Lighten Up

Somewhere I read that these are supposed to be short and pithy. Well, I'm short and pithy, so I feel like my work is already done for me.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the most repeated advice I get from my guidance council is "stop taking yourself so seriously," so I've decided to take them seriously and make it my life's work. This week. I make a lot of these decisions.

I know I've brought this up before, and I'm going to keep doing it. Levity lets in the light.

Once upon a time my brother was about 18 or 19 and really going through it. It was just him and my mom living in the house. He would get all bent out of shape about something and get all up in my mom's face about It like whatever It was was her fault. I was visiting, and she was just exasperated and venting about how she had no idea how to talk to him. Nothing she said would fix anything, and his diatribes were really kind of absurd.

So I said "throw stuff at him."

I was met with a slightly horrified and very baffled stare.

I rolled my eyes. "No! Not like rocks or cutlery or anything. Like socks or kleenex!"

The stare morphed into a doubtful frown.

About 2 days after I had returned home, she called me and said she had done it. He had gotten all bunched up about something and was giving her hell about it. "So I threw a napkin at him." He apparently looked at her funny and cranky and threw it back at her, which then devolved into a mother-son napkin fight in the kitchen, all genuine hostility neutralized. This hucking of lightweight objects became a code for her to tell him to get over himself and lighten up.

I'm not saying that this solved all our family problems from then on out, but it brought peace and light to a moment that would otherwise have weighed down both parties, allowing for a different vantage point. It opened up a possibility.

I don't know why I thought throwing something would be a solution, except that it was absolutely obvious to me that the situation was ridiculous and needed to look at itself in the mirror.

Because it's funny!

You know, ladies and gents, all there is in the entire cosmos is Source. Is Love. We're each unique expressions of this ever-expanding light. That's all we are. And we always will be. We are each perfect and perfectly loved in every moment. So it's okay to laugh when things seem utterly hopeless. To laugh in the face of grief and destruction and fear. These are all just thoughts that we don't have to cling to. They're just bubbles that we can pop with an argyle knee-high flung at just the right angle.

Yes, there is suffering, but that's a choice, too. I know a lot of arguing can be done around that assertion, but suffering only happens when we hang on to the balloon string and get tangled in the power lines.

Let go and let the light in!