“If life is nothing but a joke, you might ask, then what is the purpose of free will? I will tell you. We get to choose whether or not we laugh.”
~ Swami Beyondananda
When I was in my teens and twenties, I spent the better part of my time researching on the ideas on free will vs. destiny, one of the oldest paradoxes of our civilization.
This research lead me to many philosophical systems, comparative religious studies, living in Jerusalem for a year, even genetic engineering, and even more drama than I am ready to write about today…but what I finally learned was that it is possible for us to have free will AND also have a destiny, or multiple destinies/parallel universes, where a number of outcomes could occur.
No longer am I hyperfocused on this issue, but I’m still interested in what people have to say about free will, and I just love Steve Bhaerman’s quote on this (aka Swami Beyondananda)…I think he nailed it!
As I see it, life happens on life’s terms….no matter how much we visualize, pre-pave, practice positive thinking, chant, release, fast, burn candles and produce vision boards, bad things will still happen to good people who do all the above…when the poo hits the fan, will we be victims or victorious over the poo flying in our face? That is the question…
So how can we defeat the poo? Laughter is one the ways we can distance ourselves from the difficult poo…indeed, when we laugh, we truly diffuse the high negative energy charge of the moment, which then frees our brains up to find a solution, cope better and get help.
Viktor E. Frankl, MD, neurologist, psychiatrist, survivor of Nazi death camps said “I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation just enough to make it livable.” Dr. Frankl used laughter to cope with his imprisonment in the Auschwitz death camp, which he described in detail in his inspiring book, Man’s Search for Meaning.
My clinical work with therapeutic laughter is partly based on Dr. Frankl’s practice of logotherapy, a powerful cognitive behavioral method that can help you to shift and stand in your power despite the massive piles of poo around you. There’s a thought, from Poo to Power! That’s my newest job description…
© 2010 by Lisa Wessan. All rights reserved.
The Lighter Side of Transformation 