LIghten up & Laugh

Angel fly because they take themselves lightly.
Laughter heals, and healers laugh.

Being successful in front of a group requires a lightness of being. As in, “he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” He, being the audience.

I remember in 1968 when ‘heavy metal music’ made an impact. Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Road, Led Zeppelin, as in ‘lead,’ a heavy metal. It was followed up in 1969 with the sound of mellow. Country rock from the Byrd’s, CSN, Pentangle * the English troubadour bands.

But it is the lightness, the non-fixated attention that the lifts us above the average, above the norm to float, as if by magic, because it is the magic of lightness that holds an audiences attention.

The psychology of laughter runs a gauntlet from the physiology of the chuckle to the incongruity of the slapstick physical humor of the slip, slap and painful fall as the clown or anyone, accidentally, gets hurt and I twitch into the ‘nervous reaction’ of the inappropriate laugh.

“I just can’t help from laughing.”

“Ouch, that’s gotta hurt,” Seinfield mutters, as Kramer smashes into the door.

Does the humor come from a mind that needs to react?

Do we laugh to release the incongruity, I mean someone has hurt himself or herself and I am laughing. It doesn’t make sense. AHA, nonsense (No sense), an occasionally laughable subject.

Am I an inconsiderate sadist asshole?

Does it give me pleasure to see others pain?

It does give me fits of laughter when Chevy Chase takes a fall, the Stooges whack each other, Wiley Coyote goes off the cliff or when the Bart & Lisa Simpson favorite characters Itchy & Scratchy perform diabolical deeds of destruction on each other.

Cartoons may set the laughter gauge from a young age, but to laugh at the pain of another continues into old age. Perhaps the laughing at another’s pain is a lesson for us to learn how to handle our own pain. Taking it all lightly maybe a key to entering heaven.

The reasons for the slapstick laugh is not what a speaker is after, but the fact that it triggers one of speakers favorite responses is a curiosity worthy of a speaker’s attention.

Understanding the physiology of how breathing changes, the shortening and gasping of breath, the blood rushing to certain extremities, belly bouncing even in the leanest. It is a fact that that the physiology of laughter creates the stimulus for the laughter. You can experience humor and laugh or equally successfully you can laugh and create humor.

Ask the Masters in Laughing Yoga classes. If you don’t know how to spontaneously laugh it time to learn. To stop the reading of this serious tome and begin the tee hees, haha, hee-haws, belly rocking, snorting, head nodding, eye closed, belly shaking laughing. Its healthy, stress releasing and adds another tool to your speakers tool box.

To be able to laugh on cue, to lead an audience to laugh where you want them, is part of the magic of Oratory Lessons.

Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.
Speakers laugh because they know how.

Learn to laugh, especially with your-selves in duet-

Gary C Smith Public Speaking & Trainings

510-722-3212