Only Human with Joan Axelrod-Contrada: Laugh more, stress less: How humor can help us through our most painful times

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Published: 07-11-2024 1:23 PM |
Songs that combine a good metaphor with a bouncy beat rocket me into my word-nerd, ear-worm stratosphere. “Everyday I Write the Book” by Elvis Costello tops my list.
How cool to think of our lives as books that we’re writing! Costello frames the song around a failed love affair. The couple meet in chapter one, fall in love in chapters two and three, and then break apart in chapters four, five and six. The song ends with the narrator writing his book, which, for me, brings the total to seven chapters.
When the song first came out in 1983, it appealed to my cynical side. Yup, relationships are bound to end, just like this one did in chapters four, five and six. Well, at least the narrator got a book out of it.
Then, decades later, I heard the song again. Gone was the old cynicism. In its place, I felt a sense of wistfulness. My life had taken unexpected turns, first into marriage and children, then into widowhood. No longer could I look forward to a future with Fred by my side. Instead, I needed to write a new ending to my life story. Fortunately, for guidance, I turned to the wisdom of Academy Award-winning actress Jane Fonda.
Granted, I’m no Jane Fonda, but I can still use a shiny, bright celebrity as my role model for writing the final chapters of my life. Before turning 60, Fonda did a “life review” to assess her past and see where she wanted the future to take her.
Like her, I decided to take stock of the chapters I’ve already written and discovered something surprising.
I’ve gotten funnier over time.
After experiencing some very unfunny stuff, I emerged with a new perspective on life. Nothing could ever be as bad as losing my husband to dementia. It felt like being in a shipwreck with the vessel constantly springing leaks as storms surged and sea monsters attacked. Somehow tragedy gave birth to comedy.
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Nevertheless, like all mere mortals, I tend to lose my sense of humor when I’m smack-dab in the middle of a stressful situation. Only afterwards do I find the comedy in it. Worse yet, my life review revealed that every instance of conflict I’ve experienced could have benefited from taking myself less seriously.
So I decided to embark on a new chapter dedicated to laughing more and stressing less. Research geek that I am, I decided to check out some books to hone my own humor skills.
First, I picked up humor columnist Dave Barry’s wise and witty “Lessons from Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old Happy Dog.” I laughed out loud at Barry’s memories of feeding brussels sprouts to his dog under the table. “I was in big trouble,” he writes, “when my mother, an otherwise decent human being, decided to serve us brussels sprouts, which this has been shown in laboratory studies — are actually the severed heads of Martian fetuses.”
Next, I moved on to “The Healing Power of Humor: Techniques for Getting through Loss, Setbacks, Upsets, Disappointments, Difficulties, Trials, Tribulations, and All That Not-So-Funny Stuff” by Allen Klein. Although the title might sound, well, a tad clinical, this conversationally-written gem is packed with anecdotes, age-old wisdom, and practical tips. The book’s cleverly titled chapters offer strategies such as exaggerating, using irony, turning mountains into molehills, and finding the advantage in your disadvantage.
“Seeing humor in our misfortunes does not make them go away,” Klein writes. “It does, however, allow us to disengage from our predicament, gather our resources, and not be blinded to our opportunities.”
A third book, “Relax: Using the Power of Humor to Overcome Stress in Your Life and Work” by Loretta LaRoche, also offers ways to add more joie de vivre to our lives. The book reads like a chick flick from the 1990s, a bit dated in its views of gender but funny nonetheless. I particularly like LaRoche’s suggestion of defusing stress by looking at our lives as a sitcom. I’ve used this idea to create a character for myself called Goofball who helps me take myself less seriously.
The song “Everyday I Write the Book” demonstrates just such a light touch. What exactly gives this bright and breezy tune its punch? For me, it’s the way the narrator reframes something as messy and complicated as the human experience into simple chapters. Humor is all about reframing.
We can all create our own zany chapter titles for our lives. It’s a way of giving ourselves some semblance of control. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll even get a book out of it.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence and is working on a collection of essays, “Rock On: A Baby Boomer’s Playlist for Life after Loss.” Reach her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail.com.