Earth laughs in flowers. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Invitation for centenarians, gerontologists and studio audience participants…
I am currently seeking healthy, alert and oriented centenarians to be interviewed for “The Super Centenarian Series” in 2011, my new my cable television topic. If you know any centenarians in the greater Boston area, please invite them to contact me.
I am also interested in talking with gerontologists and health care professionals who work with the elderly for the caregiver segments.
Also, if you would like to be part of our studio audience, please join us!
Retirement Readiness and Longevity…are you ready to be a healthy, wealthy Supercentenarian? (that’s over 110 years of age…)
I’m excited to be a guest on Mike Bonacorsi’s radio show tomorrow, Tuesday, November 16, 2010, 12 Noon – 1 PM, broadcast live from Nashua, NH, in the studios of WSMN, 1590 AM on your dial, and globally webcast from WSMN at this link: http://wsmn.wgamthegame.com/archives/138.
Bonacorsi is a certified financial planner, and is well-known in New England as “The Retirement Readiness Expert.” Together we will explore the good, better and best ways to manage money, life and health affecting baby boomers+. Please join us for a fun lunch and learn experience!
Here are some of the questions we will explore:
Last week the oldest person in the world passed away at 114 years-can this be the norm at some point?
Is living to an advanced age 90+ genetic, good living, luck or a curse?
How difficult is it for someone to accept the fact we are getting older, into the advanced years?
Do we accept the fact gracefully, or with resignation?
As a population we are living longer-can we maintain a quality of life as we get to 90 or maybe even 100+ years?
What can we do as we age to maintain the quality of life we want?
What makes a strong woman?
Laughing at the insanity of life is very worthwhile. Strong women laugh early, laugh often, and laugh deeply. -Lisa Wessan
I was featured in this book a few years ago, as one of 101 “remarkable women” who were quoted on this topic…this is a lovely book, great gift item for the women you want to empower… I’m featured on page 33, available here at www.amazon.com.
Thoughts on griefwork and laughter….
Kahlil Gibran once said, “If you don’t cry all your tears you can’t laugh all your laughs. ” Do you think this is true?
Do you want to be a supercentenarian?
Do you want to be a supercentenarian (110+ years)? Great article on four amazing 100+ siblings…masters of letting go! http://ow.ly/2RkN8
The health benefits of tears…
Yes, feeling is healing…more on the health benefits of tears…. http://ow.ly/2LVU6
What is free will? From Poo to POWER!
“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.
Laughter is a Creativity booster
“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.” ~ Jean Houston
When I present keynotes on laughter therapy, I always enjoy seeing the looks of surprise on my audience’s faces when I describe how laughter affects the functioning of our brains.
When you have a good laugh, three important neurological events occur:
1. You oxygenate your brain; the increased oxygen feeds the neural network and helps it spark more efficiently.
2. Laughter increases the communication between the left and right hemispheres, across the corpus callosum. This helps integrate your linear and non-linear thinking, as it were.
3. The overall effect of this brain stimulation is increased memory, retention and cognitive ability. Problem solving and creativity are significantly boosted as well.
Always working as an evidence-based consultant, I have the medical citations from peer-reviewed journals for these studies. The question remains: how come this information is not widely known? Why don’t we have a laughter coach or trainer in every school, institution and hospital?
Next time I’m going to share some of my case studies from presenting laughter therapy in advanced Alzheimer’s units… to share the remarkable way residents with Alzheimer’s Disease snap into lucidity when they laugh with me…yes, I have stunning evidence that needs to be published…first here, and later in a journal.
© 2010 by Lisa Wessan. All rights reserved.
The Lighter Side of Transformation 