Laughing And Crying

Catherine discusses the role of laughter in life and encourages us to find ways to indulge our delights, to find something to laugh about every day. Laughter is medicine for the soul. It is both psychologically and physically strengthening. And it gives permission to others to laugh more easily as well.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following was excerpted from a Zoom session of Dharma Dialogues,

Which was broadcast from Australia on December 6,

2020.

It's called Laughing and Crying.

I wanted to speak today a bit about the role of laughter,

The role of laughter in your life.

You know,

We go along and we pretend that we're adults,

Right?

When it's really just us kids here,

But we have to pretend.

And we kind of forget how to be silly and how to laugh easily and how to laugh over dumb things.

And is it not the case for each of us that when you've been with someone and you've been silly and you've been kind of laughing a lot,

You feel filled up even when you part from each other for the evening.

There's some way in which you feel satisfied and lit up and it might last some hours.

So you go to sleep.

Now,

We each may be delighted by different things.

We each may find different things funny from the others here.

But my point simply is to incline in that direction.

See if you can make it a little mini practice.

It's another open secret of happiness,

Along with gratitude,

Is finding something to laugh about every day.

Maybe you'll go on YouTube and watch some funny animal videos.

There's so many actually,

You could spend all night doing that.

Or maybe there's an old film.

I just watched,

I hadn't seen it for,

You know,

20 years,

I suppose.

I just watched Dumb and Dumber the other night.

I was trolling for something funny.

And amazingly,

I had forgotten a lot of it,

Although I remember some of the classic lines like,

Check please.

But anyway,

I realized I'd sort of forgotten the plot.

So it was very fresh to watch it again and to marvel at the comedic talents of the people in that film,

Especially Jim Carrey.

So in these ways,

It's not trite.

It's not trite to fill up your joy well.

Because let's face it,

These times are crazy.

We're in crazy times.

These times are hard.

And they don't seem to be sliding to the easy side.

So whatever we can do intelligently to manage our attention,

To manage our well being,

To manage our way to function in the world,

Whatever tools are fair game,

Be easily delighted.

Laugh at little things.

Just actually the function of laughing helps.

And it also gives a certain type of,

Well it gives permission,

Your presence,

If you're joyous and you laugh easily,

Gives permission to others.

There's a kind of mirror neuron effect.

When you're sort of joyous and you're around someone who's a little bit gloomy.

You know,

They may insist on being gloomy.

But there is something very contagious about being around someone who's kind of bright and floating and light.

So,

Again,

This is not a trivial thing.

It's not something I've ever actually talked about on in Dharma dialogues before as an opening theme.

But I feel the need for us to call on every possible tool we have.

And that's one of the ones for me.

That's one of the ones I use.

I have certain friends of mine who I know will make me laugh.

So that,

You know,

Laughter is just a phone call away.

And sometimes I feel the need,

The need to just have a good laugh.

There are other ways,

Of course,

That we fill our well of joy.

That we are inspired and we feel met in communication.

Or we see something incredibly inspirational.

I went to an event here in Byron Bay last week.

It was put on by actually a good friend of mine.

He's now the CEO of something called the Wildlife Mobile Hospital.

So he saw the need during the fires of last summer.

So many animals were being brought to the various vets around the country from the hinterlands and the bushlands.

But so far away that by the time they got to the facilities,

They were dead or dying.

So he saw the need to bring the facilities to them.

And he's created the first and largest mobile wildlife hospital on wheels to take out to these areas.

And he launched it the other night at this huge,

Fabulous event here.

And this thing that they've created,

It's like an 18-wheeler truck,

But it's been totally retrofitted by these high-level engineers who donated all their time.

And it's white with beautifully painted,

Like some incredible artist painted,

Koalas and rainforest and creatures on the outside.

But the inside is like a proper little hospital.

You'd be happy to have an operation in there,

All stainless steel and state-of-the-art technology.

And they've got it parked on somebody's fabulous property here that has donated the land to let it stay there until it's needed.

And then it can actually go out to the hinterlands that are on fire or where there are floods or whatever and rescue and treat these animals and my friend is kind of a world-class veterinary surgeon.

So he knows a whole bunch of other people of his ilk.

They tend to go to places like Africa and Borneo and operate on all these animals who've been hurt and maimed and shot and so on.

They go rescue those out in the bush in those lands.

Anyway,

This event,

It was very beautiful.

It was a perfect night,

A nice beautiful breeze and everyone was so happy.

And of course,

Those kind of events are fairly rare in these last many months,

But we were allowed to do it because there were no cases in our state.

And so we had an outdoor event for 200 people and there was just this incredible affirmation of life and of such good work and to imagine what that project will offer in the world.

I floated for days on how grateful I was to have witnessed that and I felt so proud of my friend as well because he's pulled this off in a year's time.

And he went to New York and got funding from the UN and the World Wildlife Fund here in Australia and he's done just a remarkable thing out of this incredible passion.

So obviously different things can inspire us and any of us can actually tune into those kinds of things.

You don't even have to know the people.

You can just read about some of these projects that are going on where you see the way that the human spirit rises up in adversity and the way that the angels of our better nature will fly forth.

Not from everybody,

But a lot.

So the point is,

If you're feeling you're dragging,

If you're feeling a little damp and down by life and by the circumstances,

And I know you and the US are facing perhaps another lockdown,

Some of you are in places where you're going to be locking down again.

And as we go into the winter,

There is more COVID spreading in the US.

I can imagine there's a sense of foreboding about the next months and then a sense of exhaustion about the previous months that you've all been living.

So now is not the time to just collapse into depression or to dread.

Now's the time for your resilience.

I spoke last night quite a lot about resilience,

But now is the time for resilience,

Forbearance,

And doing all the things that you know to keep your own self well.

You can do it.

I know it's hard because we're used to a much more fabulous life,

But this is still a great life.

Right?

Everyone is still here.

The ones on the call anyway,

Not everyone.

Some of us have lost people,

But one just has to keep counting your blessings and shoring them up.

And this doesn't,

Of course,

Disallow the feelings of depression or grief.

Those feelings are welcome also.

The point is we're on a balancing act.

So a very quick and easy way to balance it out a bit is to find things that delight you,

Whatever that is for you.

Make it a little bit of a practice.

You know,

I don't like to use the word practice too much because it seems like homework,

But just a little inclination in the day.

Let yourself be a little extra delighted than you might have been otherwise.

Or tune into something that really lifts your heart.

It's sort of the,

You know,

I don't know,

The yin and the yang of it.

There's the release of laughter and then there's the release of crying,

You know,

And that's not universally true for everybody.

I had a conversation years ago with my husband where I was talking about how just a good cry just felt really great to have a good cry.

He just looked at me just blank face,

Like,

What?

He had no idea what I was talking about.

And I think just his,

You know,

Gender socialization,

Crying felt really uncomfortable for him.

And I was like,

Okay,

Because it feels so,

I said,

Don't you just walk around some days you just feel like you just want to cry.

If you could just cry,

You'd feel better.

And he didn't get that.

But it's a very different,

It's a very different conditioning for men.

And I actually have a little short YouTube clip called Boys Don't Cry Enough.

It's a conversation I had with a woman friend of mine,

We did a webcast years ago,

Very short.

I mean,

It's a couple of minutes clip,

Boys Don't Cry Enough.

And I've felt that all my life,

Actually,

Because they would be called sissies and crybabies.

And it was just not done,

At least in our generation.

So yes,

There's a lot of holding in,

Whereas women have been given permission to cry as needed.

And it is,

I think,

Very important to be able to do that.

It is a huge release.

It is.

I had a great cry last week.

And,

You know,

I just even,

You know,

We hold it in for as long as we can.

But then we let it out.

And so I sort of was really enjoying the thought of,

You know,

Both of those as different ways of just letting it out.

Yes,

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I think one of the other things I've been really noticing a lot is how through whether it's the process of aging,

Or more wisdom or whatever,

You just get more loose about who you are,

You just get more authentic.

And you realize,

People aren't judging you,

They're not even thinking about you.

It's like,

You don't have to sort of appear any particular way doesn't matter,

You know,

You can be very,

Very free.

And if you're not someone's cup of tea,

They'll move on.

So be it.

You know,

That phrase,

Youth is wasted on the young.

It's one of the things that I think,

Oh,

I kind of wish I had known back then,

How easy it could have been just to sort of be absolutely myself.

Let the chips fall where they may.

I think,

As with so many of so many of us when we're young,

We're self conscious,

And we're trying to be the way we imagine someone should be,

Or that the people that we're around with most approve.

We want acceptance,

We want love,

We want to be admired,

We want to be respected,

Etc.

You know,

So we,

We sort of sometimes contort ourselves into an identity that actually isn't quite a fit,

But that we think it's,

You know,

Workable enough.

But as you get older,

You can't bother to maintain it.

You can't contort into the into the shape any longer.

It's exhausting,

Totally exhausting.

So it's one of the things I,

I love about being around older people,

You know,

They do tend to just say what they like and what they don't like.

And also with a more like what an older person can say things with a certain free kindness that is non offensive.

So yes,

I'm enjoying all that.

And part of it is,

I let myself have tears in all kinds of circumstances,

Even some that might have been considered inappropriate at a different from a different vantage point.

I don't,

I don't resist that.

And yes,

I it is certainly a time when there is there is cause for a lot of tears.

You know,

Not just this immediate crisis,

Not just this pandemic.

But the bigger picture is really hard.

Yeah,

And,

And still life goes on.

It is the case that this is a very,

Very tough time in the world,

In terms of the world stage and the things that are going on in the world.

I think it's just going to get harder.

I mean,

We give a few bumps up,

You know,

We solve this thing,

But it's really whack-a-mole.

There's just so many that are going on.

Here we are,

Though,

In our beautiful lives,

We have plenty of love and plenty of goodness in our lives.

And life throughout history has gone on in very hard circumstances.

And people still fall in love and people still have fun and people still giggle and,

And,

You know,

And talk about important things and deep things and are silly and,

You know,

So.

Good to see you,

Catherine.

I just got off the phone to a friend in London and we cried and by the end of the conversation,

We were just having so much fun and laughing so much.

And it's just filled me up.

It just really filled me up.

And I was on here in September and I had spoken about my wife being very sick and she has since passed.

And,

You know,

I'm realizing that,

You know,

I can have feelings of sadness and feelings of anger and feelings of loneliness and stuff come and go,

But it's not,

It doesn't define who I am.

You know,

I am not sad as in I am sad and that's it.

Tonight,

I hadn't spoken to my friend in London who grew up with both of us.

We'd only messaged each other.

So the minute I saw his face on FaceTime,

I just broke down.

And he broke down,

You know,

And,

You know,

I don't think we've ever cried together.

Yeah.

And it's beautiful.

You know,

There's something beautiful about it.

And we grew up,

You know,

In the same housing estate,

You know,

In 80s Ireland where you didn't cry,

You know,

I remember I went home to my dad's funeral and I don't know how many years it was before I cried,

You know.

And I started a grief group on Wednesday night,

A Buddhist grief group.

And there was a lady,

So it's not just men,

There was a woman on there who lost her husband two years ago.

And she cried on Wednesday night for the first time since her husband had died.

Because it was the first time she felt in a safe space with others,

She said that she could cry.

And I'm doing okay.

I mean,

You know,

There's waves of emotion that I've never,

Obviously,

I've never felt,

You know,

Kind of raw,

Primitive stuff that's very,

Very deep,

Very,

Very painful,

That you can kind of only go in a little bit and you kind of have to pull back because it's so raw.

But I think that's okay.

And I'm sitting with it,

You know,

I was listening to somebody on a podcast who is a Kundalini yoga teacher,

But I really respect him.

And he was saying that you can grieve,

You know,

You can also grieve,

You need to grieve with your body.

And so to be able to sit in your body and feel your body,

And so and that's kind of what I'm trying to do.

But I've also like really had to step.

I'm doing a lot,

You know,

Katja,

I spoke to you,

But I'm not doing stuff to avoid I'm doing like I'm joined a grief group and I'm doing,

I'm on day 23 of a grieving online journaling course,

Which has been amazing.

I'm not much of a writer,

But I'm writing now all the time.

And it's unbelievable the stuff that comes up when you put pen to paper,

That you wouldn't be able to articulate in your head.

And I'm sitting for longer than I did before.

I'm reaching out to people more.

So I'm very introverted.

So I've had to reach out because I just have to do these things.

Because otherwise,

I'm going to go under but it's bringing me to a new level as well in other ways.

You know,

I'm very,

I feel very present.

You know,

I feel more present than I have in a long,

Long time.

You know,

I'm taking a walk in,

I work near Central Park,

So I'm very lucky I can walk in Central Park for 45 minutes every lunchtime.

And I'm going rain or shine,

You know,

I'm going and I'm seeing it,

You know,

I'm seeing it.

And I'm doing a gratitude list just four or five things every every night,

You know,

That I'm grateful for.

And I have so much to be grateful for.

So much in my life,

You know,

So much support,

So much love.

And so many tools that I've been given over the years.

And so many beautiful memories.

Yes,

You have.

Yes.

Those will just,

Those will be sustenance for you.

You,

As I told you the other day,

You had a great love.

And you got 10 years,

Which is far more than many,

Many people get.

And I'm not talking about lots of people get married,

But they don't necessarily have a great love.

You know,

They just get married,

And they're stuck there.

But some people get a great love.

And I'd say it's a small percentage.

And you've had that you've had many blessings.

And it's like,

Well,

Obviously,

There's no should about how long a life should last.

Right?

It's not applicable in this world,

You know,

And I think one of the one of the parts of the pain for many people,

And I'm not saying you is she shouldn't have died so young.

And that's just an extra burden to carry in the heart.

I said I spoke last night to someone who had lost her husband.

I think she said it's 11 months now.

And she's been grieving a lot,

But it's getting better.

It's getting less intense,

Even though she was speaking last night about a very bad sort of dip she just had in the last couple days.

But we talked a lot about this notion of letting the grief be pure.

It just hurts.

It's just the missing.

And it doesn't need any story beyond that.

And you can feel that in your body as your as your group says,

You feel in your body,

You feel it in the thoughts,

You feel it in the memories.

But if possible,

To release this quite irrational point of love,

It shouldn't have happened because it did happen.

And that part I think is an just an extra thing because part of what happens in those kinds of stories is a little whisper,

However crazy it is,

Was there something I could have done?

Or what how could we have?

How could we have taken a different turn along the way?

You know,

So it's it's irrational,

But it's incredibly painful little meme that can get into the story.

And that one is truly unnecessary suffering.

No.

So staying with the pure grief,

And all the things you're doing are so intelligent,

So wise in terms of the journaling and keeping yourself fit and walking in the park and doing your meditation and being in the groups and being around people who are in the same spot as you are.

Because that's also very salubrious,

You know.

Yeah,

There's nothing more just I would say,

You're on for the ride now and really on for the ride,

You just sit back as much as you can,

And let the waves roll through you,

You know,

Just roll on through.

And if you can,

Don't make it a too hard thing.

But if you can,

I love that you and your friend came to laughter at the end of the call.

It's just as much as you can,

And don't feel guilty about it.

If ever there's any little thing that can delight you and walking around Central Park,

And even just sitting on the bench and watching what goes on the life in front of you can often produce all kinds of little adorable moments.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

I was just with my brother and it was so such a blessing to be with family in a loving environment.

And he is someone who can move from a dark space into a light space rather easily.

He's just such an amazing big brother.

And spending time with he and his and his new wife was extraordinary.

And it really was just mingling with this beautiful spirit that we laughed all the time.

He would make fun of me but in a loving way.

And it was just,

It was such a blessing.

I feel a lot more energy to like get through this transition now.

So yeah,

It was a wonderful teaching and I feel the embodiment of it.

So thank you.

I mean,

It's so important.

And it's amazing how we forget sometimes we kind of limp on it.

I mean,

It could actually try to change the movie a bit and therefore,

You know,

Feel filled up again.

But that is the nature of depression,

Which we all have to be watchful about is that,

You know,

You start sliding downward and then it just kind of is its own it's in a momentum of getting more and more gloomy.

And then it's got all the chemicals,

All the all the brain chemicals start also contributing to the gloominess,

You know,

So it's very important to interrupt that.

And I love it that you had that.

But even more than that,

It's even just using my voice because living alone.

Yeah,

There's beautiful silence.

Oh,

But you aren't using the resonance of your cellular structure.

And I found that my brother was making fun of me because he'd hear me humming and singing in the morning.

And he thought,

I thought I heard you singing there.

Yes,

You did.

I sing every morning when I wake up because I,

I,

I create a little song for my grandchildren.

And I find being alone that I will sing that first thing in the morning,

I'll make myself laugh.

And then I'll just start talking or I'll talk back to a podcast or I'll talk just literally to use my voice so that my I feel my breath opening up.

I feel that my,

You know,

I've had all the teeth problems,

You know,

So it's just relaxing the jaw,

Just and and singing,

Especially just humming and singing.

I really it just feels like,

Okay,

We have to make sure our airways are being exercised.

And so great.

So,

So,

So important to to singing what right,

Of course,

That's it.

And that's another one that we could all add in just as a little mini practice just to get us through whatever phase we might be going into.

That's hard.

Put some music on sing and dance,

Right?

Just sing and dance in your own space.

It's amazing how we forget to do these things or we we push them aside or we think,

Okay,

Tomorrow and yeah.

Thank you.

It's this is so wonderful to be together with gracious people and mindfulness.

It's really thank you.

It's such a sacred space.

Catherine,

Thank you so much.

Yeah,

I feel that too.

It's I look forward as well.

You know,

You feel like you have these friends.

For many of us,

Some of you've never met in person.

And yet,

You know that you're with your people like to break that one night that like even though she didn't know a lot of the people in person,

But these are my people.

And it's people who are willing as the Dharma crowd people who are willing to live in the deeper waters and to talk about the things that actually matter in a life and who are perhaps often feel alone in the mad swirl of nonsense and panic and consumerism and all that most people are focusing their entire life force on that you feel truly a stranger in that company.

Whereas when you're with people who can talk about who you know,

To hear a man openly say I was on the phone crying with my friend today in London.

That's a privilege to hear that.

Like I was saying about what happens when you widen the lens when you go to a completely different land.

Well,

We do that with each other if we're willing to open up the actual full spectrum of the land that we're living in with each other.

And in these ways,

That's what this this allows.

It allows us to say things that you just don't normally say in in a polite company.

So,

It's very often overdoing the washing up,

Which you mentioned,

You know,

I have some sort of inner drama going on about some news that I have watched,

You know,

Something that's that I've reacted to a bit.

And I see all of these ancient attitudes that I have that really have got no part in the lives that I have now.

And I just find it so hilarious.

And I act them out a bit.

You know,

I sort of kind of do voices.

And the base for my humor is something which maybe a lot of American people don't know about called the Goon Show.

The Goon Show started life in the Second World War as a concert party that entertained troops.

And so the humor of the Goon Show is extremely surreal.

I think this is what happens when a lot of people spend a lot of time very close to death,

Which is kind of meaningless.

There's a sort of,

One of the ways to survive it is humor.

Just to laugh at,

Just to find laughter in things,

To stay sane.

You know,

The other possibility is sort of misery and depression,

I suppose.

So I live in a,

I have a little inner world like that,

Where I laugh and I laugh at myself.

All of a sudden,

This kind of character from the Goon Show come out of my chest.

And it is also very good to voice it,

Because I spent even more time alone this year than I ever have done in my life.

And I also sing,

I'd like to say that.

And how my singing works is that I'll have a bit of a daydream,

Maybe also overdoing the washing up.

And I'll remember a circumstance and there'll be a song with it.

And I'll just go with the song.

And I can't always remember all of the words or all of the tune.

The song I remember today was,

I can't remember all of the words,

Deck the Halls with Holly.

It's the American Christmas song.

Yes,

Yes.

It just came to me.

I think I was thinking about how this evening is going to be.

Because that's what I would like to say before I go is because I guess we're not going to meet before Christmas again.

So I'd like to say happy Christmas to everyone.

Thank you.

So I will say before we close a few things about the holidays coming up,

Even in normal times,

Having the holidays upon us,

It can be a mixed bag.

For some people,

Being with their family is an incredible delight.

For other people,

It's difficult.

And a lot of people have a complicated relationship to being with their family at the holidays.

So of course,

Let's all understand that that's a given.

But in this particular time,

Many of us cannot be with our families,

Even if we wanted to.

We can't be with our families,

At least the ones that we'd have to travel to see.

And so there can be,

Of course,

A feeling of being bereft.

The holidays can certainly bring that up.

So let's be very watchful of that.

Please do all the things you know to do.

If you can arrange to do some Zooms during the holidays and speak to your loved ones and your friends,

And the friends you can laugh with and the friends you can cry with also,

Make a little effort,

Especially during the holidays.

Because even though you go into it thinking,

I'm not that into holidays,

I don't really care.

Actually,

Because it's a shared belief system and meme that everyone else is in,

It's very hard to resist it.

It'll bring up all the things you feel are missing.

So that said,

Be grateful,

Be grateful.

Deck the halls,

You know,

And dance around your house and have fun in your own ways.

Give yourself permission.

Give yourself permission for joy and for laughing and for deep reflection.

Those of you who are so lucky as to see the night sky,

Go out and stand on the stars.

And if you have a snowy landscape,

Cool.

Stand in the snow and look at the sky.

Let your mind just expand.

And be reminded in those cases of the momentary experience you're having here in this vast scope of life.

And it puts in perspective all the small problems we all do have,

But it just reminds you,

Here you are for a blink in time,

Here and gone,

Just like a twinkle of a star.

And do not strain too much about all the craziness that goes on.

So give yourself some starlight for your Christmas presents.