Inner Smile Meditation — Adapted from Jennifer Reis Yoga.

Your inner smile is glowing golden inside of you all the time! All you have to do is become AWARE of it, and a beautiful thing happens — you begin to sense how it fills you with joy, awakens positive qualities, and radiates your shining light. 

You may like to hold Hansi Mudra while you practice this meditation. Find a comfortable way to sit with your spine lengthened for five or more minutes. 

• Begin to sense your breath without needing to change it in any way.
• Feel a few natural breaths in your belly. Notice a few breaths in your chest and heart-space.
• Become aware of your breath already moving and flowing through your whole body.
• Now imagine an inner smile in your belly. With each breath feel your inner belly smile expanding and alive within you.
• Become aware of the inner smile in your heart-space. Notice your breath expanding the smile in your heart, awakening compassionate love.
• Feel the inner smile within every cell of your whole being. Trillions of inner smiles glowing golden in synchrony with each other. Like you are a tuning fork harmonized with the Divine – joy, shining light, and every positive quality – fills and radiates through you.
• With a few quiet breaths, send your inner smile out to someone you love. Send your inner smile out to someone you are having a difficult time with. Send your inner smile to all beings.
• Stay here for as long as you like. Keep this feeling of joy as long as you can, even when you gently begin to deepen your breath, softly open your eyes, and move into what comes next.

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What makes you smile, brings you joy and laughter, ignites your spirit, and gives you the goosebumps? I love an article written by Rebecca Lammersen, entitled, 101 Ways To Get The Goosebumps. She states, “I gage a good day by the number of times I get the goosebumps. Why? Because it is a sign I am listening to my spirit, being guided by her. Goosebumps are the smile of our spirits — we can never smile enough.” So, throughout classes this week I will share with you her 101 ways to get the ✨ goosies! ✨

Listen to a song you love and sing along.
Watch a movie that moves you.
Pay attention to the animals, to the trees, to the birds. Talk to them.
Hug someone you know and love.
Hug someone you don’t know and feel the love.
Go to a park and watch children play.
Listen to what children have to say.
Play with a child.
Play like a child.
Roll down the windows of your car, stick your hand out and waltz with the wind.
Turn up the music in your car and sing as loud as you can.
Sing in the shower.
Make eye contact with everyone you pass. You never know when your eyes will meet a connection.
Sit still and observe. You will see an interaction that makes you break out in the bumps.
Recall your favorite memory and tell someone about it.
Dance.
Have someone you trust tickle your back or your arm.
Hold hands.
Slide down a slide.
Hang upside down on the monkey bars.
Swing on a swing.
Lay in a hammock.
Drink lemonade with a straw.
Have a lollipop.
Eat food that reminds you of your childhood.
Watch Lady and the Tramp.
Watch The Wizard of Oz.
Listen to John Lennon’s Imagine.
Listen to Somewhere Over The Rainbow (any version).
Listen to Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World.
Kiss.
Give away something you love to a stranger.
Buy a meal for a person who is homeless.
Give your time and attention to someone who needs to be heard.
Scream.
Cry.
Pick flowers and smell them.
Buy someone flowers and surprise them.
Buy yourself flowers.
Say I love you at least three times a day.
Look yourself in the mirror and say, I love you.
Call you mother, your father, your siblings, your friends to tell them: I love you.
Smile at someone, smile at everyone.
Go to the beach.
Get your feet wet, at least.
Read the obituaries.
Listen to music from around the world, especially the songs with children singing.
Say the Pledge of Allegiance or any pledge or song of loyalty.
Have a conversation with God.
If you don’t believe in God, talk with the sun.
If you can’t see the sun, talk with yourself.
Take the trip you have always wanted to take.
Take a sick day from work or school and go to the pool, to the movies or to the zoo.
Go to a cemetery and read the headstones.
Go to a maternity ward and sit in the waiting room.
Have a conversation with a senior citizen.
Have a conversation with someone who is sick.
Have a conversation with someone who is no longer sick.
Go to Toys R’ Us and walk the aisles and play with the toys.
If you’ve wanted to ask someone to marry you, ask them.
Say yes.
Say no when you really want to say no.
Stay up all night just to stare at the stars and watch the sun rise.
Do a cartwheel.
Go to a race and stand at the finish line.
Cheer for someone.
Clap your hands and go anywhere there will be a standing ovation.
Go to Disneyland.
Read.
Read poetry.
Read The Diary of Anne Frank.
Read any book about bravery, injustice, courage and resilience.
Keep a journal and read it back to yourself.
Look at pictures of your family and your life.
Go for a walk and take each step like it is your last.
Suck on a lemon–it will remind you of your taste buds.
Go for a drive, just to drive.
Pet a dog or a cat (if you aren’t allergic and don’t hate them).
Go to Sea World and watch the Shamu show.
Skinny dip.
Go to a major league baseball game.
Visit the Grand Canyon.
Water ski.
Surf, even if it’s body surfing–catch a wave.
Story-tell.
Watch someone give birth.
Give birth.
Hold a baby.
Go to funerals.
Go to weddings.
Go to any function that celebrates a beginning and an end.
Have an orgasm.
Hold the door for someone.
Read the inspirational emails your mother sends you (sometimes they really are inspirational).
Stand in the rain and don’t move until you begin to shake.
Go to concerts–any type of music. Listen and watch.
Take a hike and sit at the top of the mountain.
Ask people to share their love stories.
Fall in love.
Write a letter to someone you love and read it to them even if they are no longer alive, especially if they are no longer alive.
Speak the truth. The goosebumps will always follow.

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Ecstasy Lives by Danna Faulds

Ecstasy exists. It lives in
random acts of love, bird
seed scattered on cold days,
back rubs, words of praise
or admiration. It lives within
the spontaneous admission
of defeat when things don’t
go as planned. Ecstasy lies
dormant, ready to burst forth
when a whitetail deer leaps
across the road, or a slice of
waning moon hangs jewel-like
in the night. It’s easy to miss,
simpler to point toward
suffering and shrug, choose
not to hear that first ecstatic
call of a mourning dove
welcoming the sunrise.

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What makes you smile, brings you joy and laughter, ignites your spirit, and gives you the goosies? Make these a priority and create a personal intention around these ideas.

❦ An inner smile radiates throughout my being, awakening all my positive qualities.

❦ Today I choose to live with gratitude for the LOVE that fills my heart, the PEACE that rests within my spirit, and the voice of HOPE that says all things are possible.

❦ Look through the lens of LOVE & POSSIBILITY! ❤️ What’s the best that can and will happen? 🙏🏻 “For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment.” – Luke‬ ‭1:37‬ ‭AMPC

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