Don’t forget to laugh. Really.

DON’t forget to laugh. Really.

When was the last time you REALLY laughed? A deep belly laugh that maybe included a snort or two? If you haven’t laughed - if you haven’t allowed yourself to laugh - this is your reminder to do it. We tend to feel that the things that are the best for us in life are really heavy and intense - I know I probably feed into this belief by constantly telling everyone how the most self-loving things we can do for ourselves are often the hardest and the stickiest. But what if, right now, the most self-loving thing you can do is be utterly ridiculous? Let go? Release the heaviness and just LAUGH YOUR FACE OFF?  If you hang in with me for a few minutes, that’s what I’m going to talk about today. And, I’m going to tell you how I found my laughter thanks to a naked Jennifer Lawrence and a pair of neon orange booty shorts.

Here are two reasons to let yourself laugh and two ways to cultivate laughter -  even in the middle of sticky, icky times - and two tips for cultivating laughter when it feels really hard to do it.

Reason One: Laughter reminds you that you’re going to be OK, even if you don’t really feel like it. 

Sometimes life sucks. It's heavy. The world is going through shit (as many of us are feeling right now) and things can happen in our personal lives that are overwhelming. Grief. Death. Loss. Confusion.

When this happens, laughter can feel like the LAST thing we want to do - it can feel inaccessible, make us feel guilty, and like we are betraying the severity of what is happening. Laughter is not betrayal. Laughter is hope. 

Even in the darkest of dark feelings, we are allowed to feel hope. We are allowed to smile. We are not turning our backs on pain when we also make room for joy. Birth and death. Ying and yang. The two can coexist at the same time, in the same heart. In fact, allowing laughter to flow through you can make it easier for you to weather through the hard stuff. Laughter will remind you that there is light at the end of the tunnel - even if the tunnel feels very long and very dark.

Reason Two: Laughter creates connection.

When we’re going through shit, it’s very natural to isolate ourselves. To step back. To not want to be around people. To assume nobody understands us. It can feel SO lonely. I know. I get it. I am really guilty of this myself. 

Laughter will help you reconnect to people. It opens the door for a shared bond. It puts us out there. It offers a way for people to empathize with us, and for us to identify with them. It reminds us we aren’t alone. There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness. Solitude can be healing, while loneliness can exasperate all the levels of pain we are feeling and make it harder to see any pathways to our healing.

An article in Psychology Today said  that “Laughter creates social bonds, reduces pain and anxiety, increases well-being, and is also highly contagious. Good Laughter communicates safety, security and human connection. Some think laughter began as a primal way of communicating relief from danger: that something potentially dangerous turned out to be ok. Thus, we laugh with surprise and delight.”

And now. How to laugh. Yes. How to laugh. Because when we feel like our head is up our ass and nothing feels right, we can forget how to let go. So here are my two suggestions for you.

One: Go back to what made you feel good when you were younger before it all got so heavy.

When I was 13, I went on a ski trip with my dad and a bunch of other dads and their kids. The other kids were much younger than me so one night they all went to bed and I was allowed to stay up late and watch a movie with the dads. They watched… Animal House. Yes. Animal House. And I laughed my face off. I felt grown up. I felt like I was getting access to some secret society of mature humor when, in actuality, Animal House is super sophomoric and raunchy BUT totally fun. Anyhow, this style of humor is always fun to me so – I made a conscious effort to seek it out.

I ended up watching that new Jennifer Lawrence movie on Netflix, No Hard Feelings, and I spit my drink out laughing multiple times. Yes, it was raunchy. Yes, it was stupid and the end wasn’t great. But for 85% of that movie, I was a teenager again and it felt SO refreshing and great. Go back to what you remember and let it bring you to life again.

Two: Embrace something ridiculous.

At some point in time dealing with the grief of my dad passing and life feeling upside down, I got tired of feeling like I had lost myself. My shine. My joy. And, I don’t judge myself for that feeling because it’s TOTALLY normal. But I didn’t want to stay in that place. So, I asked myself, “What out there is the totally opposite of how you feel right now? What has the energy that you feel like you’re missing?” 

I knew Halloween was coming up and I haven’t celebrated in years, but I saw the occasion as an in. An excuse for me to do something REALLY different and shake it up. Even if I had no big plans.

Hooters Girl. It kept screaming in my mind. I wanted to be a Hooters Girl. Now, I’m a solid size 22/24 these days - believe me, I know that there are NO plus size Hooters Girl but, dammit, I was going to make it happen. And so I poured myself into the joy of becoming a Hooters Girl. I actually found an outfit (I had to POUR myself into it, but we made it work) I got nude fishnet tights, scrunch socks and an orange fanny pack, I lost myself in doing my hair and ran around the house holding an imaginary tray of hot wings while playfully flirting with Man Candy.

It was so ridiculously joyful that I felt like I was shining from the inside out for a few minutes. I knew it was silly. I knew it wasn’t real. But for that night, I wasn’t Sarah Whose Dad Died and Can’t Make Sense of Work and Social Media but, I was Sarah whose sole job it was to bounce around and flirt and offer you ranch dressing.

Tap into your ridiculous. Let it happen. Let go of the rules around what’s “real” and just ask yourself what feels fun? If there were no judgments or boxes to be painted into or social rules – what would feel totally joyful for you? Release the burden. Know that you aren’t walking away from hard things - just making room for you to be more than the sum of your pain.

And that is my reminder for you this week. I know SO MANY of us are feeling hard things. Socially. Politically. And that’s OK. But you are more than what hurts you. Just remember that. 

As always – feel free to chime in in the comments.

Here for you, always.

Sarah