“The essential skill we are developing with the smiling meditation is to generate positive mental and emotional energy, then direct it into the physical body for the purposes of emotional and physical healing”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This weeks article explores one of a main technique for physical and emotional healing; the smiling meditation. The article also touches on some of the principles of Qi gong.
Smiling meditation & your psychosomatic health
We all have a sense that on some level our mental and emotional health affect our physical health. The aim of the ‘smiling’ meditation I describe below is to focus positive emotional and psychological energy into the body, and particular areas of the body, and using it to affect your bodily health. It has its precedent in the Buddhist and Qi gong mediation traditions. But its principles are easily understood, and it can be practiced successfully by someone from any background or beliefs. It has four essential stages
- Selecting the area/s of the body that you want to work with
- Visualizing a ‘memory ball’, and creating the smiling energy
- Directing the smiling energy into the body
- Creating an energy exchange between the body and the self
If you practice this meditation with some regularity, then you will develop confidence in its effectiveness quite quickly. Here is a brief breakdown of the stages:
Selecting the area/s of the body that you want to work with
You can choose to work with the body as a whole, or with a particular part of the body. For example, if you notice that you have been feeling ‘heavy of heart’ emotionally, or if you have an actual physical hearth condition, then you might choose to work on the heart. I’ll work below with the heart as an example.
Visualizing a ‘memory ball’, and creating the smiling energy
After settling into meditation, imagine a ball of light in front of your face, at about the height of your eyebrows. Within that ball, visualize good memories, joyful experiences, or places and landscapes that put you in touch with a strong (or as strong as you are capable) sense of happiness and wellbeing. Fill the ball with these energies until you can feel that it is full of smiling, joyful energy, enough to make you want to gently smile on a physical level.
Directing the smiling energy into the body
Now imagine a stream of light coming from the memory ball into your body through the mid-point between your eyebrows, and gathering in the mid-brain. Then feel it flowing (in this case) down into your physical heart, filling it with the smiling energy. As you breathe, just keep the smiling energy gently flowing into the heart. Notice what it is like to consistently extend the smiling energy and awareness to your heart. You may notice certain imbalanced energies and emotions gradually being released from the heart, until after a while you can feel the heart ‘smiling back to you’ as you send the smiling energy to it.
Creating an energy exchange between the body and the self
Once you can feel the exchange between yourself and your heart, just stay with that, gently amplifying the sensation of it in the physical space of your heart. When you are ready you can bring the meditation to a close.
So, that’s the basic technique. The essential skill we are developing with the smiling meditation is to generate positive mental and emotional energy and then direct it into the physical body for the purposes of emotional and physical healing. By practicing this technique, we can learn to reprogram the cellular structure and memory or our body to hold energy that is conducive to health and well-being, rather than dis-ease or discomfort.
Related article/recording: Smiling to the inner organs meditation
Article © Toby Ouvry 2021, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
In case you missed last weeks article: Meditating on your child-self
The child self is one of a number of inner aspects of ourself that, if we meditate upon, we find ourselves connecting to in an experiential and enriching way. Other examples of this type of inner self, or sub-personality include the female self (if you are a male), the male self (if you are a woman), and the wise self, to name but a few.
Our inner child is important because in health it connects us to our creativity, our emotional health and spontaneity, our playfulness and vitality (remember how much energy you had as a child?!) Below I point out a few definitions and ways of beginning to relate to your inner child….
Read full article
Starts Tues/Wednesday 4th/5th May – Meditations for physical, emotional & environmental health & regeneration – A 7-week courseOverview: This is a meditation series designed to give you the practical skills to:
- Heal and regenerate the energy of your physical body and internal organs
- Revitalise and transform your emotional vitality
- Work with the landscape of your local environment to effect a healing of the land
Saturday 8th May, 2-5pm – Mindful Parenting – Practical Techniques for 
Bringing Awareness, Appreciation and Enjoyment to the Experience of ParentingIn a sentence: Learn how you can enjoy your experience of parenting more, manage emotions more effectively, and become a better parent by using mindful awareness
- Are you a stressed out parent (or stressed about becoming one) and looking for ways to manage that stress more effectively?
- Would you like to improve your capacity to parent in a way that creates an improved experience of the parent-child relationship both for you and your kids?
- Would you like to be able to demonstrate calm and being present to your children in a way that will help them to become more calm and present themselves?
Saturday 15th May – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing Masterclass & Mini-retreatQi-gong is the science of working with the body’s energy field. Literally translated into English it means ‘energy work’, or ‘energy skill’. In this workshop Toby will be teaching the art of moving subtle energy and life force into and around our body using a series of simple and easy to apply techniques that will enable you to:
- Re-establish your body’s natural bio-rhythms
- Strengthen your immune system
- Balance the energy in your body and mind, leading to inner peace and wellbeing
Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with TobyAre you looking a coach who can help you to:
- Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
- Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
- Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
- Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:
Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule
Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)
Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)
Starts Tues/Wednesday 4th/5th May – Meditations for physical, emotional & environmental health & regeneration – A 7-week course
Saturday 8th May, 2-5pm – Mindful Parenting – Practical Techniques for Bringing Awareness, Appreciation and Enjoyment to the Experience of Parenting
Saturday 15th May – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing Masterclass & Mini-retreat
Tuesday 25th & Weds 26th May – Wesak Full Moon Meditation