#21 Do You Remember When You Used To Laugh A Lot?
May 20, 2008
Day-to-day pressure builds up over time. One of its most noticeable symptoms is that the amount of laughter in a person’s life tends to drop proportionally as pressure and stress increase. Why we stop laughing is really unclear, but the weight of the world on our shoulders is a heavy burden regardless of where we are in life. The pressures of day-to-day living are as relevant to the high school teenager facing exams as they are to the head of a corporation with 100 000 employees.
We all look sympathetic when the ‘pressure’ of running a large corporation makes the CEO miserable, yet we say that teenagers are being melodramatic when impending exams make them lose their sense of humour. I have to reinforce the fact that all pressure is relevant and important to the person feeling it. There are no universal measures saying that the feelings one person experiences are more important or significant than any other person’s.
One thing is certain, though: most of us remember times when we had less pressure and stress in our lives, fewer demands on our time, our money and our energy, and generally these were times when we were quick to laugh and quick to make others laugh. We rolled with the punches, we took setbacks in our stride and we didn’t seem to take life quite so seriously. Well, you can have those times back again, and this website is intended to help you find them.
Take a moment to think back to that time in your life when you used to laugh the most. Close your eyes and spend a few minutes with this visualisation. Start to think about that time when you felt so carefree and happy. What year was it? What was happening in your life? Where were you living? Who were you spending time with? Where did you work? What were you wearing? What did you do on weekends? What music were you listening to? What were you reading? What kind of car did you drive? Where did you hang out? What smells remind you of that time?
Now open your eyes and spend a few moments jotting down the words that best describe your emotions and feelings when you think about that time. What was it that made your life feel so good? I am sure that even then there was a lot of pressure-money could have been an issue, relationships might have come and gone, a lack of certainty about the future might have figured highly, among other challenges. Even so, the feelings you remember most are joy and happiness and being carefree. So what is the difference between then and now?
Identifying this difference is a significant point. Try to find the one word that describes what has changed for you. Because once you know this word, you know your enemy and you can finally do something about it.
As an example, let’s say that the one word affecting you is ‘pressure’, meaning that you feel so much more pressure to perform, to deliver, to provide-whatever. Now you have a name for what has to change in your life. While it won’t be that easy to remove the pressure, it is relatively easy to change the way you perceive it, react to it and think about it.
Doing this exercise on a regular basis, when you’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious, will have a very positive effect. It will help you to change your life and the way you deal with the main issues preventing you from achieving balance.
What can I do today?
Do the visualisation described above. It will make you feel good, it will bring a smile to your face, it will reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed that we all experience at times. Best of all, it will remind you what it’s like to feel that sensation of joy again.
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By N2H
