showing up and Increasing each other's joy

​Have you ever had someone tell you that something you said or did made them smile? Have you ever witnessed yourself making someone smile? If your answer is yes to either or both, I hope you felt the full magnitude of the gift you gave that someone. Because I've come to believe, there is NO bigger gift in life than a smile.

I shared the quote I've included here today from Dr. Delahooke in a training I led last week. Alot of the folks in the training work with young people, so part of my motive was to help them do that work in the healthiest way possible. But I also had another motive; maybe even a bigger one.

The joy we long for as babies and young children - a longing that gets wired into our brains - it's not a childhood thing. It's a human thing.

I think most everyone has a memory of a baby's smile. If you have children of your own, you know how many hours you spent or are spending trying to 'turn that frown upside down'. Here's what we need to know about those smiles - they come in response to feeling safe and loved, not in response to something we said or did or gave.

Because the reality is, if a child doesn't feel safe and loved, nothing we say or do or give will matter. In fact, outside of safety, those things can be harmful. If a child - or human - doesn't feel safe and loved - there will be no smiles.

There's a scripture in the bible in 2 Timothy that says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind”

I think about that scripture a lot these days. I think about the power we have to show up in the various fears in each other's lives - to show up with love - not to scold each other's fears but to hold them. Hold them until smiles emerge - like a baby's smile.

Our entire human body is wired to negotiate a calmness in us, a fearlessness. Right now, every one of our bodies is taking a reading of everything going on around us to accomplish one common human purpose.

Safety. A safety that makes us smile.

In the earliest days of our lives, we start looking around for a someone to help us get to that smile. In the earliest days of our lives, we are wired to see fearlessness and smile as the result of a loving connection with someone.

That wiring never leaves us, but I am afraid we are trying to abandon the wiring. I'm afraid we're turning to some things instead of some ones for smiles, some things that can never deliver the kind of smile we were wired to find in one another. I'm afraid we're trying to scream the fears out of one another and not hold them. I'm afraid the frowns of humanity don't disturb us as much as they once did; I'm afraid we really DO NOT know the full magnitude of the gift of a smile.

But there is no greater gift. None. We are wired that way. From the earliest seconds of our lives we are wired to find our greatest joy from someone showing up - reminding us we are not made for fear but for love - the kind of love that makes us smile.

When a human needs help, the first thing we should increase is joy. Since the earliest seconds of our lives, it's the help we've all been looking for.