This one action shifts stress, energy, and yes,
often even outcomes, in an instant. Yet, when you feel life is heaping one
frustration on you after another, it seems like the last thing you'd ever do.
This particular stress-busting action happened the
first time for me years back, and happened spontaneously, without having read
or heard anyone say it was an effective technique to use, not that I would have
believed them. Now, it's recognized as such; but it's also an easy one to
forget or dismiss. The first time I did it, it simply FELT like the ONLY thing
to do at that moment, like the only thing that made any sense at a moment in
time that ceased to make sense to me.
I was having one of those days when, thankfully it
wasn’t emergencies stacking up, but neither was it your basic annoyances. These
were the mid-range issues that knock you on your backside and require attention
and action. And when I say they were stacking up, I mean just that. It seemed
that for the first few hours of that morning, one thing after another kept
coming at me. In a number of ways, it seemed that a portion of my life was
crumbling before my eyes, and I felt
like I didn’t know what to do, because I was in overwhelm-mode. It was the
classic multiple fires and only one bucket of water experience.
Then something surprising happened. I suddenly saw
all of it as a wave of the ridiculous crashing onto the shore of my life
experience all at once AND that though it was happening, I saw the utter
absurdity of it all, and of my reaction—and I started laughing, from my toes
up. It was laughter that came from my completely letting go of trying to
control and even judge any of it. It was laughter from just letting it all be
whatever it was or was going to be. And because of this shift in me and my
energy—which genuinely-felt laughter accomplishes, everything, and I mean all
of it that was happening right then—began to shift—because I had.
I found two brilliant representations I’d like to
include here, in the Harry Potter book, The
Prisoner of Azkaban. That title is a fitting parallel, as stress and
frustration are emotional, energetic prisons we sometimes find ourselves in. If
you aren't a Potter fan, Azkaban is a prison where the guards—appropriately called
Dementors—because, don’t we feel somewhat demented when we’re that wound up and
life feels that out of control in a particular moment. Dementors suck the joy,
and sometimes the soul, out of those imprisoned or those they go after, until
those they go after are left to be nothing more than empty physical shells,
which is what stress does to us, especially stress we don’t deal with or don’t
deal with productively.
The first charm: In this particular book,
Professor Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, instructs the
class on how to handle a boggart. Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces; they are
shape-shifters and can or will take the shape of whatever they think or know will
frighten people most. "The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it
requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is
laughter. . . . We will practice the charm without wands first. After me,
please . . . riddikulus!" It takes the shape of whatever frightens us
most. Our fears do shape-shift. Think of a particular fear you "entertain"
often or consistently. How many ways has and does it show up in your life? It's
the same boggart in different costumes.
The other charm that particularly fits laughter as
a stress buster is the Patronis Charm, where you think of a really good moment
in your life and hold the feeling of it. This creates an energy field that is
cast at one or more Dementors (fears), which disperses them. They can’t stand
or act against it. When I feel the need to bust some negativity, I like to
think of a time when I laughed until I cried, or a moment of true affirmation
that Source has my back, and let that feeling fill me. You see, when something
happens, the first thing we feel it’s natural to do is resist and struggle,
which makes us feel worse. More on this in a moment.
A friend had posted this statement on Facebook:
"One day, I'm going to laugh about this." She didn't say what "this"
was, but I responded that I hoped that, if and when she felt able to, she'd
laugh even sooner; that when life sometimes reaches what I call the
"absurdity of it all," I sometimes find it makes me laugh—a hearty,
spontaneous laugh, not a forced one. My dictionary defines absurd as "so clearly untrue or unreasonable as to be
laughable or ridiculous." When a lot of stuff piles up on us as it did on
me that day, I consider that clearly unreasonable—and absurd. And what’s really
absurd is what is revealed to me when I look at my point of attraction,
especially negative points of attraction I may have been consistently and
unknowingly practicing.
When stressed, the best thing you can do is put
whatever the stressor is down for a while, especially if you watch or listen to
something that makes you laugh or helps you to relax. Going back to Harry
Potter, but this time The Sorcerer’s
Stone, Hermione remembers the way to be released from the tentacles of the
Devil’s Snare plant is to relax. The more you struggle against it, the tighter
the tentacles wrap around you, until the plant kills you.
It seems counterintuitive to relax or let go of
struggle when some issue or chaos becomes our experience, but it is
the best first step. Think about the advice for getting out of a skid:
you have to relax (your mind, as much as you can) and put your focus on where
you want to go, not on where it seems the vehicle is heading. You make it worse
if you focus on where the car is heading; in fact, you more than likely will
make whatever you fear happen. If you shift your focus to where you want to go
instead, the spin will eventually release you.
Most of our fears, which cause stress, are
boggarts that linger in the dark spaces of our subconscious and conscious
minds. Sometimes we "feed" them so well with emotionally-charged
thoughts that they pop out of the proverbial cupboard and show up as events in
our lives. Sometimes more than one boggart taunts us at the same time, as
imagined or actual events, and we feel overwhelmed. Isn't it interesting how
often what we think or worry about shows up? It's as though we include them as
questions on a test—the questions we fear we won't know or be able to figure
out the answers to.
E-mail pages and social sites have a box that lets
you post what you're doing and ask the question: What are you doing right now? We
might also read this as, "What are you doing RIGHT, now?" It's too easy
to dwell on what we feel is not working or what we feel we're not doing right
and forget to acknowledge and appreciate what we ARE doing right, what IS
working right and then let this guide
us into better inner and outer experiences.
We know stress is harmful to us in numerous ways:
health, decision-making, joyfulness, and more. It depletes one, more, or all of
our resources, as does struggle. Positive thinking (the kind aligned with
what-is), Law of Attraction, and other techniques are familiar to so many of us
these days; yet, we still slip into the practiced, familiar pattern of engaging
and feeding our fears and going into struggle. Don't judge yourself when you do
this. The most important thing is to recognize when you do it and then use a
method you've used before that helped you then—or, if appropriate, find a way
to laugh—not a chuckle, but a belly laugh, or find any way that will help you
relax, like take a walk or put on a favorite peppy song and dance for those few
minutes.
Laughter relaxes energy and literally does shift
outcomes. Please be realistic about the outcome part: what is going on does shift
more often than not, but this has all to do with you allowing yourself to
release struggle, to let go of judging what’s going on and or resisting it.
Feeling crazed isn't going to make things better, it’ll make everything worse.
Releasing stress invites possibilities waiting to arrive because stress (the result of judgment) acts like glue
that keeps something stuck in our lives, even if the only thing we can shift
about an experience is our perception of it. If you find your "shoes"
(fearful thinking) stuck in a puddle of judgment "glue," you can
choose to leave your shoes where they are, at least until you can do something
about them. Or, leave those judgment shoes there and get a pair of dancing
shoes.
Later in The
Prisoner of Azkaban, Lupin discovers that what he believed Harry's greatest
fear (Voldemort) was, wasn't it at all: it was fear. That's true for us, as
well. Some of what we fear happens, but most of it doesn't. We abhor the idea
of feeling fearful; and yet, we feed it. We’re as afraid of that feeling as we
are what we fear. It's a learned behavior. What fear are you feeding right now?
It isn't that you must eliminate fear or feeling
fearful from your life. It's not realistic to do so or to put that kind of
pressure on you, or even a good idea—because even a fear can teach you
something (like how to move yourself through and beyond it); and thinking it is
a good idea or your obligation to eliminate fear completely will cause you
endless frustration. But, you can pay attention differently. Use one or more
methods that help you notice and shift when you're feeding a fear. "A real
problem can be solved. An imaginary one cannot."
If and when it feels right for you, find a way to
laugh, especially at the appropriate, truly absurd moments. It really is often
the best medicine for what ails you. It’s a good practice, one you’ll
appreciate.
Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer
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