For many of us, our biggest practice is to accept ourselves as we are. The practice of smiling to ourselves can be the deepest practice. Normally our smiles are aimed at other people. Have we ever just smiled to ourselves? Have we ever smiled to our own body or to the discomfort we experience? Often, we suppress, we look for a way out—for example, we consume—because we don’t want to be with our body.
The power of coming home to the body is the insight that you’re alive. Just knowing you have a body is insight—much of the time, our mind and our body don’t communicate well. Calming the body is very soothing: aware of our body as we breathe in, relaxing our body as we breathe out. Our breathing and our body are interconnected.
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Excerpted from Calm in the Storm © 2025 by Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, Inc., and Jo Confino, with the permission of Parallax Press.
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