The Inner Smile

Close your eyes. Breathe gently into your abdomen. Imagine that you are with someone you love, or in a beautiful place in which you feel peace and joy. Picture yourself smiling, lift up the corners of your mouth, and feel the smiling energy in your eyes, too. Allow this energy to begin to soak into your body through a point between your eyebrows or on the top of your head. (You can also imagine the smile flowing into your heart, if you prefer that.)  Feel the energy flow like a waterfall down your face, into your eyes, relaxing your jaw and face muscles. Everywhere the smile touches, you feel more relaxed and rejuvenated, more alive.

Let the smiling energy flow into your throat and neck now, moving into and filling your heart. As your heart fills with the loving smile, thank your heart for working day and night to pump your blood, carrying nutrients and sweeping away waste from every tissue, organ, gland and cell. Smile into your heart until your heart smiles back at you.

Now let the smile spread out to both sides of your lungs. Thank your lungs for supplying life-giving air to all the parts of your body. Let the smile fill your entire lungs all the way up to and above your collarbones.

Now, gently flowing down your body like a warm and soothing waterfall, smile into your liver, kidneys, spleen, intestines, bladder, genitals, spine, muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, nerves, lymphatic system, skin, fatty tissue, hair, nails, and every cell. Smile into all these areas until they smile back at you. And thank them for the tireless work they do to keep you alive and thriving. Enjoy the relaxed, tingling, alive, and beautiful feeling that you now feel from being touched by the smile, your smile.

When you have filled yourself and absorbed all the goodness from your smile, bring your attention to your navel. Imagine that you have a ball or a treasure chest directly behind your belly button. Allow the excess bounty of the smiling energy to collect inside that place.

End your inner smile session by imagining a spiral at your navel, first in one direction then the other, to lock the bounty away until you need it. If you start to feel run down during the day, bring your attention to the magic ball or treasure chest just inside your body behind your navel and draw out some smiling treasure to restore your health and vitality.

You can take 20 minutes or just a few seconds to enjoy the benefits of the inner smile. Just pause for a moment and lift up the corners of your mouth with a smile and feel your eyes smiling, too. Let that smile wash over your entire body, mind and soul. Inhale and feel it being absorbed into all of your tissues. It's as simple as that...