Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

let our defenses down, and we open to the energy coming our way because it feels good. It sends a
resounding “yes” to our parasympathetic nervous system, stimulating the relaxation response, which
then catalyzes the positive chain of chemical secretions in our body that enhance our body’s total
systems, optimizing its overall function and health. And in the same way that it is such a powerful
form of social currency, a smile is just as effective and important a tool for the cultivation of our own
self-love and evolution. How many messages do you receive internally that aren’t especially
positive? Can you imagine how much better you would feel just by changing that internal dialogue for
the better? It all starts with a smile.
It’s the simple act of turning your focus inward, of giving your organs that look of love to let them
know you care, that starts the magic and gets the ball rolling. And it is the combination of the look and
sound of love that makes the life-changing magic happen, that triggers the cataclysmic shift in the
energy inside the organ itself. Your organs feel your attention to them the same way others feel it when
they receive your smile and that look in your eyes. When you look into an organ, the impact on it is
not unlike the feeling you get when you call to mind a beautifully shot moment from a documentary
like the BBC series Planet Earth or Winged Migration. See it now, your favorite, the scene that
makes you thrill inside, shot in slow motion—a flock of birds taking wing, a kaleidoscope of
butterflies erupting from their flowered nests, a herd of gazelle running across the plains . . . Looking
inside your own miraculous body is felt by your body the same way, and it is a thing of beauty, no
different from the captivating splendor and magnificence of the creatures in our natural world. It is the
look of love that sets everything in motion in a new, life-enhancing way.
The practice of the Inner Smile asks you to develop awareness of the very act of turning your
sights inward to affirm the world unseen and how vital it is to all of life, to all of your life. It asks
you to depart from the outside world and in utter simplicity appreciate, very likely for the first time
ever, what you have taken for granted for so long. It invites you to discover the untapped power you
possess to heal and bolster yourself in real, pragmatic ways. Think about a smile and what it elicits in
you. A genuine smile is an outward expression of what happens in your heart the minute you connect
with someone. If a stranger smiles at you, it can change the entire course of your day. Why? Because it
strips everything else away and in that moment reminds you of what is truly important in life—love.
And love is your life force. Your smile—and the smiles you exchange out in the world with your
fellow humans—holds more power to heal and transform than several United Nations roundtable
discussions by a long shot. If everyone in the world practiced the Inner Smile, there might actually be
peace in the Middle East.
Such is the nature of this and all the practices in Waking Energy. What you give, you receive a
thousandfold, and like a beautiful waterwheel the giving and receiving never end. You are inspired to
continue to explore because of the riches each venture yields. When you allow yourself to be
vulnerable, go into those dark, shadowy places, and uncover the treasure, you transform what hurts
into what feels good. As you start to trust in the process and come to realize that you are your own
best mother and father, this deceptively simple practice will become integral to your own reparenting
of yourself, teaching you that it is safe to come out and to be all that you can be. You can let go of the
past, as long as you acknowledge that it happened. You can lovingly go inside to attend to all the
feelings that have established residence without your conscious knowing, but with your permission,
became freeloading residents. Yes, you unwittingly invited them, but as soon as you let them know
that you see them (take responsibility for their tenure inside you), they miraculously and quite