Humor as Medicine in the Home

Have you ever found yourself talking with your spouse about something stressful which pressingly needs to be discussed…like, now? Meanwhile, your young child or children are in the room, and they will inevitably be stressed out, too? Your solid parenting instinct recognizes this, so you try going into another room. However, because your children are magnets, they follow you, too. Not only that, the more you try to shelter them from your stress, the more stressed they get! You’re stuck. What do you do?

I found myself in that situation this morning, and that’s when my inner clown emerged. I changed my tone of voice from seriously stressed to joking. My wife followed suit. Imagine two clowns talking about something triggering like finances or a stressful health situation (it wasn’t that btw), and you will have a picture of our living room this morning. I actually started laughing in the process and that lightened my whole relationship it. My wife did, too, and so did our child. What began as stress became a source of levity.

I aspire to act that freely all the time and so often fall short. However, I find that humor is great medicine. In some ways, it can make all the difference. Rudolf Steiner remarks on how important humor is in teaching children and even just being a human being. That’s why he carved the being of humor into his great statute, the Representative of Humanity. This is no easy work, but it is greatly helped by practicing the Six Basic Exercises. Which gives us the strength to made freer choices when it matters most.