A Time to Laugh

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about Ann, a good friend who had recently taken her life due to severe depression. I had been out of touch with her for a few years.

For the first time since her death, I visited her husband, also a good friend, for about 5 hours yesterday. We laughed and cried together throughout the afternoon, barely watched a movie, shared memories, and ached for the loss of a very special woman.

Today I’m walking my talk regarding laughter yoga. I’m leading two laughter clubs, one of which is a German tradition holiday celebration to go with our laughter. But I’m still aching for Ann’s husband and for Ann – how much she suffered. My heart is filled with grief.

It would so easy for me to cancel both meetings, and I would have every legitimate reason to. But I really need to laugh. For no reason. For real.  

Her husband said yesterday that he was glad I came over and laughed with him. I was glad to come over and cry with him. I fake-laughed while riding in my car for about 15 minutes before I arrived. It gave me just enough ability to laugh with him.

I plan to kick depression as hard as I can in the butt during my life. I’ve always known one of the purposes of my life is to break grief. I’ve spent most of my life getting to know grief. I know it well. But now, for me, this is a time to laugh.

In honor of Ann.

Unwrapping Our True Gift

Packaging – we all have it. Noses, hair, where our hair grows, weight, height, age, eye color, how white our teeth are, the latest fashion, the way our feet look… the list goes on. If we’re not super-careful in these United States, we will see and value ourselves from the outside-in, instead of the inside-out.

We’re bombarded daily with images and definitions of beautiful packaging, or not, according to the opinions of others. This is pretty old news for most of us, but do we really get it?

An analogy – in this season, we give and receive holiday gifts. These gifts come with packaging to surprise the recipient as to what’s inside. Unwrapping a gift is a really fun thing to do, filled with expectation. If a gift is “poorly” wrapped by a young person, the packaging is considered adorable. If it’s poorly wrapped by an adult, it’s considered, well, somewhat inconsiderate. But the gift, regardless of packaging, could be the exact same thing, with the exact same value. Just different packaging.

What does your packaging look like? Is that where your self-image resides? From the image you see in a mirror with your eyes?

Laughter yoga has helped me awaken and strengthen my, “true self”, and create a true-self-image (it’s under construction). When I play laughter games with others, everyone’s packaging becomes the same. We are all happy lions, turkeys, waving royalty, and evil super models at the same time. Then, after laughing non-stop for 5-6 minutes, any inhibitions about my packaging are gone. I no longer care how carefully I’m wrapped.

The more we can laugh at our packaging, no matter how it ranks with current wrapping standards, we will start to build our true-self-image. I believe we long to live from that place within us of true truth. With no effort on my part but to laugh, laughter yoga has helped me live there, stay there, and strengthen that place. It’s my honor to help others do the same.

I’m filled with expectations of seeing the beautiful gifts of our true selves residing just beneath our packaging. To illustrate this, maybe I’ll bring a long roll of wrapping paper to a laughter session…

No Reason’s Greetings

When we laugh, our hearts open. Laughter makes sure that when our hearts open, the life-stealing stuff is removed, replaced by life-building stuff. We don’t have to try to achieve this self-improved result. It happens automatically when we laugh. It’s just how we’re put together.

For example, when we laugh, depression is automatically replaced by joy for no reason. We need some joy for no reason in this coming season of reasons to be joyful. During laughter sessions, we can ignore reason’s greetings. I’m going to send out No Reason’s Greetings cards for the holidays to let everyone know I love them because of nothing they give me and for absolutely no reason. That should cheer them up.

I’d like to gather a group of those of us who are getting used to laughing at nothing for no reason to visit the holiday section of say, Target. During a really busy time. We would randomly place ourselves throughout the aisles of fake trees, ho-ho-ing santas, ornaments, wreathes, bows, stockings and wrapping paper. Our cell phones would be programmed to the second to let us know when to start laughing. Then, suddenly, the stressed-out soccer Moms, mumbling Dads and pleading children would hear – laughter – loud laughter – all around them – from random people – for no apparent reason. Then, when our cell phones reminded us to stop, we would all stop laughing at exactly the same time. Now that’s what I call No Reason’s Greetings.

The Frozen Hiker Laughter Game

Last Sunday I went on a hike. You know, just a little Sunday excursion off Skyline Drive. I was with a great group of folks from the Outdoor Social Club. It was a 9 mile loop hike, which, we were forewarned, had a few streams to cross.

The day before the hike (actually days) we had gotten a significant amount of rain, so all of the usual “stepping stones” across the streams were gone. We resorted to other crossing options. The first was a long log about 12″ in diameter. To make a my story shorter, when I tried to balance on the log (we couldn’t use our poles because they weren’t long enough), I fell off the log and plunged into the stream. I was completely under water.

When I finally managed to get out of the stream, with the help of everyone panicing, I was cold. All of my extra dry clothing I had brought in my pack was drenched. It could have been much worse — I think me landing on my pack in the stream saved me from injury. So I started removing layers until I got down to my first layer. I would have had blisters galore if I had worn cotton. I should be the poster child for synthetic underwear.

My first reaction after all of this drama was to laugh. Hard. I couldn’t help it. When we get into a habit of laughing, we start to see ourselves and the world with much more levity. Then as we were hiking along, I started to get “weird” cold and exhausted. That’s when I started weeping. I went from weeping to laughing to weeping to laughing. Jere, the leader, kept wiping away my tears. Eventually, a sense of calm took over and I was fine for the rest of the 5-mile hike.

The group split up along the way and lost touch from each other, to make matters worse. So when our group (the not-lost group) returned to the overlook where everyone had parked, we realized none of us had driven. Everyone else who was in the lost group had the keys to the cars. So we had endure the cold wind.

Within minutes, a young couple from West Va. pulled up at the overlook and asked me to take a picture of them. We got into a conversation about our situation. The guy had many piercings and the young woman was pregnant, but I knew these were good people. After hearing my story, the guy started taking layers of his shirts off and literally gave me the warmest shirt off of his back. Then they asked what else they could do to help.

I was worried that I wouldn’t make it back in time for Laughter Yoga at Studio 206 at 5:30, so I asked them for a ride back in their somewhat beaten up car to Charlottesville to my SUV. They were happy to do this. We rode along, chatted, occasionally stopping for me to take pictures of them. It was fun. I filled their tank, got into my warm SUV, and arrived at 5:30 at Studio 206 to lead Laughter Yoga. In spandex. But I was there!

I wanted to share this because it’s a real world example of how intentional prolonged laughter can truly fortify you to survive emergencies and open your world to take chances without fear. You’ll rely on your intuition much more than your logic because laughing for no reason makes your logic take a back seat. You’ll live your authentic self.

It was just an afternoon hike, right? Relaxing, refreshing (ha!), fun. It’s just laughter, right? No big deal. But whoa, an immediate, direct line to our authentic selves. A friend recently said she thought the cure for cancer was right under our noses, we just hadn’t found it yet. I agreed but didn’t say I thought it was “preventative”, prolonged laughter.  

Oh, and about laughter building immunity – I didn’t even get a sniffle from this.

The new “frozen hiker” laughter game is a hoot. Come try it out sometime!

PS – The other “lost” group arrived about an hour later and everyone is fine. They just took the wrong trail at an intersection.

Leading Laughter Yoga with Teens

I had the privilege to lead laughter yoga in a first year class at UVA focused on mindfulness and “slowing down”. The awareness the class had about the need in our culture to buy what they called “slow” food — meaning locally grown food that hadn’t been raced around the world for consumption, along with other insights, humbled me. My college days were the days of surging political correctness. We all seemed to be trying to prove our religion, world view, or lack thereof, was THE RIGHT PATH. It was still fun, especially if you had the right path and used correct language to describe it.

Unlike the first UVA class I led in laughter yoga that was all women, this was a co-ed group with tangible awkwardness. I was tired, so my radar wasn’t fully “up” to sense the comfort level of the group. The group I led at the high school leadership conference had a similar awkwardness, but my energy was so high, and I had to yell so loudly to lead, that the awkwardness didn’t last because I was waaaayyyy “out there”.

About half of this group immediately attached to laughter games. The guys in the group seemed really reluctant at first. “Saving face” I guess.  I wonder, if it had been a group of all men, if they would have been less inhibited.

Once you get a group like this engaged, warming them up slowly with the “less vulnerable” laughter games and transition into standing laughter games … there is one game that they love across the board: “I miss you, run back”. Others everyone seems to love: The bubble, starting the cold car, alohahahaha, electric shock, and my latest, I scream, You Scream, We All Scream.

If you’re working wth younger folks, also give them time to invent their own laughter games. Let them explain a difficult situation, then help them turn it into a laughter game. They appreciate having a laughter game “voice”.

I think overall, LY was received well with this group. I could have been a little more on point with sensing their comfort levels. A good note: We must make sure we’re rested and have taken care of ourselves before we attempt to take care of others. Yes, Mom. Seriously, that’s not the easiest thing to do, but so very necessary.

Have fun! Leigh

The Onion

This is a satirical news site – to me, hilarious. Hope you enjoy & have a few laughs.

The story I like — “Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are”

The link: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_win_causes_obsessive

Have fun,
Leigh

Relationship Repair

There may be a new way to go about marriage counseling — actually any pair or group of people in intense relationships, including even countries at war.

When we can laugh together – simply choose that vulnerability - at absolutely nothing for no reason – tension in relationships doesn’t have a choice but to subside. We can laugh in such situations because we’re not laughing with or at each other. We’re just laughing. When we seem to have no other way out but to get out, laughter can pave an alternative. When relationships become unsalvageable, laughter is the only thing that may be able to salvage them.

Just a thought for all of the marriage and family counselors – perhaps add laughing yoga to their therapy? Who knows where examples of mere couples and families in crisis could lead to a new model for world peace.

Om, Leigh

The Empathy Maker

We learn how to forgive others from others. We feel falsely empowered when we hold onto wrath. We like that sense of power. It gives us control over those who’ve hurt us, makes us feel like a god. The vulnerability of forgiveness doesn’t appeal to us unless we’re first on the receiving end. And forgiveness doesn’t feel “real” unless we’re understood. Someone needs to try to see us as we are, put themselves in our shoes, then forgive us. Just as we need to see someone as they are, let them know that, then forgive them. This is what is called unconditional love. All of our conditions, faults and failures are weighed, and forgiveness happens anyway.

The easiest way to develop an empathy-forgiveness habit that leads to unconditional love is to laugh. Laughter takes away fear. Fear is the opposite of unconditional love. Some say the opposite of love is apathy, but the forerunner to apathy is fear.

If we can laugh at a situation, the situation loses it’s hold on us – it’s power to overwhelm or terrify us. This may take many hours of laughing for no reason, but eventually, fear must bow. That’s when laughing at nothing for no reason becomes an especially powerful discipline. It lets us be who we truly are, and to give and receive what we crave more than anything – unconditional love. 

As I’ve laughed almost every day as a discipline, fear subtly subsides. One day, something or someone comes around that I used to fear, and wow, it’s not scary anymore. Or, it’s less scary. If I can remember to laugh at it for no reason, the release from that fear becomes tangible and permanent.

This is the super-cool thing about laughing at nothing for no reason: The laughter does the work for us. Our brains can’t help but to be rewired when we laugh. Whatever stimulus triggered fear in the past has been slowly disconnected. Praise to that sneaky laughter. There are no homework questions to answer, deep concepts to digest, not even PowerPoint presentations to endure. Other than attending laughter club meetings, the best support group you’ll find is a laugh-line, where you can call a number and laugh with people for however long and then just hang up. We’re working on having one here on the east coast. Ha!

I dare you to laugh at nothing for no reason in your car today. What are you afraid of?

Laughter and Tears

I’ve led many laughter sessions, especially in the hospital or during home visits, where laughter and tears come forth from people at the same time. Sometimes people just cry. I believe that laughter is a healer and can open up parts of our souls that we may not have connected with in a long time. Not on purpose, just because of our lifestyles. Stress busyness loneliness illness pretend happiness and more stress.  

I didn’t know about the power of letting both laughter and tears out at the same time, on purpose, until this week. I actually look forward to modeling this during laughter sessions this week, if that’s still my state of being by Friday with the women at the jail, or Sunday during laughter groups. Two sides of the same coin. If we can laugh and cry at the same time, when we really need to, it’s unusually powerful for healing. It can be scary, especially to our logic. And we may feel a little nuts to have both going on at the same time. Probably because it’s so human. Human? Oh, this is what it feels like.

A Thank You to Friends

Nothing is more important than love — thank you to friends who have held me and Ann’s family in prayer and intentions for peace and healing. Thank you.