The Power of Facial Expression
The Power of Facial Expression
Back in the Sixties ‘a friend of mine’ did a particularly euphoric drug… probably cannabis laced with a bit of opium… and the happiness that my friend felt was so tangible that it seemed to grow up from inside his torso, come up through the heart and throat and open up into the Face like a huge flower blooming with Light and Joy. The Smile Muscles were flexed so strongly that my friend complained of happiness fatigue.
I have quite internalized what my friend had told me, and over the years I have rather thought that as one draws up a big strong smile from way deep inside and brings it up powerfully into the face, that it does indeed make one ‘happy’. One may suppose this is somehow putting the cart before the horse, the effect before the cause, and yet it has always seemed to work for me – that one need not wait to be happy before one can smile, but that one can smile first and then be happy, as though the smile itself has the power to summon this joyful Jinn.
But now I have found that I have not been the only person to think so. I have recently read a book on the Best Sellers List – “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell – and in one of the latter chapters of the book he discusses the power of facial expressions to arouse the very emotions that are generally thought to be their cause. For instance, people who assume a classically angry face will have an increase in blood pressure and pulse rate as though they had actually become angry, and people who are instructed to assume laughing happy faces find jokes funnier than they do when they are instructed to portray gloom. The examples he gives take up a few pages.
As a Practitioner of Kundalini Yoga, I can guess that certain energy channels are opened up as one so evokes the various emotions. And then we must keep in mind that there are a number of emotions besides the obvious ones of happiness, sadness, fear and anger. Indeed, there are as many emotions as we can find faces for. Of course, where one can hardly argue that ‘happiness’ – that big smile emotion – is not one of the most utilitarian, if we have a choice in it, which now we seem to have; but still in a moment of insightful imagination, it occurred to me that one could build on ‘happiness’ by layering on ‘Wonder’ and even stretching it to ‘Ecstatic Joy’. We only need to figure out what the facial expression would be for whatever feeling we would like to develop. It doesn’t take much work at the Mirror before one finds that one is connecting with something, and our feelings follow along soon enough, verifying our facial intuitions.
Also, remember that these feeling, or rather the power behind these feelings,
arise from down in the torso, but these channels may not be so easy to manipulate as the muscles of one’s face. But with practice, as one feels the energies rise up, one can consciously relax and dilate those areas where one feels any obstruction or constriction.
Re: The Power of Facial Expression
Quote:
Originally posted by Leo Volont
...as one draws up a big strong smile from way deep inside and brings it up powerfully into the face, that it does indeed make one ‘happy’.
This is true, my psychology professor taught us this. 8)
Re: The Power of Facial Expression
Quote:
Originally posted by DuB
This is true, my psychology professor taught us this. 8)
Oh, it must be true since a Professor with a University is saying so...
