Maxims of The Peaceful Teacher

 

The mission of World Laughter Tour has always been, "Together we can lead the world to health, happiness, and peace through laughter.” Every edition of the “Study Guide and Reference Manual”*, which has grown from 30 pages to 145, includes this advice to our students:

“Find your source, live from it, keep your heart open, and laugh generously.
These are maxims of the peaceful teacher, the tools of a gentle healer.”

~Alan Cohen

Not only are humor and laughter therapeutic allies of our physical and mental health, they are characteristics that reflect the spiritual health of humankind and this planet; what we call peace.

Thanks to the help, support, and encouragement of many friends, scientists, clowns, clinicians, and other laughter lovers, we have done a good job of understanding and promoting the health and happiness ideals of our mission, evolving to be referred to as tools for health and well-being.

Now, let’s focus more sharply on the peace ideals of the mission.

To open a conversation on the topic, I commend to you “Cultivating Peace: Becoming a 21st-Century Peace Ambassador," by James O’Dea (Shift Books, May 10, 2012). Deepak Chopra calls this holistic approach to peace work “a brilliant manifesto that weaves science, spirituality, and social healing into a peace roadmap for us all.”

Jill Knox, RN, turned me on to the book. She is a peace activist, an advocate for healthy humor, and the current president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. Her vision and passion for these things will be a lasting legacy to our field. I will do what I can to help.

You would probably never expect O’Dea, who spent ten years as the Director of the Washington Office of Amnesty International, to lead off in Chapter One making a cogent and compelling case  about the importance of laughter in laying the foundation for us to work for peace. “Cultivating Peace,” he says, “begins with not taking ourselves so seriously.” He reminds us that, “a world without laughter would not be a safe or peaceful world.”

Anger and violence, he says, constantly cook up a “biochemical brew…that is toxic at every level--physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. They shut down the body’s exquisite ease, delight, and pleasure signals and replace them with hypervigilance and stress alerts.”

From that premise, he examines, explains, coaxes, cajoles, and carefully convinces us that the art and heart of peace advocacy and activism is within us our grasp. It will take some work to make it manifest but he shows the way. He calmly convinces us that we can find greater peace within ourselves, tantalizing us with the prospect of profound personal satisfactions as well as the realization of the better world we seek and often speak of. He repeatedly and realistically cautions us that the road to peace will not be smooth nor easy nor quick, but the promised  destination is possible eventually and definitely worth the trip.

A few quotes from Cultivating Peace, Chapter One:

The peace journey begins with understanding positive emotions, seeing how “truth, reconciliation, and forgiveness are essential components of collective healing strategies…”

“In time, I came to learn that too much seriousness is deadly.”

“Any kind of overbearing behavior--be it self-righteousness, bigotry, aggression, condemnation, arrogance, or finger-pointing--is an interruption of the body’s circuitry of love joy and play.”

“When we cultivate love and joyful service, we live longer, healthier, happier lives.”

“…jokes can have a way of revealing sadness, emptiness, hostility, and even viciousness. But true humor does not carry a poison pill.”

“Laughing is about the bubbling up of connection.”

Get hold of a copy of Cultivating Peace and start reading. Then, please join me in reflecting and connecting how humor and laughter are not only therapeutic allies in the sense of your physical health, but also in the healing of humankind and this planet.

If you have a favorite quote about peace, please share it with me here or on Facebook.

Click These Links to Listen to John Lennon and Leadbelly

Imagine

Give Peace a Chance
Ain't Gonna Study War No More

* CLICK HERE to purchase the Study Guide and Reference Manual.

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH EVERYONE WHO MIGHT LIKE TO HAVE IT.

A Response to Violence

Is It Really?

Today I am reading entries on Facebook from some laughter/humor colleagues asserting that yesterday’s shootings at an elementary school are proof that we need more laughter. Here’s one, "If we'd laugh more, there would be less violence, wars, fight... and we all laughed... really hard..."

Oh, my!

I am reminded of the man in an early documentary video about laughter in India. His cure for the troubles of the world, “Laughter alone is the solution!”

Oh, my!

A good argument could be made that laughter, humor, and mirth have survival value. But, “laughter alone” is hardly the solution.

What image do such assertions project about the mission, passion, and work of World Laughter Tour, its thousands of members, and others who form the loosely organized laughter movement? Over-simplified short-hand figures of speech can be easily misinterpreted, and portray the movement as seemingly not very thoughtful, perhaps even overly zealous for laughter.

I urge you, my readers and members of the World Laughter Tour, to project a more reflective and considered position. One that appreciates complexity, but is not deterred from ideals.

Situations and events have multiple causalities.

For instance, when we seek to foster a dozen new intergenerational laughter programs next year, or next February, when I present a program of classroom activities and support for caregivers in early childhood education, or when we promote laughing toys for kids, it is not because we believe that laughter is the only best medicine.

A Tool, Not the Whole Toolbox

Laughter is like an electric drill, a tool that delivers a desired result: a hole in the right place at the right time. It is not the whole toolbox. When the Beatles sang “All You Need Is Love,” that was a figure of speech.  We recognize that love is an action verb, not merely feel-good emotion.

What we call laughter programs encompass tools and experiences for more positive emotions and attitudes (emotional education); positive engagement with life and positive relationships, through Good-Hearted Living, for example. We synthesize evidence-based information from science, Positive Psychology, and ancient practices, in clinical, educational, consulting, corporate, and volunteer work.

We help individuals use life energies to choose and modify their life and work directions. We help individuals identify emotional and attitudinal factors, many of which can be self-administered practices that improve health and increase life satisfaction and well-being for clients, patients, residents, students, employee, and others.

And, yes, we have fun doing it.

What's so funny? Sometimes, we can't exactly explain why we are laughing. That's OK. But, my over-riding mission is to give people good reasons to laugh such as a good job, reasonable income, healthcare, adequate food, freedom from pain and fear and chaos. Now, that's a world you can live with. To get ideas for love-in-action, please re-read "FULL-BELLY LAUGHTER" and pass it on.

We can imagine a better world. And, anything we can imagine we can make happen.

The advice that medical researcher Dr. Lee Berk so generously offered to me at the beginning of the World Laughter Tour, I now offer to you, “Don’t ever get discouraged. You are doing the right thing.”

Steve

We didn’t see it coming.

Pam and I have a standing joke that one of us is sleeping with the boss. On Boss’s Day recently, we argued about which one of us should send flowers.

We never intended it.

We didn’t plan it.

It was never a goal.

There is no precedent for it.

We didn’t see it coming.

Yet, now we find ourselves with a constituency of thousands of CLLs that is at least 85% female.*

It is high in our consciousness.

In many places, women are at a disadvantage, but in World Laughter Tour,  women not only lead a global movement for health, happiness, and peace, they also lead the businesses that fulfill the mission and generate incomes that help feed their families.

When we aim to help CLLs be competent and confident and successful in this funny business, it is largely about women.

Because we have launched our series of online classes for better business**, I thought you might also appreciate this video. Perhaps it will inspire you.

As always,

Steve

*I have a theory about why that has happened, but I am saving it for another time. What do you think?

**Our webinar class covering brilliant business basics is available now.