Often life is fraught with both exhilaration and exhaustion. It is essential to maintain balance as you navigate daily obligations—some enjoyable, some not—with time to rest and recharge.
A Taoist technique I often use—to bring myself back into the present moment, and to provide a burst of positive energy—is the Inner Smile meditation.
What is Inner Smile Meditation?
Early Taoist texts mention the value of maintaining a constant inner smile, which ensured happiness, health, and longevity.
Smiling to and for yourself is like basking in love. You become your own best friend. Finding peace within yourself allows you to feel settled, grounded, and stable, no matter what’s going on around you. Being in harmony with yourself cultivates contentment.
Are you inspired to smile right now?
In the Taoist tradition, internal organs have a relationship to positive and negative emotions.
Therefore, a key to consistent and unshakable health and contentment is learning about and noticing the emotional energy that corresponds with organs.
Strive to return to the virtues that Taoists believe we’re born with—kindness, loyalty, respect, honesty, fairness, and justice.
Unfortunately, as we age and encounter stress in our daily lives, negative emotions—such as fear, worry, impatience, anger, sadness, and grief—increase, and when these negative emotions have free rein, our health and vital life-force (qi) decrease.
Simple practices, such as the Inner Smile meditation, help us maintain long-term health and wellness. Use it and transform negative energies into positive ones.
Here’s how to practice the Inner Smile Meditation
1. Sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor. Close your eyes and feel your connection to the earth through your feet.
2. Imagine a smiling face in front of you—it could be your own face or that of a loved one.
3. Draw the smile and the joyful energy it portrays into your forehead. Let your forehead relax. Let your body relax. Let the joyous and warm essence from this smile begin to cascade through your entire body.
4. Imagine this warm, smiling energy spreading throughout your entire body. It touches and comforts your internal organs. Take your time visualizing each organ being soothed by this smiling, warm energy.
5. After you have spent time smiling into and comforting each of your major organs, notice the sensations in your body. Perhaps you feel energized, content, warm.
6. Continue visualizing the essence of that smile within your body. Once again, let it flow over and through our organs.
7. Anchor this feeling of peace and contentment into your body, and place your hands over your heart. Take several deep breaths and simply relax. Release any visualizations, or thoughts, and be.
Take this smiling energy with you throughout your day.
Notice if you can maintain your internal awareness and calm as stress and anxiety arise.
If you enjoy guided meditation, try this recording I created for the Inner Smile Meditation.
If you find yourself sliding into a negative mindset, imagine the smiling energy in front of you again, draw more of that energy into your body 🙂
If you’d like to create a regular Taoist meditation practice, join me online from the comfort of your home every Monday morning from 7:15 – 7:45 PT for a free 30-minute online Compassion Meditation & Qigong Practice group. We begin with standing qigong and end with a seated mudra meditation.
Or to really deepen your practice and learn how to integrate it into everyday life, join me for an International Spiritual Tour where we’ll spend 10-14 days practicing embodied mindfulness and compassion meditation, or sign up for a Cultivating Mindful Compassion course or Yi Jin Jing for Vitality.
Lastly, If I can be of any help or answer any questions, or if you’d simply like to discuss what program is the best fit for you, contact me to schedule a time to chat.
