The past few days have been days of inner turmoil, including a fairly intense depression spike. I felt I needed something to at least somewhat directly counter the dense darkness. I remembered early on in my meditation journey, I ran into a technique called Smile Meditation, or Inner Smile. So I started that up again today.
I find that most of my smiles are artificial in some form -- a conscious bow to the need for others to feel like I am friendly or having a good time or whatever. So, the name of this meditation may seem utterly ludicrous.
However, this is really a lovely one. In this form of meditation, you calm and centre, then instead of staying present and aware, you go inward and become aware of your internal organs. You smile gently at them, and they smile back at you. And there is a beautiful visualisation exercise in the last half, where you visualise lights of different colours cleansing and healing you.
It's a very aesthetic meditation, and brings a genuine smile and even a happy laugh as you imagine your kidney smiling back at you☺
Insight Timer - #1 Free Meditation App for Sleep, Relax & More
NOTE that this meditation is about 22 minutes long. This is on the easy side for those used to meditation. However, if you're just starting, I highly recommend beginning with something like the Healthy Minds app to ease into the practice with 5 minute meditations, and increase from there as you have internal space, as well as real-world time, to do so.
I find that most of my smiles are artificial in some form -- a conscious bow to the need for others to feel like I am friendly or having a good time or whatever. So, the name of this meditation may seem utterly ludicrous.
However, this is really a lovely one. In this form of meditation, you calm and centre, then instead of staying present and aware, you go inward and become aware of your internal organs. You smile gently at them, and they smile back at you. And there is a beautiful visualisation exercise in the last half, where you visualise lights of different colours cleansing and healing you.
It's a very aesthetic meditation, and brings a genuine smile and even a happy laugh as you imagine your kidney smiling back at you☺
Insight Timer - #1 Free Meditation App for Sleep, Relax & More
NOTE that this meditation is about 22 minutes long. This is on the easy side for those used to meditation. However, if you're just starting, I highly recommend beginning with something like the Healthy Minds app to ease into the practice with 5 minute meditations, and increase from there as you have internal space, as well as real-world time, to do so.
