“. . . He suggests bringing a slight but real smile to our lips many times throughout the day, whether we are meditating or simply stopping for a red light.  The power of a smile to open and relax us is confirmed by modern science.  The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight, fight, or freeze response.  A smile is the yes of unconditional friendliness that welcomes experience without fear.”  (p.84 Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, PhD)

I came across this while flipping through Tara Brach’s most excellent book “Radical Acceptance” and at first I was skeptical.  Really, just paint a smile on my face and this is going to help how?  But I was feeling kind of desperate because once again all of my tricks to lift myself up out of my gloom into the light of joy and gratitude were failing miserably.  And I really don’t like to be depressed all the time.  That’s a hard thing for people who are naturally prone to joy to understand.  We depressed ones don’t actually like feeling this way.  We want a way out of the dark funk and it’s not always easy to find.

So anyway, I start paying attention to how everyone has a grumpy look on their face when they are in their car driving – including me.  And I decide what the heck, I’m going to start smiling in the car.  So I do and this is what I have discovered:

• my smile muscles are very weak (this is noted by the spastic twitching after just a few minutes of smiling)
• I like the look of my face better when I am smiling
• there is a self destructive diatribe that goes on in my head while I am in the car driving AND smiling actually cuts it off…it is very difficult to continue down the dark mental path while I am smiling
• when I see myself smiling, it makes me want to keep smiling

I am still working with this “smile yoga” thing. I highly recommend it.  It’s free, it’s scientifically proven to be effective, it’s easy, and can be practiced anywhere for any amount of time.

Here’s smiling at you!

(ps – find me on Facebook to see a list by Mark Stibich, PhD on the top ten reasons to smile.  He has a PhD so you know it’s reliable)

“My beloved child,

break your heart no longer.

Each time you judge yourself you break your own heart.

You stop feeding on the love which is the wellspring of your vitality.

The time has come, your time

To live, to celebrate, and to see the goodness that you are…

Let no one, no thing, no idea or ideal obstruct you

If one comes, even in the name of “Truth”, forgive it for its

unknowing

Do not fight

Let go

And breathe – into the goodness that you are.”

-Bapuji poem copied from Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.  We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved.  They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again.  It’s just like that.  The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen….”

Pema Chodron

“In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.”  – Albert Clarke

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some momentary awareness

comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all! . . .

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

RUMI

- (I copied this poem from Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance (p.73).  She notes the source as The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks.) -

“A Taste of Mindfulness”

“Have you ever had the experience of stopping so completely, of being in your body so completely, of being in your life so completely – that what you knew and what you didn’t know – that what had been and what was yet to come, and the way things are right now,

no longer held even the slightest hint of anxiety or discord?

A moment of complete presence beyond striving, beyond mere acceptance, beyond the desire to escape or fix anything or plunge ahead? A moment of pure being no longer in time – a moment of pure seeing, pure feeling. A moment in which life simply is. And that ‘is-ness’ grabs you by all your senses, all your memories, by your very genes, by your loves, and welcomes you home.

That is a taste of mindfulness.”

- Jon Kabat Zinn

Lama Gendun Rinpoche writes:

Happiness cannot be found through great effort and will power,

But is already there, in relaxation and letting-go.

Don’t strain yourself, there is nothing to do. . .

Only our search for happiness prevents us from seeing it. . .

Don’t believe in the reality of good and bad experiences;

They are like rainbows.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable, you exhaust yourself in vain.

As soon as you relax this grasping, space is there

open, inviting, and comfortable.

So, make use of it.  All is yours already.

Don’t search any further . .

Nothing to do.

Nothing to force,

Nothing to want,

and everything happens by itself.

I am simply masterful at turning little everyday things into some kind of self-aggression.  For example, I ate plain vanilla yogurt with homemade granola for my lunch which sounds healthy and like a good choice. . . but it is a BAD choice because there is no plant food in that lunch.  I should be eating a more plant based diet.  A colorful salad. Everybody knows that and probably every ‘good’ person is doing it.  I took my dogs for a nice long 45-50 minute walk in the afternoon which sounds great and healthy and good for both me and the dogs, right?  Wrong.  This is BAD because it should be the second walk of the day not the first and only walk of the day.  I am also quite sure that I could have been walking faster. . . You get the idea.  This can go on in my head all. day. long.

Pema Chodron assures me that seeing my ‘shenpa’ diminishes its power.  Jon Kabat-Zinn tells us “simply bearing witness changes everything.”  So, I keep watching and seeing and noticing.  I am getting better at laughing at my shenpa (and if you are a Harry Potter fan laughing at shenpa is like the riddikulus curse for a boggart). Pema says “Life is a good teacher and a good friend.”

May all sentient beings see and be liberated from their shenpa.