Smile...I Dare You

Good Morning My Confidants

I hope this finds you happy and blessed. I truly do.

I hope you're feeling good this morning. It's the famous so-called hump day right? So you're halfway to the weekend. Smile.

There's a woman that I greatly admire, Kate Guimbellot, she inspires me all the time, recently gave some advice that I'm trying to remember to follow. She mentioned a podcast that she listens to, I wish I had caught what it was, where it was suggested that we begin our everyday smiling. That the first thing we do before we even climb out of bed, when we first sit up, is take a deep breath...and let it out...and smile.

I haven't gotten there yet. But I have been doing it before the first half an hour of my day passes. When I first wake up my body is doing an awful lot of aching, a condition that I know is going away, but nevertheless when I'm first sitting up I'm analyzing how I'm going to swing my legs out of the bed! LOL! Once I get out of bed and down the hallway and lean the right way and all the proper pops happen, then I'm doing a little better. And then I'm downstairs, slowly, and I'm sitting in my favorite place and I'm drinking the coffee that Noah brings, and then I remember to smile.

And I'm smiling right now! Not just for the coffee. Although that's a plus.

I know that there are actual medical scientific reasons why it helps to smile, it has something to do with chemicals being released by the very muscles we're using to smile. I've looked it up before for you all.... There's all kinds of medical-scientific-babble when it comes to all this....

But from what I understand from Kate is that that smile, that deep felt smile, that not-fake smile, allows us the opportunity to remember all the good that is in our lives. To be grateful for the good in our lives. To be grateful, I'm extrapolating here, for things we're able to smile about. Starting that day thinking about what makes us smile.....

The puppy or cat who's going to be doing silly things that make us laugh? The spouse who made us coffee? Funny things that people we love do...that I'd embarrass them by sharing (I love the way one of them squeezes their toothpaste tube! ).

There's a lot of darkness out there in the world, and there's an awful lot to be afraid of right now, but by starting my day off smiling, then I've got some kind of... not shield.... I've got the cushion around me of goodness and laughter and love to face anything that SCOTUS might have done, a politician may have done, a shooter may have done.....

I can focus my attention on the good, and if there is something that I supposedly need to know that's going on in the world, it can be information I get without it being information that I focus all my attention on.

I can smile and think of all the things that I do have to smile about. Some days it's easy and sometimes it's a little tougher, my hip really is hurting this morning, but nevertheless. A smile helps.

If I let it.

Maybe if I put a post it somewhere where I will see it, a cabinet, my laptop, on the bathroom mirror I can remember to smile a minute or two earlier. I'll make it a habit. It'll be a good habit to have. How long do they say it takes to form a new habit? I checked, LOL, it's sixty-six days on average for a new behavior to become a habit.

Today is day three for me....  

Anyone want to join me?

Afterall, "smiling not only offers a mood boost, but helps our bodies release cortisol and endorphins that provide numerous health benefits, including:

reduced blood pressure, increased endurance, reduced pain, reduced stress, and a strengthened immune system. Furthermore, studies show that people who smile appear more likeable, courteous and competent. Smilers tend to be more productive" in life (and there you go, I had to conclude some information I Googled, and from what I thought was a reliable source!).*

And after that little bit, I ask again....

I'm smiling right now! Anyone want to join me?

Namasté,

BG "Gentle Ben" Thomas

* Surprising Health Benefits Of Smiling: https://www.henryford.com/.../10/health-benefits-smiling