Strange Beast or Healing Vibration: Some dynamics of Humor

Strange Beast or Healing Vibration: Some dynamics of Humor

     I was invited to give a speech on humor by the Toastmaster group 1095. 

     On Wednesday, Aug 12^th, I presented my speech. It was well received.

     I will be presenting the material of the speech in my blog over a series of entries.

     I invite you my blog readers to come with me on a journey into two stories that are real. I lived them. Imagine yourself with me as I share my stories.

     I am a teacher and the first story will involve you coming into my college class and being presentwhile the story unfolds.

    On a class not long ago, I was talking to the students about a subject that is not normally effectively discussed when health care and health care reform are talked about. No one seems to talk about personal responsibility, Personal self-care.  I asked the class how many of them consciously focused on getting enough sleep, eating well, using techniques to reduce stress, etc. One student had an unusual visceral response.

     The student bent forward to lean on her desktop with her elbows and cupped her hands over her face as partial blinders as if to shield herself from what was being said. Without directly looking at me, she said with a low monotone voice “I think you are singling me out.”

     I paused, at first I didn’t process what she said. I said “What?” She repeated, “I think you are singling me out.”

     
    Again, I paused … trying to feel what she was saying …

    
     I said to the student, “ I am sorry, I wasn’t trying to single you out.”

Pause

     I then turned my back to the student. I started to explain self-care to the other students in the class. After a short moment, I said to the other students “I don’t want to make you feel singled out either.” I then turned to the wall and explained the importance of self-care in regard to a person’s health and well-being. When I had finished talking to the wall, I looked at the wall and said “What the hell are you looking at.” The entire class including the student who had felt singled out were on the floor belly laughing. The belly is an important ingredient that I will be talking about in a later post.

     What happened in this exchange?

    The student was able to move from a state of shame or self-devaluation to a state of happiness. The energy of my behavior and my words that didn’t make sense, that seemed to ignore the student’s feelings of being singled out were able to engage the energies of self-devaluation and transform them, via nonsensical  humor,  into healing vibrations allowing the student to feel good and continue with the class.

     Certain elements are necessary to allow humor to be a trans-formative experience. I will be exploring those elements in a future post.

     The next post, on Saturday, will present another story, with a very different ending. The use of humor was not able to bridge the event and transform the feelings into a more positive event.