The Inner Oil Spill: “Habits of Harm To Habits of Humor!”

This oil spill has sent me into an inner place of reflection which unless one is “dead” or numbed beyond hope is probably the experience of many of us.

Since I believe that what is going on outside ourselves is a direct reflection of what is going on inside ourselves,  I have asked myself where am I inviting pollution into my mind and spewing it out into the world?

These habits of harm are just that, habits, mindless ways of thinking and behaving in our every day.   They embody thoughts, comments, and actions continuously spewed out into the “common air” like the oil spewing out into the “common home” of the ocean.

As we are finding in the Gulf, the clean-up is not so easy. It takes a conscious effort and a consistent practice to transform harm.  It often feels like trying to change the direction of a huge ocean liner.

Where to begin?

Put  your attention on habits of health.  Rather than obsessing on the pollution, shift attention to cultivating a new life affirming garden in your mind; a committed focus  to the “greening” of your mind, your behavior, and our planet.

In choosing  ”the greening”,  we choose a shift, a shift away from habits of harm.  I recommend a shift tohabits of humor.

One master at transforming the utterly horrendous is Mel Brooks who wrote “Springtime for Hitler” in the musical, The Producers.  One can only laugh and deeply emulate someone who can take something so grotesque and shift us into a brain swelling happy place that is so opposite the expected response.

Another is thebreast scarves image posted on this blog,  a “habit of humor” response to breast cancer.

The thing about these humor shifts is that they change our brain by stimulating a particularly luscious part of the brain that triggers a feel good place,  a sense of “we can handle this”,  a sense of positivity that is empowering!

Habits of humor trigger laughter and laughter is power, an engine for fueling change!  Laughter shifts people, it shifts moods, it shifts a feeling of hopelessness.   Use humor and laughter to fuel you, to embolden you.  It is far more disarming and unpredictably effective than anger and blame.

The fact is we get nowhere by staying in the muck, seeking the muck, speaking the muck, or seeing the muck!

So, where to begin?

• Irreverence is a good start followed  by finding the absurdity in the “serious”.
• Think in terms of a humor plan of action that you consciously cultivate so that when situations arise that are all too serious, you can use the opportunity to practice habits of humor.
• I put on a clown red nose when stuck in absurdly long traffic jams on interstates (which seem to be caused mostly by people gawking at something that is no longer happening! ).  I wave to the neighboring cars on my right and left, smiling through the big red schnoz!  It changes my brain chemistry and that of  the drivers, some of them, anyway.
• Sometimes I launch into silly poetry like “ladies and gents and dogs without fleas” (scroll down the linked page) when conversations become tedious or negative to the point of sending my energy down the toilet.   Silly poems are a great way to scramble the brain into thinking differently and delighting your listener as you go.
• You might really up the ante and practice “the red nose of courage” which is doing something utterly courageous to shift the prevailing mood or mindset.   Take a lesson from the laughing guy on the metro and then find a buddy and shake up the next line you find yourself standing  in for what seems like hours.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jedd2FiZTqM

We may not be able to personally clean up the oil spill, but we can for dam sure clean up the inner oil spill and cultivate our own inner greening. The magic is that this inner clean-up shifts the thinking that creates the soiling of our outer home.  Magic is afoot!   Never underestimate the power of habits of humor!