In conjunction with the concept of using natural substances to heal like with homeopathy, it has always been said that one of the best "cure-all" remedies has been to release intense emotions with crying or laughter. Often, counselors and therapists will encourage sobbing when clients open up about troubling experiences. Physiologically, laughing and crying both reduce cortisol, a stress hormone, while raising endorphin and serotonin levels, both feel good hormones. Although they seems dichotomous, laughter and sobbing are remarkably similar which has lead to the common behaviors of laughing until crying or crying until it morphs into belly-shaking laughter.
This concept captured me during lecture and how applicable it is to everyday life. Emotions are timeless as we've seen countless times in Ovid and it has reached me through my bad day.
I believe my bad day began on a Monday (go figure) over the summer. I was sitting in a coffee shop explaining my upcoming fall class schedule to my brother and was excitedly telling him how I would only need to take 15 credits fall semester and 12 credits in the spring in order to graduate. It was then he gave me a deep, puzzled look and told me there was no way I had taken enough credits over the last 3 years in order to 'slack' senior year. Determined he was wrong about this, I printed off my transcript and showed him I had fulfilled all my requirements. WRONG! He informed me I was about 47 credits shy of my graduating target. Definitely too many to complete over 2 semesters. This also informed me that all my plans post-graduation would also be postponed. Plans like moving across the country and beginning graduate school, doing extensive traveling and having a blast. I'd be stuck in Bozeman another year. Crying commenced. In all of my research of trying to figure out how to counter this bad news I lost track of time and realized I was late for work. I scrambled to pack up my computer and books, ran out of the coffee shop, threw my stuff in my car and proceeded to speed down the road toward work. I made it to the corner of 19th and Main Street when my car died. I panicked and tried to restart it. Nothing. The light turned green and the line up of cars were itching to move, nearing closer and closer to my bumper encouraging me to move. Thankfully, a man next to me saw my car stalled out and helped me to push it out of the way. Crying commenced. I called my work to let them know I wouldn't be able to make it into work. And although my boss understood, she had a new edge to her voice than she did before and I could tell she was frustrated. I hung up then called a tow company to pick me up. Crying commenced. Finally, after 2 hours of sitting alone on a busy corner, I was rescued by the tow company. By the end of the day, I was completely overwhelmed and had exhausted my tears. That was when I began to laugh. Everything went so completely wrong that all I could do was chuckle about the day's events. It was almost a relief after feeling so drained from all the crying to finally laugh.
Its easy to slip into despair when I feels like everything goes pear-shaped, but I think that this idea that crying and laughter can occur simultaneously is important. It helps to realize that the journey to happiness isn't really a journey at all. Getting caught up in 'what needs to be done' and always looking forward to something new and exciting can blind you from the fact that your life isn't going to start sometime down the road. Life is happening now.
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