Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family. Karen Casey
as both a miracle and almost laughable, especially since the visitor insisted the visit had been arranged many weeks before.
We can't entertain more than one thought at a time. Choose to let whatever thought you entertain be one that creates an inner chuckle or a good belly laugh whenever possible.
Judith was quick to laugh at herself. She hadn't laughed much as a child in her tense family, she said; no one did. But as someone relatively new to recovery, she began to see the humorous side of many situations. Whenever the opportunity to laugh presented itself in the recovery rooms she frequented, she relished her deep-throated laughter. Luckily, recovering alcoholics are pretty quick to laugh at themselves. Judith also shared how grateful she is that she married someone who makes her laugh every day, and she is convinced that this adds value not only to her recovery but to all the interactions she has with everyone else.
I'm convinced that the pain of one's earlier life is lessened a tiny bit by each moment of laughter we allow ourselves to experience. And I know that when I laugh, whatever I am doing gets easier to handle. Bringing laughter with you wherever you go benefits human kind. Psychologists and psychiatrists everywhere agree with this. Laughter is like a dose of medicine for the soul. It quiets, soothes, and lifts up the soul.
What is it about having a sense of humor that makes such a difference in the journey we are on? What comes to mind first is that we simply can't entertain two thoughts at one time. If what we are thinking is lightening our load, or better yet, giving us a good chuckle, we are discarding another thought that's causing a dark cloud to hover over the path we are traveling. We can choose one thought or the other. And we can make the choice many times in a day. That's the good news. A few bad, cloudy hours can be lightened by laughter in the blink of an eye. It's happened to me thousands of times.
Make the decision to spend time every day with people who make you laugh. It's good for your soul.
This reminds me of laughter yoga, a phenomenon that is popular in many countries throughout the world, and in the past couple of years is being practiced in the United States too. It's the brainchild of Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, India. According to the Internet, he launched the first Laughter Club at a park on March 13, 1995, along with a handful of people. Today, it has become a worldwide phenomenon with more than six thousand Social Laughter Clubs in about sixty countries.
People I know who have tried laughter yoga are pretty amazed at its effectiveness. What does it accomplish? As I just stated, we can't entertain two expressions or thoughts at any one time. If we are experiencing a moment of full-throated laughter, we can't be focusing on a negative idea. Practitioners of laughter yoga say it actually changes brain chemistry, and thereby changes perception. And that changes our life, too.
Newcomers to the recovery process are often surprised by all of the laughter in AA meetings. And considering the trauma so many of us have lived through, it perhaps does seem unusual, even macabre, to the untutored. However, being able to laugh at ourselves, the insanity of our past behavior, and the horrors of growing up in families that were often filled with abusive outbursts, is truly the healing balm that allows us to know we are going to be okay. Not a single person I interviewed felt he or she was okay as a youngster. Most felt terrified and unable to cope successfully with life well into adulthood, and yet every one of them laughed heartily many times as we talked.
Our willingness to laugh is the first necessary step.
Charlie, the pilot whose story we covered earlier, was such a great example of the laughter payoff. He was a prankster as a youngster and continues to be one. It was a joy to interview him. In fact, throughout our conversations we laughed a great deal. Nothing in particular seemed to precipitate it. It just erupted so naturally. The willingness we both had for “living into” the lighter expression of life opened my heart to the laughter that heals.
Charlie grew up in an insane household, but eventually embraced a solid recovery. One of ten children with an alcoholic, workaholic dad and a martyred, very devout Catholic mother, Charlie learned to rely on no one and to create his own reality. His reality included making fun of others, playing practical jokes, and hiding his feelings in his creativity. He rebuilt wagons, bicycles, radios, and anything else that captured his attention, particularly those things that appeared to need refurbishing. He was great at taking something and making it better, he said. He kept busy in this way, which saved him from much heartache in a family that paid him little attention.
He also had discovered at an early age that he could so easily, so naturally make others laugh. He relied on that skill as a way to “get over” with the girls when he was young. He did this with his family too. For one of his memorable pranks, on the occasion of a sibling's birthday, he fell flat on a boxed birthday cake he was carrying up the basement stairs into the kitchen. Unbeknownst to everyone, Charlie had removed the cake before tripping on the top step and falling on the box, and he got a huge round of laughter and applause. It's a memory others in the family still recall.
So many I interviewed developed the skill of creating laughter in the midst of situations that were more likely to be marred by alcoholic outbursts than by joyful ones. Pranks and joke telling were diversionary tools that many tried to master. It kept the attention away from whoever might prefer to cause trouble as the result of drinking too much. And there were always those who drank too much. My interviewees often drank too much themselves, but when given the opportunity, getting others to laugh often took precedence.
So far we have talked about resilience, perseverance, and now a sense of humor as specific examples of “the good stuff” that can be cultivated by those who have been raised in dysfunctional families. I'm inclined to say that the offspring of dysfunctional homes may be the luckiest of all the members of the human community. They have highly developed abilities to survive and even thrive in whatever situation plucks them from the crowd.
Carl, so maligned by his critical father, comes to mind once again. He had the heartiest laugh, perhaps most of all the people I interviewed. And no other person I was able to talk with had more criticism heaped on him while growing up. He was humiliated for decades but had risen above it and displayed not only a superior sense of humor but also a softness that comforted anyone who was drawn to him. He embodied love even though very little love was openly bestowed on him as a youngster or even young adult.
While it is often said that we can only give to others what we have received ourselves, we don't necessarily get “the good stuff” from our family of origin. Wherever we discover it, we can make use of it. And I find it interesting, too, that we are capable of transforming the negative into the positive by sheer determination. My interviewees demonstrated this capability tenfold.
Before moving into the next section, let's close this chapter, like the previous ones, with a simple overview:
A sense of humor can be cultivated.
We always have a choice regarding how we will see any situation, whether it's from our past or this moment.
We can't entertain more than one thought at a time; let the thought you choose create an inner chuckle or a good belly laugh whenever possible.
Make the decision to spend time every day with people who make you laugh. It's good for your soul.
Make a point of seeing a comedy, occasionally. Norman Cousins gave us a powerful message in this regard in Anatomy of an Illness.
Make a humor list, similar to a gratitude list, at the end of every day for a week or two. Keep track of all the experiences that made you laugh out loud or even smile. The more we remember these episodes, the more we will help to create them for others too. Read the list whenever you are feeling out of sorts.
Make a point of meditating daily, even for five minutes, about a humorous experience that recently happened. Observe how it changes your demeanor.
Our willingness to laugh is the first necessary step. We all know sour pusses. We don't ever have to be one.
Every day is a new day. Make the decision to laugh often. It will change your life.
Cherish the humor in cartoons—those we