Heather Cardwell, LBI Student, 2008
An
example of this is me being comfortable with my body and rejoicing in who I am
as a large bodied being with an large Light Being to match! I know for many
years I have struggled with the negative selves who judged me and beat me up for
being fat, ugly, not looking as society wished me to. It has taken a lot of
letting go and a lot of loving acceptance for me to be able to embrace myself
exactly as I am.
Now
I do and I am able to use the wisdom and connection to the Light to help other
people overcome their judging selves with self humour. Sometimes I can feel a
reaction when I do joke about being big but I know this is a ripple that is
causing waves within THEM!
I
decided to explore the issue of how society perceives bigger people by watching
the film Shallow Hal as part of my homework.
I have always avoided it in the past but though it would be appropriate.
In
the film Jack Black plays Hal, essentially a good guy, who only is interested in
the external looks of women. He is
trapped in a lift with Anthony Robbins who opens his mind to the inner beauty of
women rather than the outer. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Rosemary.
She weighs 300lbs but Hal “sees” her as his ideal woman – slim and
beautiful. They fall in love but
everyone mocks Jack about his overweight girlfriend and slowly his vision of her
is coloured so that he sees her this way too. He then shuns her, feeling ashamed
but unable to face her.
There are different types of humour in the film. There is self humour from Anthony Robbins who is an internationally acclaimed self help “expert”. He is playing himself and is not afraid to find the humour in his role while never letting go of the fact that he has helped thousands of people. He shows that you can be funny and still command love and respect.
Shallow
Hal is funny. I was prepared not to like it but was impressed by the sensitive
way the film makers handled the subject matter, acknowledging that there is a
fine line between humour that flows with and embraces people and humour that
sends people up and causes offence.
They
just about made it in getting it right – Hal sees Rosemary for who she really
is and it is Rosemary’s gentle luminous Light Being who he falls in love with.
It did make me think about how easy it is to offend vulnerable people and how
important it is that we are clear and focused in any message that is put over in
a comedy film.
The
important question is are we laughing at ourselves or with ourselves when we
make jokes about ourselves and our lives? I
have learnt that I can only embrace the happiness and joy that comes from self
humour when my relationship with myself is strong and loving. I am my own very
best and because I love being with this best friend we can laugh and have fun
together. I can then take this joy
and light and share it with other people.
It’s
the sharing that people relate to. Everything that has happened to us in life
has happened to someone else too even if we felt alone with it at the time.
People feel alive when they hear someone share something in a humorous
way – we all go “yes! I know what you are talking about. That’s happened
to me too!”
Humour
is a very powerful means of communication. It can be used to bring people closer
together but it can equally be used as a weapon. At its best it promotes
positive relationships. When you hear something funny your impulse is to
immediately tell someone and share the laughter. Humour can promote joy and
happiness and attract positive energy. Used in the wrong way it can be
destructive and demeaning.
This
type of humour is based on fear. It is born form a collective need to fit in,
conform, be one of the pack. Anyone different is a threat to the pack mentality
and various forms of attack can happen to keep those people in their place. We
also turn to humour as a way to anaesthetize situations that are painful to us.
This is why “sick” jokes about world calamities appear just hours after the
event. If we make it funny it
won’t hurt us.
Another
comedy film I watched this month with Daniel and Alex this month was Shrek 3 and
it made me think about what I have written in the last paragraph because,
although it is a family film and we all found it very funny, it does deal with
people who are outcasts from society and how they are dealth with.
Its interesting that watching something happen in an animated film made me feel safer in a strange way. The characters were not “real” although what happened to them was just as real in the story. The theme of the film was people and creatures who do not fit in, Shrek is an ogre and people are afraid of him, Arthur is a prince who is bullied at high school, Fiona is a princess who is ridiculed by her girl friends because she has been cursed and is also an
ogre.
The jokes that really made me laugh were the ones that referred back to
childhood and to events that we could all relate to as children – gingerbread
men and the three little pigs.
I
also laughed at the jokes set in the high school and in the castle prisons but
it did make me think that if you had been bullied or held prisoner then there
would be no humour here, even when it was a cartoon. Humour is not the same for
everyone. What we find funny and safe is based on each individual’s
experiences.
There
is no place for humour that is at any body’ expense. It is cruel and damaging
and comes with fear at its root. Genuine
humour whether self humour or flowing with others comes from the light.
On the way
to a lunchtime class this week the road was closed because of the gale force
winds. The police sent all the cars up a farm track and everyone got stuck there
as well. I couldn’t go backwards or forwards. I had my phone with me and rang
round all my students saying I wouldn’t make it through and we’d have to
postpone the class till the following week.
One of them, Anne, was really disappointed. She’d been really looking
forward to it. I wasn’t going
anywhere so I said “Let’s have a quick class on the phone!” We started
tuning in to our heartbeats. Lots of laughter with her saying “what are you
doing now? Can anyone see you” I joked with her that we were teaching the
whole of the traffic jam! I joked with her that if this was a success I could
stop having to hire halls and just sit in my car to teach all my students! It
really took the stress out of being stuck!
I was in my local supermarket the other day and as I went up the aisles I met the same woman at the top of each one, cutting across my path. It started with smiles and then laughs as we kept meeting and then I joked that if she carried on I would ending up knocking her over like a skittle and I didn’t want that to happen. She really enjoyed the joke and we went into it, as I met her further on she called out “1,000 points if you get me next time!” then “One million points” We were really laughing and other shoppers were stopping and laughing too.
I needed to speak to a friend of mine and left her three messages, each one a little more insistent than the next. I then heard that she was fed up because I hadn’t called her. I felt very indignant because I had left her those messages. Then it dawned on me – she had recently moved and I had been leaving messages on her old number! I called her new one and I joked about how I had been talking to thin air! We were laughing and joking about how funny it would be to leave happy messages on the phones of total strangers! Maybe I’ll try it!
I’m sure that my cats understand humour and go out of their way to make us laugh sometimes. Onyx, one of our cats had found a ping pong ball on the landing and soon all four cats were playing football. After a while I realised that I had gone down to cat level. I was on my hands and knees playing just like a cat! I just laughed and laughed and the more I laughed the harder they seemed to play. It was hilarious – they were purr-laughing too!
We do
laugh a lot as a family – every day - so it’s hard to pick out examples
.Alex and I make up silly songs about everything we are doing – cooking
dinner, doing homework, even things on TV. It feels really heart-warming to be
able to laugh with my family – not at each other but with each other.
Although
Daniel my husband finds it much harder to be spontaneously funny he is
much lighter in himself these days. We found some time to go out for a meal and
to the movies as a couple last weekend and we had such fun. It was like being
teenagers again – our inner teenagers were laughing and joking. It was lovely
to be silly!
Quite a
lot of elderly people come into the shop and many of them like to share their
health problems. One couple came in the other day, Alice and Dennis. Although he
is in general good health Dennis does like to talk for a long time about his
ailments and sure enough he began a long story. Alice his wife was rolling her
eyes and telling him to be quiet.
I could
see this made Dennis embarrassed. I went into the back and got one of my
stethoscopes I use in class and came out with it in my ears. I pretended to be
listening very seriously and both of them roared with laughter, it broke the
tension and stopped Dennis feeling uncomfortable. I reassured him that it was
fine to tell me what was going on in his life and suggested he came to do some
Tai Chi. Lots more laughter as he said he couldn’t even say Tai Chi with his
false teeth!
My
friend Alison has broken her back in a horse riding accident (we share the same
horse interestingly but I am not riding him this year due to my studies) She is
getting better but is stuck at home and really fed up. I’ve been going to see
her and I try to find ways to make her laugh. I have some fairy wings which I
put on as I come through the door and I have bought her a magic wand to wave at
her children when she wants a cup of tea! We act our little scenes with me as
her fairy godmother and she as the indisposed fairy – her family think we are
mad but we have always had this child like sense of humour together and our
inner children have lots of fun!
Self-Humour
Pam
Marsden 6 March 2008
LBI
2 Homework
Susan and Norma out with Norma’s grandchildren they had been playing cricket in the park, I said “what fun, our grandchildren keep us young, or run us into the ground, we old foggies. I said but what a way to go, we all laughed at the thought of such young at heart grannies. Stuff the wrinkley stockings, here’s to the next 50 years.
Out shopping for some cake ingredients for my workshop on Sunday, the manager
served me and asked when the cake would be ready, I replied I hope he had made a
will as my baking skills were in question and I was not insured.
Wrapped up against the cold early one morning, a neighbour said she hardly
recognised me, I said sorry it’s not me and dressed like this it’s a good
thing you didn’t recognise me.
In a shop I took off my glasses to read the ingredients on a jar another
customer commented that you usually put glasses on the read not take them off I
said I only wore them to look intelligent.
I was sharing about my M.E. to a student I said that as I had felt tired for so
many years that I was thinking of changing my name to Sleeping Beauty, just a
ruse to be kissed by a handsome prince, it would be just my luck to get the
frog.
Out shopping I couldn’t reach an item I needed, another customer helped me I
thanked her and said that I needed to stand in a bucket of compost so I might
grow a little bit taller, but it would be just my luck to grow side-ways
instead.
A man from the electric suppliers came to read the meter bringing with him a
trainee, he asked him if wanted to come in and read my meter, I said its ok I
maybe a little crazy but I don’t bite, I had already eaten and anyway I only
eat young men on Tuesdays and it is Wednesday so you are safe to come in. But
for future reference make sure you don’t call on Tuesdays.
Laura commented on the speed of my typing to which I replied don’t look too
closely or you will see how many times I press the delete key.
A recent visit to the dentist where I needed a local anaesthetic, Peter my
dentist asked me to rinse out my mouth, I attempted to swill the water around my
mouth and suddenly became like a whale with a spout it was hilarious. The whole
procedure became so light. I appreciated his skill, watching with the use of a
mirror as he rebuilt my tooth, a meeting of Light Beings, I thanked him for the
beautiful job he had so skilfully done, he thanked me for my beautiful smile. It
became obvious that this is not how people usually react when they visit him.
Weekend found us dressing up to go to a Wild West party, my sister’s birthday
party. Alison was born in leap year 1960 so this year celebrates her 12th
real birthday on February 29th Lots of self-humour some people made a
great deal of effort, some people made their outfits wigs etc. My mum and I made
hair from black bin liners, it was fun making the outfits, it was just like
dressing up as a child. We had a good laugh with each other with face paint and
feathers.