lightens one's load in the moment. My own experience has shown me that it lightens one's load for the long haul too.
What does this sense of humor look and feel like? What comes first to my mind is that deep belly laugh that erupts within us, often over the silliest things—perhaps something kind of dumb that a friend or even a small child says. It's being able to identify with the many humorous situations in sitcoms, or better yet, stage plays. It's being tickled by cartoons in a magazine like The New Yorker. And sometimes we laugh deeply just because . . . We might not know what triggers the laughter. We simply know it feels good. It feels freeing. Some have said that we are closer to God when we laugh than at any other time. No way to prove that, of course, but laughter is good because it “right-sizes” us—it shifts our perception and we sense the clarity, the gift of real “vision,” instantly.
A sense of humor can be cultivated.
We know that a sense of humor can make life more tolerable, but how might it affect the outcome of a dire circumstance? I can best explain this through an example. Dawn, the Native American woman I referred to in an earlier chapter, had every reason to be discouraged to the point of suicide—a choice made by a number of her siblings as well as her father. She generally shrugged her shoulders at the problems that mounted in her life, and there were many. She used drugs and alcohol to excess for a number of years as a way of coping, but after finally attaining sobriety, which eluded her more than once (I'd have to guess twenty or thirty times, in fact), she turned more and more to laughter. She enjoyed her own and also enjoyed inspiring it in others.
She lived on the edge for decades. She survived her many death-defying encounters with alcohol and drugs, and this convinced her that living on the edge was doable. In fact, she regularly proclaimed that if you weren't living on the edge, you were taking up too much space. She chuckled every time she said it. We did too, hearing her and knowing what she meant.
We always have a choice regarding how we will see any situation, whether from the past or this moment.
Dawn showed me that if you could maintain a sense of humor in spite of living through circumstances like hers, seeing the funny side of life was perhaps a gift unlike any other. In a group, her sense of humor gave a lift to the experiences of so many of us, proving that only one in a crowd had to see the funny side to open it up for many to be able to see it in time.
Humor has been credited with healing many ills. I remember reading Norman Cousins's book Anatomy of an Illness, in which he shared how he had used laughter to heal himself of cancer. It was a remarkable story. It stands as a great example of the power of laughter in our lives no matter what circumstance has caused us pain: emotional, physical, or mental—even all three. He insisted that a good belly laugh every day was just what the doctor ordered. It may well be the very thing that has kept Dawn alive far beyond what her friends and family had expected. Laughter certainly contributed to Judith's survival too.
I mentioned Judith in an earlier chapter, but there was much about her life that I didn't share at that time, and much that I will share later in the book too. For now let me say she was a potential suicide victim throughout much of her life. She said thoughts of suicide began while she was a youngster, not because she wanted to punish others, which is one of the explanations psychologists often use; that didn't even occur to her. She just wanted to escape the pain of life and didn't really think her suicidal thoughts were a big deal. Even into adulthood she harbored these thoughts, sometimes making carefully laid out plans. When a counselor told her mentally healthy people didn't contemplate suicide, she didn't believe her.
When she was early in recovery, Judith's last bona fide plan to kill herself was just moments from being executed. She was saved by an unexpected visitor, a total stranger in fact, knocking on her door. This struck her as both a miracle and almost laughable, especially since the visitor insisted the visit had been arranged many weeks before.
We can't entertain more than one thought at a time. Choose to let whatever thought you entertain be one that creates an inner chuckle or a good belly laugh whenever possible.
Judith was quick to laugh at herself. She hadn't laughed much as a child in her tense family, she said; no one did. But as someone relatively new to recovery, she began to see the humorous side of many situations. Whenever the opportunity to laugh presented itself in the recovery rooms she frequented, she relished her deep-throated laughter. Luckily, recovering alcoholics are pretty quick to laugh at themselves. Judith also shared how grateful she is that she married someone who makes her laugh every day, and she is convinced that this adds value not only to her recovery but to all the interactions she has with everyone else.
I'm convinced that the pain of one's earlier life is lessened a tiny bit by each moment of laughter we allow ourselves to experience. And I know that when I laugh, whatever I am doing gets easier to handle. Bringing laughter with you wherever you go benefits human kind. Psychologists and psychiatrists everywhere agree with this. Laughter is like a dose of medicine for the soul. It quiets, soothes, and lifts up the soul.
What is it about having a sense of humor that makes such a difference in the journey we are on? What comes to mind first is that we simply can't entertain two thoughts at one time. If what we are thinking is lightening our load, or better yet, giving us a good chuckle, we are discarding another thought that's causing a dark cloud to hover over the path we are traveling. We can choose one thought or the other. And we can make the choice many times in a day. That's the good news. A few bad, cloudy hours can be lightened by laughter in the blink of an eye. It's happened to me thousands of times.
Make the decision to spend time every day with people who make you laugh. It's good for your soul.
This reminds me of laughter yoga, a phenomenon that is popular in many countries throughout the world, and in the past couple of years is being practiced in the United States too. It's the brainchild of Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, India. According to the Internet, he launched the first Laughter Club at a park on March 13, 1995, along with a handful of people. Today, it has become a worldwide phenomenon with more than six thousand Social Laughter Clubs in about sixty countries.
People I know who have tried laughter yoga are pretty amazed at its effectiveness. What does it accomplish? As I just stated, we can't entertain two expressions or thoughts at any one time. If we are experiencing a moment of full-throated laughter, we can't be focusing on a negative idea. Practitioners of laughter yoga say it actually changes brain chemistry, and thereby changes perception. And that changes our life, too.
Newcomers to the recovery process are often surprised by all of the laughter in AA meetings. And considering the trauma so many of us have lived through, it perhaps does seem unusual, even macabre, to the untutored. However, being able to laugh at ourselves, the insanity of our past behavior, and the horrors of growing up in families that were often filled with abusive outbursts, is truly the healing balm that allows us to know we are going to be okay. Not a single person I interviewed felt he or she was okay as a youngster. Most felt terrified and unable to cope successfully with life well into adulthood, and yet every one of them laughed heartily many times as we talked.
Our willingness to laugh is the first necessary step.
Charlie, the pilot whose story we covered earlier, was such a great example of the laughter payoff. He was a prankster as a youngster and continues to be one. It was a joy to interview him. In fact, throughout our conversations we laughed a great deal. Nothing in particular seemed to precipitate it. It just erupted so naturally. The willingness we both had for “living into” the lighter expression of life opened my heart to the laughter that heals.
Charlie grew up in an insane household, but eventually embraced a solid recovery. One of ten children with an alcoholic, workaholic dad and a martyred, very devout Catholic mother, Charlie learned
