Alright friends, I'm in the middle of writing another blog post that I have been working on for two days. Unfortunately, between clients, sick kids and my own appointments I have not had a chance to finish it. Last night I went to bed at 8:30pm- I didn't fall asleep right away but I was in bed and then I was up with our youngest from 2-4 so I'm just a bit tired. This has been quite the week in our household with all the sickness and the our schedules just being full than normal...phew. I'm sure many of you are experiencing the same thing. The lead up to Christmas can feel so busy and get so full that it makes it hard to enjoy.
So, this blog today is just going to be a mishmash of my thoughts and hopefully tomorrow I will actually be able to get the post on hope I've been working on done and completed and shared with you guys. A friend sent me a suggestion today to do a post on laughter and I love the idea, at first I was going to table that one for tomorrow but right now I think writing about laughter sounds a lot easier than writing about the intricacies of hope. Laughter seems far less complicated than hope currently.
For some reason the first thing that comes to mind is my recent experience of birth with our youngest. I had planned a whole playlist of music that I found calming and encouraging and I had listened to it leading up to her birth. Then, when I was in labour I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that playlist, all I wanted to do was listen to a comedian called Jim Gaffigan. Hilariously enough, in one of his jokes he talks about birth, his part in it and how they had a midwife attend the births of their 5 children. I believe one of the jokes from the set I was listening to is "You know what it's like having 5 kids? You're drowning and somebody hands you a baby."
Anyway, I found listening to this comedy set particularly helpful because it kept me laughing and relaxed. In fact, when I was in active labour (I think Eliza was 20 minutes from being born...) I was using the laughing gas and attempting to tell my midwife (And close friend) about one of the jokes that I found particularly hilarious and thought she would appreciate as well. After Eliza was born her and I laughed about the fact that I was attempting to tell her about this comedy set in great detail while in labour. Anyway, the laughter helped...it helped me relax and it took my mind off the pain in between the contractions.
In parenting I often find laughter helpful, in those moments where I feel overwhelmed or when something is spilled yet again laughing helps release the tension. Laughter reminds me that it really isn't such a big deal and makes the situation feel lighter than it might otherwise. There was a moment just this week where I was making dinner with Eliza on my hip, my eldest was sitting on the counter chatting away and my middle child was desperate for someone to play with him. I took a deep breath and felt that nudge of a reminder to choose joy and I took a few minutes to chase my middle one around the living room. That laughter that was released made the rest of the dinner making process so much easier because instead of us all being snappy, feeling unheard/unseen and overwhelmed we all had a different head space and outlook. To be honest I only think I had the ability to do this deep breath and switch of response because of people who have been praying for me this week and God giving me extra energy and insight in that moment...I in no way felt more capable to laugh in that moment than I normally do.
Laughter is such a huge thing. I remember reading something when I was studying for my undergrad that talked about the act of fake laughing and the positive impact it could have on your mood. It was something about the idea that your body doesn't necessarily know the difference between fake and real laughter and so you can have all the benefits of laughter even if it is you just "going through the motions"(link to an article here). My roommate and I found this idea quite humourous and decided to try it out. The fantastic part of this idea is that most of the time you end up actually laughing because it feels so ridiculous to be sitting there going, "Ha. Ha. Ha."
I think humour can be one of our greatest tools in the face of hard things. I would like to clarify though that by humour I don't mean sarcasm or passive aggressive "humour" those aren't the same at all and in many ways can have the opposite effect. If I can find humour about a situation it helps me refocus my attention. It's a bit of the "and" situation where I can acknowledge the hard thing but also find a lightness in it somewhere...I can find some small bit of hope or sliver of joy. If I think about people whose resiliency I admire and inspire to be more like they all have this ability to find things to laugh about in the face of difficult life circumstances. It's not that they in any way deny or diminish their difficulties but they are able to find the joy and laughter in all circumstances.
Just think of how good it feels to truly laugh...like tears streaming down your face laughter. I recently watched this YouTube video (I am willing to admit that you very likely will not laugh as hard as I did...so be forewarned that it may not give you the same amount of laughter that it gave me) and I have not laughed that hard in a while. I had tears streaming down my face, I can't even explain to you why it made me laugh so hard but sometimes it's good to not question and just enjoy it. One of the things that I love about finding something funny that is not objectively that funny is that it just makes me laugh more that I'm finding something that isn't that funny so funny. Does this make sense?
This same roommate that joined me in fake laughing is also connected to another laughing story of mine (we laughed a lot together...) that is a good example of laughter begetting more laughter. I remember we were sitting in this little den that we had in our apartment where we did all of our studying (it was very dark and depressing as it had no window...but I think it also helped with focus) and we had been talking about something and she went to sit down in her rolling office chair but it rolled back just as she went to sit down and she landed with a thud on the floor. This is a funny situation, but this situation caused us to laugh so hard and quite a while past the "normal" amount of time that "should" be spent laughing at this kind of thing. I think we were a bit delirious at the time studying for exams and writing papers and that definitely could have contributed to it but it also just felt SO GOOD to have such a good deep, belly laugh.
A recent story (I will have to find a picture and add it here) was with my eldest. My parents have this magnification...sheet (? I'm not sure what else to call it, refer to picture below) which my kids used to like to play with when we went over. My mom and I were chatting in the living room and my eldest came in and there was something about the way it only magnified a portion of his face that just caught us off-guard and struck us as funny. Then he was enjoying our laughter so much that he started laughing and putting the magnifying sheet back in front of his face and the magnification of his laughing face made us laugh more. Then it was just never-ending. When one of us would finally stop and take a breath the other would start chuckling again and off we would go.
It's like that post good laugh sigh. Maybe you know the one I mean? After you and a friend or two have shared a good laugh and then someone does that contented sigh and it can just start everyone laughing all over again.
Give yourselves over to a good laugh today, my friends. If you need some help to get going either fake your laughter or watch a Jim Gaffigan special on Netflix (or a funny movie of your choosing) I guarantee that either of those should get you laughing! Laugh well, friends.
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