I bet many of us have felt this way in certain times of our life. I know I have in several occasions. However difficult it may be in certain times of our life and even when smiling indeed is the last thing we want to do, for our wellbeing in the long run, we have to make an effort and still smile. Think about the reasons that you have to smile, despite the challenge you are facing at the moment. Despite the difficulty you may be experiencing at the moment, think about the lesson in what you are experiencing. What are some ways in which you are growing because of what you are going through? In what ways are you a better person? How does this experience shape you? What is it that you are taking for granted now that you won’t take for granted anymore?
Notice how when you feel good or when you are in love, you feel energetic, you feel strong, you feel great. You don’t let things get to you so easily or anything of that sort. You feel like on cloud nine and things around you seem to go great. Now, pay attention to how things are when you don’t feel good, when you are sad or even depressed. You may notice how things don’t seem to go so great around you. You may even get sick during these times more than usual. This is because our mind, body and soul are all connected. They are all one. Our body follows our mind and vice versa. Our mind and body are not separate. Every emotion that we feel is felt in every cell of our body. Our body is composed of cells. Every organ in our body is composed of cells. Every part of our body is constantly communicating to each other. So when we are feeling sad, every part of our body is feeling that emotion.
Because there are moments in our lives when we are stressed out and sadness can be constant, all those negative emotions during those hard times start to take a toll on the body. We may not feel those effects now but in the long run, the price we pay is pretty high for feeling that way. Some of those consequences translates to either what is called lifestyle diseases (i.e. diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.) or even chronic diseases such as lupus. (Up until now, there is no known cause for lupus. However there have been doctors who have mentioned that their patients with lupus had lupus after a very stressful event in their lives). This shows you the severity of chronic stress. How can one have lifestyle diseases when being stressed or sad? Well, when we are not at our best, we tend to not take good care of our bodies. Our bodies may even crave foods that we perhaps wouldn’t eat if we felt good about life and ourselves. Of course, this may not be the case for everyone but for some people it is. This is why I believe that taking care of yourself even during the hard times is crucial. When we are facing difficult times, we are more prone to hurting our bodies unintentionally.
Smiling can help alleviate a bit all this and it certainly helps your overall wellbeing. When you do your best to smile, even if you don’t feel like it, you will notice how slowly you will feel better. Remember, when you smile, the world smiles right back at you. Smiling will help you feel happy even if you are not feeling it at the moment. Our emotions also follow our body. So next time do yourself and your body a favor and just smile! You will feel better afterwards.