An Evening of Joy

We had a joyous meeting last night of the Phinney Laughter Club. It was a smaller group of ten as we birthed our new laughter club, a reincarnation of the old one in Ravenna. For me it was a nostalgic evening. Exactly eight years ago, in October of 2001, I started my first laughter club at Phinney Neighborhood Center, across the hall in the Red Room. I feel blessed to still be at this business of bringing more laughter into the world. Thank you all who came last night. You were a beautiful crowd of laughers!

Laughing iMAC

I’m in love with my new iMAC!

With it’s built in digital camera and 20 inch screen I can create my own videos directly in front of my monitor. As a friend says, instead of bringing my camera to the action, I bring the action to my camera. My latest creation is a video of myself doing my morning laughter routine. Now anytime I need some laughs, I can just click on my video and laugh it up – with myself!!!

Fun in Fremont

I live in Fremont now, the Center of the Universe, as the locals call it. There are organized groups of people in this community whose purpose it is to “keep Fremont fun”. Fremont is an easy place to laugh and play.

From my window today, I face a huge inflated pumpkin, sitting atop a spike in one of the low- rise buildings along the canal. With a ghoulish smile of shark-like yellow teeth, it invokes my morning laughter.

Julia Cameron, famed writing teacher, encourages aspiring writers to scribe their morning pages each day (three handwritten sheets), to keep their writing muscles toned and their words flowing. I prescribe morning laughter, to keep our laughter muscles in shape and enhance a steady flow of positive emissions. This October I’ll use the huge pumpkin. Tonight I’ll point it out to my dinner guests and we’ll laugh more. After the sun goes down, it illuminates like an element of fun plopped into the sunset.

Each morning I begin the day facing East to greet Mt. Rainier. When it’s not immersed in clouds, I get the full top-to-bottom, left-to-right view. It’s a special moment in my day. Now I’ll also turn West and laugh with the pumpkin!

Seattle International Comedy Competition

In it’s 30^th year the Seattle International Comedy Competition is a great venue for adding more comedy to your life. It starts this year on Nov 4 and ends on Nov 29^th and runs at various locations around Seattle. Basically it’s a month of comedy performances, in the form of competitions, until one final winner is chosen.

I discovered it two years ago, attended the semi-finals at Edmonds Center for the Arts, laughed for about 2 – 3 hours, left with a sore mouth and a belly full of laughter. Plenty of crude stuff, but the whole range of humor too. Some were doing the ethnic routine. One older man was doing a “seniors” routine. Something about leaving a glass around and someone will plop their teeth into it. Lots of young guys were doing the dating routine. A couple of teachers were doing the classroom routine, informing us they were educators by day, comedians by night.

At our venue it was down to 16 performers, each doing 5 minutes. The whole show began with a scruffy warm-up comedian, a veteran in the culture of comedy, and ended with an over-the-top seasoned performer. This last guy had me on that dangerous just-couldn’t-stop roll of laughter. He was “in the zone”. He had us so hooked, he could say anything and we would laugh. All this, while the judges did their judging. The evening ended with five finalists.

My all time favorite made it to the finals. He was one of those who you could just look at and laugh. Laughter was all over his face. Not the intellectual type, like Jerry Seinfeld. But the ever-ready to laugh type. I caught the spirit and everything he said left me in stitches.

This year I’m off to the event at the Kirkland Performance Center the day after Thanksgiving. Burn off the holiday calories in grand style! Hope to see you there.

Invigorating Laughter

Imagine laughing under a cold shower first thing in the morning! It’s the ultimate in invigorating.

I got the tip from another laughter leader. It’s a variation on Dr. Kitaria’s wise prescription to start the day with 2 minutes of hearty laughter. Some health experts advise finishing off your hot morning shower with a minute of cold water to improve circulation, among other things. Add laughter to the routine and you’ve got an over-the-top experience of waking up your joyful spirit! Full disclosure: I’m really only at about 30 seconds of cold water with laughter, but it’s a great beginning. I get the ecstatic jolt!

Autism, Laughter & Speeding TIckets

From medicine to clowning: Ron Jenkins was a pre-med student with the goal to become a child psychiatrist when he changed his course to comedy. Ode Magazine highlights Ron in an article about how laughter can set people free.

Ron’s turning point was when he was working with a child with autism who never spoke, except to repeat words spoken to him, and never made eye contact. Yet Ron’s comical, silly, joking gestures broke through a barrier. The child started looking into his eyes and began initiating words!

Laughter is the ultimate universal language. When you can’t get through to someone any other way, laughter paves a road to connection. We all respond to laughter.

I recall an incident of being pulled over on the road by a police officer for driving over the speed limit. It was a residential area unfamiliar to me, near a school. I was simply ignorant and didn’t see the reduce speed signs. The officer was being extremely condescending and disrespectful until I told him I was on the way to a chiropractor for a problem with my leg. Somehow this broke the ice, causing him to joke about my lead foot needing healing. The opportunity to make a joke caused him to lighten up. My ever-ready laughter only helped more. He let me off without a ticket and I forgave him his attitude. In the end we bonded over our little joke.

Photo: Stock.xchnge

Marriage needs Laughter

It is reported that with couples who have been married for more than seven years, the absence of laughter predicts the likelihood of divorce far more than the presence of outright animosity. In other words, the positive emotions of laughter are stronger in their effects than the negative emotions of disharmony.

So if you’re cruising along in a long-term relationship, in a day-to-day complacency, with a low level of passion, yet with no real discord, without the sounds of joyful laughter, that should be a BIG RED FLAG. Something crucial to a healthy relationship is missing.

Of all the issues we need to be aware of in relationships: honesty, integrity, spending enough time together, good communication, common values, I am pleased to see that creating consistent joy is an essential ingredient.

Far too often joy is not something we attend to. Priorities are work, responsibilities, family obligations; even vacations don’t always involve a lot of genuine joyfulness. It seems to be enough to just get away to another place. Being truly joyful in the experience isn’t always expected.

Laughter is the stuff of life, of really living life. It’s an important element in keeping the people we love, glued to us. Dacher Keltner, psychology professor at University of California, Berkeley, says “Our relationships are only as good as our histories of laughter together”.