This webpage on grieving humor therapy will endeavor to make you realize the therapeutic effects humor can have on getting through the grieving process.
Although grieving is a necessary step towards healing and closure, it can be made easier by using humor to give you a lift and different perspective at a time when you need it most.
The following quote says it all: "I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have -Life itself." - Walter Anderson, American Magazine
Losing a loved one, especially a child, is a heart wrenching experience. My daughter's death was tragic and shocking. Made all the more difficult, as she left behind a two and a half year old son, who would never know anything about his mother, other than what was told to him by his dad and grandparents.
Before my daughter passed away from cancer, I had made a pact with her that together we would write her biography, so that her son could at least read what his mother was like, and what characteristics he would find having in common with his mom.
She passed away before we ever could start the biography together. However, I promised her that I would write the biography myself. This proved to be the most difficult task that I had ever undertaken in my life.
I could not get started without being overcome with grief, until I realized that I had always wanted to write about humor. Humor had consistently helped me through many difficult situations in my career.
I wrote my first book titled 'The Power of Humor'. It enabled me to complete my daughter's biography simultaneously, which provided healing and closure for me.
After writing the book, I started speaking about humor and laughter and have since written 3 more books along with numerous newspaper and magazine articles.I have been interviewed on TV, radio and numerous podcasts.
Thirteen years after losing my daughter, I lost my wife to cancer. Again, it was my writing and the humor and laughter principles gained all those years, that again helped me cope with the loss, and go on with life.Grieving humor therapy works!
Research by Dacher Keltner and George Bonanno revealed that "The more widows and widowers laughed and smiled during the early months after their spouse's death, the better their mental health was over the first two years of bereavement."
When something ends, something else begins. We have to be open to the many things that life offers, despite the loss we experienced. I am sure that the ones we lost would want us to go on and embrace life, rather than being mired in grief.
Happiness is a state of mind. The more you think about happy things, after a while it will become easier to do so.
"The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us" - Voltaire, French philosopher
Laughter can heal in a big way. There is even such a thing as the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor - http://www.aath.org where you can research on this topic.
The therapeutic impacts of humor and laughter