Laughter — Page 3

ALL-WAYS A SEASON

October 24, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

In this era, where a lot of people are becoming more and more indifferent towards one another, kindness is coming at an expensive price. It is not often that you see people showing kindness towards others. BUT. . .I found this video recently where there was a prepared set of different videos to prove that wrong. Throughout the video, you can watch Santa providing warm clothes to homeless people or older woman praising stranger for doing cool tricks with skateboard and many others. As always I hope this afflicts the Caring Catalyst in you that by merely watching the video, you will realize that kindness in humanity hasn’t been lost completely and there are still people out there ready to show acts of kindness not only to their close ones, but also to any random strangers and make them emotional or even cry by their acts of kindness. THAT it’ll inspire you to bring a special warmth to Another’s CHILL. . .Enjoy watching the video. . .

AND REMEMBER:

HOROSCOPED

August 6, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

B I R T H D A Y S
they come and go
and the older we get the
faster they get here and the quicker they are gone
but what remains are
those ominous words that
predict
warn
pretell
just what kind of a day and a year ahead might entail. . .
(or not)
PICK ONE:

LEO HOROSCOPE

AUGUST 06, 2022

An impulsive mood can guide you toward opportunities as well as mishaps today if you trust that your path is the right one. The spontaneity you exhibit at work and at home can be a boon to you as you may find yourself in situations where the options before you are confusing. If you give yourself permission to surrender to the flow of the universe today — whether that means acting impulsively or following an uncertain avenue — you can release your cares into the ether. The confidence you will likely feel will no doubt be a result of your no longer having to worry that you are on the wrong track.

We lose the troubles and care that might otherwise have compelled us to give up our dreams when we dedicate ourselves to the focused flow of the universe. We may feel that we have come unmoored, yet later we see clearly that our fates were mapped out in ways we could not yet comprehend. The universal flow will nearly always speed us toward those forms of accomplishment that will prove rewarding as its current is just another aspect of the plan put in place for us before our birth. Unlike when we fight against the tide or attempt to outrun it, we are carried forward and can feel at ease as we contemplate the richness that is to come. Today your spontaneity and your desires will be defined by a directness that proves beyond a doubt that you are following a path laid out for you in time immemorial.

O R

Maybe the best Horoscope of all isn’t found in the papered news or from some fancy website or anywhere remotely in or out of the stars and the stratosphere but somewhere snuggled not all that deep within that reminds you it’s not so much seemingly wise words that come to us from some cosmic zodiac sign but our relationships that make our days and years worth living and celebrating. . .

So before this Birthday Boy’s Wish Filled candle is blown out as I begin another trip around the sun, I’m grateful for not all who remember and wish me the best on ‘my day,’ so much as how severely grateful I am for all of threads that have intentionally interwoven themselves into my tapestry and let me know that my darkest threads have taken on a richer color when next to those golden threads that never lose their shine as they brighten mine.

I humbly thank each of you for your immensely kind thoughts and warmest wishes. I don’t do good with compliments and gifts. I’m not a good “GETTER”. All the more reason for you all to know how much you enchant my life and inspire me to live larger; to bless as I have severely been blessed.

I’m most grateful for each of you for making me Better

t h a n k

y o u

WE ARE A GENTLE, ANGRY PEOPLE

August 1, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

There are many different covers of this song but I like this version because it reminds me what we know, what we know we know, what we’d bet our lives that we know but for the LIFE OF US never act like we know. . .

WE ARE ALL INSTRUMENTS IN THE SYMPHONY OF THIS UNIVERSE
and the WE ARE AT OUR BESTS when we not only play in unison and harmony but when we just merely play together. . .
WE NEED TO BE THE CHORUS we already long have been and need to be now, UNMUTED, UNDILUTED, PURE, UNADULTERATED, UNFILTERINGLY US. . .

The video starts quietly but builds. I love how the singers end the song. ENJOY!

(My sincerest gratitude and appreciation to G ALA Choruses.)

FUNNY BUSINESS

July 22, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

A few years ago I became a
C L L
. . .that’s right,
a real bonafide
CERTIFIED LAUGHTER LEADER
even though
LAUGHING
and attempting to make people
H A P P Y(IER)
has been a life long pursuit of mine. . .
enter the infamous JOYOLOGIST
STEVE WILSON and his beautiful bride, Pamela
I attended their WORLD LAUGHTER TOUR

Steve Wilson| Psychologist | The Joyologist | Cheerman of the Bored
Director-National Humor Month
http://www.worldlaughtertour.com
http://www.humormonth.com
http://www.stevewilson.com
http://www.laughterfoundation.org
Skype: s_h_wilson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Laughter-Tour/57984062492
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevehwilson
Twitter: (@joyologist)
Phone: 614-855-4733
Blog: http://www.laughterandhumor.blogspot.com

and it was literally
LIFE CHANGING. . .
I have had the privilege/pleasure of actually hosting several LAUGHTER SESSIONS and have shared some of those techniques in several of the presentations I do and believe me, no pun intended. . .
THIS IS NO FUNNY BUSINESS,
in fact the one simple-start-using-it-at-this-very-second-give-a-away
IS FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT. . .
That’s right, even fake laughing for a mere 15-30 seconds gives you all of the health benefits of actually laughing as if you were watching your favorite comedy or having a laughfest with your friends. . .
In fact, SMILING has the same kind of benefits, especially when you feel the least like cracking a smile. . .
and yet even FAKE SMILING opens wide those big Carotid arteries that supply the head and neck with oxygenated blood and instantly changes your mood and demeanor. . .
FUNNY BUSINESS

This past Sunday, Steve DIRECT MESSAGED me the image below

It made me take a look at a pile of books I had in a corner section of the library I have in my basement and WHAAAAAAA-LAAAAAAAA I found this

Lord Is a Whisper at Midnight https://a.co/d/bW9xGyH

book that I hadn’t opened in a while but slid in a chair on a rainy afternoon and let it READ ME as much as I pursued it. . .
FUNNY BUSINESS

I was COLOR BLINDED no more and the smiles weren’t fake

THANK YOU, STEVE WILSON
for HOW-TO
that made the WANT-TO
feel kind of
F U N N Y
naturally. . .

THERE WILL BE BAD DAYS

June 13, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Y E S
There will be Bad DAYS
to be had
to be overcome
to be experienced
to be intimately known
to be. . .
ALL WAYS
TO BE

So the next time you feel totally shattered
once again
MONDAY MORNING
or not
R E F L E C T:
(these)

Words of encouragement for your inevitable bad day. A compilation of worldwide YouTube content, the crowd-sourced documentary “Life in a Day” by Kevin Macdonald, and local footage by Jon Goodgion. Audio is the spoken word poem “Instructions For a Bad Day” by Shane Koyczan. Rights remain to respective owners. Here is the poem in written form:

“There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go.

Be confident. Know that “now” is only a moment, and that if “today” is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, “today” will have ended.
Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered, to pull you back from the “somewhere” you cannot escape.

Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the Truth – and the Truth is, whether we see them or not, the Sun and Moon are still there and always there is Light.
Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say “it’s alright, I’m okay” – be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity.

Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you’ve been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone – that Pain is part of the Human Condition, and that alone makes you a legion.

We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmisser’s of odds, we pressers of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and you’d never make it through.
Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue.

Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed.

Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful – because it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to grow there.

Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it. If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for.

If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can – do more. There will be bad days, Times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient.

Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you “friend”. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence. So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again.

Everyone is blessed with the ability to Listen. The Deaf will hear you with their Eyes. The Blind will see you with their Hands. Let your Heart fill their news-stands, let them read all about it. Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but come back. They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack disappear you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.

Everyone knows Pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you “how was your day”, realize that for some of us, it’s the only way we know how to say “be calm”.

Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.”

Go ahead. . .
Clear your throat
Rub your eyes
drink deeply from the cup
that endlessly reminds you
that Bad Days may be a plenty
but those are the days
you suck down
and spit out
(again and again and again and again and again and again and again and. . . .)

THIS IS US. . .ALL OF US

May 20, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

Lots of people don’t watch TV|
Lots of people do. . .

Lots of people don’t watch
THIS IS US
Lots of people DO. . .

Some 4.97 Million watched this past Tuesday night
THE NEXT TO THE LAST SHOW
that had lots of
YOU-BETTER-GRAB-A-TOWEL
m o m e n t s
as we watched the matriarch, Rebecca Pearson
literally actively die in front of us
and what lots of hospice folks
COMPANION
(HOLD SPACE)
as a patient dies
and what they may be actually
(visioning)
feeling/seeing/sensing/experiencing
as they slip from this world
to the Great Whatever
lies beyond a last breath here
and a first breath
T H E R E

Nearly twenty-eight years of being a hospice chaplain has put me beside a lot of death beds of where I have companioned the dying and their loved ones. I applaud the writers and the actors for pulling back the curtain and giving us a fairly realistic look at what THAT moment looks like. . .a moment each one or us will experience, without all of the lights, cameras, action settings but in a more real, intimate, personal way because all of the evidence-based data shares the irrefutable:
ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES

And here’s where This Is Us Season 6, Episode 17 from this past Tuesday picks up. After a long battle with Alzheimer’s, Rebecca (Mandy Moore) passed, and the way her family told her goodbye was beautiful. Viewers were taken inside Rebecca’s psyche (literally) as she approached death. For her, this manifested in the form of a moving train. Rebecca was young on the train, and the passengers were people in her life, past and present. Meanwhile, in real life, as Rebecca’s family said their final goodbyes, they appeared on the train. And the person leading her through this experience (a.k.a the conductor on the train) was William (Ron Cephas Jones).

At the end of the episode, after the family members have said their last words to Rebecca, she reaches the train’s caboose. “This is quite sad, isn’t it?” she asks William. “The end?”

To this, William gives a beautiful, stunning speech to Rebecca. These are the last words she hears before going into the caboose (before she passes away). Read them in full, below:

“The way I see it, if something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening. Truth be told, I always felt it a bit lazy to just think of the world as sad, because so much of it is. Because everything ends. Everything dies. But if you step back, if you step back and look at the whole picture, if you’re brave enough to allow yourself the gift of a really wide perspective, if you do that, you’ll see that the end is not sad, Rebecca. It’s just the start of the next incredibly beautiful thing.”

With this, Rebecca hugs William and goes into the caboose, where a bed is waiting for. She lies down, and next to her is Jack (Milo Ventimiglia), reuniting the couple after decades of separation.

William’s speech epitomizes that moment—and it epitomizes This Is Us in general. If the show has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is forever. Any sadness or loss we saw the Pearsons experience in the present was always followed by a flash-forward, where we saw them happy, thriving, and doing just fine. Each storyline has shown us that no chapter is forever—the good ones end, and so do the bad ones. Life keeps moving, and we move with it. It’s a comforting message for anyone experiencing a hard time. Chapters always, always come to a close. The great poet Robert Frost once said, “ALL I KNOW ABOUT LIFE CAN BE SUMMED UP IN THREE WORDS: IT GOES ON!

It’s something Chris Sullivan (Toby) told NBC Insider when talking about the legacy of This Is Us. “From the first episode, they show you tragedy and pain, but they also shoot you into the future and show you, ‘Oh, this family’s OK,'” he said. “We jump back and forth and see, ‘Oh my gosh, this father died in a fire.’ Then, we jump forward and see, ‘Oh, this family’s OK.’ Tragedy and joy are held in both hands…Everything cycles around.”

Yes, it does. The series finale of This Is Us airs Tuesday, May 24 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.

Hey. . .it’s just TV, right. . .

YUP. Yeah, it is. . .until it isn’t

THIS IS US

ALL OF US

“If something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening”… and with that, one last car. The caboose.
This Is Us
(Now about THAT towel)

HEAR WHAT ANOTHER HEARS

May 2, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

I have shared this video several times for various presentations I have given
I have shared this video on a Monday morning blog post before, too
I have to have its message KNOWN to me again and to be reminded just how much I need to HEAR WHAT ANOTHER HEAR’S. . .

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each others’ eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

Every day, every moment, is an opportunity to let go of what no longer serves us and let it die…

And to embrace what brings out the best in ourselves and others.

This video, “If We Could See Inside Each Others’ Hearts” is an opportunity to do that.

It is a profound look at life, in 4 minutes. This one will have you welling up with tears as the camera wanders and shows the inner lives of people around us as they do their daily tasks. Most of it is set in a hospital, where there is so much worry, sadness, some joy, bad news, good news, no news, anxiety, fear — just like our own lives. . .

Magnified

We’ve all been there. We’ve all experienced at least one of these people’s lives, and that’s what brings the message of this video so close to home.

We ALL have our stories. Others have theirs. But we never really know, we don’t fully connect, because most of us walk around keeping most of our thoughts and feelings to ourselves.

S T I L L

If we could see inside other peoples’ hearts, this is what we’d see. . .
Psssssssssssssssssssssst:
Look Again
(c l o s e r)

The Road To Happiness

April 25, 2022 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

Are you as happy as you want to be? Does everyone else’s life seem perfect? And yours…well, not so much? Many of us tie our happiness to external factors…or feel on the short-end of the stick when comparing our lives to those of other people. But, sometimes, appearances can be deceiving. In fact, freeing ourselves from perfection can be one of the keys to being happy with who we are.
T R U T H:
If you can’t find happiness inside yourself, you’ll never find it in the outside world, no matter where you move. Wherever you go, there you are. You take yourself with you. This is the essence of happiness—learning to find inner contentment in any situation.

H I N T:
If you truly want to find a little HAPPINESS
try just giving a smidgin’ of it
to Someone
ANYONE
and you’ll be amazed that the Ripple you begin
will come
Crashing back on your Shore, too. . .

UNHAPPY HAPPINESS

April 6, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
The thing about
H A P P I N E S S
is that it’s not always H A P P Y. . .

World Happiness Report

Reveals More Sadness

and More Kindness During COVID-19

A global survey of subjective well-being looks at how our mental health and behaviors have changed during the pandemic.

KIRA M. NEWMAN, is the managing editor of Greater Good. Her work has been published in outlets including the Washington Post, Mindfulmagazine, Social Media Monthly, and Tech.co, and she is the co-editor of The Gratitude Project. and she helps us see that not all HAPPINESS is HAPPY

When bad things happen—wars, pandemics, shootings—the optimists of the world tend to turn their attention to all the goodness that still exists: the heroic fighters, the frontline workers, the givers and the helpers. But are we just deluding ourselves?

Not if the 2022 World Happiness Report is any indication. Although the pandemic has certainly caused division, there has also been a sizable increase in helping, donating, and volunteering across the globe—so big that the researchers are calling it a “pandemic of benevolence.”

“All must hope that the pandemic of benevolence will live far beyond COVID-19,” write the University of British Columbia’s John F. Helliwell and his coauthors. “If sustainable, this outpouring of kindness provides grounds for hope and optimism in a world needing more of both.”

The World Happiness Report is based on the Gallup World Poll, which surveys around 1,000 people per country in nearly 200 countries every year. The key question, used to create a ranking of the happiest countries in the world, asks people to evaluate their life as a whole on a scale of 0-10, from the worst possible to the best possible. This year, the United States climbed from #19 to #16 in the world, just below Canada and Germany. The top 10 happiest countries were the following:

The Gallup World Poll also asks questions about whether people helped a stranger, donated, or volunteered in the past month. According to the report, the “pandemic of benevolence” began in 2020, with more people helping strangers than in the several years prior. That number continued rising in 2021, alongside more people donating and volunteering, as well. Comparing the several years prior to the pandemic to 2021, the average number of people per country who donated increased from 30% to 37%, while volunteering increased from 19% to 23% and helping strangers increased from 48% to 69%. This trend is even more striking given that, before 2020, charitable donations had been on a long-term decline globally.

The uptick in kind, helpful behavior happened in every region of the world, from North America to Southeast Asia to the Middle East and North Africa. Those increases were particularly high in places that had previously lagged on “prosocial” behavior, like Eastern Europe.

While kindness increased in 2020-2021, people around the globe didn’t actually become less satisfied, according to their evaluations of life as a whole. It’s possible that this global wave of caring may have protected our well-being during the pandemic, the researchers suggest.

“Since this sometimes comes as a surprise, there is a happiness bonus when people get a chance to see the goodness of others in action and to be of service themselves,” the researchers write. Several studies conducted during COVID support this interpretation, finding that giving to others, offering support, and volunteering boosted people’s positive feelings.

Not all of the World Happiness Report’s findings around COVID were so uplifting. For example, we did feel more sadness and many report having fewer and fewer people to count on as the pandemic went on. In line with other research, younger people seemed to have a harder time than their elders, experiencing more negative emotions.

But lately, there have been some signs of recovery. While we (particularly women) became more worried and stressed in 2020, we fared better on both in 2021. And through it all, we still managed to have positive moments—there was no change in the number of people who said they laughed, experienced enjoyment, or did or learned something interesting the previous day.

None of this is meant to minimize the extreme hardships and inequality that people have faced during the pandemic. The researchers acknowledge that the portrait they are painting may be slightly rosier than reality, thanks to the necessity of using more phone surveys, rather than in-person ones. These may not have reached the populations hit hardest by the pandemic: nursing home residents, the homeless, the parents who are too burned out to take a telephone call.

But—as in 2020—the story, at least from these data, is one of resilience. With a little help from each other, perhaps we are stronger and more adaptable than we think.

GET ON BOARD

April 4, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Even if it’s the greatest train the world has ever seen it means nothing if it’s not on the tracks and even less if it’s on the tracks but immobile. . .
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

GET ON BOARD. . .
No one’s asking you to start a song that’ll get everyone singing
but if a 4 minute
UNEXPECTED
concert can break out anywhere
and put a song in your heart
a bop of your head
and the tapping of your feet
I M A G I N E
what you could do with even less
. . .grab a hand and join in
CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ALL
A
BOARD

LEO HOROSCOPE

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