Category: writing humor

April 11, 2021: Put a little Ha-Ha in Your Life

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD6 Comments

 Cancer is no laughing matter.  And as we’ve discovered, neither is the continuing presence of COVID-19.

Yet if you happened to pass by a meeting room in a cancer center or overhear the Zoom sessions where I lead writing programs those living with cancer, laughter is something you’ll hear.  Even though we’re writing about the emotional impact accompanying a cancer diagnosis, laughter is always part of our sessions.  Counterintuitive perhaps, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that laughter is good medicine, just as Norman Cousins described in his 1979 book, Anatomy of an Illness.  Cousins wasn’t the first to advocate for the healing power of laughter.  Mark Twain had already done so, writing, “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that’s laughter,” he said.  “The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” 

I grew up in an extended family who loved telling humorous stories and sharing laughter together.  Losses were mourned, yes, but soon afterward, the funny stories that were associated with the relative were told regularly at our family holiday gatherings.  And more than anything, I remember the fun of sitting among my aunts and uncles and sharing the memories and the laughter.  Life became brighter; there was no time for a bad mood, and somehow, the humor seemed to bind us more closely together. 

The power of laughter to help us heal is so great that some time ago, reading a 2015 issue of CURE Today Magazine, it didn’t entirely surprise me that, according to author Jeannette Moninger, many hospitals across America offer laughter programs for cancer patients, no doubt inspired by Norman Cousin’s experience and the research on laughter’s benefits. Moninger described a few: 

At North Kansas City Hospital, patients can watch funny movies…Duke Medicine offers a Laugh Mobile, a rolling cart from which adult patients in oncology wards can check out humorous books and silly items like whoopee cushions and rubber chickens.  And the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program sends…clowns to 16 children’s hospitals nationwide to help put smiles on the faces of ill children… 

Even as far back as the 13th century, surgeons used humor to distract patients from the agony of painful medical procedures.  (Given the absence of anesthesia, laughter had to be good medicine!)  Those early surgeons were on to something, borne out since by many research studies since.   Laugh, and not only the world laughs with you: your body releases endorphins, the “feel good hormones that function as the body’s natural painkillers,” Moninger states, “the same hormones that create the “runner’s high.”  Endorphins also decrease the body’s levels of cortisol, the hormone associated with chronic stress.  In fact, cortisol has a number of negative effects on our bodies, compromising our immune system, tensing up our muscles, elevating blood pressure—all of which laughter helps to counteract. 

We all need a little laughter in our lives, no matter if we’re dealing with cancer or in this extended time of COVID—whether in person or, as many of us are now, on Zoom with friends and family.  Laughter helps to overcome loneliness and the mild depression that many of us are combatting in these extended lockdowns.  We need to laugh just as much as sometimes, we need to cry.  As cancer survivor Jim Higley wrote in a 2012 issue of the magazine, Coping with Cancer, laughter became invaluable during his treatment and recovery:

…when you are raised with the gift of laughter, as I was, it can’t stay suppressed forever. It’s too powerful. Thank goodness for that. I eventually could see bits of “ha-ha” in my own life. Certainly not in the cancer, but in the mind-blowing circumstances that suddenly consumed my life. And laughing at parts of those experiences made me feel a little more alive.

The funniest part of it all was that the more I allowed myself to laugh, the more therapeutic my tears became.

(“Finding Humor in the Midst of Cancer,” Coping with Cancer, March/April 2012)

Try it. It’s good to find something—even a small thing—to smile or laugh about.  Yesterday, my husband and I recalled the humorous story of my first—and last—blind date.  My grandson, age 12, has decided he can cheer up his grandparents by sending us emails from Japan, filled with various memes and online games, ones I have tried and failed to win, which amuses him and, of course, me.  Just the fact he has written with so many “resources” for humor counteracts the greyness of our COVID lockdown life.  It’s an email full of smiles.

Writing Suggestion:

Find a little laughter in your life this week.  Dig back into your memories this week—the fun times, when you laughed so hard, tears ran down your cheeks.  Take a break from writing about and instead, try writing a little humor.  (Even a medical experience can have humor at times.  I was once diagnosed as having a “loose screw” after suffering swelling and pain in my forehead, where I do have a steel plate.  It wasn’t a loose screw, as it turned out, just a need for taking antibiotics before dental work.  But the diagnosis gave us a good laugh, helped relieve the worry and got me to another specialist for a second opinion—one who provided the solution to my forehead discomfort).

Perhaps you have a few memories of times that made you smile, even laugh aloud whenever you think about them.  Write one, that funny story, and let a little “ha, ha” brighten your day..  After all, as Charlie Chaplin said, “A day without laughter is a day wasted.”

June 18, 2020: Writing The Blues

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD4 Comments

I admit it.  Three months of lockdown and relative social isolation, and my muse has flown the coop.  “I’m outta’ here,” she cried yesterday as I tried for the 5th day in a row to compose a post that might inspire my readers to write.  No amount of deep, mindful breathing, a walk through the tree-lined streets in our neighborhood, quotes from books and articles or frantic, whinny pleading to that creative muse worked.  She disappeared, leaving me staring at the blank page.

I only just finished another online workshop for Gilda’s Club yesterday—part presentation, part offering short writing “bursts” and part encouragement on how to get started exploring the experience of cancer through writing.  “Nothing to write?”  I asked, then offered a suggestion:  “Start with anything.  Anything can be a prompt.  Anything can provide inspiration.  Or start with nothing, writing the line, “I have nothing to write, “over and over until you discover you DO have something to write.”  It’s an approach I often use for myself, quite honestly, and in doing so, I stumble into ideas, questions, and inevitably, a blog post that I post on this site.

Well guess what?  Even my own suggestion did not work for me this week.  I haven’t even been inspired to write a silly poem or bake another batch of scones (now that’s serious).  I blame it on the COVID blues…or, perhaps more accurately, COVID boredom.  Here’s the deal.  I’ve read so many books in the past three months that  I have actually grown tired of reading.  I’ve exhausted several seasons of my favorite British crime dramas.  I’m weary of the monotony of having to stay so close to home, of seeing my husband 24/7, of the news reports of the current numbers of outbreaks and deaths, of the low level anxiety that accompanies me every time I encounter other people on the sidewalk who are unmasked and not honoring social distancing guidelines,  of Zoom meetings instead of face-to-face and of course, the knowledge this kind of life is going to be with us for some time yet.  That sounds like the blues to me, or at the least, a seige of boredom.  Worse, all this is accompanied by an utter lack of inspiration, of even the glimmer of an idea to get me writing.  Oh, I still write every morning as I’ve always done, but the pages of my notebook are filled with ideas that went nowhere, repetitions, and numerous attempts to find something “new” to get me going.

As I write this, I suddenly recall a folk song from my (much) younger days.  I hear the song,“The San Francisco Bay Blues,” in my head.  Originally composed by Jesse Fuller (who I saw in person in the mid-sixties) it was subsequently performed by the likes Bob Dylan, Jim Croce, Eric Clapton, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Eva Cassidy and many others.  It begins,  “I got the blues for my baby/left me by the San Francisco Bay…”  Well, it’s rattling around in my head now, but my lyrics are different:     “I got the blues for my muse and/ I’m  far from San Francisco Bay…”

How about you?  Perhaps you’re finding this time a little boring or difficult in other ways.  Perhaps you have children at home and the fatigue of home schooling and providing ways for them to be entertained is stretching your patience.  You may still be in treatment, but the hospital atmosphere is changed, almost surreal.  What gets you through the long days of social isolation?  Have you found new ways to be creative?  New activities to occupy your time? Write about living in a time of pandemic.  Write about how you keep the blues (or boredom) at bay.

May 11, 2020: Letting it Out: Releasing Negative Emotions

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD2 Comments

rant:  to complain or talk loudly and angrily for a long time, sometimes saying unreasonable things  (MacMillan Dictionary)

I don’t know about you, but I do know that the endless days of indoor living and social isolation are getting to me.   I am more easily frustrated, irritable and restless.  It’s taken some discipline to rein those negative feelings in, and I admit to days where I am less successful than I wish I was.  What about you?  Have you felt the need to get feelings or frustration with something off your chest, the kind that keep you awake at night or gnaw at you until they’re voiced?   We know that those kinds of feelings aren’t good for our health, as confirmed by a significant body of psychological research on the relationship between emotions and health–but I learned this in earnest the hard way. Some years ago, I realized I’d  been living under extreme stress for well over a decade, triggered by  my husband’s death, a significant career transition, and a decade of major moves from coast to coast.  I soldiered valiantly through it all, but cracks began to appear in my armor. I slept poorly, and I was often impatient and short-tempered.  A few close friends expressed concern, but it wasn’t until my diagnosis of early stage breast cancer that I really understood the impact all that bottled up emotional stress had on my health.

Around the same time, I  read Opening Up:  The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions (1997), the early work on emotional inhibition and health by James Pennebaker, PhD, whose subsequent research on writing and healing set off an explosion of similar studies and inspired numerous expressive writing programs.   Pennebaker demonstrated how expressing emotions was not only good for one’s soul, but beneficial to our physical and psychological health.  The studies he cited made one thing very clear:  holding negative emotions inside, also known as “inhibition,” is detrimental to health.

Our bodies respond to the ways we think and feel.  Stress and anxiety weaken immune system function, and negative emotions can have effect on circulation, blood pressure, respiration, digestion, even hormonal functioning.  It can heighten our vulnerability to disease or manifest itself as back pain, fatigue, or headaches.   Research suggests that holding on to negative feelings may actually shorten our lives.  According to some studies, optimistic people have longer lives than pessimistic ones.  Ridding ourselves of negative emotion may improve physical health as well as the body’s power to heal.

It’s not always as easy as it sounds.  Everyone experiences strong or negative emotions from time to time, and during difficult or painful experiences like a marital break-up, job loss, or a diagnosis of cancer, heart failure or other serious conditions, those feelings can be intense. Anger, anxiety, fear or pessimism are common, but that’s not all. When we suffer a new wound to our psyches, old, unresolved wounds from the past can re-open and bleed again. Fortunately, there are many therapeutic tools to assist in the healing process, and as the research shows, writing and telling our stories of our illnesses, hardships or struggles is one of them.

Many writers, novelist Henry James once said, begin writing from a port of pain, finding a kind of release and solace in putting their deepest—and most fearful—feelings on paper, whether in diaries, journals or poetry and stories.  Port of pain or not, it’s often hard to get started, difficult to give ourselves the freedom to express all we’re feeling on the page, even though we want to. “Keep the pen moving,” I often say to the participants in my writing groups.  “Write without stopping or thinking about what appears on the page.”  The time limits imposed for different writing exercises helps, because it forces them to write quickly, in effect, silencing their internal critics.  Often, when someone chooses to read what they’ve written aloud, I hear the comment, “I didn’t know I wrote that…” after an especially powerful sentence or paragraph.

One of my favorite examples of “release” through writing is in learning to free up and write a rant, something that just “lets it all out.”  I often use a poem by   Rosanne Lloyd, a contemporary poet who combines eloquence with directness and forcefulness in her writing.  her poem,  “Exorcism of Nice,”  is one I find helpful in inspiring  writing group members to “just let it go.”  In this poem, the  poet reacts to a litany of long-time restraints, expressing anger and pain that has silenced her own voice:

Mum’s the word
Taciturn
Talk polite
Appropriate
Real nice
Talk polite
Short and sweet
Keep it down
Quiet down
Keep the lid on
Hold it down
Shut down
Shut up
Chin up
Bottle up
Drink up…

Tucked in
Caved in

Shut in
Locked in
Incoherent
Inarticulate
In a shell…

Oh, Wicked Mother of the Kingdom of Silence
I have obeyed you
long enough

(From: Tap Dancing for Big Mom, 1996)

Lloyd’s poem is a useful model for freeing up to express negative emotions on the page.  “Anything goes,” I frequently say as group members begin writing.  “Whatever is on your mind, whatever is irritating you, making you angry or frustrated–just write it.”  What invariably happens in the writing that follows is always powerful, even sometimes hilarious, and coupled with a newfound freedom to write honestly and deeply—the kind of writing that has the potential for healing.

In this time of social distancing, self-isolation and uncertainty, I know my frustration tends to surface more often than usual, and in those moments, I become irritable and negative.  It has helped me to write regularly, and I’ll confess that a few rants have appeared in my notebook, but the beauty of doing so for me, is that my list of frustrations turns into a parody of my feelings and results in  rather light-hearted and humorous endings to whatever frustration I’m  feeling.   More than a few silly poems have resulted in the pages of my notebook in these many weeks of indoor living.

Perhaps trying out a rant is something you can try writing when COVID-19 necessary restrictions on our lives gets to you.  Why not give yourself permission to “let it all hang out” on paper—to expel any anger, frustration, or pain that may be building inside as the days continue to move slowly and with increasing monotony.  It’s an exercise for release—and it can even be fun.

Writing Suggestion:

Try writing your own rant.  It can be about anything.  You can use Roseanne Lloyd’s poem as a model or write one in letter form, as in Tony Cross’s “Open Letter to Hummingbirds,” appearing in McSweeneys, 2004, or Canadian comedian Rick Mercer’s video  rants against things like winter, Tim Horton’s and some  people’s behavior during COVID-19 (available on You Tube).   Here is an excerpt from Cross’s letter to hummingbirds:

Dear Hummingbirds,

Hey, would you take it easy already? What’s the freakin’ rush, hummingbirds? I don’t get it—why must you flap your wings so damn fast? You need to chill out.    Here I am, sitting in my garden, quietly reading a book and sipping on a fruit cocktail, and all of a sudden you’re buzzing into my field of vision…

I found the You Tube video rant by Canadian comedian Rick Mercer on seasonal amnesia personally relevant this past weekend. Our balmy spring weather from a week ago turned wintry, and snow flurries completely hid the view from our balcony of downtown Toronto.  I ended up writing my own anti-winter weather rant too…the weather didn’t improve, but my mood did.

The nice thing about writing about difficult emotions or frustrations is that it helps you release them from you body to the page.  You can be honest.  No one needs to see what you’ve written.  You can tear up your rant into a hundred tiny pieces or simply hit the “delete” button when you’re finished writing.  What matters is that you write, without self-criticism, and release the frustration and negative emotions from the body to the page.   Set the timer for fifteen minutes and have at it.   Write a rant.  It can be about anything.  Exorcise those negative emotions or frustrations.  You’ll just might feel better once you do.

January 27, 2020: Dancing with Regret

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD1 Comment

 Edith Piaf had none.
Frank Sinatra admitted to a few.
And in The Remains of the Day, the dutiful manservant, Stevens, is haunted by them.

(From:  “Regret Haunts Baby Boomers,” by David Graham, Toronto Star, December 1, 2007)


Regret.  According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, it means feeling sorry about a situation or mistake you have made.  What’s more, researchers suggest that regret is second only to love in the emotions we most often feel and reference.  Regret, it turns out, is something my husband and I have been contending with since we returned from an extremely disappointing “jazz tour” to Cuba, looking back over the week and saying, as regret us often expressed, “If only we’d just not been so naïve…if only we hadn’t assumed…if only…  You likely know the phrase “if only” well yourselves.  Well, once regret strikes, how can you get past it?  Turning back the clock and starting again isn’t an option, even if we wish we could.  So, like author and psychologist Neal Roese suggests we should do, we’ve embraced our regrets, written our letters of complaint and this week, moved on.

Roese, author of If Only:  How to Turn Regret Into Opportunity (2005), argues it’s better to embrace your regrets and use them to move on as smarter or wiser people.  Regret, according to Roese, serves a necessary psychological purpose.  It helps us recognize opportunities for change and growth, even better decision making.  Like Terry Malloy, Marlon Brando’s character in On the Waterfront, regret drives us to work for change.  According to Roese, “Regret pushes us forward…helping us make better choices in the future.  It stimulates growth.”

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  But regret over a disappointing tour is much easier to leave behind than the kind of regret that often accompanies more devastating losses, hardship, or the sudden and debilitating diagnosis of an aggressive or terminal illness. It’s a different kind of regret that may haunt us if our future seems to suddenly be cut short or our lives altered in ways we never expected.  In my writing groups for cancer patients, regret surfaces as men and women come to terms with cancer’s impact on their lives and their loved ones.

I remember how often regret came up in my father’s conversations after a diagnosis of Stage IV lung cancer.  Given only three months to live, he looked back over his life, the opportunities and disappointments he’d had, and as he recalled those memories, often remarking, “I just wish I’d gone ahead and…when I had the chance,” or “if only I hadn’t…”  As sad as those conversations sometimes were, I had a rare glimpse into the life and feelings of my father.

Varda, a member of my first writing group for cancer survivors who ultimately lost her battle with metastatic breast cancer, wrote about regret a few months before her death from metastatic breast cancer.  She imagined regret as a dance partner, and described how, late in the evenings, regret was a regular visitor:

Late in the night I dance with Regret, dipping and gliding through bad choices and unforgiven hurts…we glide past images of my parents …

Regret whispers that some things are no longer possible…my partner leans close to remind me of the time I should have spent as a sister and a mother, and that life is as illusionary as a soap bubble floating lightly by and then gone…Regret has slipped into my corner and asked my memories to speak…my companion reminds me that those I loved are gone, and that I am dancing with a haunting and relentless suitor.

Before my illness, I viewed my life as a bright meadow rolling endlessly toward distant hills…Although I aged, I still view my future as a meadow without fences.

But when I awoke with cancer, Regret was my first visitor {and} will again be my faithful evening companion.…

(From: “Dancing with Regret, by Varda Nowack Goldstein, in A Healing Journey by Sharon Bray, 2004)

But Varda overcame her regret.  Continuing to write in the group as long as she was able, she began to share a humorous and poignant look back at her life, embracing all her challenges, foibles and rewards.  In a final poem entitled “Faith,” regret had been replaced by acceptance:  “My cancer has challenged my faith,” Varda wrote, “and I have found an incredible well/ I did not know I had…true surrender, enormous peace.”

Varda helped me understand the role regret played in my father’s final months.  As sad as they sometimes made me, his regrets served a purpose:   he was remembering the whole of his life, who he had been, who he had become, and as he did, he was also making peace with the inevitability of his death.

But what if we’re given a second chance? Regret, author Bruce Grierson (“The Meaning of Regret”) tells us, is only toxic when it becomes habitual.  Regret can also offer the opportunity for learning and the chance to do something better or differently.  You can bet that if my husband and I sign up for another tour in the future, we’ll do a lot more research first.  What if you have the opportunity for a “re-do”?  What did regret teach you?  “Imagine you wake up with a second chance,” as Rita Dove writes in her poem, “Dawn Revisited:”

… The blue jay

hawks his pretty wares

and the oak still stands, spreading

glorious shade. If you don’t look back,

the future never happens…

The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open

to a blank page…

(From:  On the Bus with Rosa Parks, 1999)

I’ve gotten second, third, maybe even fourth chances out of mistakes, loss and hardship. Sometimes regret hovered in the shadows, but ultimately, it became the impetus to do things differently, take risks, and re-shape the life I was living.  I never would have begun leading writing groups for cancer survivors if I hadn’t had cancer myself.  Did I regret not doing it sooner?  Of course, but the sum total of all those other experiences–good and bad, losses, illness, and disappointments—need not be stored in some internal vault of life regrets.   As Dorianne Laux reminds us in her poem, “Antilamentation,” life is full of regrets, but then, that’s life, isn’t it?

Regret nothing.  Not the cruel novels you read to the end just to find out
who killed the cook.  Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.

Not the love you left quivering in a hotel parking lot, the one you beat
to the punch line, the door, or the one who left you …

You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here.
Regret none of it…

(From The Book of Men, 2012)

Writing Suggestions:

 

Think about regrets this week, about all the times you’ve said or wondered “if only…”

  • How have you harnessed those regrets and moved forward differently?
  • What have you learned?
  • What has your life taught you about regret?
  • Write about regret.  Write about “if only.”  See where it takes you.