Releasing the Notes

We all know that one person who takes themselves way too seriously. Everything is important all the time and they have to be mature, and you should just grow up.

I am lucky enough to not be that person.

There are a lot of times where I am serious, yes, but I love the humor of life.

Sometimes I go on my wife’s photography jobs as someone to get people to smile. I stand behind the camera and shout out poop jokes just before the shutter clicks, trying to capture that moment where the subject is breaking into laughter.

When that moment is caught, the point in which a laugh is just breaking out from the chest, it is beautiful. People look so good when they are genuinely laughing, much better than when they have their head at a specific angle, and their fist resting just under their chin, and a canned smile painted across their face hiding their inner thoughts of wanting to look good for the picture. There is a light that accompanies laughter, a light the world needs.

There is a reason that one of the most beautiful songs is a child’s laughter.

Humor is needed, and a good funny song is a great way to bring it out. There was a night the my family was visiting with some friends, and at the end of the day we decided to do some karaoke. I busted out my karaoke go-to, I Will Survive, but the best song of the night was a classic song from Flight of the Conchords:

He had the whole group laughing by the end of the song, and those of us who knew the song were singing along, trying to hit the high notes, while our kids looked at us all like we were insane.

Laughing is therapeutic.

One of my daughters was really struggling with saying goodbye to friends while we were moving, and it was heartbreaking to me. There were occasions where she would cry and tell me she didn’t know what to do, and I would listen and hold her and let her cry, and then after a while I would start joking around with her and getting her to laugh. Seeing the tension leave her face as she laughed was really good for the both of us, and she was grateful for it and let me know throughout the rest of the night that she appreciated me.

Well, the next morning, she was still struggling, and my wife sat with her and helped her talk through her emotions. They talked for a while about all the things my daughter was feeling, and read scriptures and prayed and my wife taught about the comfort found in peaceful worship.

And they both worked well.

Emotions are complex. There are many different ways to approach them, and if we only use one approach all the time, we will continue to struggle with them. If I rely entirely on humor to make me happy, I miss out on the happiness of a peaceful moment. On the flip side, if I rely ignore humor entirely, I will never feel the release of a full belly-laugh.

I love stand-up comedians as well. It is always fun when you find someone who likes the same comedian that you do, and then you can quote them back and forth for the next 45 minutes.

One I have loved for a long time is Jim Gaffigan. I was given his first book “Dad is Fat” for Christmas one year, and I read it all that day (it was before kids, where I could do something like that on Christmas), and talked about it non-stop for the next three months. I am positive my wife got tired of me telling her the book’s punchlines over and over.

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If you have ever watched Inside Out, that is the entire lesson of that movie. If we only want to feel joy all the time, we miss out on the connections and experiences we can have through other emotions.

So have your times where you feel all the feelings. There is power in sadness, there is power in loss, there is power in anger.

The problem comes when we experience only those things. If we are angry all the time, or sad all the time, we are only living a portion of our true selves.

Many emotions are needed to process things that happen to us. What my daughter was feeling earlier was a form of grief, the feeling of losing a friendship. Since then, she has been back in town and spent time with that friend again, but in the moment she was feeling a profound loss. It was important that I sat with her in that feeling for a time before cracking jokes. The humor lifted the tension, but the moments before the jokes are where she was processing the feelings.

We need to take time to be happy, but chasing or forcing happiness can also be an unhealthy escape mechanism. If we seek out humor anytime we feel something heavy, we will always be chasing that high, like an addiction.

So don’t run from your emotions. Experience them, feel them fully, and then, when you are ready, seek out the lift of laughter.

Because the power of the heavier emotions can crush you, but I have never felt the crushing weight of laughter.

No one describes peace as a burden on your shoulders.

A smile was never a trial.

I hope, with all the other feelings that you feel today, you can find a moment to laugh.