Last night my wife and I met up with some friends for a great dinner and conversation. I love those times when you laugh so much your face hurts! It was the first time I’ve had a great steak in quite a while also. I mention the steak because my wife and I have been working hard on getting in shape for our upcoming trip to Cozumel in late November. We love SCUBA diving so we’re hoping that by getting in shape, we’ll not only look better, but won’t be so wiped out after a long day of diving. Oh, and I used to eat a lot of Ribeye’s with tons of fat on them…

Here’s my shameless plug (no affiliate links), but it’s really working! My wife and I are following the fitness tips found in the Vacation Body Blueprint, which is a free eBook you can get that outlines a basic routine for reducing body fat. We joined the gym on October 2nd and have been going 5 days a week since. It was slow going at first, but on October 13th I downloaded the eBook. At that point I weighed 183 lbs and was at about 24% body fat. As of this morning, I weigh 177 lbs and 20% body fat. I use a scale and a digital caliper to calculate body fat but I’m still not sure how accurate it is. But I can tell you, my pants are fitting better! The biggest key to loosing body fat, diet. Period. You need, on average, a calorie deficiency. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “you can’t out exercise a bad diet.” If interested in my workout, I can post that in another post (let me know of you guys are interested in my workout and diet), or you can follow the link and get the Vacation Body Blueprint.

OK, back to laughter…

Rule #62: Never take yourself too seriously

I love laughter so much. It really is like spiritual crack for the soul. Early in my recovery from alcoholism, I spent as many hours as possible with fellow addicts and alcoholics also trying to get well. We laughed a lot! Most importantly, I learned how to laugh at myself. Like how I used to drink 1/2 a large bottle of citrus flavored Listerine a night while living in a sober house. Yes, Listerine. I mean what do you expect, I was an alcoholic living in a house which didn’t allow alcohol… citrus flavored Listerine at 21.6% alcohol is the next obvious choice right? I often joke that it gave me horrific heart burn, but my breath sure smelled great! Later on in treatment I discovered from the doctors I was lucky I didn’t go into kidney failure. I laugh about it now, and many of the other self-destructive things I’ve done to myself.

I was so desperate for relief from my haunting past, I would take notes of things that gave me temporary relief from my self-pity and remorseful thinking. I mean really simple things, like, “yesterday I went out to eat dinner with a bunch of friends, we laughed a lot and I felt much better.”  Next time I started feeling lonely and depressed, whether I felt like doing anything about it or not, I would get out my list and repeat one of the things I had written down.

Laughter is so powerful, that when laughing, nothing else in the world matters. I think I always knew this, but during times of heavy emotional stress, laughter can be extremely healing; if only for a temporary distraction. Sure, when you’re knee-deep in crap it can be hard to find something to laugh about, but try anyway. OH, and it helps to have friends that make you laugh. Too much laughing at yourself alone may be a little disturbing.

Two bananas are laying on their backs next to each other on a river bank enjoying a peaceful afternoon. Next thing you know, one of the bananas notices a log floating down the river. As the log get’s closer, the banana realizes there’s a turd sitting right there on top of the log as it floats by. He casually points it out to the other banana and says, “huh, you believe that shit?”

This is Hilarious! Whenever I want a good laugh I just cue this up!

Laughter is Spiritual Crack is a post from: How To Be Happy
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