Why was that man from yesterday’s post smiling? After all he went through — the Resistance, the Holocaust, wars, and on and on, how dare he smile?

There are some of us who prefer to keep the thorny crown of martyrdom on our head and never smile. We think that if we smile, it will prove that we didn’t suffer all that much. Our misery will show the world how much hurt we went through, how much pain we endured.

But smiling doesn’t negate our sufferings. Smiling doesn’t mean our suffering wasn’t so terrible.

We can smile because we were resilient and strong. We made it through terrible tragedies. We can smile to show that we were courageous enough to live through what we lived through. It is our testimony, our acknowledgement, of the human spirit.

I’m not saying to smile dumbly, in denial, and not feel our pain. We have to feel our pain. As my friend, Kate, always said before she died, “We have to grow through – and not just go through – our pain.” We can weep with a full heart and feel all our pain but we can also allow ourselves to smile with a full heart, too. To laugh, even.

“Birds sing after a song; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?” said Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy — who, just to remind you, endured the violent deaths of three of her sons, and endured a hundred other private tragedies.

And another thing: we don’t smile because we’re happy. We’re happy because we smile. In this case, the chicken comes before the egg.  Physiology-speaking, we can make a conscious decision to choose happiness by smiling.

Take a deep breath. Deeper. Hold it in for a moment. After you exhale long and slowly, smile. You’ll be amazed at this sensation. Even in the midst of a storm, you can find your own personal power. If you’re frazzled, frantic, frustrated and freaking out, take a deep breath,  hold, exhale, smile. Repeat.

Reminder: tomorrow is the big day! I’ll be sharing readers’ writing exercises — it only takes 5 (five!) minutes of your day to write this — from last Friday’s post. If you want a re-read, click here. If you haven’t done so, send in yours today!