Laughter and jokes and play are undervalued in our serious adult world.

We think of all of these as entertainment, just a way to escape the stress and burdens of a threatening world which weighs us down.

Do you ever feel like youâ€re carrying more than you can bear?
Laughter picks up those burdens, and takes them away from us, if only for a moment.

A break from our worries is great.
But laughter is much more than an escape.

Laughter can heal.

Studies show that laughter has a positive effect on our health, while negative moods are not good for us.

Sometimes, laughter is a wonderful expression of joy and happiness.
To me, nothing is more beautiful than a heartfelt smile.

I think that our spirit shines through those moments, clear and bright.

But, there are times and places where laughter and humor are not welcome at all.
Laugh during a funeral, a serious speech, or during a solemn religious service, and see what reaction you get!

Youâ€ll be called disrespectful or strange (at best).

What is this struggle between laughter and serious events?
How did laughter become the enemy of solemn, important occasions?

I think itâ€s because laughter and its extreme cousin, cynicism, are often used to attack and destroy.

We often laugh at things that we find ridiculous or foolish, even when other people find those same things important or sacred.

Laughter can shatter an important moment, and turn it to dust.

Tragically, we sometimes use laughter to pretend that something truly important to us is ridiculous or foolish.

Itâ€s our way of hiding from questions within us that need answers, or hiding from actions that we must do.

The Jester and the Trickster
In medieval times, it was common for kings to have a court jester. The jester was the one person who could joke about almost anything and get away with it.

He was there to entertain the king.

Sometimes his humor would be cruel and destructive to those who he joked about.
But often, he was there to raise important questions.

His job was to trick people into questioning the things that they otherwise would never question.

In the stories and mythology of many cultures there is the character of the trickster.
Sometimes this character is evil, and he seems to exist to bring out the worst in people, and lead them to harm themselves and others.

At other times, this character is a troublemaker, who doesnâ€t let people continue undisturbed in their everyday lives. He forces them to see the foolishness and weakness in themselves.

If the victims of his tricks donâ€t do anything with that knowledge, then the trickster is just an annoying character.
But if he succeeds in waking them up, he has performed an incredible service to them.

Playing With Fire

Laughter is like fire or any powerful tool.
It can be used to wake us up, to move us along the path of personal growth, to bring us healing and joy, or to destroy.

Iâ€ve spoken before (in Caution: Shape Shifters at Play and Why are we afraid to Play? ) about the power of play that enables us to try out other ways of thinking and acting.

You are the ultimate possibility machine.

Did you ever think about how many different lives might be possible for a single person?

Even you.

Sure, you pretend that everything must be exactly as it is, but thatâ€s the voice of fear speaking. Weâ€re caught in a whirlwind of fear — fear of change, fear of facing a world where anything can happen.

We all find ourselves stuck, caught in a world made small by our habits and mindless rules.

Fortunately, there are certain forces in our lives that have the power to suspend our habits and our rules, to suspend the certainty that life can only be just as it is.

Laughter and play are two such forces.
They are like a reset button which shuts off all the little programs and voices within us that are running our lives.

Do you feel the lightness and the freedom that comes with play and positive laughter?

Itâ€s not that weâ€ve escaped responsibility.
Weâ€ve entered an abundant, open space where possibility is real, free of our limiting beliefs.

So, how will you use the power of laughter and play?

You can use those forces against others to try to hurt them, to leave them temporarily or permanently without the comfort of their habits and beliefs.

You can use those forces to help others.

Better yet, begin with yourself.
Use laughter, play, and imagination to open up a space of possibility in your life.

Will you get nervous without your habits of thought, feeling, and action to tell you who to be and what to do?

Yes.

The emptiness and fear may lead you to jump back into the familiar, or fill the moments with a simple game that doesnâ€t question your life.

But you have another choice.
You could play at being someone else for a few moments.

Or, perhaps, you could play at being someone else for the rest of your life.

The post Are You Afraid to Laugh? first appeared on Fearless Dreams.

We all are.
Itâ€s a side effect of the way our mind makes sense of the world.
Let me explain.

Let’s say that your brain didn’t use your experience to help you understand the world.
Your perception of every object, in every moment, would be brand new, and you would spend all your time and attention trying to make sense of the simplest experiences.

Thatâ€s not how your mind works.
Instead, your mind finds patterns in your experience, and tries to fit every new situation into an existing pattern, so you know how to act with minimum conscious thought.
This leaves your conscious mind free to focus on the truly new situations that you experience.

How wonderful it would be if we could calmly, clearly, and consciously analyze our new experiences.
Unfortunately, our mind forces new things into old patterns, even when they donâ€t fit.
And when we encounter something that doesnâ€t fit at all into our established patterns, our first instinct is to protect ourselves, while we see if the situation is dangerous.

Itâ€s the same when we think about changing how we live, or who we are.

You really want those changes.
And you find it pretty easy to imagine how wonderful such a life would be.

Still, part of you doesnâ€t recognize that new “you”. The imagined you doesnâ€t fit into your existing patterns of safe experience, and is treated with caution, until that new you can be experienced and proven safe.

But will you ever get to experience that new you?
If a new you might be dangerous, the safest alternative is to completely avoid becoming that new you.
And for many of us that danger and fear stops us from making real progress toward our dreams.

The Shared Experience of Joy and Pain
Pain shared is lessened, joy shared is increased Spider Robinson

There are two ways of experiencing the world.

• Isolated. You can experience the world, even people, as objects – unendingly separate and different than you
• Connected. Or, you can experience the world as a thick web, with endless connections between you and everything that seems outside of you

Most of us live with a combination of both points of view, although the isolated, object point of view usually dominates us.

It doesnâ€t seem to be a choice, though.
The way we live is strongly shaped by our personality, and many influences that surround us.

But you have a choice.
You can choose to move toward a life of greater connectedness, or greater isolation.

And that choice is not as simple as being sociable, or moving away from people. You can be highly sociable with people in a superficial way, so that you remain isolated within.

Do you experience joy and pain in isolation? Are your joys and suffering something that exists only within you?

As the above quote suggests, joy and suffering are different when shared.

Suffering doesnâ€t disappear by sharing it, by expressing it to those that your heart truly connects with.
But the pain is different, weaker, more bearable.

Joy, on the other hand, is not weakened by sharing it with those who you have real connections to.
It grows, not only because others experience joy, but the joy in your own heart is different.

Stories of Joy and Pain
We have many experiences of joy and pain in our lives.

If someone asks you to tell the story of your life, will you tell them a soap opera of every pain and pleasure and joy, regardless of meaning?

A good story has meaning.
And in our lives, there are moments of pain and joy that have great meaning for us.

You remember the powerful pain and joy that you have experienced.
But only some of those intense moments have led to a greater you.

You may still be wounded and trapped by the emotional pain of some of those moments. They may be little more for you than uncomfortable baggage that you carry around.
Then, there are other moments of pain that you faced, and through the challenge of the situation, you grew.

Some of your experiences of joy were only momentary pleasures, and you may look back on them with longing, finding the past more pleasant than the present.
Or, your joy may come from the feeling of seeing something great and wonderful. It may have been a personal achievement, or a touch of something extraordinary.

Did those joys lead you to rededicate yourself to the values and actions which gave rise to them?

With that rededication, you grew, and became someone more capable of bringing such joy into your life, and the lives of your friends and family.

This joy and pain in our lives that challenged us to grow, brought us into the future. This is the joy and pain that is truly, personally meaningful.

To grow from such powerful experiences is difficult, for as weâ€ve said, weâ€re afraid to change

Were you all alone in those challenging moments?
Did you share these moments of challenge with the right friends, and become energized by their support? Did their help enable you to make those moments meaningful?

Safety in Numbers
Year after year, we make plans to find and live our dreams.
To get there, we must pass through changes that frighten us.

When you feel that you are not alone, you feel stronger.
Challenges that would frighten you, seem small with the support of others.

We can plan alone, and try to walk alone, and seek no help to achieve our dreams.
Or, we can find the right friends, mentors, and a mastermind group to support us, as we do the challenging work of becoming the person of our dreams.

The post Are You Afraid to Change? first appeared on Fearless Dreams.

Childhoodâ€s End?

Did you ever hear that from a parent or a teacher?

Maybe you ignored it and got into trouble.
Or, more likely, you eventually listened, and stopped.

But that wasnâ€t the end of your desire to play.

You probably still like to play in some way.
Although you probably donâ€t call it play, except when you play sports or cards.

Itâ€s recreation, exercise, vacation, relaxing, socializing, a night out, or meeting people.
Weâ€re sensible adults now, and we need an excuse to enjoy ourselves, right?

Most people are uncomfortable with the idea of play.
Thatâ€s too immature. Iâ€m too old and sensible, and serious for that.

I know a lot about being serious.
I could have invented the word if someone else hadnâ€t already done it.

It seems like I received a double portion of serious at birth.
I was quiet, and thoughtful, and at 10 years old, I was already asking questions about the meaning of life.

Ok. Not all the time.

Even though I have this sometimes oppressive, serious side, Iâ€ve always loved to play.
There. I used the four-letter-word.
(Did anyone hear me?)

There was a while in my life when the playful part of me went underground, but itâ€s come back.

What do I mean when I use the word play?

I mean that extraordinary human ability to shake up this stiff, settled, and fixed world, and enter a dimension where anything is possible, and the world becomes magical again.

As it was, when we were children.
As it still is, if we let possibility come out and play with us.

Playful and Serious
What do you think of when someone says, “Get serious”?
Some people think of becoming completely focused on our responsibilities, our duties, and our obligations.
Itâ€s wonderful to be focused on the parts of our lives which bring us meaning, and thatâ€s the good side of being serious – a focus on whatâ€s important to us.

But too often (most of the time, I think), we apply a focused, frozen attitude to keep doing what weâ€re already doing. Just keep going, and donâ€t think about it.
Thatâ€s the kind of seriousness that is dangerous to our personal development.

If we canâ€t change, and canâ€t grow, life is over.

I think that we need to combine a focus on whatâ€s most meaningful to us right now, with a playful attitude that combines joy, gratitude, love, exploration, and strength.

Fear and Strength
Can we be playful, when there are bills to pay, tragedies, death, and suffering?

Yes, itâ€s a challenge.
But facing up to the demands of life, and its sorrows, and accepting a certain measure of responsibility, is not a death sentence for play.

Because play, in itâ€s most profound sense, is how we break the boundaries of the way things are and must be, and dream of a new me, new worlds, and new ways of living.

Itâ€s true that the weight of lifeâ€s burdens can push us to hide behind the mask of seriousness.

But thereâ€s a more profound reason, I think, that we move away from play as we age.
Weâ€re disappointed in ourselves.

Weâ€re not satisfied with what weâ€ve achieved.
Weâ€re not happy with some of the compromises that weâ€ve made.
Weâ€re not happy with the ways that weâ€ve betrayed our own principles, and abandoned our own dreams.

And play, in its most profound sense, says that I can change who I am.
I can be different if I really want to.
Possibility is not just something for a stage, or for the world outside of me.
Possibility is all about who I can become.

But thatâ€s frightening.
To be able to change, to be able to explore all the possibility thatâ€s hiding in me, I have to be willing to see the complete truth about what Iâ€ve done with my life, without sugar coating it.

How many of us have the strength and the courage to look for, and fight for, the complete truth about ourselves?

Why is that so important?
Because the possibilities that each of us has, the new me that I can become, may be waiting in some corner of myself that Iâ€ve been too frightened to approach.

If we have the courage to see the truth about ourselves, if no corner of ourselves is too frightening to explore, then a world of possibility opens up.

The post Why Are We Afraid to Play? first appeared on Fearless Dreams.

Turn up the volume.
Thatâ€s our answer to every need.

Why are we addicted to extremes?

Look around.
Our senses are assaulted daily by a mountain of sensations, and our minds are overloaded with information.

And itâ€s not simply the quantity of sensations, or the speed with which we encounter them.
Theyâ€re competing for our attention.

In the midst of this chaos, our minds respond with the simplest solution.
Dull the senses, dull the feelings, ignore the information.

And why not?
So much of what surrounds us is trivial, fake, or irrelevant.

Hereâ€s the problem.
Lifeâ€s simple, wonderful experiences are also tuned out.

When we ignore the noise, we start to ignore whatâ€s precious and valuable around us.
We ignore information that is important to us.
We ignore the people who are important to us.
We donâ€t feel.

Sure, we know that something is wrong.
And we try to compensate.
We search for powerful experiences that will break through our filters and dullness.
We want to feel alive again.

If real life canâ€t reach us, then weâ€ll shock ourselves awake.

Music has to be louder than a jackhammer.
News, drama, books, and movies canâ€t focus on everyday feelings and events.
They have to focus on the extreme, and sometimes, the twisted.
And we canâ€t enjoy anything unless itâ€s new.

Our friends, spouses, children, jobs, possessions arenâ€t good enough.
Theyâ€re just too familiar.

Holding On
Thereâ€s no question that weâ€re subjected to a mass of sensation and information that would have been unthinkable a century ago.

Some people say, that human beings canâ€t handle so much information.
I donâ€t believe it.

Weâ€re far more capable and adaptable than we care to admit.
But, we might have to change our attitudes to keep up with our busy environment.

On the surface, at least, our world is a world of things.
And we like to have things, and control things.

There is a certain satisfaction in collecting stuff.
It makes us feel good.
It makes us feel secure and important.

So we get use to holding on.
When weâ€re being buried in sensations and information, and we try to hold on to all of it, whatâ€s going to happen?

Well, what would happen if you never threw out anything (including garbage and junk snail mail)?
Before long, your house would become unfit to live in.

Your mind isnâ€t that different.
Sometimes we face the world with a frantic attitude, as thought we might be facing our last thought, emotion, sensation, or bit of information.

If you try to hold on frantically to every thought, emotion, and sensation that passes by, you wonâ€t be able to think or live.

And you wonâ€t have enough attention to deal with the next sensation.
Your brain helps out, and dulls your sensitivity, and reduces the input.

Sensitive, not Sensational
Thereâ€s an alternative.
Instead of being dull, and looking for the sensational, we cultivate sensitivity.
We look at all the wonderful details of the good moments. We find the intensity in lifeâ€s simple moments, and simple pleasures.

One second.
If we focus on being more sensitive, weâ€re going to drown in information.

Not necessarily.
Not if you selectively pay attention to what interests you, whatâ€s important to you, whatâ€s wonderful around you.

And remember it all, if you want.
Remembering it is not the same as holding on to it.

Enjoy the experience, but when itâ€s done, let it go.

The color will come back into what you see.
The beautiful feelings and thoughts will come back into your relationships, as well as other areas of your life.

And youâ€ll eagerly wait for the next wonderful experience that life brings you.

You may have to be thoughtful about where you put your attention.
But you know how to sort through junk snail mail, and junk e-mail, donâ€t you?

Isnâ€t the rest of life worth a little sorting, as well?

The post Why Can’t We Enjoy Life’s Simple Pleasures? first appeared on Fearless Dreams.

I canâ€t help noticing, though, as I ride the subway part of my journey, how “serious”, how “dark” many people seem to be.  They carry their life like a great and painful weight that they can never be free of.

We all have different challenges in life. I wonâ€t compare myself to anyone else.  Still, for myself, I know that the emptiness that I feel at times comes from abandoning or suppressing my unique gifts and dreams, and going after something that “everyone” says I should do. I call these dreams that you acquire from other people “counterfeit dreams”. The funny thing about these dreams is that they can be great and wonderful dreams on their own, but if theyâ€re not yours theyâ€re still counterfeit.

Have you ever noticed how some of the most wonderful activities in the world lose their sweetness when we do them out of obligation instead of passion and love?  If we can turn the wonderful into an endless burden, imagine how weâ€ll feel with a life centered on goals that arenâ€t wonderful at all, or at least were never wonderful to us.

And, on the other hand, you can be passionate about something that a billion other people are passionate about—say, for example, raising a child. And, if youâ€re truly passionate about that activity or goal yourself, not simply because youâ€ve copied someone elseâ€s passion, then your passion is true for you, and with that truth thereâ€s tremendous power.

The post Counterfeit Dreams first appeared on Fearless Dreams.

This was the simplest personality test Iâ€d ever heard of:  

“If you had to be one of two animals, a dolphin or a shark, which would you be?”

My wife and I made different choices. Iâ€m the dolphin, powerful but playful.  Sheâ€s the shark–all business, with a relentless focus on what she wants.  (Ok, she likes to play too, but the shark is dominant a lot of the time)

The dolphin is like a child, and the shark is like an adult.  Children are supposed to be playful and adults are supposed to be serious, arenâ€t they?

As adults, most of us cringe when weâ€re accused of being childish.  That criticism is used in different ways.  Sometimes itâ€s to put us down for being selfish, short-sighted, spoiled brats – all legitimate criticisms.  But how often do people accuse us of being childish when what they mean is that weâ€re being more playful, creative, and dreaming bigger than adults are “supposed” to do?

Playful and serious donâ€t seem to go together, do they?  We put them in opposite corners of the ring, determined to see them battle to the death. And we usually put our money on the serious side, donâ€t we?

One-on-one, a dolphin can take a shark any day of the week.

Playful isnâ€t uncaring or cynical. Playful can be focused and relentless. When weâ€re playful as we pursue our goals, we take ourselves less seriously. Weâ€re lighter, nimbler, and far more able to adapt to whatever challenges we meet. We can be at least as passionate about our dreams as the “serious” guy, but we find a lot more joy along the way.

The post Too Playful or Too Serious? first appeared on Fearless Dreams.