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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Offerings
    • Redesign Your Life 2.0
    • Get Creative
    • Personal Coaching
  • Creativity Conversations
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired
  • Newsletter

How Humor Keeps Us Sane

9/3/2021

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Most of my collages have an element of humor or contradiction in them. Aside from being curious about what things would look like that aren't normally combined together, the results just makes me laugh.

One theory about humor suggests that laughter is triggered when some norm  has been "breached" but the breach is harmless. Or when a situation has any number of things that appear to contradict each other or seem completely impossible together.

We take life so seriously, and sometimes that's warranted. But when life gets scary or heavy or sad, I find it's incredibly helpful to laugh.

It boosts my spirits so that somehow, there's a break in my negative or tight thinking, and I find new ways to think about and live with situations that seem impossible.

Probably no one is surprised that laughter is good medicine.  It's been said a million ways to Sunday. Think of Norman Cousins' book, _The Anatomy of an Illness_, where he documents the power of laughter to triumph over illness.

Think of the amazing popularity of comedians, especially the early comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers.

Everyone knows what it feels like to have a good belly laugh (although some of us haven't had one of those in a long time). Even a giggle or a snort or a chuckle has it's benefits.

Laughter releases neuropeptides that boost our immune system. Laughter also releases those feel-good chemicals called endorphins that can relieve pain and stress. And laughter increases oxygen intake, which obviously benefits the entire body. 

Laughing can take the pressure off when we're feeling stuck or overwhelmed.  It helps us take a step back from whatever we're engaged in, take a breath and regroup.

There is one kind of humor, though, that doesn't include the benefits I mentioned above. That's the kind of humor that's at the expense of another person. 

Not only do we not feel good or happy, even if we do end up laughing, but mean humor hurts us, disconnects us, and makes life a "me against them" scenario.

But "healthy" laughter gives us all a well-needed break from sameness: the same way of looking at life, the same way looking at ourselves. 

Sameness prevents us from being creative, from finding new solutions, from seeing new possibilities, from discovering the depths within us that can help us live rich, rewarding lives.

We are all going through difficult, unfamiliar, even life-threatening times. But allowing ourselves a moment to lighten up, to smile, to laugh at our foibles and let go of our often rigid ways of seeing provides a space in which hope, goodness and opportunity can emerge from within us.

When they do emerge (and they inevitably will) we can share them with others in whatever way is unique to us.

And that will lift others up so they, too, are able to see beyond what is to what's possible.
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