When did I get so serious?

Do you ever sit and think when was the last time I laughed? And I don’t mean the pitiful laugh that you give someone when they make a bad joke. I mean proper belly laugh, where all your negative thoughts fade away and all you feel is pure joy. Well for me, it’s been a long blooming time and in all honesty that makes me sad.

The moment that triggered this thought was when I was practicing yoga the other evening. I was not alone in my practice as my pup Stan wanted to show me how a downward facing dog was really done (it was pretty impressive!) As I laid on my back he was literally throwing himself on my face and I couldn’t see a thing. In the past, this kind of behaviour has frustrated me, I’ve pushed him away and acted like I was trying to connect with my inner monk and didn’t have time for his playfulness. However, this time was very different, I could not stop laughing and I really embraced that joyful moment with him.

So, my question is, when did everything become so serious? When I reflect on this I realise that over the years I have become more and more long-faced. Allowing my negative thoughts and what feels like an uptight attitude to ruin these little moments of joy. The thing is when I was younger I was always happy, cheerful and loved being silly. I guess that’s like most of us when we were kids because we hadn’t yet felt the weight of the world on our shoulders.

I have no doubt my seriousness has come from my diagnosis and living life with a chronic illness. Always feeling on edge and uncertain about what’s next and what I might have to deal with. The problem with that though is that I am constantly living in fear of the future, worrying about things that I don’t even know are going to happen and that means I’m missing all the beautiful things in front of me right now.

There are so many daily occurrences that we can derive joy from and I think the biggest challenge is allowing ourselves to do this. I’ve often felt like it’s abnormal for me to have these moments of pure happiness. Reminding myself of my condition and thinking ‘This is all very serious, why are you laughing?’ The truth is, I bloody miss laughing. I miss the silliness, I miss acting like a complete plonker and having people laugh along with me.

They say that laughter is the best medicine and I’m going to have to agree. From now on I’m going to try and be more Mr Bean and a little less Miss Trunchbull.

🧠

I just had to include a picture of Stan as it’s been a while!