How Do I Develop My Sense Of Humor?

DEAR SHERRY:

Do you have any recommendations for developing one's sense of humor? Maybe there is a book I could read. My interest stems from realizing how important a sense of humor is to our well-being. Laughing, especially a deep belly laugh, is so cathartic. I'm not looking to become a comedian but I'm interested in cultivating more humor in my life that is intelligent and beyond the cheap joke at another's expense that is so prevalent in our society.

Thanks!

DYING TO DEEP BELLY LAUGH

DEAR DYING TO DEEP BELLY LAUGH:

Thanks so much for writing in!

This was a tricky question for me, as I have often not gotten jokes and end up being the butt of the joke in my family. I have developed my sense of humor through the years and these are some things that have been helpful to me:

Learn about what you find funny. It has helped me to pay attention to funny thoughts that come up during my interactions and then try them out with someone I feel safe with. I have this one relationship that is coming to my mind, where I would say, “I just thought of something really funny”, and she would say, “Say it, you have to say it!” I was a little nervous, because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I would muster up the courage and say it, and we would have a deep belly laugh! I value the connection we have and the safe space to try it out.

Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and letting people know you don’t get a joke or understand what they said, can help you develop your sense of humor. As I said, I often do not get jokes. I also might not understand a word someone uses or what they said. I will tell people that I didn’t get the joke, what something meant, or the word they used and ask them to explain it to me. Over the years, I have noticed I can understand more jokes through this process and, sometimes me saying I didn’t understand something leads to deep belly laughter. For example, a friend of mine is an excellent hostess, and as she was preparing her Thanksgiving dinner. I checked in to see if her day was going smoothly and she replied, “So far, so good! One more coat of Macau’s and I am good to go.” I replied, “I am going to pretend that I know what that is and when I have a minute, I’m going to look it up.” I thought it was some fancy sauce. She replied, “OMG!! Lol!! MASCARA!!!!” She misspelled mascara in the original text, and if I didn’t allow myself to be vulnerable and say that I didn’t know what that was, we wouldn’t have had that great laugh!

Noticing the irony of things can be funny. As a therapist, people come to see me and talk about very serious things. As you said, laughter is good for our well-being. Someone may be explaining something that someone did that made them so mad and I might say something like, “who does that sound like''? It is funny, because in that moment, they are seeing something in someone else that they don’t like, that they tend to do.

Allow yourself to play and be in the moment. As adults, we have responsibilities, and I find that many adults are living very stressed or worried. If one is living like this, it doesn’t allow you to relax and truly connect with yourself and your environment. It helps to engage in relaxing activities to open yourself up. Kids laugh all the time. Think about things you enjoyed doing as a child, and do them. This can help you to connect to your child within.

Learning to laugh at yourself is key. If it is hard to laugh at yourself, it could be helpful to explore why that is. It will help you to be more open. We all do and say silly things that can be hysterical! Recently, I have had one of the biggest laughs at myself. One of my favorite things to do is go to the beach and watch the sunset. When my sister was visiting from France, we decided to go to the beach with a bottle of wine and watch the sunset. When we arrived, she turned her beach chair away from the water, and I faced mine toward the water. I said, “What are you doing? Why are you facing your chair that way?” She said, “Because the sun is setting over here”. I said, “No it doesn’t, it sets over the water.” I looked, and I sure as hell saw the sun, and it wasn’t above the water. I thought it must set over the water at different times of year, because I was certain, I had sat at this beach and watched the sunset many times. I scrolled through the pictures on my phone looking for proof, and I had many photos at the beach while the sun was setting. As I looked at each image, not one of them had the sun setting in it. I saw different colors in the sky and the light hitting it a certain way at that time of day, but no sun. Boy, did my sister and I have a deep belly laugh. Every time I think of that story, or tell that story, I laugh so hard. A friend of mine sent me a photo of the very beach the other day and the caption said, “almost sunset” with obviously no sun. I was dying laughing!

I hope you found this helpful: as I said, this question was hard for me, I really had to think about this a lot. It was a good process for me, thank you! I am very curious about what thoughts my readers have? I would love for you to share them!

Here's to a life filled with deep belly laughs!

Love,

Sherry