Smile, and know you’re smiling

I’ve been guiding the “inner smile” practice a lot in the last few months, both in yoga classes and in guided meditations.

It’s an easy practice to turn to many times each day.

How do you do it?

1. Turn up the corners of your mouth

2. Let yourself feel the smile and how it resonates through your body and mind

3. Enjoy

I picked it up from Vietnamese meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh, who taught a lot about smiling.

He said, among other things: “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

The instruction to “Smile, and know you’re smiling,” is a mash up with Joseph Goldstein’s sublime meditation instruction to “Sit, and know you are sitting.”

KNOWING is the quality that makes anything we do a part of the path.

Breath and know breathing, walk and know walking, eat and know eating and so on.

Yoga and meditation are gateways to living with greater ease and to waking up to living fully.

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