Have you forgotten how to play?

I have and I am trying to relearn this valuable skill.

One of the best presents I received for my half century birthday was a coaching session with the wonderful Gina LaRoche. We met last week to discuss the deep journaling that she was having me do in preparation for the session and uncovered some interesting things. One of those “things” was the lack of play in my life. This was not a surprise to me - I simply hadn’t had time to reflect on it. Subconsciously, I had already started addressing this by scheduling a weekly half hour Laughter Club at the University. We meet in the Blackbox Theater and laugh and breathe and clap. Sometimes we dance. Sometimes we meditate. Sometimes we speak gibberish. We laugh through obstacles. We laugh through failures. We laugh through successes. We laugh for no reason at all. No matter how depleted I walk into that room, I leave transformed, rejuvenated and de-stressed.

I have led Laughter yoga classes for special events, but I haven’t, until now, been able to create a weekly practice. It is possible and positive to laugh alone, but it isn’t as powerful as a group experience. There is something about the eye contact, seeing others laughing and hearing their peals, giggles, and guffaws that transports the experience. How often do we give ourselves over to uninhibited joyful communing? The weekly refresh and refocus has started to have a profound effect on my overall well being. Is it a biochemical restructuring at the cellular level? Neuronal plasticity? Rebirth of my inner child? None of the answers truly matter to me, because what I am noticing in my life are significant increases in my laugh capacity, lung capacity, and joy capacity. Imagine, all that in 30 minutes a week.

Laughter Yoga

Last December I became a certified Laughter Yoga Leader. It was through a wonderful training taught by Sebastien Gendry of the American School of Laughter Yoga. I am a longtime student of the various forms of Hatha Yoga (Forrest, Bikram, Kripalu, Flow, etc.) and prefer to be a student. You see, I have this Professor role that I play in my professional life and it is quite a demanding part. Yoga class is the chance for me to be the student, to pay close attention and to follow instruction. It is my turn to be told what to do and how to do it. So, choosing to take the training and lead laughter sessions was not an easy decision. It is done and now I have led a few laughter groups. The results have been wildly positive.

While we were in Norway last year on sabbatical, I had what felt like a radical re-envisioning of my personal mission. My own creative production has been deeply gratifying to me throughout my life. It no longer feels like enough. It is no longer enough to be creative and joyful simply for my own pleasure. I need to stretch beyond somehow. Over time I have settled on the mission to share and spread creativity and joy to as many people as possible. This is an easy thing to accomplish with Laughter Yoga. It is a trickier thing to do with my University students. I have to help them prepare for high level professional work in addition to finding their source of creativity and joy – a much trickier proposition. I have been trying (with varying levels of success) to figure out how to make it more creative and joyful (without sacrificing the rigor). This is a challenge that I relish. I’m sure they’ll let me know how well I perform.

Back to the Laughter Yoga. I’d like to start a Laughter Club, but my schedule has prevented me from pursuing a location and committing to a day and time. For now I will schedule special Laughter sessions when able and on special request.

Kicking into Gear

I’m recovering from a cold and prepping classes (from bed mostly). They are quite tightly organized now, so getting up and running is easy. They are also two of my favorite classes to teach - Senior Portfolio and Design Research & Methods. But they are also two of the most exhausting classes I teach. It’s an intense semester for the seniors, about to walk out into the real world, wanting to and not wanting to at the same time. Shifting between hope, fear and anxiety on a moment to moment basis. I like to start the semester with some basic breathing techniques and reports have been that this is extremely helpful. I try to calm their fears and anxieties as I coach them in producing the most professional portfolio they can.

I attended a powerful yoga workshop last weekend and I think it created some movement in the grieving process. I am never as productive over winter break as I hope to be and this time I am trying not to chastise myself, but to congratulate myself on taking the time to grieve, to breathe, to focus on yoga, etc. I am physically stronger that I have been in ages and I can feel myself softening as a personality at the same time.

I still have one section to finish on my art archive site, I am preparing The Scarlet Genotype for an exhibition in Charlotte, NC, and I am continuing my work on GenderMachine. But the priority project at the moment is preparing a new Marsha McLuhan performance for a conference in Oslo in March. I start going into my University office tomorrow and classes start next week. Time to be productive.

Turn and Return

I just returned from a weekend with one of my best buddies at Kripalu. We didn't sign up for a specific program - just R & R. It was planned back in October as a chance to touch my grief, get up close to it, and maybe find some movement in it. The plan was also to celebrate this friendship that will now have a bit of geographical distance soon. The weekend, from start to finish, was everything and more than I hoped it would be and I return feeling joy and peace. We did yoga classes, dance classes, spa time, and ate some of the best and most wholesome food I've had in a while. From all of this, I now have new tools to be a better person, mother, partner, friend and teacher. My hope is that I can learn to use them well. The highlight of my weekend turned out to be a meditation workshop with Randal Williams. Now to get on with the work at hand - art making, course prep, online course design... in other words... business as usual...