03 Aug Helping Mental Wellbeing With The Inner Smile
2 Aug 2021
How the inner smile is good for your health & mental wellbeing!
The smile is one of the most powerful energies of personal power. The true inner smile is the smile of total happiness and mental wellbeing. It is not a social smile, but one that rises from deep within the cells and organs of the body.
According to certain Daoist self-cultivation masters, it is said that when you smile, your organs release beneficial secretions, which nourish the whole body and can make a difference to your mental wellbeing.
That basically means that smiling is great for your health!
These masters also teach that when you are angry, fearful or under stress, or have other negative emotional states, the organs produce detrimental secretions which block up energy channels and bring negative emotions that can affect digestion, heart rate or other essential functions of the body.
The inner smile practice relaxes and creates a sense of total wellbeing, can assist the breathing to flow without effort, and helps the body to feel radiant and safe.
There are a number of Daoist masters who have taught the inner smile practice, and there are different teachings, and methods.
Here is how you can practice your inner smile:
1. The foundation part of the practice is to smile, usually remembering a very pleasant moment or experience in your life.
2. Feel the smile and the energy of that smile in your face, and let that feeling build.
3. Now connect that feeling to other areas of the body that you wish to address, and let that smiling feeling permeate that area.
The whole practice can go as long as you like, but at least 5 minutes is a great start to start seeing the benefits for your health and mental wellbeing during lockdown. Finish the practice by breathing and smiling into your lower abdomen (between the belly button and pubic bone) for a few minutes.
Some suggestions of where to connect the “smiling energy” to are listed below, and we suggest checking out anatomical charts online to get an idea of where in the body these organs and structures are, as our anatomical chart is quite basic (but still helpful).
- The spine – the centre of the neurological communication.
- Endocrine Glands – pineal, pituitary, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, adrenal, testes/ovaries
- Reproductive Organs
- Muscles
- Bones
- Each and every cell of the body
4. Always finish the practice by breathing and smiling into your lower abdomen (between the belly button and pubic bone) for a few minutes.
A basic 5 element practice to balance the organs in the correct flow sequence of the generative (Sheng) cycle of oriental medicine:
First, generate your smile using the foundation practice listed above, then:
- Smile to the Liver and let it become soft and tender.
- Smile into the Heart and feel it open and relax.
- Smile into the Pancreas, Stomach and Spleen and let them feel warm and strong
- Smile into the Lungs and allow them to breathe with ease and comfort
- Smile to the Kidney/Adrenals and let them feel warm and powerful
- Finish the practice by breathing and smiling into your lower abdomen (between the belly button and pubic bone) for a few minutes.
You can connect to your inner smile at any time and any place. The best part about it is that you can even do it from the comfort of your own home to help combat those lockdown blues!
This blog is written by our Acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine practitioner Peter Scarselletti.
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