I just returned home after a busy “world win” tour to the northeast and midwest that had so many highlights that I couldn’t list them all in a short newsletter. One of the high points was a Course In Laughter weekend workshop at the Rowe Conference Center in Massachusetts.
I want to focus on one breakthrough moment in that workshop, because it offers a helpful, positive direction at a time when negativity fills the news. One of the important intentions of the workshop — which is subtitled “The Art of Situational Comedy” — is to help individuals use the magic of humor to reframe life challenges in an empowering way. One of the participants was a woman who, facing retirement in a few years, was concerned that she might not have the health and financial well being to enjoy it. The way she put it was, “I don’t want to be incapacitated during my declining years.”
Someone else in the workshop then made a suggestion that it might be more helpful to focus on what we do want rather than what we don’t. So we offered her a new intention: “How can I be fully capacitated during my inclining years?” We all had a good hearty laugh, but that was nothing compared to what happened the following morning. The woman performed an entire routine — involving mime, the white board and the spoken word — that evoked laughter, and tears. She was entirely transformed, as she now had a positive intention she was living into. Continue reading →