Laugh, Pray, Love

The past weeks and indeed most of the summer—well let’s make that the entire year—has been a bit difficult. I have continued working, healing and counseling others under my own mosquito net of sorts, deluged with one thing after another in the way that life can happen to us.

Recently, burdens shifted and I was given the devastating speech of: “You have a lump in your breast that needs to be checked,” in the same flat tone that one is told the chemical aspects of a particular brand of paint. You know the emotionless pitch that I suppose is needed at that moment. That alone with other physical challenges caught up with me and I had to sit and rest a bit.

When dealing with others in my work, of course, there are many healing paths to offer, but with myself, my words simply fell away. I could not hear any thoughts of compassion. Stiff, frozen and numb, I moved through my days.

As in all pivotal moments in life when you are in need; those you expect to be there sometimes simply are not able to offer any support. Baffled, my usual buoyant spirit became water-logged.

Incident after incident continued to escalate and compound until one day, I simply fell into fits of laughter. My mirth spilled over all day bubbling up at the silliest things. Then the monsoon that had claimed my soul lifted and things changed. No the tests were still there, some of them, but my spirit had shifted. I had given myself the gift of laughter.

Mark Twain said, “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”

This is quite true. Laughter shifts chemicals inside of us and spills over into our hearts. It is infectious to others and highly contagious bringing the gift of joy to young and old. We need laughter, surely we do. The world needs it as does our souls.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “The earth laughs in flowers.”

I am sure the planet does giggle but I think it also laughs in whales, dolphins, sparrows, clouds and dandelions. If we take a minute, we can hear it. Recently, I was sitting in the car waiting for my daughter with the window down. I became aware of an intense burst of bird chatter around me.

It was as if a hundred birds were talking all at once. I located the source which was a cedar tree that a flock of sparrows were living in at the moment. All I could hear was their bird conversations. I call it that because what else could it be but their communication. The feeling I picked up was happiness. I tell you that happened only a few days before my own humor epiphany.

With laughter our burdens become lighter. The Buddhist say live every day with joy even if in war, a difficult feat perhaps but necessary. Necessary in the sense that our walk on this earth is a physical one but our journey is spiritual. Laughing shifts our outlook to a higher realm because as you know Angels laugh a lot.