Plowing Away

I surely do enjoy breaking new ground. Going new places with Laughter Yoga. Asking, asking and asking a little bit more – without being horribly annoying. It’s the inspiration of the new that I seem to relish.

This year with laughter yoga, I plan to start leading classes and workshops in Richmond. Yesterday, a nice yoga studio near Short Pump called me for an interview. Yay! I’m scheduled to speak at three conferences (one corporate). I finally have my first class at ACAC. The Valentine’s Celebration is something I’ll actually get paid for this year as Parks & Rec offered to host it. I’m calling NBC (local) to cover the event. After that celebration, I’m going to a private party to lead laughter yoga as part of the fun.

Sometimes, when class attendance is low, I get frustrated, even annoyed. I’ve held classes for almost 3 years. The good news is - there is a core group of about 5 who attend weekly at The Senior Center. Laughter yoga has become a vital part of their lives. Visitors seem to have such fun laughing with the laughter yoga “veterans.” I look back to the first few classes and I’m so grateful for the few and the brave who stuck with me, even if two people (or one!) showed up for class.

My solution for feeling frustrated is to start something new. Keep up the old, but reset and expand my vision even more. Some people love routine. I like to plow. Plowing the way so I can share a few more giggles.

Ha ha happy holidays

Laugh it up this season by making the most of every opportunity to laugh. If you find yourself giggling, go ahead and guffaw.

It’s a simple way to convince your brain that you’re happy. In return, your brain will send out all kinds of signals and release neurochemicals that’ll convince your body and mind you’re happy. Creating laughter is the ultimate catch-22, fake-it-’til-you-make-it exercise.

How it works: You laugh. Your brain releases signs and signals to let your body know you’re happy. Your body responds by feeling good. So your mind acknowleges you feel happy. Then you laugh more. And so on…

But it all starts with a little laugh. So make the most of  ‘em and have a ha ha happy holiday season.

A Testimonial from a Middle School Counselor

A regular attendee to our Saturday classes at Studio 206, Julie, is a talented middle school guidance counselor. One of the reasons she started attending classes was to relieve stress from work.

Today, she shared this story with me about helping one of her students lower their stress levels using laughter yoga… the student came in completely stressed out. The student rated her stress level at the top, 10 out of 10. Julie was able to help her calm down to 7 out of 10. Not knowing what else to do, Julie suggested that the student might need a good laugh.

Julie began teaching the student a few laughter games, starting with the “I don’t feel like laughing…” game. After a few short games, the student reported that her stress levels were down to 3.

In the west, something is funny, therefore we laugh. In laughter yoga classes, the opposite is true. Nothing is funny, we start laughing anyway, therefore things become very funny.

I’m sure nothing was funny to this stressed out student. But she was willing to laugh anyway. It’s when we don’t feel like laughing during laughter yoga that we reap the most dramatic results. Our stress lifts, moods stabilize and minds clear. All we have to do is laugh.

Julie initially came to classes to relieve her stress… now she’s passing some laughter along… and so on and so on…

“Peace begins with a smile.” – Mother Teresa.

A Time to Seriously Play

Most of my life has been serious. Very serious. If I’ve played, being an introvert, it’s been mainly with one person or alone. Many of my younger years were spent playing outside — in the woods behind our house — alone. I seemed to like it that way.

Laughter is social. Even if we laugh alone, it’s usually about something we remember that happened in a group. Or, we laugh at ourselves (I do this more and more these days).

Today, I was walking out of Kroger, which has a distinct entrance and exit, at a swift pace, and nearly crashed into the enter doors. I laughed – actually fairly loudly – at myself. Then everyone around me joined in. So I laughed it up and laughed with them. Then people started comforting and teasing me… “Oh, I’ve almost done that so many times…”  “Lucky you stopped when you did…”

I didn’t laugh much playing in the woods. I was seriously busy building play forts and creating all of the highways between them. Sometimes we play seriously. There is a time to seriously play, too. ‘Tis the season.

Test your play tolerance and come to a laughter yoga session. Revive your ability to seriously play. Laughing for no reason may affect what you do this season and make it brighter, lighter. Ha ha HO HO HO.

People who laugh together…

We don’t necessarily need laughter yoga at parties in order to have fun this season – but having someone come to lead a session proves to add quite a spark.

I was invited to a private party this past weekend to lead laughter yoga. The hostess wanted to help eveyone relax and to make a memory.  The group arrived looking a bit hurried and was quiet. However, after a few laughter games, hilarity was not a rarity.

The men, responsible for cooking hor d’oeuvres, came running in from the kitchen, alarmed, after we cheered, ”Very good, very good, yay!”  Twelve women with a glass of wine and stress to get out can cheer loudly enough for houses ’round the neighborhood to hear.

Their laughter continued robustly after the session was over. The atmosphere was quite different from women rushing to get there on time and being tired from work. 

I’m convinced that relationships — whether friendships, romantic or families — that laugh together, stay together. What a way to introduce eating dinner together every night? Hold a laughter session, even if for just a few minutes. Invent some new laughter games.

I’ve been laughing with my sweetie for about a year, and can testify that had we not led laughter yoga sessions together a few times weekly, sometimes daily, our relationship would not have the same ease. We would be more tense around each other. Prickly. Laughter yoga smoothed our edges and opened our communication.

I’m so thankful to have discovered this path and for my many gifted teachers along the way. Laughter yoga truly transforms — parties, relationships, and if you stick with it — everything!

“Humor in relationships is touchy: Laughter can bring you closer, or it can pack a cruel punch. How to avoid the pitfalls and use humor to strengthen your bond.”
Link: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200606/crack-me

 

Thanksgiving Laughter

Laughter yoga has always seemed like a form of giving gratitude – for each other, for ourselves and for what has been gifted to us.

I’ve come up with a few new laughter games to celebrate the opportunity to give gratitude. The first is making gibberish small talk. It’s similar to the greetings games except we’re gibberish-ing to each other.  More games: Snoring after the meal, the green jello mold, stirring the stew, being giant parade balloons, and of course, the turkey squawk game.

Hope to see you soon!  

 

Laughing Away Arthritis

Today Jon & I volunteered with JABA, at the Mary Williams Center with about 4 older women, out of 20 or so who could have participated. That ended up being great, because those who participated were enthusiastic.

Jon cherishes the older generation. He regularly remarks about how wise they are, how much they know and could pass on if we’d give them a chance… so he did most of the talking. I did most of leading the games.

This group couldn’t move very much. Their mobility was limited to standing up – then only briefly. However, by then end of class, endorphins had started flowing and a lady reported how much better her arthritis felt throughout her body.

Endorphins are the neurochemicals responsible for the “runner’s high” that we get after aerobic exercise. They’re also released when we laugh. They have more pain-killing power than morphine, which is why arthritis is helped by laughter yoga. We also forget about pain when we’re laughing.

Laugh yourself to health!

The Power of Volunteering

We’ve all heard that when we give, ultimately, it comes back to us. I’ve found this to be real. This is one of the more powerful spiritual principles for manifesting. We reap what we sow. If we sow joy, we reap joy. Maybe not where we expect to, but it will show up – predictably when we need it the most.

I am grateful for chances to volunteer to lead laughter yoga. I limit myself to those I can afford, financially and emotionally. I know my gifts and where I lead with the most grace. When I give laughter, my heart is emptied – full of room to receive. I become more aware of when and how I receive what I need. Then gratitude happens… which helps me want to give again. It’s an automatic spirtual cycle that is already in place. We just need to step in. It’s our move.

How to Advertise Your LY Class for FREE

If you offer a class by-donation only, even if you suggest an amount (say, $5-10), newspapers usually will list it for free because they consider it a free event. This is how I’ve gotten the word out about Laughter Yoga in Charlottesville over the past two years.

That’s one of the many topics we’ll be covering in the upcoming retreat, “Build and Market Your Spiritual Practice” on November 15th. The retreat is designed to help find budget-mindful ways to market your practice. Join us!

http://www.yogalaughs.com/mworkshop/schedule1.html

Building Trust with Program Groups

As I lead laughter yoga at the jail with women inmates, I learn a valuable lesson with each session. The inmates I laugh with are part of a re-entry program. Remaining in the re-entry program requires them to attend almost all classes. Twice a week, they are “required” to laugh with me in “laughter class”. I’ve been volunteering with re-entry groups at the jail for over a year. Each group is very different in their response to laughter yoga.  

The current group of women has been especially “tough”, meaning, about three out of the six in the group will not laugh unless they feel like it. In jail, most people aren’t there because they’ve had such a great life. It’s no surprise that they don’t feel like laughing. Trying to get some of the more angry and “hardened” inmates to laugh can feel like a going on a long run up a mountain.

But I’ve found that not trying to do anything is one way to disarm their rigidity. I’m transparent. Present in the moment. I abandon my laughter yoga agenda before each class and determine to meet them where they are. I know this isn’t conventional, but it seems to help them trust me and each other. Once they understand that my time with them is also their time — to vent, laugh, cry, and relax — they also let go of their agenda of refusing to laugh.  

They say my laughter is contagious. I share some of my story about laughter yoga each week, give them handouts with articles about laughter yoga, and make the most of each of their giggles. I include “feedback time” in every session after the silent meditation. It provides them with a sense of control and co-leadership of the class.

With each class, I try to build build build… trust. During one class with this group, building trust involved an inmate sharing a painful circumstance around her son for almost 45 minutes. He is 4 and was having major surgery that he may or may not have survived. She couldn’t be with him. She just had to wait for the news about the surgery from the Warden. She wasn’t in a place to laugh for no reason until she had been heard, hugged and allowed to cry. She didn’t ask to be in my class. She was there because she didn’t want to get kicked out of the re-entry program. I had to respect that. She ended up using laughter to release stress and blew the top off of the jail with her loud, silly laughter. She also wept during the silent meditation. Her remarks afterward were abundant – one really touched me. “Now, this is peace.”

The lesson for me for groups like these? Be fully empty with the laughter yoga goal in sight, but not as your required outcome for every class. They know why you’re there. They’ll follow your lead in time. Let them have control in a situation where they very little.