The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

THE CIRCUS

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When the Circus comes to town
Don’t Go
When the Circus comes to town
Don’t advertise
When the Circus comes to town
Don’t buy or sell tickets
When the Circus comes to town
Don’t village up family and friends
to come along
When the Circus comes to town
Get your cotton candy
and unnecessary lighted plastic objects
somewhere else
When the Circus comes to town
Go to a movie
Read a book
Take in a concert
Go for a walk
(the other way)
When the Circus comes to town
There’ll be nothing you haven’t already
seen
heard
done or
been
including entertaining
the doesn’t exist
E L E P H A N T
in the room
When the Circus comes to town
G O
to another city
borough
state
country
continent
galaxy
universe
G O
or just meet me and the other
familiar faces
in the front row
or any one of the
THREE RINGS
When the Circus comes to town
know it’s never really gone

OUCH, SAY IT AIN’T SO

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What’s worse. . .

That THEY DO
or that THEY DON’T. . .

THINK ABOUT YOU

We all,
no matter what we say
C A R E
(even in small ways)
What OTHERS
think about us

But here’s the
data-based
S C I E N T I F I C
p r o o f:

Nobody is thinking that much about me (or you)
Because we mostly think about ourselves. . .

Don’t believe it? Do you still think the people around you are spending a lot of time thinking about everything you do and say? Science disagrees.

Scientific evidence that we mostly think about ourselves

There’s actually scientific evidence that we mostly think about ourselves.

Back in 1997, Dunbar, Marriott et al studied the topic and content of human conversations. They found that 78% of conversations involved talking about ourselves and our perceptions of the world. As they said in the study, the number one function of conversation in the social domain is that:

it allows the speaker to convey to other individuals a lot of information about him/herself as a person.

So the first step was understanding that people mostly talk about themselves.

In 2013, Tamir and Mitchell from Harvard showed that most people do something called “anchoring.” It is a kind of cognitive bias where:

[people] invoke their own experiences as a guide for inferring the experiences of another person.

As an example, you might feel uncomfortable in crowds. So when someone describes a big party they attended, you assume they were describing a negative experience. Even if they, personally, love big parties.

More recently (2018), Meyer and Lieberman proposed a theory about why people are always thinking about themselves. There is a certain area of the brain (MPFC/DA 10) that is sort of the “default network” area. It gets activated when the brain is at rest and not engaged in external demands. Their imaging work confirmed that it is also the same area that lights up when we think about ourselves.

In other words, our brain’s default is to think about ourselves.

So the research supports this truth. We talk about ourselves more than anything else. We use our own experiences to make assumptions about other people. And our brain is wired to think about ourselves when it’s not engaged in other external demands.

The research is pretty clear. We’re mostly thinking about ourselves.

So when you feel judged, it’s because you’re judging yourself

Let’s reframe our negative thoughts and assumptions about ourselves for a moment.

When I am worried that someone thinks I’m too intense. Or that I’m not doing a good job at a presentation at work. Who is actually thinking that?

Me. I’m thinking about myself and believing those thoughts. But are other people judging me in the same way?

The biggest truth is that we have no idea what other people are thinking and we never will.

But the most likely scenario is that the people around me are wondering what I think about them. Or something else related to themselves. And I’m the only one thinking all those negative thoughts about myself. Because I’m only a blip on the radar of the thoughts of anyone else.

The truth about what people think about us goes something like the quote from Bette Midler in Beaches. Yes, I know, but the quote is good:

Enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?

Sometimes people will say judgmental things, but it’s not what you think

All this isn’t to say that people will never judge you, say mean things to you, or think negative thoughts about you. That isn’t true. I mean, we’ve all been on the internet.

But my perspective on these things is that often, these judgements aren’t actually about us. At least not only about us.

Again, the research from the Tamir & Mitchell paper (and others) says that people use their own thoughts and experiences as an “anchor” for their assumptions about other people.

What I’ve seen is that people are often the harshest and most judgmental about parts of other people that they are insecure about in themselves.

So the next time someone calls you something mean or makes a judgement about you and how you live your life. Instead of internalizing it and making it mean something about you. Ask yourself, what does it mean about them? What negative thoughts do they have about themselves that “anchor” their belief about you?

The absolute freedom in realizing that nobody is thinking about you

When you realize that most people’s thoughts are about themselves. When you actually internalize this concept, the freedom is incredible.

It means, I can do my work presentation and believe whatever I want about how I did.

It means, I can wear whatever I want and accept that I like the outfit.

The possibilities are endless.

This shift might not happen overnight. And it won’t exist all the time. Nothing is perfect, absolute, or black and white.

But the next time you find yourself feeling completely judged. The next time you are overcome with the belief that other people are thinking mean, terrible, horrible thoughts about you.

Remember, you have no idea what they’re actually thinking. But it’s unlikely to be about you. And more likely to be about themselves.

So you’re free to think anything you want, good or bad. And remove the inner monologue from your mind and return to the present moment.

What a relief.

(ME–trying to show the world that I’m color blind)

What’s The Use(s)

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ARE  YOU  T H A T  ARTIST

in your life.       .       .

In Another’s.         .        .

Are you The Christoper Columbus in Search of the lost Continent in you.     .     .     ?

7 lessons about finding the work you were meant to do.        .         .

I love articles like this

because they imply something magical could happen to you

if you just followed

THE STEPS

THE GUIDELINES

THE MAP

THE PERSONAL GPS

THE.     .     .THE.      .      .THE.     .     .THE.     .     .THE.     .     .THE.     .     .THE.     .    .

Apr 29, 2016 reaches back and shows us the vast possibilities.          .          .

Emily Pidgeon

You don’t “find your calling,” you fight for it — and other lessons from people who found their passion (sometimes late in life).

Whether it was during a career aptitude test or in a heart-to-heart chat after getting laid off, chances are someone has talked to you about how to “find your calling.” It’s one of those phrases people toss about. But StoryCorps founder Dave Isay takes issue with it … specifically, the verb.

“Finding your calling — it’s not passive,” he says. “When people have found their calling, they’ve made tough decisions and sacrifices in order to do the work they were meant to do.”

In other words, you don’t just “find” your calling — you have to fight for it. And it’s worth the fight. “People who’ve found their calling have a fire about them,” says Isay, the winner of the 2015 TED Prize. “They’re the people who are dying to get up in the morning and go do their work.”

Over a decade of listening to StoryCorps interviews, Isay noticed that people often share the story of how they discovered their calling — and now, he’s collected dozens of great stories on the subject into a new book, Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work. Below, he shares 7 takeaways from the hard-won fight to find the work you love.

1. Your calling is at the intersection of a Venn diagram of three things: doing something you’re good at, feeling appreciated, and believing your work is making people’s lives better. “When those three things line up, it’s like lightning,” Isay says. He doesn’t suggest that a person has to be a surgeon saving lives to feel like they have a calling; think of the diner waitress who talks to customers and makes them feel loved. How do you find this overlap? “You have to shut out all the chatter of what your friends are telling you to do, what your parents are telling you to do, what society is telling you to do,” Isay says, “and just go to that quiet place inside you that knows the truth.”

2. Your calling often comes out of difficult experiences. What lurks in that quiet place will be a defining experience — quite possibly a painful one. Isay points to an interview in Callings with 24-year-old teacher Ayodeji Ogunniyi. “He was studying to be a doctor when his father was murdered. He realized that what he was really meant to do was be a teacher,” says Isay. “He says that every time he walks into a classroom, his father is walking in with him.” This theme of people turning their hardest experiences into a new path runs throughout the book. “Having an experience that really shakes you and reminds you of your mortality can be a very clarifying event in people’s lives. Oftentimes, it leads to changes,” he says. “We spend a lot of time working, so it can really change your priorities in terms of work life.”

3. Calling often takes courage and ruffles feathers. Elsewhere in Callings, we hear about Wendell Scott, who became the first African-American NASCAR driver in 1952, and kept on driving despite threats against his life. From scientist Dorothy Warburton who dealt with extreme sexism as she conducted research to break the stigma around miscarriage. From Burnell Cotlon, who opened the first grocery store in the Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina because he wasn’t about to let his old neighborhood’s spirit fade. Calling, says Isay, very often starts with taking a stand against a status quo that simply isn’t acceptable, and then dedicating your work to changing it: “It’s work ignited by hope, love, or defiance — and stoked by purpose and persistence.”

4. Other people often nudge you toward calling. Sharon Long had worked odd jobs most of her life. As Isay tells it, “Her daughter was going to college, and as the bursar was helping them with financial aid forms, she said quietly to herself, ‘I wish I could’ve gone to college.’ The bursar responded, ‘It’s not too late.’” Sharon enrolled in an art program, and on her advisor’s suggestion, took forensic anthropology as her science. “The advisor suggested it for no other reason than he thought it was the easiest science course for the science requirement,” says Isay. “But the minute she sat in that class, it was boom — this is what she was meant to do.” Isay tells this story to illustrate how calling, while very personal, is also relational. “People bump you this way and that way,” he says, often without realizing it. “When people find their callings, they want to honor those people who helped them get there.”

5. What comes after identifying your calling is what really matters. The old ‘finding your calling’ phraseology makes it sound like a calling is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow — you find it, and the story’s over. But Isay stresses that your calling is an ongoing process. “Understanding what your calling is — that’s very different than the blood, sweat and tears of actually doing it,” he says. Pursuing a calling may require going back to school or apprenticing; it may require starting a business. Often, notes Isay, it leads a person into a line of work that’s in service of others. “This book is basically a love letter to nurses, teachers, social workers — the people who don’t often get celebrated for the work they do,” he says.

6. Age is irrelevant. Isay found his calling when he was 21 and interviewed a man who’d been part of the Stonewall riots. “The minute I hit record, I knew that being a journalist and interviewing people was what I was going to do for the rest of my life,” he says. “I feel very lucky that lightning struck when I was very young.” But collecting stories for the book reminded him that a calling can be discovered at any age. The book includes an interview with someone who knew they wanted to be an NBA referee at age 15, and another who worked as an accountant for 30 years before discovering his passion for slicing lox. “Doing the work you’re meant to do is one of the most satisfying, remarkable experiences that a person can have,” says Isay, “so never give up.”

7. Calling often doesn’t come with a big paycheck. Another trend Isay sees in stories of people who find their calling: they often involve leaving a high-paying job for one that’s lower-paying but more satisfying. “The message we send to young people is that you want to do as little work as you can to make as much money as you can — that’s the dream,” says Isay. “But the wisdom in the StoryCorps archive is that there’s another, much more rewarding dream of taking risks and working very hard to live with integrity.” In the end, that’s the lesson he took away from writing this book. “There are no millionaires, no billionaires, no celebrities, nobody with a big Twitter following,” he says. “Just stories can teach us a lot about lives fully lived.”

Even more powerful is this one single, revelation:

The DEBUNKING of one of the worst lies ever told to you,

made even more devastating because it’s told to you by people you love;

People you admire; look up to; respect.          .          .

YOU HAVE A PURPOSE.          .          .
(NO  YOU  DON’T)

YOU HAVE A MEANING.          .          .
(THAT’S  A  LIE)

YOU HAVE A DESTINY.            .          .
(THAT’S  A  BUNCH  OF  BUNK)

YOU HAVE A REASON.             .          .
(THAT’S A CROCK OF SOMETHING STANKY YOU DON’T WANT IN YOUR PANTRY)

T          R          U          T          H :

You don’t have a Purpose

You don’t have a Meaning

You don’t have a Destiny

You don’t have a Reason.          .          .

THEY   ARE   PLURAL.          .          .

Not   SINGULAR

The Purpose
The Meaning
The Destiny
The Reason

Y   O   U

had as a infant wasn’t the one you had as a toddler or a pre-schooler or in junior high or when you graduated from high school, college, with your first full time job, when you got married, had kids, got divorced, remarried, more kids, another career, moved, had grandkids, retired.          .          .

F          A           C          T :

You’ve had more Purposes,
You’ve had more Meanings,
You’ve had more Destinies,
You’ve had more Reasons

slip through your hands than you’ve ever taken advantage;

THEY  ARE  ENDLESS

and FOREVER CHURNING IN YOU

WHAT’S     THE     USE(S)

what indeed for

N                    O                    W

Dealing in DEATH

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Kind of makes you wonder, huh.          .          .

D                    E                    A                    T                     H

Billy Collins has long been one of my favorite contemporary poets and he ponders

D             E            A              T             H

this way in his poem entitled,

M  Y        N  U  M  B  E  R

Is Death miles away from this house,
reaching for a window in Cinncinati
or breathing down the neck of a lost hiker
in British Columbia?

Is he too busy making arrangements,
tampering with air brakes,
scattering cancer cells like seeds,
loosening the wooden beams of roller coasters

to bother with my hidden cottage
that visitors find so hard to find?

Or is he stepping from a black car
parked at the dark end of the lane,
shaking open the familiar cloak,
its hood raised like the head of a crow,
and removing the scythe from the trunk?

Did you have any trouble with the directions?
I will ask, as I start talking my way out of this.

– Billy Collins

I remember at a very young age welcoming  d e a t h;  walking with it; talking to it; trying to understand what it all meant. I don’t know if I’ve ever come to heads or tails of that but I know doing some 26 funerals a month for the past 10 years has brought me closer to it than I’ve ever had in my entire life. The Buddhist tell us that attachment is the form of all suffering and detachment helps us not suffer as much.  I, like Many, am a poor Buddhist.           .          .

I remember as a five or six year old kid, sitting in the backseat one Friday night as we were making our way to my grandparents, which was more of a weekly event than not.          .          .I told my parents matter of factly that I hope I would die before them because I would be too sad if they died first; there was a palpable silence I can remember and that nervous look between parents that wasn’t all that secret before they both, in machine gun like fashion began sputtering off all kinds of reasons why that’s “not the way it’s suppose to be.”

There was the death of my grandfather when I was six and then the death of my other grandfather right before my 14th birthday that I believed I was directly responsible and then aunts, uncles, great grandmother and grandmothers and friends in high-school.       .       .

In a strange way I have learned to not just open the door to death but actually unhinge it. And by just  unhinging it,  it’s let it come and go in places in my life like a undamable flood waters that seep in spots you didn’t even know exists and before it drys all of the way it leaves an unmistakable odor that never quiet evaporates or gets tamed.          .          .

I’ve long ago filled out my own DNRCC and written letters to be read ‘at that appropriate time.       .       .I’ve taped parts of my own Celebration of Life so I can have the “LAST WORD” and intend to attend it if I get a glimpse or a longer than usual ‘heads-up’ that it’s looming before me in my most immediate future;

I’ve even gone further as to actually imagine trying to envision what it would be like to not only lose my parents today, this year, but also losing my sister and brothers to the SHADOW  that knows no Light.        .        .

And yes, I’ve dared hugging the Porcupine-full-barbed-quails-exposed and plunging deep, what it would be like to have Erin, my wife die or any one of my four daughters, my son, my five granddaughters or my
grandson.        .        .

O                                   U                                   C                                   H

That seems to go little bit further than what we would call
mindfulness.        .       .

It’s way less than mindlessness, too.            .            .

Try it go ahead and finish these two sentences:

BEFORE  I  DIE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO_________________________________

THIS IS WHAT IT WOULD FEEL LIKE IF ONE OF MY LOVED ONE DIED______________

Write out your own Obituary.          .          .

G   O       T   H   E   R   E

TASTE IT

SNIFF IT

HEAR IT

SEE IT

TOUCH IT

Recall the Laughters.          .          .all of them

It certainly doesn’t matter if a Tree gets hit by lightning and no longer can bear fruit or sprout leaves compared to if my wife or my children, grandchildren or even my dog Molly died; and it’s even much different then if somebody that is the same age as my wife or my child or my parents die.          .          .this mindfulness, this acceptance of death; this detachment, is it somehow making me live better; making me love deeper; making me feel and experience more freshly and more deeply?

 I’m not sure, but I do know that it’s not any L E S S. And by taking this door and unhinging it, it allows these thoughts, these feelings to sort of come and go without stopping them or judging them or disallowing them. And it is in that very act that it disarms them; Renders them less potent; Makes them,  DARE I SAY, more
n  e  i  g  h  b  o  r  l  y.     .     .     ?

It seems, these things are the very seeds once planted we don’t fully ever get to see the plants but know that they grow just the same,  and that we are not just tenders of those plants, but also harvesters. It’s growing season always and in ALL PLACES because it never is not THAT season among the Seasons.          .          .

So exactly what is the Takeaway?

Simply that it is not the same for each person or any person in your way of dealing with anything good and bad; Life or Death is not exactly a RIGHT or WRONG WAY so much as YOUR WAY and most likely it’ll be different than Another’s WAY or Experience.          .          .

SO  EACTLY  WHAT  IS  THE  TAKEAWAY?

Teach me your way; let me learn of it and don’t judge me too harshly if I don’t follow it to every detail but take from it lessons that I need to learn at the very moment that I need to learn even again, and let that be enough for the both of us.          .          .

After all what makes us Caring Catalysts.           .          .

What makes us Anything

What makes us Everything

is not the fear we are nothing.          .          .

It’s the Fear that we

WE CEASE TO BE

CARING CATALYSTS
ANYTHING
EVERYTHING
ANYONE’S
EVERYONE’S.          .          .

Excuse me now.          .          .
it’s time to do a little dying
 and place my head on the pillow;
close my eyes and be asleep
before the next song on my playlist comes up.           .          .
And even as I die in this way,

A           G           A           I           N
(as we each do every night with even a not-so-good-sleep)

I am confident that I will RESURRECT

either to a new day

or to the One that is never ending.           .          .

For there indeed is a TIME

tick-ticking away.       .       .

a time for both

and yes.          .          .

indeed a time for all

YOUR WORD

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WHAT’S YOUR WORD. . .

I’m not asking you to give your Word
I’m asking for something much more valuable. . .

YOUR WORD

Dictionary of Obscure SorrowsPublished on Apr 30, 2015SUBSCRIBE 296KWhile you’re in it, life seems epic. Fiery, tenuous, and unpredictable. But once you have some distance from it, everything seems to shrink, until it’s almost out of focus. So you begin scanning your life looking for something interesting or beautiful. But all you see is ordinary people assembled in their tiny classrooms and workspaces, each of us moving around in little steps, like tokens on a game board. ETYMOLOGY From Greek koinos, “common, ordinary, stripped of specialness” + phobia, “fear”. THE DICTIONARY OF OBSCURE SORROWS http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows… The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of invented words written by John Koenig. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the language-to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don’t yet have a word for. Follow the project, give feedback, suggest an emotion you need a word for, or just tell me about your day.

What is it?

If you could make up a new one like John Koenig did in his
THE DICTIONARY OF OBSCURE SORROWS
What is THAT Word


WHAT IS YOUR WORD

Puts just
GIVING YOUR WORD
into a who other universe,
h u h. . .

K O I N O P H O B I A
may be the word
that spells the universal fear
that maybe LIFE has been meaningless. . .
A FEAR
I’ve heard expressed at the bedsides of many of many a dying patient
which in essence
is more false
than the Sun
being a bright candle
with an inextinguishable wick
in a snow globe
that cannot any longer be shaken. . .

Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
G E T S H A K E N

Forget about
Giving your Word
or
Finding your Word
BE

Be your Word

Explode the Dictionary

BE
undefinably
awesome
l i v i n g
YOUR
Purpose(S)
Reason(S)
Destiny(S)
M E A N I N G ( S )

DISAPPEARING

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I wanted to Disappear
To get so lost
To go so very Un-GPS’s
To go so very off Grid’ed
To go so very Un-mapped
To go so very Un-charted
To go so very Un-detected
To go so very Un-abracadabra
v a n i s h e d
That a happen chance NoBody
Or a wandering SomeBody
Or a searching AnyBody
could ever find me
only to Christopher Columbus
d i s c o v e r
THAT
road is not a
Street
not an
Avenue
not a
Boulevard
not a
2/4/6/8 lane highway
but a Road
always
highly
occupied
Traffic Jammed
DAMN

This is a poem I wrote after a day that felt like a month that can’t be found on a calendar; a day that makes you want to become a skilled magician so you can slight-of-the-hand-blink-of-the-eye-quick-vanish without so much as reflection from a dirty mirror or a wisp of lingering smoke. . .

But here’s the best thing about day’s that feel like months not found on any calendars:

THEY END

and what they take from you
compares not what they gift you:

S T R E N G T H

A detour
sometimes masks itself as a
short cut
and always something more than just another
Way

The detour?
Compassion
The Short cut?
Giving it
The Way?
More often than you have. . .

Talk about a wild ride on a dark night
(on a road that seemingly doesn’t exist)

Giddy Up

A LAUGHING MATTER

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Time Magazine’s Markham Heid recently came out with a great article that’s been written in more ways than one in recent years. It’s not just simply about the benefits of a couple of “ho-ho-ho’s” or even some well placed, “Ha-ha-ha’s” But it’s a great affirmation of what you knew, knew that you knew and probably would bet your lift that you knew, but for the life of you didn’t always act like you knew. . .

L A U G H T E R

It may not be the best medicine. But laughter’s great for you, and it may even compare to a proper diet and exercise when it comes to keeping you healthy and disease free.

That’s according to Dr. Lee Berk, an associate professor at Loma Linda University in California who has spent nearly three decades studying the ways the aftershocks of a good laugh ripple through your brain and body.

Berk says your mind, hormone system and immune system are constantly communicating with one another in ways that impact everything from your mood to your ability to fend off sickness and disease. Take grief: “Grief induces stress hormones, which suppress your immune function, which can lead to sickness,” he says. Hardly a week goes by without new research tying stress to another major ailment.

Why mention stress? “Because laughter appears to cause all the reciprocal, or opposite, effects of stress,” Berk explains. He says laughter shuts down the release of stress hormones like cortisol. It also triggers the production of feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine, which have all kinds of calming, anti-anxiety benefits. Think of laughter as the yin to stress’s yang.

Thanks largely to these stress-squashing powers, laughter has been linked to health benefits ranging from lower levels of inflammation to improved blood flow, Berk says. Some research from Western Kentucky University has also tied good chuckle to greater numbers and activity of ‘killer cells,’ which your immune system deploys to attack disease. “Many of these same things also happen when you sleep right, eat right, and exercise,” Berk says, which is why he lumps laughter in with more traditional healthy lifestyle activities.

Berk has even shown that laughter causes a change in the way your brain’s many neurons communicate with one another. Specifically, laughter seems to induce, “gamma” frequencies–the type of brain waves observed among experienced mediators. These gamma waves improve the “synchronization” of your neuronal activity, which bolsters recall and memory, Berk says.

How does laughter accomplish all this? That’s where things get murky, says Dr Robert Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and author of Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccuping, and Beyond

Provide calls himself a “reserved optimist” when it comes to laughter’s health-bolstering properties. “One of the challenges of studying laughter is that there are so many things that trigger it,” Provine explains. For example, you’re 30 times more likely to laugh around other people than when you are by yourself, he says. Social relationships and companionship have been tied to numerous health benefits. And so the social component of laughter may play a big part in its healthful attributes, Provine adds.

Here’s why that matters: If you’re going to tell people they should laugh to improve their health, there may be a big difference between guffawing on your own without provocation, watching a funny YouTube clip or meeting up with friends who make you laugh, Provine says.

“That doesn’t mean the benefits weren’t real,” he adds. “But it may not be accurate to credit laughter alone with all of these superpowers.”he says.

But even for the researchers like Provine who aren’t ready–at least not yet–to coronate laughter as a panacea, he doesn’t dispute the benefits associated with hearty har har. He only questions science’s current understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

“When we laugh, we’re in a happy place,” he says. “That’s always a good thing.”

A couple of years ago I attended The Worldwide Laughter Tour workshop and actually became a Certified Laugh Leader under the direction of Dr. Steve Wilson, a true JOYOLOGIST. I think that was one single event that SHOWED me the great benefits of Laughter
EVEN WHEN IT’S FAKE

Because what I find humorous or absolutely funny
YOU MIGHT NOT
but you still get the benefits when you
FAKE LAUGH
for even up to 60-95 seconds
which is why we learned and taught
LAUGH EXERCISES

Since that time
I’ve taught and led several
LAUGH SESSIONS. . .

WHO KNEW. . .

The World can change
ONE LAUGH
ONE GIGGLE
ONE HAAAAAA
ONE SMILE
at at time. . .

and it can begin
n o w
with you

A great Caring Catalyst
is a
LAUGHING
HAPPY
Caring Catalyst

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Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIMEBY MARKHAM HEID  NOVEMBER 19, 2014

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You Asked: Are Cleanses Healthy? Potions that claim to clear your body of toxins might sound alluring, but do they deliver? Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME

Thanks largely to these stress-quashing powers, laughter has been linked to health benefits ranging from lower levels of inflammation to improved blood flow, Berk says. Some research from Western Kentucky University has also tied a good chuckle to greater numbers and activity of “killer cells,” which your immune system deploys to attack disease. “Many of these same things also happen when you sleep right, eat right, and exercise,” Berk says, which is why he lumps laughter in with more traditional healthy lifestyle activities.

Berk has even shown that laughter causes a change in the way your brain’s many neurons communicate with one another. Specifically, laughter seems to induce “gamma” frequencies—the type of brain waves observed among experienced meditators. These gamma waves improve the “synchronization” of your neuronal activity, which bolsters recall and memory, Berk says.

How does laughter accomplish all this? That’s where things get murky, says Dr. Robert Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and author of Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond.

Provine calls himself a “reserved optimist” when it comes to laughter’s health-bolstering properties. “One of the challenges of studying laughter is that there are so many things that trigger it,” Provine explains. For example, you’re 30 times more likely to laugh around other people than when you are by yourself, he says. Social relationships and companionship have been tied to numerous health benefits. And so the social component of laughter may play a big part in its healthful attributes, Provine adds.

Here’s why that matters: If you’re going to tell people they should laugh to improve their health, there may be a big difference between guffawing on your own without provocation, watching a funny YouTube clip or meeting up with friends who make you laugh, Provine says.

“That doesn’t mean the benefits aren’t real,” he adds. “But it may not be accurate to credit laughter alone with all these superpowers.”

But even for researchers like Provine who aren’t ready—at least not yet—to coronate laughter as a panacea, he doesn’t dispute the benefits associated with a hearty har har. He only questions science’s current understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

“When we laugh, we’re in a happy place,” he says. “That’s always a good thing.”

LIVING GOOD

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https://youtu.be/kI1bKm22Up0

FACT: There’s lots of things that can and do go wrong in Life

FACT: Unfortunate things and difficult experiences are happening every day all over the world and that’s just a part of Living.

FACT: Not so great good things or the FEAR OF THEM doesn’t have to stop us from living a good life

FACT: The guts to live–not in spite of difficulties, but regardless of them–is what makes the good life possible (maybe even because of the tough times)

As the TIMELESS 2013 Commercial from ALLSTATE illustrates:

PEOPLE LIVE FOR GOOD
SO DO WE

So. . .
what are you waiting for. . . ?
T I C K E T S ?

Well,
buy one and then make sure of two things:
YOU SHOW UP
DON’T LEAVE EARLY

L I V E G O O D

BEATING A MOUNTAIN

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Sometimes reaching out

and just holding hands

is a connection that your

H E A R T

will require that you do often.          .          .

In fact,

YOUR     HEART

won’t   be   the   same

E                 V                 E                 R

unless   it’s   connected

hand   to   hand

I saw her in the hallway when I walked into the facility

and she was talking on the phone

but it looked like she was talking to herself.           .           .

Moments later I saw her at the vending machine

OFF  OF  THE  PHONE.          .          .

she was buying a bag of salted nuts

and was wheeling around her own oxygen tank

and it was a simple question I asked:

“How   are   you?”

with a most significant answer:

“YOU    CAN’T    BEAT    A    MOUNTAIN!”

Talk about your

B                            A                            M

of   the   Day

When people have asked me

since 1994

“HOW  CAN  YOU  DO  THIS  WORK  OF  HOSPICE with all of the Death and Dying?”

My stock answer is anything but

I N    S T O C K:

“Everyday I don’t so much serve the dying as much as I companion the Living,”

.       .       .the MOUNTAIN-CONQUERING-STORM-WALKING-FIRE-EATING-SUNSHINE-SHINING-BRIGHTER-RAYS-EVER-PRODUCING-LIVING

The  Truth:

I’m still one of the most selfish people I’ve ever known

and I’m not ashamed to admit that by being a

Caring Catalyst

and showing up everyday

if to do nothing more than just

J O I N I N G     H A N D S

I become more completed

than any box of jumbled puzzle pieces

could ever become

and I’m always in search of the next hand.        .        .

the not-so-much-missing-piece

but the not-yet-found-one.          .           .

Because you just can’t

BEAT      A       MOUNTAIN

In fact.        .        .

Compassion adds to its Peak

HAND    AND    HAND

D i s c o v e r

and   ever

R           E           D           I           S           C           O           V           E           R

Let’s    go    Climbing

and let’s have our seemingly

L   A   S   T         S   T   E   P

be  really   just   another   one   of   our

F   I   R   S   T   S

in the many

of    more   to   come

RELATIONSHIPPED

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In 1996 there was a study done in the United States (exploring belonging and social connection) where the researchers asked, “HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU FEEL CLOSE TO…CLOSE ENOUGH THAT YOU WOULD SHARE YOUR PERSONAL PROBLEMS?” The Answer was 4. The exact same study was done just a mere eight years later in 2004. THE ANSWER WAS: 1
25% answered 0 which means that 1/4 of the population in the United States feel they have NO ONE TO TALK TO. . .

Do you want to know what the most scary part of these two studies are? Those studies were done 15 and 23 years ago. . .

Can you seriously imagine
WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
which was viritually nonexistent
and a wisp of a shadow
what the results of such a study
would fare today,
March 29, 2019. . .

Who would have thought that
W E
are the
LITTLE THINGS
(way more than
Social Media
Technology
Pharmaceuticals
Scientific Discoveries
Medical Advances)

A few years ago there was a commercial that represented,
GO TO MEETING. COM
and their mantra was so powerful
I still remember it years later
because I thought
I T
to be
THE CURE
for a lot of the World’s Ill’s;
THE HEALER
of most all shattered
R E L A T I O N S H I P S:
WHEN YOU GO FACE TO FACE,
YOU CAN’T HELP BUT TO SEE
EYE TO EYE

T H A T ‘ S G E T T I N G
R E L A T I O N S H I P P E D

ONE DAY
hopefully one
not so much found on a
c a l e n d a r
but in a heart
will pulsate
u n c e a s i n g l y
that it’s never
pharmaceuticals
medical advances
scientific inventions
therapies
interventions
technologies
or any forms of
social media
(present or unfolding)
that heal us. . .
IT’S RELATIONSHIPS

G E T T H A T

and yes,
Y E S
You’ll have been
RELATIONSHIPPED
. . .and it’ll not only last. . .
IT’LL WRECK EVERY STUDY
(for an ever)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man