self care – Ginger Simpson White

laughter yoga, anxiety, lightness…

As part of my healing journey, I’ve started taking time each day for some laughter yoga.

Laughter yoga is something I’ve thought of doing for years because I’ve long known the benefits of laughter when it comes to physical and emotional health. But I procrastinated and put it on the back burner, thinking to myself “oh yes, I need to look that up on youtube” whenever I happened to think of it at all.

But thanks to the brain retraining and neural rewiring I’ve been deeply diving into lately (because of my physical healing journey, as well as to help with my lifelong anxiety), laughter yoga came back into my awareness several times over the course of a few days. And my procrastination about it finally came to an end.

What is laughter yoga?

Well, this is the definition according to wikipedia: Laughter yoga (Hasyayoga) is a practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter. This type of yoga is based on the belief that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter. It is done in groups, with eye contact, jokes and playfulness between participants. Forced laughter often turns into real and contagious laughter.

I haven’t been doing it with a group (I’m not aware of any groups in my area for laughter yoga) but youtube has been filling in just fine.

And the laughter changes things… Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. After even a few minutes of laughter yoga, I notice a decrease in anxiety and a new level of lightness to my mood. I’ve also noticed that the benefits stay with me long after I stop the laughter yoga session. The good-feeling energy-shifting of the laughing spills over into the rest of my day.

I’m doing lots of other things to decrease anxiety, engage with joy, and help cope with physical symptoms. Laughter yoga is only one tool of many in my toolkit.

But so far it’s proving to be a very helpful tool.

There are many laughter yoga videos on youtube – way more than I’ve watched. Here’s one I’ve used:

It can feel a bit strange at first, it can feel not-really-funny at first, but the laughter becomes contagious. Before long, I’m laughing just because.

It’s those mirror neurons firing.

And the results are good stuff.

♥

life challenges and changes…

As winter begins here in the hemisphere where I live, my little household has been dealing with health challenges that have forced us to slow down… but these challenges have also brought reminders of blessings, and support (seen and unseen), and priorities, and creative solutions.

As I recover from an illness at the same time my husband recovers from surgery, we’re taking this time to rest, to be together, to be grateful for what we have, and to think about our next steps.

Before I got sick in November, I had been working regularly on fiction – and I’ll be back to that very soon.

Fiction writing has been a through-line in my life for as long as I’ve been able to form letters into words. There have been some bumps in the road resulting in times not writing, but over and over I continue to get reminders that it’s one of my purposes in this life… And I’m looking forward to getting back to work on my current project.

And although I haven’t felt up to writing during this time of my own sickness and my husband’s health issues and surgery, I did make it to canvas a few times. Only for short spurts now and then, but even that much helps me stay connected to creativity and the painting flow.

This has been a time of taking it easy. Resting. Replenishing. Nourishing body and soul and spirit.

It has been a time of finding creative solutions to deal with limitations of sickness and surgery… but we’re doing it.

It has been a time of connecting even more strongly to my spiritual faith, trust, and knowing all will be well (no matter what).

It has been a time of love – love between me and my husband, love given and received to family and friends, reconnecting with people, and our cute Chloe bringing her usual joy and loving presence into our household.

And it has been a time of becoming more clear about how I’m being guided to live and spend my time, what I’m being guided to do, and what I’m being guided to let go of.

This feels like the right time for these shifts… I became another year older last weekend, the wheel of the year has just made another turn with the Solstice and we’re about to shift into days lengthening but in winter’s grip for a few months, and one year is about to end and another begin.

One thing I’m letting go of is doing work as Subtle Harmony.

Since 2010, my Subtle Harmony shop has been on Etsy with my crafts, creations, and offerings, and then a couple of years later it expanded to be my own Subtle Harmony website in addition to my Etsy shop.

But it’s time to let go of doing my work under that name, and it’s time to let go of doing certain work completely. Whether some of what I once did with Subtle Harmony will return one day… I honestly don’t know the answer to that right now. Even if it does, it won’t be with that name.

What I do know right now is that I’m being guided to focus on writing, especially fiction.

I’m being guided to continue to create – and at some point I may offer those creations again, just not with the Subtle Harmony name.

And I’m being guided to continue to focus on self care, soul nourishment, connection to joy, and living true.

What I do might look a bit different now…

But it feels very right.

♥

you will have created something…

Creativity matters. Making art matters.

It doesn’t matter if you think it’s any good or not. It doesn’t matter if you make money at it or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s something big or something small.
It’s part of soul-nourishment and self-care.

It’s part of living a fulfilling life and connecting to your inner self.

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” ~Kurt Vonnegut

Create something. Anything.

Do it for your soul.

♥