Let’s Laugh! The Fun of Mental Health and Emotional Wellness

What did the grape say when the elephant stepped on it?

Nothing. It just let out a little “whine”.

WARNING!!

This is not going to be a typical Mike Veny blog post. I’ve created a lot of content this year to address mental health and emotional wellness from a variety of viewpoints. We’ve dealt with difficult emotions and allowed ourselves to feel sad, angry, and upset. We’ve talked about self-care and how to find peace during uncertainty. And if you’re in a place where you need that information, I encourage you to check out the posts below.

BUT (and that’s a big but, hee-hee) if you’re ready for something a little different, scroll past that bulleted list and jump in below. And if you’re in that rough spot, I’d encourage you to keep reading past this list too. We all need a little positivity and silliness in our lives.

Mental health and wellness resources:

• Videos on Self-Care
• Self-Care Resources for Mental Health and Emotional Wellness
• How to Stand Firm and Take Back Your Power from the Emotional and Mental Challenges of 2020
• Is 2020 A Year of Devastating Trauma or Incredible Resilience: The Choice is Yours
• Tense & Triggered: How to Defuse Conflict in a Year of Pandemic, Politics, and Protests
• How to Find Peace in Times of Uncertainty

What do you need to finish off this year strong?

As we quickly approach the end of 2020 there are two things that I think we need to turn our attention to: (1) Reflection and (2) FUN!

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We’re going to hit briefly on the reflection part and then we’re going to deep dive into talking about FUN!

It’s time for a little reflection

Last year at this time we were full of goal setting and excitement over the “new decade” coming. People and businesses were focusing on the “vision” for 2020 and beyond. The marketing just seemed to write itself: “20/20 is the year for vision”. I mean, you can’t get much better than that.

But life got in the way of many of those things this year. Yet here we are again at another time period where our focus starts to turn to goal setting.

Some of you may be thinking something like “What’s the point? I made plans last year and they all fell apart,” or “How can I plan when so many things are still up in the air?” And that’s all true. Those are valid thoughts and feelings. So, I’m not going to push the matter on that right now. If you want goal-setting tips for 2021, find a life coach or business coach to work with.

I want you to focus instead on reflecting over the year, but there’s a twist. You’re only allowed to reflect on the good parts of the year. I know the horrible, scary, anxious, and traumatic ones are the ones that fill your mind without you even trying, so this might take a little work. But I’ll help you out.

Prompts for positive reflection

No matter how bad your year was, and I know it was very bad for some of you, there were still positive things that happened around you. If your focus was on all the bad, some of these things went unnoticed by you and you’re going to have to really focus to look back to find them now.

Here are some questions and prompts I want you to take a minute and answer. I want you to actually grab a piece of paper or your journal and a pen and start writing:

1. What was a positive conversation you had this year?

Who was that conversation with? What did you talk about? What makes it stand out in your mind?

2. List three successes that you had this year.

And don’t try to tell me that you didn’t have three successes because I know you did. I’m not asking for “major life or business successes” (although if you had them, by all means, celebrate them). Just think of three, even everyday type, successes.

3. Who did you help this year?

Did you donate something? Did you give a word of encouragement to someone? Maybe you heavily discounted the price of a product you offer in order to help those who took a financial hit this year. Think about something positive you did for someone else.

4. Write down a funny story from the year.

Maybe it was something funny that your kid said at dinner. Or maybe you had a similar experience to this lady whose boss accidentally turned herself into a potato during their video meeting.

This year I used some of the downtime from the pandemic to make some major changes to my website. I had created a new page to showcase some of my videos on my website. When I had it completed, I sent the link to my content director. She replied asking me if I had meant to put a dinosaur video on the website.

That’s right. I had somehow included a Land Before Time YouTube video along with my mental health and wellness videos. Weird things happen to the best of us. Instead of stressing about them, enjoy them!

5. What priorities did you discover this year that you had forgotten?

I’m not going to give you too much of a prompt here because this answer can be so very different for each individual. Just think for a minute of any insights you gained around your priorities this year.

Do you see it? Look at your paper. Good things happened this year! And good things are going to continue to happen, even in the midst of difficult times.

But enough about that.

Let’s break away from work and all seriousness!

The news (I’m sorry, I promise not to mention the news again after this) has reported that people are fatigued from remote work. Raise your hand if you’ve had about enough of video conferences and feel a little like doing this. ⬇

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Give yourself a laughing break

If you’re a boss or manager, I encourage you to email this blog post link to your staff and encourage them to step away from the work for a minute, and just enjoy a few minutes of purely funny nonsense.

This is a great way to tell if your employees think you’re a little uppity and unrelatable because it will catch them off guard. Assure them it’s really from you, and all enjoy together.

I dare you not to crack a smile at these videos

Okay, I might have lied above. These videos include the news. But who doesn’t love laughing at news bloopers? We tend to think of the news as “super serious” but these clips show the funnier side of newscasters.

And who doesn’t love a little competition, especially with some corny jokes:

Now that you’re full of corny jokes, share the love. Text a couple of jokes to your friends and family members. Make them laugh.

What do you like to do for fun?

In a year of stress, we have to be more intentional than ever about having fun. And I’m not talking about go sit and read a book alone, meditate or all the other things we think of as “self-care-ish”. I’m talking about just laugh out loud, laugh until you cry, smile until your face hurts, walk away with that happy feeling kind of fun.

That’s what we NEED!

Here are a few examples to get your wheels turning:

Have a dance party!

There are a lot of things I like to do for fun. Back in the day, when they were still open in NYC, I enjoyed going to nightclubs from time to time. That might not be an option for you right now, but why not relive those pre-responsible adult days and create your own?

Turn your living room into a nightclub. If you live in an apartment or townhouse, you might need to be considerate of your neighbors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun. Mix up your favorite drinks and create your favorite playlist. Remember, at your own club you can play all your favorites.

Got kids? Show them the moves you used to have. If you have teenagers, they’ll probably be embarrassed even if no one else is around, but remember, they need to have a little fun and blow off some steam this year too. I promise you that they won’t forget it.

Speaking of teenagers, if you’re the parent of one, you can probably relate to this:

If you’re in the office, have a 5-minute dance break. Throw on some ’80s or ’90s jams and watch the personalities emerge from employees who are exhausted from this year.

If you’re in the office, have a 5-minute dance break. Throw on some ’80s or ’90s jams and watch the personalities emerge from employees who are exhausted from this year.

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Do a little laughter yoga

If you haven’t heard of laughter yoga before, it’s a game-changer. You may be tempted to want to try it by yourself, and it can work like that, but I encourage you to do the video with another person, even if it’s through video. There is something about feeling ridiculously silly near another person that gets everyone laughing.

It’s a great way to laugh away tension, give yourself a much needed boost, and connect with other people if you do it together.

I give you permission to be super-duper silly. Forget about all those rules and restrictions you think you have to follow to “act like an adult” for a few minutes. Adulting can suck at times. So give yourself permission to just be goofy from time to time.

Make time to play!

Let’s face it, we can get pretty boring as adults. Whether you have kids or not, making time to play can help you have fun and laugh. And there are about a million different ways that you can play.

You could play a sport. Some of your options might be a little limited right now, but depending on your situation, see what’s available to you.

If you have snow outside, start a snowball fight. Just make sure that you’re more successful than this guy. ⬇

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Or break out the old board games. Don’t have any board games? Make your own Pictionary or Charades. 

Buy some Play-Doh and see what you can create. Build a Lego city in your living room. Relive your childhood days. If you didn’t have a good childhood, do some of the things you wish you had gotten to as a child. 

Bump up your movie-watching game

If you want to watch a movie in your downtime, don’t just sit on the couch. Build a fort out of your furniture and blankets. Throw the cushions down to make it comfy and get the best snacks you can think of.

A friend and I used to enjoy having burgers delivered and then eating them while happily watching horror movies.

Choose the movies that you get into the most. Rewatch those stupid-humor movies that you just can’t help but laugh over. The Hangover is one of my favorites!

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Just have fun!

That’s really the message that I hope you walk away from this blog post with. Yes, there are serious things that are taking place all around us. But when all we do is focus on them, it steals our joy and that’s not good for our mental health or emotional wellness.

Even in the midst of an unprecedented year (let’s hope not to have to keep using that word for much longer), we can still have fun. I challenge you to make having fun your goal so it spreads to those around you.

No, wait—that sounds a little too “adult-ish” for the point I want to drive home. How about this… I double-dog-dare you to have fun until the people around you are having fun too.

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Let’s make that the way that we close out 2020.

Speaking of fun, if you want to bring a little fun to your team meetings, I know a guy who delivers pretty fun virtual or in-person presentations to boost emotional wellness.