Is it possible to live your life with a happy undercurrent, regardless of what happens or what comes your way? Is it possible to have something like an inner smile? In other words: you feel a happy undercurrent, which you feel from within and which is independent of your (material) circumstances and of others.
And if so, how can you ensure that you feel this happy undercurrent and that it remains?
I think it is certainly possible to feel an inner smile and I will discuss this in more detail in this blog. I will also indicate what the deeper mechanisms are that play a role in this.
She has a light smile on her face, which is independent of the other person and (something in the) outside world.
What is an inner smile?
An inner smile is the feeling of a nice cheerful undercurrent in your body. You (almost) feel a smile on your face. A smile that does not come from a situation or a comment from someone else, no, this smile comes from within. From the deep feeling that you are happy to be alive and this happy energy flows through your entire body.
The teachings of the Tao* assume that a person basically lives based on 2 primary principles, namely:
- the fear of (acute) danger
- or the happy and relaxed feeling that everything is okay, that you are safe
If you can have that happy feeling, your stress level is low, you feel confident, you have the feeling that you can handle life and you can enjoy it. In other words, your primary motivation is to live from love and not from fear.
Basic feeling of joy
Joy is a natural basic feeling of people. You still see this in children. They naturally navigate towards what makes them happy and away from what doesn’t make them happy. Which of course does not mean that anger or sadness does not occur, but this is often short and intense and recovers quickly (with or without a comforting parent nearby).
As we grow up we can lose this sense of joy. As adults, we sometimes tend to attach ourselves to drama and the negative or get stuck in bad news or feelings:
- From the collective there is currently more emphasis on the negative than the positive. Consider, for example, the constant stream of negative news on news sites.
- For example, if you identify with an event you have experienced (see blog, getting beyond your story)
- It can also happen that someone close to you experiences something bad, which gives you the feeling that you too are no longer happy or should not be happy.
- Someone around you is very stressed or frustrated and puts this charge on you, verbally or in energy and you take over this energy.
This does not mean that you cannot feel involvement or sympathize, on the contrary, compassion is a wonderful mechanism towards others (and yourself!). But if you become attached to sad emotions, if you can’t let them go, you run the risk of losing your inner sense of joy.
The good news is that if you have lost your inner smile, you can learn to reconnect
What is needed for an inner smile?
Your inner smile can reappear and you can strengthen it through 2 mechanisms:
1. First of all, clearing and clearing old is very necessary, gaining awareness of obstructive patterns and going through the pain of trauma
2. Secondly, it is very important that you do what is close to yourself, your added value, what really suits you, what makes you happy and that increases your potential.
So you are actively working on two levels. I have elaborated on them below.
Tidying up and tidying up – doing inner work
Inner work is needed to feel an inner smile (again). Unresolved major and minor traumas, feelings that you are still holding on to, but also patterns and mechanisms within you that keep you stuck or blocking you, can prevent you from feeling your inner joy. In other words, the connection with your own source of joy in life is broken.
Examples of such patterns are:
- you feel like a deep victim and you have the idea that everything is happening to you
- you identify with a story about yourself
- you are afraid to feel because you fear loss or rejection
- you have set the bar very high, you are a perfectionist and you do not want to fail
- you have a deep fear of surrender
- you have difficulty expressing yourself and, for example, do not dare to express your feelings
- you want to be a perfect child or parent and you feel you should not make any mistakes
Limiting patterns also often arise from collective patterns. For example, the family or culture in which you live prescribes rules of life that you have come to conform to as an adult.
For example, hard work can be such a rule of life. If you dare to question such a rule of life and examine how you yourself feel about this, you can adjust or reject such a rule. In this way you release more and more old, limiting patterns and thus the cramping that this causes.
By processing your traumas, releasing stuck emotions and gaining insight into and releasing your patterns, you can reconnect with your inner source of joy. You come closer to your true essence, to your ‘I’. This has a liberating effect and your life energy will flow more, allowing your inner smile to awaken again.
The inner smile becomes bigger and deeper when you do those things that are close to yourself
If you allow yourself to be guided by fear, for example by staying in a job that may give you security, but that costs you energy, your life energy and joy will increasingly drain from you.
By doing what your deep desire drives you to, your inner smile can wake up again.
- This can be an activity or job that is close to you, that gives you energy, nutrition and satisfaction and that makes you happy. This releases a lot of energy from within, you start to flow again. And this has a strengthening effect, because this energy automatically brings you into a flow with even more impulses from within and ideas that make you happy. The more you follow these impulses, the more your life energy will flow and the more powerful your inner smile will become.
- This process can also happen through deep contact with friends, or a love partner with whom you deeply connect. (Daring to) enter into a connection that is nourishing, where you can be yourself and where you receive each other in who you really are, will strengthen your inner smile.
We are often very focused on the smile (affirmation) we want to receive from outside, while it really gives you satisfaction and joy to be able to feel your own inner smile. And if you can find your own confirmation within yourself, independently of the outside world, and feel joy, then this will also have a positive effect on your environment. Because having an inner smile is palpable to the outside world and is contagious.
*see also: https://taotraining.nl