Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

November 2, 2016 By Admin

Allow Laughter to Support You in Your Suffering

Laughter to Support you in Suffering

As we all know life is filled with joy, suffering, and neutrality or boredom. This is THE WAY IT IS! Or, as a very good old friend often reminded me: “It is what it is!”  In Buddhism we preach a middle way in various areas of practice;
the same path is true in conscious awareness of self-suffering. This post is NOT recommending that you do not pass through grief and loss processes, or that you should attempt to deny/suppress experiences of suffering. What it is suggesting is that you mindfulhappiness-laughterrecognize this is simply all part of normal life experience for us humans. It is also suggesting that you learn and use various “wise mind” skills and practices (mindfulness, meditation, RAIN, yoga, walking meditation, etc.) to help yourself feel and do/be better in life. Rupert Spira in various writings highly influenced by classical Vedanta boiled it down into a few very important understanding – understanding about the way things are, and how we consciously experience the way things are.  In the use of laughter to nudge you out of suffering, we may want to pay attention to some of his key ideas. Along with the recognition of wasting lots of emotional energy trying to change what happens to us in primary suffering, it may help to recognize that just allowing or radically accepting what our experience is in this present moment is a form of ultimate truth. Emphasizing neither the body nor the mind in experiencing suffering, we may want to realize that it is simply our conscious awareness of present-moment suffering that makes it so hard to be with it in peace. Being more aware and being more able to just be with your experience no matter what it is are important skills in life. Preferences for pleasant self-objects, other people as objects, things as objects,emotions as objects, and our personal experience as objects – all these associated desires and related cognitive-emotional-behavioral consequences simply produce greater suffering. Once we are skilledenough to just be with our suffering as a part of life, we may be better equipped to become a happier person.  Inner quiet, equanimity, liking and loving, loving kindness, compassion,  as well as a deeper understanding of reality are all part of moving though suffering and, perhaps, into more happiness.  The conditioned mind and body may still seek sense pleasures (short-term joys but laughterultimately long-term causes of suffering), but eventually we may understand that trying to attach/hold onto pleasant emotions and trying to avoid unpleasant emotions gets us nowhere.  Pleasant and unpleasant are simply part of the larger life-picture of what is. So what about laughter in all of this?

Current research from Georgia State University suggests that combining laughter with exercise may be a potent counter-force against suffering. Brief aerobic exercise improved mental health related mood, physical endurance, personal motivation to “do” laughter-sufering-mindfulness-mindful-happinesssomething, and weight loss. Adding “forced laughter” via laughing yoga or eye-contacted, face-to-face laughter did get people to laugh.  Since people had to decide whether or not to cooperate, the terms “forced laughter” may be inappropriate. Since, according to certain neuroscience opinions, the body cannot recognize differences in authentic laughter and forced laughter – this research may be quite meaningful. Also, again from neuroscience research, we know that facial emotional expressions find their way into the brain.  Like the body, the brain (other than exaggerated executive criticism) cannot differentiate natural laughter from other forms of laughter. The more and longer people laughed, the better the outcomes were.

So the take-aways here are do more exercise and find more ways to laugh.  Perhaps you will want to find and join a laughter yoga group. When you exercise and laugh, emotional life improves.

For more information refer to J. Smiechowski (Retrieved 10-11-16). How many calories can you burn laughing? Easy Health Options. For more complex understandings about non-dual reality, see Spira, R. (2008). The Transparency of Things. Sahara Publications and New Harbinger Publications.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, Benefits of Meditation, Benefits of Mindfulness, Featured, Joy and Suffering, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness Tagged With: EMOTIONS, LAUGHTER, MINDFULNESS, SUFFERING

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Psychological Research on the Dangers of Smartphone Abuse There is no doubt that smartphone technology bring us a great deal of advanced technological access to a world of information and communication. There is a downside. Recent research published by The American Psychological Association in March, 2017, and opinions in The Atlantic warn of potential and actual biopsychosocial […]

Being Mindful Of  Dr. Wayne W. Dyer Recently I receive a heart-felt tribute dedicated to Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, who died recently.  The tribute originated from Louise Hay, a long-time associate, colleague and publisher of Wayne Dyer.  To those of us who inhabit the spaciousness of the spiritual world, perhaps, no other person in recent […]

Many Benefits of Mindfulness and Vipassana Meditation The Dalai Lama (Gyatso, Tenzin), the world leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and Paul Ekman, the world famous Psychologist of human emotions, have teamed up to discuss how to use mindful emotional awareness skills to become more emotionally balanced and compassionate. These two highly skilled practitioners have listed 21 […]

Mind Training Over Our Impulses Mindful awareness of our impulses is a very important pathway to improved emotion regulation and, perhaps, more happiness in life. It can be unusually helpful to people suffering from anxiety, depression, and substance misuse. Vedana refers to the feeling tone in our body.  It is one of the foundations of mindfulness […]

Enhancing Hope in Psychotherapy The enhancement of personal hope is a key part of successful psychotherapy practice. Some view this requirement as a foundational aspect of the therapeutic alliance; others do not hold the same view.  In the case of serious co-occurring disorders, especially trauma and substance misuse, initiating, developing, and sustaining a hopeful future-view […]

My third posting on self-medication- Comes from the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont. Now we will turn our attention to how people become habituated to self-medication to obtain brief moments of joy and/or to avoid emotional suffering.  Recall that self-medication becomes a habit (dopamine released in reward centers of the […]

Practice Approaches to for Mindful and  Enhanced Emotion Regulation Brought to us by way of  The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont Mindful Approaches for Enhanced Emotion Regulation; here are some approaches to practice. 1)In some ways you could understand the progression from auto-pilot mind to greater stability and equanimity of […]

Common Barriers to Meditation Practice Dan Harris, an ABC news anchor, has just published a book on Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. In his book Harris notes several common barriers to regular meditation practice, and what to do about them.  Since I have been meditating since the early 1980’s I have added additional suggestions. Here are the barriers […]

Our Brains React to Worry According to research by The American Psychological Association in 2015, some of the core sources of severe stress reaction for Americans are: financial problems, job-related problems, family problems, and health problems.  Our lives are complete only with joy/happiness, suffering and boredom – sometimes referred to as pleasant, unpleasant and neutral […]

Improving Client/Patient Collaboration  in Treatment To improve collaboration between you and your clients/patients, simply practice the following behaviors as your norms.  See the list below, and practice, practice, practice. Present with an attitude of helpfulness and authentic caring. Empathy and authentic concern are required. Recognize the reality that clients/patients are at different levels of readiness […]

A Radical Feminist in her Time Over 800 years ago Hildegard of Bingen presented radical viewpoints on women-power and male-dominance in the Christian Church, stone/gem healing, meditation, insight and intellect, the web of life or planetary oneness, being in nature, environmentalism, and personal stories of suffering, etc.  Despite her outspoken manner and her popularity among […]

Yoga Nidra and Your Inner Peace Yoga Nidra will allow you to relax like you may never have relaxed before.  Follow these modified instructions for your best relaxed state.  If at any time during Yoga Nidra you feel uncomfortable, simply stop and breathe in a manner that restores equilibrium.  Although this uncomfortable outcome is highly […]

Beads: Significance in Spiritual and Religious Practices The significance of religious and spiritual practices in the world is enormous.  Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist practitioners make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. The  CIA estimates are that Christians (33%), Muslims (23%), Hindus (14%) and Buddhist (7%) make up the majority of religious followers. […]

Anahata – Heart Chakra Meditation Practice Rumi noted that to reach the sky we must use our hearts. The Heart Chakra is a very popular focus of meditation practice.  Here we will simply review some characteristics and then move on to a meditation practice. Specific characteristics: Green color, YAM sound (say at least three times […]

Advanced Meditation Practices on Perception As the Sutra story goes, the Buddha instructed Ananda to visit the ailing venerable Girimananda, who was very, very ill.  In an effort to help the ailing man, the Buddha told Ananda to guide him in the Ten Meditation on Perceptions (on sensory input and the objects of mind). According […]

More on Mindful Breathing Whole-Heart Breathing – I have modified and expanded this great process from Thich Nhat Hanh.  If comfortable close your eyes and simply breathe calming and deeply for a few breaths. Add you personal half smile and allow the soothing (sometimes very subtle) sensation to spread all over your face.  Do not […]

Using Meditation, Yoga and Breathing… You can Anchor your Choice Making A key outcome of serious practice is  that you now reduce auto-pilot reactivity to people, places, things, emotions, sensations, craving, and memories and at the same time notice your mind CAN BE in charge of your brain-body reactions.  Yes, regular daily mindfulness practice allows […]

Practice: Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening Carl Jung noted: Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens. The Katha Upanishads (800-400 BCE) noted: One path leads outward and the other inward. [The] way inward leads to grace. The Mind Cave Focus instructs us to close our eyes and expand your third-eye space to the back of […]

Mindful Happiness:   Joy is Within Reach – It is Up to You to Choose It! We all live in a very troubled world with lots of greed, hate, warfare, and danger. Many of us use distractions (addictions, cell phone habits, eating, gathering, games, etc.) to make it through the days. This is true!  However, […]

Self-Care to Reduce Compassion Fatigue First let’s begin with what some people do to counteract the stressors of living in a hurried,“over-technologized” world. Technically, “technologize” is not a popularly accepted word, but it is a sad  reality. We live in a time when texting while driving may become the new addiction-based cause for many, many […]

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2023 · Mindful Happiness