From folding gym towels to a funeral, one woman discovers how a simple smile can change the way we experience life.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s book How to Smile fits in the palm of my hand and slides neatly into my pocket. I open it to any page for solace, inspiration. “A smile can relax hundreds of muscles in your face and relax your nervous system. A smile makes you master of yourself.”

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Sitting in bed, with tea and toast on the nightstand and my laptop on my lap, my lips are dry and feel like they’ll crack. I smile for no reason. I smile for good reasons. Important reasons. My personal mandate.

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It’s not my first foray into intentional smiling. When my kids were young, it was a glorious, hectic time, our lives on a metaphorical, delightful treadmill. One afternoon, I was working, my eyes fixed on the computer screen. My youngest came into my office. I scowled, annoyed that I’d been interrupted. I looked up and saw her standing there. Smiling. It hit me. I could frown, or I could relax, fully engage, and smile. The amount of time wouldn’t change. The quality of those moments most definitely did. It felt good. Really good.

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I was pretty sure my body and brain couldn’t tell if I was smiling because I was happy or happy because I was smiling. I started smiling a lot.

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My neighbour Mary stopped by, took one look at my toothy grin, and said, “I want what you’re on.” I smiled.

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As often happens with new habits, over time, my deliberate smiling diminished. I simply forgot. Then, while working as a personal trainer, yoga teacher, and front desk staff member at a gym, I watched a white-haired man in a pastel pink polo shirt sit tall, smiling, as he rode the stationary bike. He looked happy. The rest of us hunched over handlebars, grunting, grimacing, and looking miserable. My commitment to smiling was back!

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One task that nobody liked at the gym was washing towels. I’d pile fifty hot towels from the dryer onto a table, fold them, and stack them. Inspired by the pastel-polo-shirt guy, I did it with a smile. A woman passed by and said, “Wow, you must love folding towels.” I held a warm towel against my chest. “Yeah, I do.”

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Gym members often left weights strewn all over the floor, despite the Please Rerack Weights signs. We complained to each other about the disregard for common gym etiquette. But sometimes, only sometimes, I smiled. Weights didn’t magically return to their stacks, and 50-pound ones didn’t get any lighter, but my mood did.

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I added Hansi Mudra, a hand gesture known as the Inner Smile Mudra, to yoga classes. For the final pose, I instructed, “Draw the corners of your mouth toward your ears. Smile.”

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Time passed, the kids grew up, and all of us navigated life’s unavoidable ups and downs. Looking back, it turns out that being interrupted by a gleeful, exuberant little kid whom I love, having to fold freshly washed, warm towels, and picking weights up off a floor were minor annoyances. Remarkably trivial.

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In a series of recorded talks, Three Steps to Courage, Pema Chödrön offers ways to help us when we are in the midst of fear, anger, or sadness, when it may seem impossible to find our ground. “If the butterfly wings flapping in the Amazon affects the weather in Europe, surely our state of mind affects the world. . . . They’ve done studies that if someone smiles at someone else, that has a powerful effect actually. And then they feel better that day and they walk down the block wherever they are, into the building and they’re feeling better and they’re smiling at other people and it’s sort of contagious.”

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I consulted the work of James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, a well-known book on making positive change. When asked how long it takes to form new habits, he says, “21 days? 30 days? 66 days? The honest answer is: forever. Because once you stop doing it, it is no longer a habit. A habit is a lifestyle to be lived, not a finish line to be crossed. Make small, sustainable changes you can stick with.”

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Whatever the magic number, I’m in for the long haul. Commit to smiling more. Even a tiny, nuanced grin, a hint barely perceptible to others, will do. Whatever I can muster. Simply smile.

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My morning ritual: make tea, feed Jellybeans. Deep in thought, I worry. As I sit at the table, cup of hot tea in hand, I smile. My face relaxes. I take a deep breath without even thinking. I promise myself it’ll be my new routine—make tea, feed cat, drink tea, smile.

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Driving to Trader Joe’s, I’m fretting, white-knuckling the steering wheel. I smile. My shoulders melt away from my ears. In the store, I notice my furrowed brow as I inspect a head of cauliflower for freshness. Smile. It’s not so serious. It’s just cauliflower. I do. And it’s not.

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Sitting at my desk, phone in hand, impatiently on hold, I’m irritated as the music plays the same few stanzas over and over again. I smile. That’s better.

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On a grey December afternoon, I treat myself to a latte. Listening to a recorded book, I’m not smiling, but I don’t know that. I realise it when I snag my drink and a man steps back, holds the coffee shop door, and invites me to exit. I smile. He smiles. Aaahh. There it is. We both feel it. I stand outside sipping my drink in the cool, moist air. Smiling.

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At a funeral, I sit on the oak bench, directly behind the widow, children, and grandchildren. I’m family. His daughter, son, and best friend speak. His life, in their words, is hysterically funny, poignant, heartbreaking. Breathtakingly sad. I loved him. I close my tear-filled eyes and listen. Smile.

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I reflect on Thich Nhat Hanh’s wisdom—smile when I breathe in, release when I breathe out; smile when I do the dishes. Even the dishes? I’m not quite there yet. But I’m working at it.