I can be happy, and my smile mechanism can be in neutral. But when I smile, which is frequently, it lights up my face and my eyes. Some people appear to be smiling, whether they are happy or not, but a genuine smile is hard to fake.

When you smile

There are commercials about “paying it forward” with a smile. It’s contagious, like laughter can be. There are many songs about the power of a smile. My favorite smile song from childhood is “When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you.”    

World Smile Day is the first Friday in October. 10/2/2020 this year. In a time of a pandemic, smiles are harder to come by. For about nine months, we haven’t seen as many smiles, thanks to stress and masks. Masks are necessary, but they are also removing one of our visual cues to relating to one another.  

What can we do about it? Well, this is the time to practice smiling with your eyes. Smile behind your mask and put your heart into smiling with your eyes. That means focusing your gaze on another person, crinkling your eyes, widening your eyes, or closing and opening your eyes in silent communication.  

With masks on, we also need to be more proactive with our greetings. Speak clearly and turn up the volume. Use hand gestures, like waving, to indicate you are aware of someone when wearing a mask.  

But please, don’t stop smiling 

A friend recently said her coworkers referred to her as “an angel” because she was always smiling. But since Covid-19, she has had people ask her what’s wrong. She was confused about why they would say this. Upon reflection, she realized that she was stressed about Covid-19 and was wearing her mask anytime she was not home. Her inner and outer smile was disappearing. After realizing this, she began to purposefully smile behind her mask and make eye contact (in fact, she enhanced her eyes with makeup when having meetings). She returned to her “angel” persona.  

There are physiological benefits to a smile and volumes of research if you are interested in learning more. What matters to me is that the act of a genuine smile releases endorphins, making us feel better. So even if your mask covers your smile, the smile is still doing its magic and making you feel better. Your light will shine brighter through your eyes and energy field.

Raise your vibration with your smile, and you will raise others as well!

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