Inner Smile Meditation: A Bonus Guided Qigong Meditation

Part of my mission in starting Third Opinion MD is to offer you a blended perspective about healthcare, and to provide you with simple tools to restore and maintain your health. In this short guided meditation, I’m introducing you to something that I learned from my studies with qigong: the Inner Smile Meditation. I first learned this from qigong master, Lee Holden, who had learned it from his mentor, Mantak Chia. In this bonus episode of my podcast, I’m sharing my version of this meditation with you.

The Inner Smile Meditation

As part of the introduction to this meditation, it’s important to keep your mind focused and listen to my voice as I guide you through it. You will be smiling just slightly on the outside, and you will be sending your smile to five important organs in your body. I think this meditation is one of the most loving and adorable meditations. Why? Once you’ve smiled at your organs, your organs will start to smile back at you. Each of them has a life of their own, they're a part of you, and you will get to visualize them in a new way as you smile at each other. 

There’s research that shows that doing this type of visualization work helps with mind-body work. It also helps quiet the “monkey mind,” which is what Qigong Master, Liu He, calls the racing thoughts that are often taking up space in our heads. I like the Inner Smile Meditation because it provides a single thing for your mind to focus on, while also setting the “Yi,” or intention, to guide your Qi (your life force energy) in a positive and healthy way through your body.

If you have felt challenged by meditation in the past because you’ve been told you need to empty your mind, I invite you to try this approach. In this guided meditation, I’ll walk you through the steps, and I think you’ll find it to be very beneficial and quite different from other sitting meditations.

Please find a quiet place when you are just starting out. When you’re ready, I invite you to join me for the Inner Smile Meditation.

If you love this meditation, and would like to have me speak about health or teach a workshop for your group or organization, please reach out. I’d love to learn more about your group and find ways to best serve you. You can go to the speaker inquiry page.

Here are key timestamps to refer to when you listen to this episode repeatedly for practice:

• 00:15  Introduction
• 02:49  Inner Smile introduction
• 03:04  Preparation for meditation
• 04:35  Inner Smile guided practice

I hope you enjoy this meditation, and may you have many days of smiling inside.

You can find the full show notes, and learn more over at my website by clicking here.

– Barbara