Humor Helps You Better Understand Yourself and Others – Not an April Fools day joke!

Today is April Fool’s Day, which commonly involves playing harmless pranks on our friends, family members, and co-workers. On this day we get to laugh at the expense of others. While this experience can be considered to be somewhat controversial, we cannot deny the fact that humor helps us deal with our everyday difficulties.

Humor is good for your health. It stimulates flow, releases stress, and improves your immune system. Research shows that humor can even relieve pain, and we all are well aware of how it can lift our mood and add some brightness to our day.

Humor can do so much more

A healthy sense of humor can help us deal with tough times. When life is difficult, painful, and challenges us beyond what might seem bearable, a laugh might be exactly what we need. Humor can be so powerful and can be used to give us a break, a shift in perspective, and a new option.

Heartbreak

When my father died during the first Covid lockdown, I was left feeling heartbroken at not being able to be with him and my family at his deathbed. My pain was not only at the shock of his sudden passing but even more so, at the thought of him having been alone before his final hours. Any smile or laughter was out of reach for all of us. When I finally arrived at my family home in the German countryside to connect and embrace with my family, we all found ourselves in silence, in a house of mourning.

The next day my mother and I went to see my father at the morgue. We arrived in a very dark mood, hardly talking to each other as we tried to hold ourselves together. When we entered the room, I looked at my father in the casket and, within seconds, couldn’t suppress a smile that had started to form on my face. 

Finding humor in unexpected places

The undertaker had styled my father’s hair in an Elvis Presley wave. I risked a side glance at my mother, and when I saw her smiling too, we both started to laugh. We laughed so hard that the tears ran down our cheeks. Humor had found us in the most unexpected moment and probably in the most inappropriate of places. It gave us such a merciful break from the darkness we experienced. It was as if the dark sky had broken open and rays of sunshine streamed through the clouds. 

Humor brings you closer to yourself

Suddenly, we remembered how much my father would have laughed at his own expense. How he always searched for jokes in the dullest of moments, in order to make them more bearable. My mother and I started to share loving memories of him while carefully rearranging his hair back into his favorite style. And while we were still in pain and mourning, it was our humor that allowed us to balance the sensation of pain and feel connected to my father. The power of this moment didn’t stop there. When we came home, we shared our experiences with my siblings. We sat down at the table, and everyone started sharing more of their memories. We felt that my father was sitting among us, sharing a laugh, a wink, and a smile. Humor brought us together in our pain and our love and our smiles. The laughter we shared made the pain in our hearts that little bit lighter.

Humor adds a different perspective

The reasons for people to reach out and arrange Pantarei sessions with a practitioner are usually not funny ones. People want support in dealing with their suffering and difficulties. Among others, the role of a practitioner is to enlarge the client’s perspective on their challenges. Finding humor in a situation can immediately change the perspective on a problem. It can add light to the dark hours, serve as a break in the struggle to breathe, and can even help us gather our strength, heal and eventually move on.

Laughing together to better know each other

Humor helps us as practitioners accompany the personal learning process of our clients. As a practitioner, I’m always on the lookout for where we can add some laughter and lightness to the mix and thereby help shift perspectives.

But what makes one person smile might be hurtful to somebody else. In order to laugh together with my clients, I need to be sensitive enough to notice what for them is funny and what is not. I need to take cultural background and upbringing into consideration. I must take care that my humor is not at the expense of other people, even less so, of my client. When I manage to laugh with my clients or have them connect to their sense of humor in my sessions, I feel that I get closer to understanding and seeing them. In that sense, being able to laugh together is an expression of compassion, respect, and connection.

Laughter brings people together

When you are a student in our training program, you know that we laugh a lot in our classes. Using humor, especially during complex and touching topics, can pave the way for a better discussion and easier learning.

Once we notice how humor can help us in complex and challenging times, it allows us to get closer to the people around us. As long as we use humor in pure form, laughter brings us together and reveals its gifts to us most gracefully.

Cultivate your humor not only on April Fool’s Day

Start today and bring more humor into your life by looking for opportunities to laugh.

You might find the humorous aspects of your stressful problem intentionally. Perhaps after a good laugh, you will discover a new angle on an issue you have been struggling with. Perhaps you realize that you’ve been through other difficult periods and are left feeling more reassured. And who knows, with a shift in perspective, you might even be able to view threats, challenges, and problems as opportunities. 

I am sure that if you have experienced sessions with a Pantarei practitioner, you have enjoyed the ability to laugh with them, to smile even while addressing your biggest challenges. 

And not to forget: Happy April Fool’s Day!