bet you know that you’re shining when you smile with the heart. Sending you my love, Patricia

  6. Rosanne avatar

    Great thoughts here Patricia,

    People just don’t seem to smile as much any more, always in a hurry and thinking of other things.
    Have you noticed the reaction when you smile at a stranger? They are amazed but then usually slow down and smile back. try smiling at 2 or 3 strangers on your way to work I guarantee it will set you up for the day.

    A smile is worth a thousand words.

    1. Patricia Mauerhofer avatar

      Yes I’ve tried to smile at strangers, but haven’t done it consciously as you suggest several times a day lately. Will do it even more next week, lovely to remind me Rosanne.

  7. Amy avatar

    I love the idea of smiling with your heart – I’m going to keep trying that one. My daughter is my biggest source of smiles. I’m pretty sure she makes me smile with my heart without even trying! I also love the idea that ” if we learn to be well here and now, if we master the art of happiness in the present moment, everything else will ‚fall into place” sounds perfect and I think I believe that too…

    1. Patricia Mauerhofer avatar

      Thank you so much for your comment Amy. I’m sure you’re right about your daughter – check out today’s post about how we all ‘radiate love’. Being present is very calming and powerful and so are your thoughts and believes.

      With love, Patricia

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