Don't 'fix your face.' Feel it!

Did you grow up hearing the words, “Fix your face?”

Maybe you had the nerve to look disappointed because you didn't get your way? Maybe your lips were poked out. Your brow was furrowed. Your eyes were saying everything your mouth couldn’t.

The message was clear, though: Whatever is happening inside of you, don't let it show like that.

Perhaps there was wisdom in it.

Maybe the adult person saying this to you, likely your mother or grandmother, was teaching you how to compose yourself, how to read a room, how to move through a world that doesn't always make room for every feeling you have.

But what happens when “fix your face” becomes something we continue to say to ourselves long after childhood?

When we're sad, do we smooth it over?

When we're angry, do we tighten our jaw and carry on?

When we're overwhelmed, do we make ourselves look okay?

The face can become a kind of archive. It holds the things we don't always have words for.

This past Sunday, my Yoga Nidra session focused on a practice of un-fixing our faces. We turned our attention toward the subtle body—sensations, energy, emotions, awareness—and felt our faces.

We noticed the jaw without demanding that it relax. We noticed the lips, the cheeks, the brow, the eyes. We noticed where there was effort, where there was sensation, and where there might be a little more space to soften.

This was our first real exploration of the subtle body—the layer of experience that isn't quite as tangible as muscle and bone, but is no less real.

For a little while, we let the face tell the truth without asking it to perform anything for us.

We didn't have to fix it.

We could simply notice.

And in that noticing, something else became possible: softening.

Not the kind of softening that comes from being told to relax or from forcing tension away. A softer kind of attention. We brought awareness to the places that work so hard—the jaw, the lips, the brow, the cheeks, the muscles around the eyes—and permitted them to release whatever they were ready to release.

This is part of what I love about Yoga Nidra. We don't have to fight our way into relaxation. We begin by noticing what is already present. And sometimes, when we stop demanding that the body be different, the body finds its own way toward softness.

Perhaps that is a different kind of “fixing.”

Not fixing what is wrong.

Softening what has been holding.

Allowing the face—and perhaps the rest of the body—to rest from having to hold everything together.

So, we don't need to fix our face after all.

Maybe we need to feel it and give it somewhere to soften.