What If You Just Laughed?

Posted on 27 January 2007

I’ve been reading a book this last week called Mans Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl. For those of you that are not familiar with the book it is about Frankls experiences in Auschwitz and 3 other Nazi concentration camps during World War 2. To say that it is harrowing is to completely understate something that is almost completely unimaginable to most people including myself. On the other hand it is also an uplifting story that shows how some people can find dignity, honor and self-respect in the most depressing of circumstances. There was one aspect to the book that took me completely by surprise and that was the humor present. It seems that sense of humor was one thing that some of the inmates refused to give up and although it took on a darker more melancholy feel it was still nevertheless present. This got me to thinking about my own life. I like to think I have got a good sense of humor and that I am prepared to laugh at myself when necessary but I’m not at all sure I laugh as often as I could. What if instead of getting irritated by the long line in the Post Office I could laugh about it? What if I could laugh at my inability to break 90 on a golf course with any regularity? What if I could laugh when somebody decides to turn left from the right hand lane of the I4 across my front? If I could take 2 or 3 events a day that would normally have me rolling my eyeballs at best and raising my blood pressure at worst and laugh about them then not only would I be better off but so would those around me.  As an NLP Master Practitioner I should be able to change my state at the drop of a hat and for the next 30 days I am going to try it. It’s perfectly easy to set up an anchor using an amusing event so that next time I’m about to react negatively I fire off that anchor and laugh instead. By the way, if you are interested to know what an anchor is and how you set one sign up for my newsletter because I explained all about them last month: http://www.adaringadventure.com/ 

I intend to report back with my findings and would love to hear how anybody else got on trying out this radical new behavior ;-)

Enjoyed this post? Please share it!

Digg it | Stumble it |

 

Post a Comment

Name

Mail (will not be published)

Website

Enable CommentLuv which will try and parse your last blog post, please be patient while it finds it for you

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail