Smile, It’s Contagious – Glow, It’s Infectious

As I kid, I found that people were always telling me to smile.  I’ll be honest, I hated it.  I was neither sad nor happy, and the expression on my face matched this.  It was mostly a blank expression, or perhaps an expression of thought or contemplation.  My face didn’t show a frown, yet it didn’t show a smile either.  Thinking back on it, I’m not sure why everyone always told me to smile.  Maybe I looked sad to them, it’s hard to say.  I don’t recall seeing other people smile all the time, but they sure did tell me to.

As time has gone by, I have honed a positive attitude and have found the secret of happiness.  I generally feel good all the time, and I have found that this usually shows through in a smile.  What’s even better is that when I smile other people smile.  A smile really is contagious.

Wait… what’s that?

In a Charlie Brown teacher voice: whah wa waaa whah wah.

You want the secret to happiness?

Wa waa whah wa.

Well I’m not really sure this is the time or the place, I’m in the middle of blog post here.

Djfkladjfadkljfadsf;lkajf;alkdssjfafl;dskjfadkdkda

Whoa, hey, get of my keyboard.  I’ll tell you.  Are you ready?

Wa.

The secret is: You Choose to be Happy.

Wah Whah?

Yeah that’s it.  Now, I really need to get back to my post, people are trying to read about smiling and glowing.

Ok, where was I?  Oh yes, smiling is contagious.  Even those half hearted kinda smiles are contagious.  You know, the ones where you smile even though you don’t really feel like smiling.  Those kind are mildly contagious, and you might see a few people catching these smiles and smiling in return.

A Contagious Smile

You want a really contagious smile?  Then feel it when you smile.  Feel all the joy, happiness, and gratitude of simply being alive.  Think of how fortunate you are to exist on this wonderful little planet full of feelings and emotion.  Be happy that you even have the ability to feel such an emotion.  Think of all the things you are thankful for.  A roof, food, water, family, friends, and anything else you may be thankful for.  Then unleash the smile on the world.

Now you have a highly contagious smile.  Someone call the CDC, we’ve got an smile epidemic here.   You walk around with a smile that you can feel, and others will smile.  You will share your good feelings just by being in the general vicinity of others.  People will sense it, they will see your smile and know you feel it, and some of your happiness will rub off on them.

That sounds great, doesn’t it?  To lead by example.  To get others to smile by feeling happy and smiling yourself.  I think that’s a much better method than telling someone else to smile, and from my experience it works a million times better.

Sounds great, does anything top a feel good, happy smile?  I think there is a phenomenon that beats it.  In fact, it completely blows it out of the water.  I know, you’re thinking how can that be?  A smile that is felt deep within is so wonderful, how can anything be better.  How can we top a contagious smile?

I know… I gave away the answer in the title, but it helps Google find me when I give descriptive titles.

An Infectious Glow

It’s the glow!  The most common use of the term “glowing” is during pregnancy.  How many times have you heard someone tell an expectant mother that she is glowing?  I had heard it quite often even before I knew any expectant mothers.  Then one day, a little over 4 years ago, I got to see it firsthand; when my sweetie pie of a wife was pregnant with our first child.  WOW!  Talk about glowing.  I had never experienced it first hand until that time.  There is a true glow about an expectant mother.  The absolute feeling of happiness and joy associated with bringing a new life into this world shines through every pore of her being.  It is so amazing to witness and be a part of this experience; to see and feel the glow.

(By the way, when reading “sweetie pie” in the above paragraph, do it with a French accent.  That’s how I say it since everything sounds more romantic with a French accent.)

I hope that each of you gets to witness the glow at some point in your life.  The glow comes from a complete happiness and utter fulfillment.  It shows when your emotional body is so full of joy that it spills from your physical body.  It can be seen and felt.  The glow is so powerful that it instantly infects everyone in the immediate area.  The swine flu has nothing on the glow.  The glow will infect you instantly.  The symptoms will be an immediate happiness and a literal feeling of joy.  There is nothing more powerful for spreading joy.  If superheroes had the glow in their arsenal, there would be no evil villains; evil could simply not exist in the presence of the glow.

How to Witness the Glow

Now, I want to save you some effort and possibly jail time for stalking pregnant woman in your search to experience the glow.  I came across something last night that caught my attention because someone mentioned the glow.  It’s the only other thing I’ve seen that can generate the glow.  This “thing” that I speak of is: overcoming tremendous adversity and achieving success doing something you love.  Doing this can culminate in the glow.

I’m going to share with you a clip from “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Some of you may know that I don’t watch much TV, so what made tonight different?  I like to believe that everything happens for a reason, and I often find inspiration in the creativity and talent of others.  On this night, the reason was to witness the glow.

I’m going to share a video with you so you can witness the glow, and avoid stalking expectant mothers.  The video is of Bryan Gaynor, a contestant on “So You Think You Can Dance.”  Bryan Gaynor has scoliosis, a severe curvature of the spine. From what I’ve read, scoliosis can be very painful and can even make it difficult to breath.  He doesn’t let this condition stop him from doing what he loves!  Check out this video and see the glow. (If you’re reading from an RSS feed, you may have to click through to the site to see the video.) Also, an earlier version got pulled from YouTube due to copyright restrictions, so check it out while this one is still up.

Were you infected with the glow?  Did you feel the happiness enter in?  I hope you did. When I watched it on TV in full size you could really see the detail he put into his dance and the joy that flowed out. Really incredible.

Do you have any experiences with a contagious smile or infections glow?  I’d love to hear them.  Just scroll down to the comments sections to share them.

Edit: I just came across a new post on The Jungle of Life.  Lance Ekum, of The Jungle of Life, and the folks at The Levity Project are putting together a video compilation of people smiling.  I think this is  a great idea and will be a sure fire way to spread some happiness.  Head on over to The Jungle of Life to read more.

Edit #2: I also just came across another great post that mentions smiling as a way to become more playful.  Head to Dragos Roua – Brilliantly Better to check it out.

Edit #3: Annabel Candy at Get in the Hot Spot posted a great article about how smiling helped her daughter succeed in her dance class and make new friends quickly.

Tagged as: Emotions, Happiness, YouTube Videos