Laugh Off
Last week my fella pointed out that work had been taking its toll on me this last year and I needed to laugh more. He then handed me a piece of paper with an address and a time. Baffled, on two accounts I looked at him:
“I do laugh, I don’t think I have lost my sense of humour! And what’s this address for?” I confess, I was a bit indignant.
“Laughter Yoga. You have to go and try it out. I suspect it will do you good.” I think this was his quirky way of saying I was surviving in my comfort zone.
The Comfort Zone : is that space that we are deeply familiar with and may find ourselves a little too reluctant to leave it. It’s like a default setting, a habitual way of being that we don’t have to donate too much thinking or effort towards.
It’s that safe place that cosy and warm. It’s that delightful zone of blissful ignorance. A place where we start to stagnate. A place where we park our potential and leave it to rot. It’s that slow drip of poison that gradually leads us to feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied…and perhaps too serious.
Every atom in my body was screaming with dread. “Laughter Yoga?!! Seriously?!!” This is so far beyond my comfort zone, it may well be on Mars!
“Very seriously.” Came the reply.
Sunday rolls around, and clutching the address, I leave home a bundle of nerves. The intention was to go, do and get out. Discretion and staying anonymous was my plan. I arrive and walk though the door and this lovely women comes and introduces herself to me. Then stops…
“Oh My God, you’re that Sahera….you write for the paper. I LOVE your column, it really gets me thinking. It’s wonderful you’re here.” I express my thanks, completely aware, that my plan for being unseen was not happening. Then she screams…
“Mary-Anne! You won’t believe who’s here!” And there implodes my desire for discretion. Yes, my plans were being well and truly peed on from a great height!
Before I knew it, I was being enthusiastically introduced to a group of ladies. They were delightfully friendly and before I knew it, we were into the one hour class of silliness and giggles.
The problem with comfort zones is that they transform into a cage, leaving us trapped within ourselves. We start taking control of things and lose sight of what it is to be relaxed and joyful. We find ourselves getting uptight and easily annoyed. The comfort zone starts to become the place we are constantly stressed out maintaining. Kind of defeats the original objective, doesn’t it?
The funny thing is, as soon as you step out of it, you will realise it wasn’t such a comfortable option after all and that stretch wasn’t as difficult as you had dramatically imagined.
Stepping beyond what we consider our safety net is scary. I’m not going to kid you - Laughter Yoga would most definitely had been the last thing on my list of things to do to loosen up! Yet it can also be fun, exciting, stimulating, mind opening and so much more. And it was! I was stiff as a board and realised just how much I was holding myself and my work in this contained vessel called Sahera. I met some lovely people who made me feel very welcome and got me laughing with them.
Comfort zoning is where we overthink, procrastinate and scare ourselves out of life. We create disaster movies of what is beyond our zone, the failures and setbacks awaiting us.
Rarely do we see the other stuff… you know, the good stuff that comes from growth: new opportunities, new learning, new discoveries, new strengths and possibly even, new friends.
Eventually you notice how far you have stepped out of your comfort zone. And once you do, stepping back will not longer appear attractive. Things that once scared you won’t be that intimidating anymore. And that is what self-love is all about. It’s about forgiving yourself when you mess up, and celebrating yourself for doing the extraordinary.
When we step outside into the unknown territory we discover something we didn’t know about ourselves, or hadn’t noticed before. It alters our perception of the world. I hadn’t seen how serious I was getting, how work focussed, and that class helped me let it go for a while.
So yes…I’m going back.