Life is for celebrating, being happy and for artistic creativity because it is this positive attitude that not only uplifts the soul, but it also inspires the mind, improves mental health and also physical health. Your immune system is actually boosted when you laugh. Also the happiness hormones of dopamine and serotonin are the most valuable mood enhancers, and they can be generated by play and laughter. In a time like now, where we have been pushed into a serious and concerned mood as a planet, I have decided to consciously cultivate laughter, humor and play.
Life is a game to be played, not with competitive ferocity or a critical goal in mind, other than for the sake of play. This is like art for art’s sake. When making it for money’s sake or prestige or something motivated by a particular result, then we are drawn away from the moment and become overly focused on the goal or result. Results-oriented action and mentality can easily lead to frustration and anger at not achieving the result. However, play, like dance, can be for its own sake and allows us to enter into the moment. And the moment, or the now, is where we find eternity because eternity is the timeless now, unbounded by the needs of the future or the concerns of the past.
The only reasons why we cannot find happiness is because we are stuck lamenting about the past or hankering for some results in the future. If your play, dance, art or creative expression is a job, then you will be limited in your spontaneity and your expression. You will have to compromise to fit the requirements. But if your goal is to enter the now, the eternal moment where bliss resides, then in that relaxed state all your worries are washed away. You can laugh like a child, dance like o one is watching, or create your art purely for the sake of art. And in this mood, life as a whole can become your art, a game, a playground of joy and laughter. And so it should.
For when you find that playground, that inner child, you release the healing hormones that wash away stress, fear, anxiety, anger and all the emotions that sicken or kill one. The cortisol which is a fight-or-flight hormone, a stress hormone that damages the heart, it can be washed away, and even pain reduction can occur, according to medical science. Such is the power of laughter, humor, joy and a mood of happiness.
Whatever you are striving for in life, the end result is not the object of the senses, whatever it may be, but the mood it generates in you. The goal is to attain the mood, the emotional feeling at the end. That is the real treasure, the real ingredient that can pacify any heart or mind, and can even heal. And these treasured emotions are to be found in the brain, in the physical person, not in the object itself, whether a loved one, or some money or some position of fame or power. Those things are the means to the end, but the end is the mood, the emotion.
Curiously, the brain cannot tell whether you are faking it of whether it really exists, to the degree that you can actually mentally imagine the item of your desire and the mind will start producing the chemicals already. Just watch a movie and see how your brain produces the emotion within you based purely on the flat screen projection before you. You can be happy, in love, sad, triumphant, all these emotions, by watching it as a secondary observer. Similarly you can simply close your eyes and meditate on the very same emotion or state of being that you require or desire. It’s as simple as that. It’s all in the mind. You already have it. All you have to do is focus on that objective with intention.
Such is the strange nature of our reality, yet still we are dragged into those very states of mind that we are trying to escape. We become stuck in the externals. Still, we can make the effort and with focus and repeated effort, we can rewire our brains to become habitually filled with the emotions that we prefer by visualizing them. The object is secondary remember, so even without the person, item or accolade from others, we can still produce the chemical responses in our brains. This is such a magical insight ultimately, for it is free, and ever present. How simple is that. Advertising has lured us into a consumer society, where we are told that we won’t be happy until we have the next great product but that propaganda machine has been rolling on for decades, brainwashing the minds of us all through media advertising, and still we hanker or lament, or feel at a loss.
Well those days are over, especially when you now know by reading this little post that the real power is within you, not within the external object. My visualization within the mind’s eye, as it’s called, you have all the things you could ever imagine. If you can imagine it, then you can feel it as an emotion. You can dream of being in a beautiful natural environment, or with people who like you , or in a state of good health, or most importantly, in a state of mental health, filled with happiness. Take laughter for example, the most powerful tool to release healthy hormones and brain chemistry. Even if you are not initially in a happy mood, you can mechanically move the muscles of your face into a smile, and hold it there. And then you can turn the smile into a little chuckle, a laugh. Amazingly, if you persevere even for a few seconds, you will literally become influenced by that very mood.
And moods are contagious remember. If you watch a sad movie with lots of tears in the eyes of the characters, you may well find yourself in tears. Similarly if you hang out with people who laugh, you will find that laughter is contagious, more so than a virus, and you will end up laughing yourself. You may not even know why someone is laughing, but their laughter will jump to you. I have seen it myself. What a powerful machine the body and mind are. They will respond to your direction as long as you take control. It is like a horse which is powerful but can be tamed and controlled. But if the horse sees that you are not confident or bold or determined enough, then it will not take you seriously and will boss you around. However, you have the reigns and you have the intelligence to know the horse. Similarly you have the intelligence to dictate to your own mind and body. We do it all the time in other ways when rewired by circumstance. We pull ourselves together and we do the needful. We take responsibility and we bring out the best in ourselves.
Well today I am cultivating the same responsible nature toward my own emotions. I will not be dragged into the lower states of sadness, depression, anger, or even boredom, by my restless mind. I refuse to be drummed into fear by the media regarding any external events either. Fear weakens the immune system by producing the cortisol hormone that weakens us. Rather I choose to cultivate the mood of joy, I meditate on the emotion of happiness, and I literally move my breath and facial muscles into a state of laughter. It’s as simple as that. The act of laughter is actually so peculiar when you analyse it from a mechanical point of view. I mean what is the body doing when it laughs and forces out that air and almost relaxes your muscles so much that you ROTFL.? You fall over and look like you’re in pain, but you are in bliss. What a joke, literally. And when you see someone in that state the contagion grabs you although you have no reason or logic behind it. It is as if some mechanism in you just gets swept up by the emotion.
And that’s what emotion is, a wave that sweeps us off our pedestal of composure. So be the director of your waves, and you will become a healer, a beacon of shelter in the storm of depression around you. It takes a sober and serious mind to know how to cultivate laughter and humor. If you have that gift then consider yourself a shaman, a doctor, a healer and a source of upliftment for all around you. You may not be a stand up comedian, but you will have others collapsing on the floor in bliss, all the while removing their pain and stress, and you will help them to live longer as a result, as well as giving them a quality of life that they only dreamed of. So go for it, it’s free. I certainly will.
(images pixabay)