Revisit events through laughter as a foundation for hope

Fresh from attending the ECPP (European Congress on Positive Psychology) in Dublin, here are some reflections. Among many illustrious and brilliant speakers, I would like to mention Dr. Dan Tomasulo from Columbia University. He talked about the Harmony Triad comprising Gratitude, Love, and Hope. Dr. Tomasulo said that gratitude was the first ingredient since it was required to get some grounding and is rooted in the past – what has already happened. This may require a re-framing of how things happened to express gratitude. This doesn’t mean re-writing history, rather looking at events afresh, perhaps with a different perspective. It may mean considering others who were part of what happened and being more aware of their contributions to the situation. This more nuanced appreciation of what happened may lead to looking forward with a more positive perspective and then hope becomes more accessible. His keynote talk “The Hopeful Mind: The Science of Learned Hopefulness for Positive Transformation” which he gave at the World Happiness Summit is both entertaining and erudite – well worth watching.

In terms of love and laughter, the key here is connection. Love is expressed in what Barbara Fredrickson calls micro-moments of connection. Smiling and laughing create and build connections. Fredrickson’s 2013 book Love 2.0 is a lovely easy read, giving a new broad take on love.

The pre-conference workshop I had attended was on Building a Hopeful Future run by some energetic and inspiring Antipodeans.  We were encouraged to think about cultivating a future which we shape rather than allow the future to just come at us. We were asked to think about and bring to life our hopeful futures through conversations and constructing art work. It was challenging to create a representation but provided a space to think about a more hopeful future. We agreed that hope is not just whimsical optimism, but can be built as a capacity. In other words, it can be active and a source of engagement and resilience, which can create a sense of agency. In other words, hope is not passive, it is an active process of shaping our futures.

This concept was beautifully described by the Pulitzer prizewinning novelist Barbara Kingsolver:

            “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. 

            The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching 

            The walls on both sides”.

So what has building hope got to do with laughter? Laughter allows us to let go. It brings us into the present. Many laughter-lab workshop participants have talked about how things which were not funny at the time may become funny on reflection. This is about re-framing and learning from sub-optimal situations and building the resources and resilience to cope better going forwards. Think about such a situation in your life – it is likely to be about something that you have turned into a story. Hopefully this is now a funny story stimulated by and spreading laughter.