Healing Power of a Smile

Have you ever walked down the street grumbling or worrying about

things you have to do, your relationships, your job, your whole life?

When you glance up someone smiles at you, and before you know

it you’re smiling back. In only a split-second you’ve dropped your

troubles, you stand up a little straighter, and walk on knowing everything

is going to be okay. A genuine smile has tremendous power.

When you smile at someone it makes them feel good about

themselves. When you smile at your plants they feel your loving

energy and they grow. When you go home, pat your dog on the

head and smile at him, your dog will wag his tail to show you he’s

happy. But if you go home, yell at him and kick him, he’ll cower,

growl, or bite. If you scream at your loved ones they’ll feel defensive

and unloved.

A true smile is a sign of love, a transmitter of energy which has

a warming, healing effect. It is a vehicle for music. A person who

does not smile is like a guitar which is not played: the guitar sits in

the corner, begins to warp, it’s strings stretch out, and gradually

the guitar cracks and decays. The non-smiler, likewise, does not

develop his ability to give and receive love. His dark countenance

and serious approach to life is often coupled with ulcers and other

medical disorders as his life slowly crumbles for lack of care and

love.

On the other hand, the guitar that is polished and played has its

strings changed regularly, the bow adjusted and is kept safely in a

case. A well-loved and tended guitar brings life and light to the

musician, and often outlives its owner. The smiler, too, brings joy

to people’s lives, and leads a happy healthy life that may be soundly

remembered long after his or her physical passing away.

Unfortunately, while we all recognize the difference between

cheery people and glum people, and while we associate happiness

with health, and sadness with sickness, we still do not acknowledge

the power of smiling or understand its full potential. In

short, we don’t take smiling to our organs and nervous system

seriously.

Why, for instance, if a smile is associated with health, aren’t

there doctors who specialize in smiling? If Saturday Review editor,

Norman Cousins, used old Marx Brothers films to laugh away his

rare connective disease, then why can’t doctors and nurses use smiling energy to help heal their patients? Perhaps our hospitals

should hire clowns and jesters to make their patients smile. More

important, why hasn’t smiling been used as preventive medicine?

In smiling at our friends, families and loved ones, why have we not

learned to smile to ourselves?

In ancient China, the Taoists taught that a constant inner smile,

a smile to oneself, insured health, happiness, and longevity. Why?

Smiling to yourself is like basking in love: you become your own

best friend. Living with an inner smile is to live in harmony with

yourself.

One look at our western society shows that we do not know the

secret of smiling. The lack of harmony within ourselves is tragically

apparent. We are plagued with an increase in physical and

emotional illness that ranges from cancer to anorexia nervousa.

Our loves are always shadowed by a world filled with violence and

self-destruction. Both the individual and the collective society are

threatened by rampant drug abuse and nuclear waste. Somehow,

somewhere, we’ve lost sight of the Tao. We’ve broken the natural

flow of life, and with it the power to heal ourselves.