INTERNAL SMILE = ETERNAL SMILE

“Want to do the advanced version of this (yoga) pose?

Smile.”

— Mary Bruce, yoga teacher extraordinaire

Look at that smile!

Each year, Jamie and I gather with one of our tribes for a few days of fellowship, learning, and rejuvenation. We belong to the BK Authors Cooperative, which hosts an annual retreat packed with rich conversation, singing, idea sharing, hugs, and a whole lot of fun. I’m still blissed out after our time with these folks last weekend in Minneapolis.

Each year, we deepen relationships and discover new friends. We fall a little more in love. And this year, among the gifts I came away with was a renewed appreciation for the power of the smile.

For whatever reason, I especially noticed the people who always seem to have, as Thich Nhat Hanh describes it, “a tiny bud of a smile.”  It’s not like they walked around grinning all the time or only lit up when they passed by. As Isaac Barrow says, they looked to be “smiling always with a never fading serenity of countenance.”  Their expressions were pleasant, curious, happy — and I know from conversations that their lives have been as complex as anyone’s, with pain, rejection and feelings of being overwhelmed.

This “natural smile” is something I notice in other people, too, even passing strangers. In particular, I notice how I feel when I see them. Spirit lifted, always lighter.

One of the privileges I have at this retreat is teaching an early morning yoga class. Last year, as people’s thighs were quivering in chair pose, I stole the quote above that my teacher, Mary Bruce, frequently uses.  I’ve probably heard her say it hundreds of times over the years.  It always elicits a smile and just like that, I feel lighter in the pose. At the authors retreat this year, one of the yoga regulars told me that quote had stayed with her all year. She shared it with her yoga teachers at almost every class she had taken.

In his beautiful book Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hahn writes, “If in our daily lives we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit.” That tiny bud of a smile “nourishes awareness and calms us miraculously.”  

Scientific research underscores Thich Nhat Hanh’s premise, revealing the power of the smile on human happiness and well-being. One of the most significant studies, done by Robert Zajonc, centered on the physiological expression of a smile — without attached emotion. He had people repeat vowel sounds that forced their mouths into various expressions. The long “e” sound stretches the corners of the mouth outward and the “u” sound forces a kind of pout. Zajonc’s published study reported that subjects reported feeling good after making the long “e” sound and bad after making a long “u.” The study is among many that reveals the cause-and-effect of stretching your lips into a smile and the power that has to change mood and outlook.

I want to cultivate that constant  “tiny bud” that naturally blooms into contentment. So I’m going to try a science experiment of my own. I am going to try and hold the long “e” vowel sound in my mind.

Maybe you want to try, too. Maybe if we do it together, we can make the world just a little lighter by creating the smile eeeeeeeeternal. 

EASY LOVING

Who is easiest for you to love?

Erich Schiffmann, an internationally renowned master yoga teacher, posed the question during a weekend intensive I attended a few months ago. He quickly refined the question: It was not about who do you love the most. It is not for whom would you do anything. Nor for whom you would die protecting.

Who is easiest for you to love?

My mind immediately snapped to the obvious answers. Well, my family, of course! My husband, my children, my grandson. Without a doubt they are the ones I love the most. They occupy a vast and prominent landscape in my emotional territory. Their place in my heart is assured. And though I hope I’m never put to the test, I would do anything to protect them.

But... easiest to love? Honestly? Not always. Like most human relationships, my love for family is layered with expectations — mine and theirs. Though it is usually subtle and subconscious, I struggle when they don’t do what I want them to do, or see things in the way I think they should.  I judge. We argue. I expect them to be who I think they should be, and I get disappointed when they aren’t.

My love for my family is boundless. Our tethering and the profound connection we share is bedrock. No doubt about that.

But easiest to love?

Well, that would have to be Bodhi Qat.

Schiffmann describes love as the willingness to see and accept what is real in another. In other words,  truly loving someone means saying, “I see you. And I willingly choose to recognize and honor what is real and true about you.” With complete acceptance. Without expectations.

I see Bodhi. I never expect him to be anything but a cat.

When he begins to sharpen his claws on the chair in the second bedroom, I don’t explode in anger because he isn’t taking better care of the furniture. Why would I expect a cat to care about furniture? I direct him to his scratching post or trim his claws.

When he jumps on my head at 4:30 a.m. every morning, I don’t simmer with resentment because he won’t let me sleep. That’s the time he wakes up. He wants to eat, and that’s how he lets me know. Bodhi either gets fed, or I put him out and shut the door until I’m ready to feed him. Have I trained him to keep off the kitchen counters and dining room table? I have, while acknowledging that it's his nature to jump up there.

Never have I stewed over why Bodhi doesn’t sleep less and work more. When he bites my elbow while I’m trying to work, I don’t take it personally. I know he wants to play, and I throw him a toy mouse.  I never expect him to take my advice, follow my instructions, pay more attention to me, or help around the house. I never expect him to be anything but the feline creature he is.

Bodhi is easy to love because I see that a cat is all he can be.

Since that weekend, I’ve thought a lot about why it is so hard to truly see people in the same way I see Bodhi. Why do I let ego block my ability to see and recognize and honor what is real about people — the ones I hold most dear and those who pass fleetingly through my life? Why do I choose to cling to expectations and slog through a swamp of disappointment when they don’t get met? Why do I expect them to take care of the furniture, let me sleep, take my advice, and behave the way I think they should?  

Learning to love people in this way is a practice. Awareness is the first step. With intention, action, and practice, I hope some day to learn to see people as they are, not through the lens of my expectations. I want to love people easily,  like I love Bodhi. 

SEE THE LIGHT: WORK THE NAMASTE WAY

We often include a guided meditation in our workshops. One of our favorites has to do with labels. We ask people to imagine themselves covered with labels — some self-assigned, some bestowed by others — and read what they say: mother, student, husband, curious, smart, silly, rebel and so on.

Imagine the labels peeling from your body, we tell them. Watch them drifting into space and disappear. The labels no longer obscure you pure essence — a white light, pulsing with energy. Some call it the divine spark. We call it boundless potential.

We conclude this meditation with the word “Namaste.”

Namaste has worked its way into the vernacular as the popularity of yoga has grown. Nama means bow, as means I, and te means you. The literal translation is "bow me you" or "I bow to you."

The essence of namaste is this: “The light in me recognizes and honors the light in you and the divine light that unites us all.”

This sounds esoteric, but it’s really pragmatic, even in the workplace. Imagine your relationship to your work and the people you work with by taking this concept seriously. What would change if people put “namaste” into practical action in service of customers and coworkers? Consider ways you could live this out.

Honoring the light in yourself. You are worthy of the time and attention required to develop your potential and attend to your physical, mental and spiritual needs.

• Commit to a day of noticing your internal conversations. Jot notes as you can, and/or journal about it at the end of the day, to see what you discover. Do you need to change the conversation with yourself? Why? To what?

• List three to five core values that you want to be known for at work. Where did they come from? Why are they important? How do they influence your actions? What obstacles get in the way of you living them out?

Honoring the light in others.  People are not their labels, and they make decisions based on what makes sense to them. You honor them by recognizing them for the complex people they are, rather than as objects you can manipulate to get what you want.  Authentic relationships are built on telling the truth with goodwill, being open to the truths of others, and recognizing that many things can be true at the same time.

• Commit to a day of noticing your interactions at work. Do you stay silent when it would have served others or the business to speak up? How often do you respond to others’ truth with a “That’s not true,” or “Yes, but...”? When you disagree with someone, what keeps you from making every effort to see it from their point of view?

• Consider a practice of generosity. What changes when you see life from the perspective of abundance rather than scarcity. How would your experience change if you realized that there are enough resources, time, and credit to go around? Take inventory of what you have and create a gratitude list. What do you notice?

Honoring the divine light that unites us all. We are all connected. Surrendering your egocentric desires in order to contribute to the good of the whole is a way of acknowledging that.  The best way to serve each other and customers is by understanding and strengthening the interdependencies required to further the work.

• What does “surrender” means to you? What feelings does the word evoke? Are they positive or negative? How does your perspective affect your decisions and actions?

• What are you attached to at work? People? Things? Outcomes? List the ways you are attached. How would cultivating a healthy detachment alter the ways you see yourself, others, and your work?

Beliefs and values influence the way we work. How do your beliefs help or hinder you? Hoping that the work environment or culture will change on its own will most likely create a cycle of frustration and disappointment. Recognizing and honoring your light and that of others can help you see that you have everything you need to make changes.

Namaste. 

HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT?

Practicing tapas helps you create healthy habits.

Seven minutes and thirty seconds.

During his talk at the Southwest Institute for Healing Arts in May, master yogi Mark Whitwell asked us to commit. Do a simple, short yoga flow routine every single day for three months, he said. “If you give it seven minutes a day actually, naturally and not obsessively, I promise it will change your life.” As we drove home from the event that Tuesday night, Jamie and I agreed we both would do it.

For years, I’ve wanted to establish a committed, daily physical yoga practice. Don’t get me wrong. I practice frequently and have for many years. But when it came to a daily home practice, the Terrible Triplets — laziness, procrastination, and rationalization — had a powerful pull.  I’d wake up with the kind of intention the devil loves to pave with, and the Triplet’s mellifluous voices would sing out a sweet persuasion. “Look at your calendar! The To-Do list! What a busy woman you are. Practicing right now will take too long. You can do it later. Tonight. Tomorrow!”

Seven minutes and thirty seconds a day seemed manageable, and would be a perfect precursor to my meditation practice. Honoring my commitment to Mark Whitwell would unplug me from the power of the Terrible Triplets and give me a double-dip return — enhancing my asana routine and the opportunity to practice tapas.

In Sanskrit, tapas translates as heat. It is the practice of discipline or zeal. For the things i like and need to do anyway, such as working, writing, and reading, tapas comes easier. In other areas of my life, lack of tapas creates self-imposed barriers to personal growth and developing good habits.

My daily 7.5 minutes is reminding me that “tapas is as tapas does.”  It requires getting past the discomfort caused by friction created by  “going against the grain” of my tendencies to succumb to procrastination and rationalization. This friction generates the heat of tapas, burning off habits that don’t serve you. The heat generates strength and stability, and the Terrible Triplets wither in the face of such fire.

Since Mark’s talk, we have practiced every day for more than two months, except for a couple of days lost to travel and illness. Now when I get on the mat, the seven minutes and 30 seconds often expands. Seduced by the meditative rhythm of breath connected to movement, I find myself adding a few lateral stretches here, a balancing pose or some extra twists there — whatever my body is calling for. I get lost in the ocean sounds of my breath, the delicious dance of muscle and bone. Meditation flows  naturally at the end of my practice. When I open my eyes, 20 or 30 minutes have passed. This makes me smile.

Fueled by tapas, I am eating an elephant — one bite at a time. Take that, Terrible Triplets.