By Mike Ying in Sales Letters to Myself — Sep 19, 2022

Sales Letter to Myself #27: Imagine Yourself Half-Smiling

Facebook post written on December 7, 2021

Imagine Yourself Half-Smiling

You discovered this concept when going through Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield's free beginner meditation course.

You didn't like this course because you didn't learn much from it but...

This one takeaway is genius:

Imagine yourself half-smiling.

You never thought about this before.

You learned in your social psychology 101 university lecture that making people smile physically has a direct effect on them mentally.

Force yourself to smile physically and it will improve your mood, your optimism, you will perform better, and you will feel better.

It's insane how the physical has a direct effect on the mental and vice versa.

Then one step further, you learned in the book Psycho-Cybernetics that a vividly imagined experience can have the same effect as a real experience.

This is already proven time and time again by athletes who go through visualization training.

Now when you imagine yourself smiling, it can have the same effect as if you were really smiling.

Then Tara Brach has this concept of "half-smiling" which is pure genius.

You don't need a full big smile.

Just smile a little bit, just the corners of your mouth slightly rising.

Imagine yourself half-smiling and you will directly experience your eyes smiling, your mood and your awareness changing.

Then if you feel it in your body, you will feel good.

This is so powerful... yet so easy to implement...

Best hack ever to feel good all the time.

Use this as often as you can.

Imagine yourself half-smiling all the time.