Life is Short, Wear Your Party Pants by Loretta Laroche

Author:Loretta Laroche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

“A sense of humor is probably

the only divine quality of man.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

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Humor As a Coping Mechanism

Whenever I give a lecture or a workshop, I never fail to encourage participants to read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. He was a psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration camps during World War II and who developed a form of psychotherapy called Logotherapy as a result. His book profoundly shows how individuals can survive the most horrific of situations through grace, dignity and humor.

In the Preface of the book, Gordon Allport writes: “Hunger, humiliation, fear, and deep anger at injustice are rendered tolerable by closely guarded images of beloved persons, by religion, by a grim sense of humor, and even by glimpses of the healing beauties of nature—a tree or a sunset.”I’ve heard many accounts of how this type of humor, called “gallows humor,”has helped many people in difficult jobs, particularly health-care professionals. Anyone overhearing some of the conversations between nurses or doctors might be deeply offended, but for them it becomes a way to get relief from the horrors they witness.

As a child, I was dragged to many an Italian funeral, which often resembled a Federico Fellini movie. There was great drama as the black-clad women wailed and moaned. Then there’d be bursts of laughter as people began to recount stories about the dearly departed. And, of course, it would all end with a giant feast. I learned that there’s a very short distance between tears and laughter—they both offer relief.

How to Humor Your Life

When I first began teaching, I thought that the best way to get people to laugh was for me to be as funny as possible so they’d giggle nonstop. As I evolved and researched the subject, I realized that although there were benefits to this model, it didn’t allow people to be able to laugh at themselves. And that was my goal—because when people can get to that point, they always travel with their own comedy act that’s ready to lighten up their life.

After years of trying different techniques, I came across Albert Ellis and his work. As I read his book Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist’s Guide, the words “we disturb ourselves”jumped out at me, and I had an epiphany: We all do this in some manner. We take something relatively easy to cope with and make it into a crisis. Haven’t we all been with someone who goes on and on about the fact that “It’s raining! What are we going to do? we’re going to get wet, and our hair will be a mess,”and on and on.

This is completely irrational, but these people can’t seem to appreciate that. They’re more invested in making themselves nuts. They’ve certainly seen rain and have gotten wet before, and nothing catastrophic happened then … so why can’t they just grab an umbrella and get over it? But the rain isn’t really the issue, is it? I’m convinced that we don’t want to stop whining, because in some way it gives us attention.

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