Tomorrow is the first day of the 9th lunar month this year, and thus a great opportunity to reignite my blogging. My last post on this blog was back in March of this year I believe. I fell off the wagon in regards to my TV/movie abstinence a week or two after that blog post. This past month I have been weaning myself off again and plan on restarting abstinence in this area before the next new moon.
This month, I am revisiting a challenge I conducted several years ago. It will have the same focus as the one I did then, but different specifications. Ever since I left med school a couple years ago, my mood has been more depressed on average, and the traumatic bike accident I had last August certainly didn’t help with that. Intuitively, most of us agree that happiness produces smiling. However, I think the reverse is quite often true as well: smiling results in happiness.
Here are the details of this month’s challenge:
- When around others: Open smile
- The goal is to show teeth. The size of the smile is irrelevant, and to not wear out my smile muscles, smaller is generally preferable.
- If the above becomes untenable in some situations, then I can switch to a closed smile for a period of time.
- When talking, I don’t need to think about this. However, during pauses or breaks in speaking, I should revert to some type of smile.
- When by myself: Half smile
- In DBT, one of the skills taught is the half smile. What this means is that you just think about smiling and let the corners of your lips move a millimeter or two without going into a full-blown grin.
- Although the above is what the default will be, I still want to throw in a joyous look every so often.
- Before retiring for the day, I will do a very short meditation practice that I dedicate towards peaceful sleep and uplifting dreams.
One of the comments I get somewhat regularly after giving a speech or presentation is that my facial expression is a bit too serious. Maybe this challenge will help lighten that up as a bonus.
Namaste.