Monday, January 31, 2011

Laughing Yoga

I have lots of quirky thoughts, or ways of looking at the world. Some of that I suppose is being a Canadian living in America. The longer I am here, the more quirky things appear to me, and the larger the distance seems to get from what I see and how others see it. Or maybe that distance is shrinking. Certainly my eyesight is getting worse, so maybe I'm not a good judge of these things anymore. 

Naturally you want an example. What's quirky to me you ask? Sometimes, quirky to me is situational, a moment with friends, and I'll see a picture in my head triggered...sort of...by what they say, and then I describe it out loud. Which in this writing is hard to translate. It all is in the moment. But to me, it is my humor bone, and hilarious. I never thought about those pictures in my head that formulate as being a quirky event. It just seemed funny, and usually others found it funny too. That part of me didn't go away as I got older, but it got submerged as those around me seemed less inclined to laugh. Not just with me regarding my jokes, but just less inclined to laugh, or see the mirth in something. (Mirth, isn't that a fine word?)

So quirky topics to me are things like being curious about people different from myself, doing something I wouldn't have invented or thought to do, like  going to a yoga class in order to practice the physical act of laughing. Not with humor, or telling jokes as part of the practice, but rather participants emulate the act of laughing. To me that is a waste. I like humor, being delighted and laughing out loud. But to just imitate the mechanics of a laugh, even if it offers some health benefits, I'd much rather laugh from true delight and surprise than to force myself to laugh, tricking my body into some action. I like the real deal rather than imitation. Always. Plus I am funny, and for decades I attended yoga class and I can tell you most of my teachers were humorless. When faced with many butts in downward facing dog, you can be assured I had a few jokes to share. But sadly this was before “Laughing Yoga” so I was reprimanded many a time. Sigh. I guess I was just ahead of my time. 

There is humor in everything if we just choose to be open to the fun of it. As a friend said, we need to keep our “humor channel” turned on, as laughter is a good medicine, and we can access it all the time. Hopefully that doesn't sound quirky, because soon quirky will be the new mainstream I feel sure. 

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