Using Humor to Lessen and Manage the Pain

Using Humor to Lessen and Manage the Pain 

“For what had been the hardest

We’d know had been best,

And what had seemed loss would be gain;

For there isn’t a sting that will not take wing

When we’ve faced it and laughed it away;

And I think that the laughter is most what we’re after

In the Land of Beginning Again.”

Louisa Fletcher

The benefits of humor have been researched and the positive outcomes of humor have been well-documented. Humor is one of the most important tools we can use to address almost any issue and is very powerful at removing all the negative stress from our lives from embarrassing moments to illnesses. We may use humor as an escape which can prevent us from processing our pain. Part of coping with the bumps in our lives is to establish a list of happy memories to use when life is difficult. We also have to be careful about sarcasm or “put down” humor. This form of humor is finely camouflaged hostility. Humor works best when it is served on a platter of good intentions.   

            The following are ways in which to bring more humor to our lives: 

·         Being willing to accept our imperfections. When we have to be perfect a form of rigidity usually develops and when we accept that we can be less than perfect this rigidity is transformed into more openness and approachability.

·         Being willing to play. Have fun, that’s what it is all about. I am reminded of the hokey pokey song. “Put your left foot in. Put your left foot out. Put your left foot in and you shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about.” The people who wrote that song knew what they were talking about. Spend an evening playing games or watching funny videos. Play sports or whatever brings joy into our lives.

·         Not feeling as if we have to be a professional comedian or laugh loudly to bring humor in our lives. At the very least we only need to enjoy a good joke. Humor can also mean noticing the idiosyncrasies in our lives like the funny things our kids or pets do. 

·         Accepting a sense of humor does not have to be an all-or-nothing ability. Sometimes no matter what we do we can’t find where we put our sense of humor. We are allowed to have our up and down days. Our down time will probably diminish and we can be ourselves again. We can be humorous even if we feel we don’t have a sense of humor.

·         Not beating ourselves up if we don’t find too many things funny. Any form of trauma including historical trauma can conceal our sense of humor. For example, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of the prominent side effects of historical trauma, can lead us to feeling emotionally numb. It’s difficult to laugh if we are emotionally numb. This is our time to heal and then nurture our sense of humor on our time. 

·         We can use humorous occasions and times when we were very content to pull us out of situations which may have resulted in feeling overwhelmed with negative feelings. If we can’t come up with happy moments, create new happy moments to pull out of our tool box. We may need to borrow some happy moments from a television show or movie. 

View humor as a skill or a hobby that has the potential to become more pleasurable over time. Perhaps we can prepare a humor bulletin board or humor journal. Put things on the bulletin board or enter them in our journal for the times we need humor. Treat humor as if it is a familiar friend who happens to be around when we are in need. We need to be careful not to use humor in an improper manner which may cause harm to others such as sarcasm or put downs. Humor must not be used to avoid the pain we are experiencing. We need to face the pain fully and address it completely, not camouflage it. Humor can be fun and necessary at the same time.