Comedy
as a weapon of healing
We have all heard this before; " Laughter is the best medicine" and it is very true, but it can also be impossible for those who are in such severe pain, that the thought of laughing is not within reach. It is for this reason that comedy is considered to be a "weapon of healing", a tool in the tool belt, and why it exists at this rung in the pain ladder. You have to be ready to laugh at your pain, at your circumstance, at your history with pain. Like anything else, you cannot fool yourself into believing you are ready, and, if you're not there yet, you're just not there yet. It's OK.
Look at it as just another goal to reach, but like most of the steps toward controlling pain, it is something you can only feel in your heart. You cannot "talk yourself into it." I think you will find though, as you reach Surrender, you will sense a "peace of mind" or a calmness, that will enter your heart, your whole being and as you Forgive, you will find yourself no longer dwelling in the needs for justice and to want to tell everyone what has happened to you. You have learned to be honest with yourself and others about your illness and no longer need to hide from the world. It is with the advent of all of these levels happening that you can finally laugh at your pain, and pain itself will sense your power over it when you reach that point.
In the meantime, it's okay to try. It's a good thing to surround yourself with matters that aren't so serious. In the spectrum of constant pain, it is easy to fall into the serious issues that seem to happen to us daily. We are on the negative side of the cycle and have had to deal with many losses, and with people not believing you, and most likely, you're in “resignation.” You've accepted your fate and you feel doomed to a constant, unrelenting agony. Life is very serious. You will be amazed at how this changes after you “Swing the Curve” to the positive side. Nothing negates negativity more than laughing at your circumstances. Comedy has that ability to take the power away from a negative situation. This power, our power, can do amazing things and when used negatively, as we learned in previous essays, it creates bad feelings and equally can create more bad scenes in your life. Comedy can set our minds in the right direction. It can also be very spiritual.
Think back to when life was funny, to a time when you were able to laugh. Try to remember a story that happened to you or someone you know that had you rolling on the floor in laughter. When you think about that, do you notice the change? Can you feel pain's power lessen a little? When you understand the links between mind, body, and spirit, how one can cause the other to follow its lead, it makes sense that the idea of laughing, whether it happens in the mind or the spirit, will have that effect on the body eventually. I, luckily, have had many funny things happened to me, a lot of them which were very serious at the time, but when they were relayed to others, they just came out as funny. I also realize, that it was this, my funny side, that I lost on the negative ride through the Pain Cycle.
During that time, when I relayed my stories to people, I wasn't seeing them as very funny. It might have been something other people would've noticed as a change in my personality, upon entering this side of the Cycle. They were probably thinking “He just doesn't laugh much anymore. He seems very serious.” Not that I didn't have reason to be, or that jokes and anecdotes would've made me laugh anyways. My mind was solely concentrated on the collapsing “house of cards” that was once my life. I couldn't have laughed if I tried. I just wasn't in the mood.
On my first walk, from Massachusetts to Washington, DC, I was still very serious. I had learned so much about healing from pain that I was inspired to try the impossible, and yet, during the whole trip, I was unable to laugh at anything. It says a lot to me, because directly after the trip was over, when being picked up by my nephew, I immediately started relaying to him all of the funny stories that happened, stories that weren't very funny at the time. It was a sign that during this 400 mile walk, I had changed. I had studied Surrender, Forgiveness and Belief, but didn't see how that was going to make a difference in my life. Then it happened, and my nephew, his wife, his neighbors, and myself, sat around for days, telling stories and laughing a lot about the crazy adventures from the road.
Two things happened at the end of that trip that completely surprised me, positivity and laughing. Two things that I didn't expect, that came out of nowhere. I had such a good time staying in Maryland, being on the positive side for the first time in years. Laughter was making me relaxed and seeing things completely differently. It was, during a lot of comedy meetings at the National Pain Foundation headquarters in Denver, that the second, 2000 mile walk was born. If you ask me about any situation that happened to me in my life, you will probably get a very funny story back.
The other most important lesson we can learn in our Journey through Pain, is to laugh at ourselves. This is also very hard to do if you don't “have it in your heart.” You just can't.
Don't worry, don't pressure yourself about this, but understand it as another measurement of where your at in the Cycle. It is very hard for us to see our present point in this journey. It is much easier to look back on things and see where we were. Comedy, or our ability to see things as funny is probably the best way to measure your “present moment” place on the chart. If you can't laugh, or just don't see things as funny, or if you find yourself telling your story in a serious way, you know you're still in “resignation.” Try to surround yourself with comedy anyways. Allow others to laugh at you and with you. Watch light, funny shows on television. Loosen up your world. Just another way to stop the negative power and put Pain in its place. Imagine, someday, if you do this right, you will look back at your pain experience and laugh.
You see it's okay to laugh at it, because the funny part is, we are still alive. I always joke about the day I get to heaven, and as I walk through the pearly gates I say, “God! Jesus! I need to see you in my office!”
It is a lot tougher to live in pain than it is to die. We must be here, going through this agony, for a reason. Our lives were interrupted by pain for a reason. And when I get to the Great Beyond, I just want an answer. “What was that all about!” And God and Jesus will be sitting in my office laughing, and they will say, “don't you get it? - We picked on you because we thought you could handle it.”
as a weapon of healing
We have all heard this before; " Laughter is the best medicine" and it is very true, but it can also be impossible for those who are in such severe pain, that the thought of laughing is not within reach. It is for this reason that comedy is considered to be a "weapon of healing", a tool in the tool belt, and why it exists at this rung in the pain ladder. You have to be ready to laugh at your pain, at your circumstance, at your history with pain. Like anything else, you cannot fool yourself into believing you are ready, and, if you're not there yet, you're just not there yet. It's OK.
Look at it as just another goal to reach, but like most of the steps toward controlling pain, it is something you can only feel in your heart. You cannot "talk yourself into it." I think you will find though, as you reach Surrender, you will sense a "peace of mind" or a calmness, that will enter your heart, your whole being and as you Forgive, you will find yourself no longer dwelling in the needs for justice and to want to tell everyone what has happened to you. You have learned to be honest with yourself and others about your illness and no longer need to hide from the world. It is with the advent of all of these levels happening that you can finally laugh at your pain, and pain itself will sense your power over it when you reach that point.
In the meantime, it's okay to try. It's a good thing to surround yourself with matters that aren't so serious. In the spectrum of constant pain, it is easy to fall into the serious issues that seem to happen to us daily. We are on the negative side of the cycle and have had to deal with many losses, and with people not believing you, and most likely, you're in “resignation.” You've accepted your fate and you feel doomed to a constant, unrelenting agony. Life is very serious. You will be amazed at how this changes after you “Swing the Curve” to the positive side. Nothing negates negativity more than laughing at your circumstances. Comedy has that ability to take the power away from a negative situation. This power, our power, can do amazing things and when used negatively, as we learned in previous essays, it creates bad feelings and equally can create more bad scenes in your life. Comedy can set our minds in the right direction. It can also be very spiritual.
Think back to when life was funny, to a time when you were able to laugh. Try to remember a story that happened to you or someone you know that had you rolling on the floor in laughter. When you think about that, do you notice the change? Can you feel pain's power lessen a little? When you understand the links between mind, body, and spirit, how one can cause the other to follow its lead, it makes sense that the idea of laughing, whether it happens in the mind or the spirit, will have that effect on the body eventually. I, luckily, have had many funny things happened to me, a lot of them which were very serious at the time, but when they were relayed to others, they just came out as funny. I also realize, that it was this, my funny side, that I lost on the negative ride through the Pain Cycle.
During that time, when I relayed my stories to people, I wasn't seeing them as very funny. It might have been something other people would've noticed as a change in my personality, upon entering this side of the Cycle. They were probably thinking “He just doesn't laugh much anymore. He seems very serious.” Not that I didn't have reason to be, or that jokes and anecdotes would've made me laugh anyways. My mind was solely concentrated on the collapsing “house of cards” that was once my life. I couldn't have laughed if I tried. I just wasn't in the mood.
On my first walk, from Massachusetts to Washington, DC, I was still very serious. I had learned so much about healing from pain that I was inspired to try the impossible, and yet, during the whole trip, I was unable to laugh at anything. It says a lot to me, because directly after the trip was over, when being picked up by my nephew, I immediately started relaying to him all of the funny stories that happened, stories that weren't very funny at the time. It was a sign that during this 400 mile walk, I had changed. I had studied Surrender, Forgiveness and Belief, but didn't see how that was going to make a difference in my life. Then it happened, and my nephew, his wife, his neighbors, and myself, sat around for days, telling stories and laughing a lot about the crazy adventures from the road.
Two things happened at the end of that trip that completely surprised me, positivity and laughing. Two things that I didn't expect, that came out of nowhere. I had such a good time staying in Maryland, being on the positive side for the first time in years. Laughter was making me relaxed and seeing things completely differently. It was, during a lot of comedy meetings at the National Pain Foundation headquarters in Denver, that the second, 2000 mile walk was born. If you ask me about any situation that happened to me in my life, you will probably get a very funny story back.
The other most important lesson we can learn in our Journey through Pain, is to laugh at ourselves. This is also very hard to do if you don't “have it in your heart.” You just can't.
Don't worry, don't pressure yourself about this, but understand it as another measurement of where your at in the Cycle. It is very hard for us to see our present point in this journey. It is much easier to look back on things and see where we were. Comedy, or our ability to see things as funny is probably the best way to measure your “present moment” place on the chart. If you can't laugh, or just don't see things as funny, or if you find yourself telling your story in a serious way, you know you're still in “resignation.” Try to surround yourself with comedy anyways. Allow others to laugh at you and with you. Watch light, funny shows on television. Loosen up your world. Just another way to stop the negative power and put Pain in its place. Imagine, someday, if you do this right, you will look back at your pain experience and laugh.
You see it's okay to laugh at it, because the funny part is, we are still alive. I always joke about the day I get to heaven, and as I walk through the pearly gates I say, “God! Jesus! I need to see you in my office!”
It is a lot tougher to live in pain than it is to die. We must be here, going through this agony, for a reason. Our lives were interrupted by pain for a reason. And when I get to the Great Beyond, I just want an answer. “What was that all about!” And God and Jesus will be sitting in my office laughing, and they will say, “don't you get it? - We picked on you because we thought you could handle it.”