Choose Laughter As A Vaccine

Like many of you, I have been overwhelmed with the movie that is now my real world. I did not know how to overcome; I had allowed myself to be overwhelmed by all the news and fears about what could be forced on me. These thoughts had filled my mind so much I found myself fighting back emotion on a call with my industry peers while trying to ask what should have been a simple question.

I could feel my chest tightening up, and my throat closing. It was crazy I had real anxiety, and I was trying to resist it, but IT WAS THERE. It was an alarm. My jolly disposition had been infected, my peace and flow were gone.

Yes, I could go through all the clinical steps to shift my thought patterns, but I had to recognize where I was and why I was there. The effort to keep thinking about something else and reframing were exhausting me. I was battling the 'thought' that I would not be able to continue building a legacy for my family through the industry path I had chosen. It was like a tight rope that was mummifying me alive. I felt some other entity outside of me was taking away my choice to protect myself. Now many of you may choose to discontinue reading at this point. (You're going to miss the best parts.)

I am big on personal choice. I call it the human superpower. I tell my life coaching clients, and mentees' that choice is the one thing you always have that no one can take from you unless you give them the keys. I believed I had given my money choice key to this industry institution. It is why I had so much anxiety; I couldn't see how I could pivot fast enough to replace this income source that was supposed to continue to help build my family legacy. 

Depending on your 'why' for doing what you do, you may identify with me. The self-imposed expectation I have set on myself is to be the safe provision place for my children, their children and their children. Yes, it's a big expectation to put on oneself. I believe that in every family, there is a person who must choose to sacrifice their personal wants for the good of the collective so that generations after them don't have too. It's a personal thing that I am okay with placing on my shoulders. Given I have 6 children that I love and care for, I have chosen to continue to do what my grandparents attempted to do. Position each generation better than the previous one, launching the next generation into an even better place than the one before. Now you get the root of the personal 'why' I do what I do.

Now for my public 'why'. 'Why' I am on the planet. It is to help people know they have the choice and power to shift and adapt through life and evolve themselves so no matter what happens they can get to the other side of anything. My career choice of being a Certified Scrum Trainer and the coach of a framework that has its theory grounded in the principle of empiricism on pillars of Transparency, Inspection and Adaptation work for my public 'why'. It is the reason I am so passionate when I teach and talk about being agile and doing Scrum. 

Let's go back to the industry call; I am so grateful to Howard Sublett and Melissa Boggs and my fellow CSTs who were on that call yesterday. Much love to you guys. My industry community made me laugh with their mix of quirky dry humour and sarcasm. They brought compassion and humour to the situation. They had no idea I had not laughed all week.  

I had gotten to Thursday without laughing. The scrum community made a life-changing difference for me. Now the other thing they did on that call was tell us if we had an idea we should launch it. Mel, you probably didn't realize when you told me to go ahead and be the spark of change I want to see, that it would spark this. Please take a hug of gratitude.

What added petrol to the spark was a panel I was to appear on after my industry call hosted by Girl in Charge Public Relations. We were to talk about how I as a woman was dealing with quarantine and how it was affecting my mental health and sense of well-being. My co-panellist was MaDhouse's wonderful, Marla Thomas and 'something always up her sleeve' Amy Malone, my trusted communications director and PR Guru. Amy launched, Exhale! A Safe Space for Girl Talk, a platform for women to come and find a medium and community to enable them to give themselves permission to pause and exhale. Marla made me laugh so hard; she would drop wisdom and bat it to you with humour. It was Mary Poppins spoonful of sugar, only it was laughter. She has impressive comedic timing. 

People, that laughter coupled with the care and community I got from my industry call seeded something in my soul. I got up this morning at 5.30 am CST time Friday, May 1st 2020 and said enough is enough. I looked for a T-shirt in my closet that had some empowering words on it. I found " You can change the world Girl - Truly you Can" Put on some red lipstick and said Hell YES !!

I decided I wanted to C from covid and bring relief. Well, I'm not a chemist or magician, and I am not a good enough musician to use music. But what I can do is laugh. Now I wouldn't say I am funny - if you had seen how I jumped out of bed this morning you may say I am. However, I digress. 

I came up with a challenge that I have chosen to keep going on this platform here. Why Linkedin and not Facebook, not Instagram. Linkedin is about work and professionalism fair enough. LinkedIn you showed me I had to rethink how I saw the platform when you brought in the video. I felt LinkedIn was becoming Facebook. I fought it, but I now know where you were going. Now I am on board and wish to use the video platform to educate entertain and hopefully to engage.

We come here looking for professional connections first to further our careers, professions, businesses and let people know we exist. To enable them to hire us to promote our careers, occupations, businesses. You get it.

Wednesday, I couldn't find inspiration inside myself to share something that would have been authentic and I refuse to be fake, and I thought Thursday one would come to me, but it didn't. Today this Friday it did.

I want to start Monday, Wednesday, Friday Conscious Comedic Collaborative Community Channel. I will need all of you to join in. I want to ensure I help everyone find something to laugh at so that you don't go a whole week without laughter. 

Science has proven that laughter is good for the brain. We, as professionals, need our brains to think, create, communicate and collaborate. Bottom line, you can't make money without your brain. Laughter is beneficial and it aids us in each of our personal quests for the creation of value that we can trade for remuneration, and it's free. Now I have an intention. My intention is that you will be able to make the conscious choice to laugh. Make it your wellness vaccine for every day. I am making the commitment to spend a timebox of 45 minutes to find at least four funny things to share with you Monday, Wednesday and Friday and these will be posted on my timeline. I will find clips of stuff and ask you all to do the same. LinkedIn I am going to ask you not penalize us if the funny content is not inside Linkedin. I will look to create a group that will be open for people to go into to find funny content. So your favourite jokes, and comedy stuff. Let's load it up. I will do this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and we will try to pull in my industry colleagues who I think are funny to add to the threads. As a community, we can't change time, but we can control the mental environment we go through this time in. I choose laughter.

Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I will aim to share a fact or source on laughter and comedy.

From the heart with care let's inject comedy into our community and **** covid and its mutations