Perhaps it is time to REALLY laugh?
When was the last time you really laughed? Why not start right now?
I have always laughed a lot, and pretty loudly but lately it seems I do it more and it seems to be even more fun! My favourite laughing is when your eyes get wet, your body rings, your friends join in, heck strangers even smile, and you all feel like you may have to pee. I’ve also noticed that laughter, especially when a situation looks a bit dire, allows others the release a laugh provides as well.
And you don’t need to take it from me - all sorts of people including Buddha and that Doctor in India recommend it. Sholom Aliechem recommends it. And I believe there is a story of man who laughed himself to health from cancer (Esther please remind me his name). Perhaps that’s an extreme case but I have to say, like a little light dispells a lot of darkness (talmud), it seems there isn’t much a little laughter can’t dispell!
So yes, perhaps you may want to try some out next time things feel a bit sad or bad or dark or frustrating or…just because something is funny and you can’t help but share that with the world.
To me laughter seems to be a HUGE key, in the very least to ones health and making the world just that little bit more bareable!
A collection of my recent laughs: Being caught in the confluence of three thoughts - Kaya’s and Rob’s and mine - which led to me landing hard on my butt tripping-on-banana-peel-style - Laughing together as I realised I was alive and could walk, them laughing because I looked ridiculous. Laughing when I made a comment ‘I don’t know what’s next’ and a girl, Mantzy, said ‘but we never know what’s next’. Laughing when I realised my own stupidity with Bethan and Rachel late the other night. Laughing with Gus about the worst smelling teacup in the world. Laughing at my mistake cooking terrible pasta for dinner on the farm and knowing I couldn’t waste it (it was SO terrible, though it improved a lot the next day!). An old memory - laughing with Avi about possibly the most ridiculously expensive wedding card in existance in Soho because I was running late and didn’t have time to find another. Laughing with women and men and friends and acquaintance and more over food and wine and stories and…life!
Just thinking about these little moments make me smile! (I seem to only have capacity for small things at the moment, though they do add up!)
So perhaps it is time to reconnect with your laughter, remember some laughs, and then get to new laughing? (closest I can come to an order).
End note: I very nearly missed my flight because I wrote this and lost track of time - but I did catch myself out, and laughed out loud. Made me far less stressed…and I made the flight too!
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June 3rd, 2007 at 5:14 am
The Storyteller’s Creed
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge,
That myth is more potent than history.
I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts
That hope always triumphs over experience
That laughter is the only cure for grief
And I believe that love is stronger than death.
– Robert Fulghum
(reposted from here in august 2005: http://natalieshell.com/2005/08/10/the-storytellers-creed/
and given to me even longer before via Martin
this story journey started a long time ago, and yet right now it feels like iam only JUST starting…perhaps that is how it works…always beginning and ending starting and restarting…learning more…feeling smaller and bigger all at once
this also goes with this posting somehow
Stories move in circles. They don’t move in straight lines.
So it helps if you listen in circles. There are stories insidestories
and stories between stories, and finding your way through them
is as easy and as hard as finding your way home.
And part of the finding is the getting lost.
And when you’re lost, you start to look around and to listen.
Corer Fischer, Albert Greenberg, and Naomi Newman
of A Traveling Jewish Theatre, Coming from a Great Distance
via http://www.deenametzger.com/
June 7th, 2007 at 7:08 am
Who was it that said “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come”?
Oh yeah, William Shakespeare. He was a smart dude.
So was Mary Poppins. She said “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down…” and isn’t laughter the best type of medicine?
And speaking of laughing, and Mary Poppins, and the pure joy of your favorite childhood memories, here is one of my favorite songs. Whenever I think of it, I start to smile, and before I know it, my smile turns to giggles, and then overflows and I can’t help bursting out with joy!
I Love To Laugh
From the movie Mary Poppins
Uncle Albert:
I love to laugh
Loud and long and clear
I love to laugh
It’s getting worse ev’ry year
The more I laugh
The more I fill with glee
And the more the glee
The more I’m a merrier me
It’s embarrassing!
The more I’m a merrier me!
Mary Poppins:
Some people laugh through their noses
Sounding something like this “Mmm…”
Some people laugh through their teeth goodness sake
Hissing and fizzing like snakes
Bert:
Some laugh too fast
Some only blast - ha!
Others, they twitter like birds
Then there’s the kind
What can’t make up their mind
Uncle Albert:
When things strike me as funny
I can’t hide it inside
And squeak - as the squeakelers do
I’ve got to let go with a ho-ho-ho…
And a ha-ha-ha…too!
All:
We love to laugh
Loud and long and clear
We love to laugh
So ev’rybody can hear
The more you laugh
The more you fill with glee
And the more the glee
The more we’re a merrier we!
June 12th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Thanks for the reminder,Natalie.
Laughter helps.
I can recall laughing about something in the limo en route to my father’s funeral…he was very funny. He died after 8 years of having bladder cancer. I am sure he survived as long as he did because of his indomitable spirit. When he had his first cancer surgery, my mother, brothers and I were all hovering around him as he came out of the anaesthesia. He started to speak in his gravelly, post-surgical voice, “I’m so ill; I’m in such pain. I just had surgery. I had a hysterectomy!” Of course we all broke up with laughter…and he was in cotrol of the situation.
My mother-in-law just died at the age of 90 after a wonderful life. Her funeral was filled with joyous recollections from all assembled - from her great grandchildren to her contemporary cousins. One of her great attributes, and the secret of her 69-year marriage, was her sense of humor.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
thanks Sharon and Ayelet- for sharing your laughs - smiling big time!
And indeed have been laughing more myself…afterall, I am suddenly recalling a friend/colleague’s voice (MaryJane) - Life is too precious to be taken too seriously!!!