A Mindful Smile

Our brain is wired with neurons which lead to action potentials, like a highway. You get on the onramp or the thought and the highway takes you to the destination or the action. So to say the least every time you experience something there are neurons being fired rapidly through your body. I read that "Smiling releases endorphins and make you feel better, even if it is faked." Action potentials sent to make yourself smile are sending back other action potentials to make yourself feel better. So I tried it. I had a pretty rough day this past weekend and I thought to myself, it is worth a shot.

What I thought would just be a silly game, turned into a mindful exercise of being aware of happiness through a smile. I forced myself to smile from my house all the way to work, about a 20 mile drive and with traffic about 40 minutes. It worked! It definitely made me feel so much better. I started to just focus on what was current, where I was right now. I was aware of the muscles in my mouth stretched far across my face, and that they were getting tired, but I pushed through it. I even noticed my eyes start to droop from being over this ridiculous exercise. My famous lazy eye was in full effect. I was tired of smiling, and I pushed through.  I wanted to feel better. And as I started to feel better, I started to laugh. I kept thinking how silly this must look to other drivers, and yet I just focused on smiling and keeping my teeth showing. I was putting on the biggest cheese I probably have ever done. Being so mindfully aware of just smiling really took me out of the funk I was allowing myself to be swallowed in and placed me in a new state of mind. A state of mindfulness.

When at first you do not succeed SMILE, SMILE, SMILE! 

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