I just attended a great class near my home by a laughologist named Donna Oiland. Isn’t that a cool title?! She was trained through The World Laughter Tour. It wasn’t a Laughter Yoga session or a laughter club, which I have wanted to try out for several years now, but it was about all the many benefits of laughter and different practical ways to become more purposeful with our laughter in our everyday lives. The laughologist even suggested keeping a laughter journal. I love this idea!
On Sunday, I’m organizing an art party precisely to create collages or paper mosaics with inspirational phrases on the covers of notebooks to be used as gratitude journals, art journals, reflection journals--the sky’s the limit. Now I think I know what theme I want my notebook to have this Sunday: laughter! What a neat way to incorporate more laughter into my life and focus on laughing more often too.
The laughologist recommended writing down or recording the moments when we have “mirthful belly laughter,” the times when you can barely breathe from laughing so much, when tears roll down your cheeks, when you might even snort, and when your stomach muscles hurt afterwards. She also said that we can keep funny jokes or cartoons we find in the journal. And the final piece she mentioned was recording stories of our most embarrassing moments. This is because of the importance of learning to laugh at ourselves.
Throughout the class, we were encouraged to share funny or embarrassing stories. I thought of the importance of storytelling and sharing funny moments with loved ones, and I remembered a funny story I recently told my husband of a time when I was about 6 years old and my dad told me we were going to drive by a perfume factory. He even said to roll down the window when we got close and take a big, deep breath. Milliseconds later, I realized we were driving by a manure plant. I think I cried! I remember being really mad about being tricked AND being laughed at. Thinking about this now funny memory made me realize how important it is to develop the ability to laugh at myself and not take myself too seriously.
Donna Oiland described this as a gift of laughter for ourselves, to look for ways to laugh more, and take better care of ourselves as a result. So today, for my self-love practice, I have gifted myself the time to laugh--at this class and now watching reruns of Friends and by creating a laughter journal this weekend. I’m also grateful for the mirthful belly laughter my husband and I took part in two nights ago after a weekend snowshoeing trip. We were a bit delirious from exhaustion but boy, did it feel good to laugh so hard tears rolled down my cheeks. :)
When was the last time you laughed like that?
2 comments:
I'm so sorry I missed the class, but I love this post. And I love that you are building a laughter book and collage. It's so easy to get caught up in the daily humdrum and forget to laugh or not have many moments to do so, so I love building in reminders. Deep belly laughter with tears rolling down is one of my favorite feelings!
Well said, Reema! Since I decided to set up little reminders on my phone for everyday at 4pm to check my laughter temperature, I've discovered, sadly, that more often than not, I haven't laughed much by the time the reminder goes off. So it's definitely something I want to work on doing more of! And doesn't mirthful belly laughter sound positively delicious?! Maybe we should throw a laughter party?!
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