Powered By Laughter

The other day I had one of the first busy days I’ve had since my surgery. Three months ago, I used to breeze through these kinds of days. But after months of lazy recuperation, I found myself stressed over all I had to do that day, and added to that was the stress as I looked around and realized how far behind in household chores I’d gotten because I hadn’t had the strength to keep up with everything. Thoughts like “I’m never going to get all this done. No matter how hard I try, I can’t do all this. I’m so behind all ready. Things have piled up until it’s impossible. I’m going to end up in the hospital again.” At the hospital thought, I realized what I was doing. It wasn’t the tasks that were causing me pain, it was my thoughts about the tasks. I had to get rid of the thoughts.

So I went back over every thought I’d had and exaggerated it. I purposely made myself see it in my head as absurd. I played each new thought out like a movie. I saw myself frantically running from one task to the next like a chicken with its head cut off—and I mean that literally, my head was cut off so that I bumped into things I should have seen and toppled over things in my way. I saw myself sinking in the clutter of my office like a hunter sinking in quick sand. Inch by inch I slowly disappeared until all that could be seen of me was my index finger wagging frantically for help. I saw myself being rushed to the hospital in a florescent orange ambulance, me in a full body cast, and when we arrived the ambulance driver announced to the doctor (who looked a lot like Jack Black in a mustache and beard) that he had to restrain me because I was battling self-inflicted -clutter-traumatization.

I don’t have to tell you that by that time I was laughing so hard I couldn’t be upset. With the negative emotions out of the way, I tackled the tasks at hand with no pain. Humor is a powerful tool. It works especially well when we are stressing over something bad we think is going to happen. Just exaggerate the dire consequences until they become absurd. Give the image as much ridiculous detail as possible. Laugh at the “movie” you’ve created until the negative feelings are dispelled. Then, on the wings of that laughter, do what needs to be done. Laughter empowers every time!