Oh, joy. Here it comes, the push to improve. Lose 20 pounds in 30 days. Sweep away the clutter. Organize those closets.
No need to stand in grocery lines reading magazine covers, we know what they’ll say. As the old year passes, we look ahead — again — to perfection in the new year.
Maybe we don’t feel like all that fixing. For some of us, it’s struggle enough to survive winter, this one especially.
Betsy Wright Loving, an Arlington psychotherapist and massage practitioner, suggests a couple of resolutions for the grouchy and unmotivated among us.
Laugh, that’s the easy one. And take time each day to be grateful.
Loving, who runs Seachange Counseling and Bodywork in Arlington, recently conducted workshops on laughter and “Gratitude Journaling for Winter (or Anytime) Blues.” Her presentations were part of a wellness event at Points &Pathways Holistic Center at Smokey Point.
Winter (or anytime) blues? She’s reading my mind.
For Loving, jotting things down for which she’s thankful each day has been a spirit- lifting habit.
“I didn’t invent it,” she said. Keeping a gratitude journal was the key in Sarah Ban Breathnach’s “Simple Abundance” books, featured several years ago on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
At risk of going all Oprah on you, it makes sense that if you dwell on life’s good stuff, there’s less time to be dragged down by the bad.
“I do it before I go to sleep, starting with ‘Today I’m grateful for …’ I try to think quickly, try to let it flow and write as many things as I can think of,” Loving said. “I might start with something as simple as ‘It feels really good to be in bed.’ But some things are much bigger — a friend, or somebody with a health problem is doing better.
“It changes our focus,” Loving said. “It’s like looking at a photograph or looking at a negative. It changes what’s in the foreground and what’s in the background. I personally think it’s really powerful.”
Loving writes thankful lists in longhand, using a favorite pen.
“If we’re paying attention to all the what-ifs and oh-my-Gods, we may not notice the gifts,” she said. “We’re too busy being afraid.”
After a year that saw the stock market sink and unemployment soar, isn’t fear a sensible reaction?
“Intense fear — What if I lose my house or lose my job? — it’s paralyzing,” Loving said.
Even with economic uncertainty, “I can count a thousand things to be grateful for, if I take the time. I’m healthy, I’m feeling good about my life,” Loving said.
Loving is a licensed psychotherapist and licensed massage therapist with a master’s degree in social work. She’s also a certified laughter leader, having been trained by a therapeutic laughter organization called the World Laughter Tour. “They do a two-day training in the Puget Sound area once a year,” said Loving, who was trained in 2005.
“Therapeutic laughter is lots of fun. It’s physical movement, breath work and silliness. It’s really good for people,” she said. “It changes the brain chemistry and it’s great for stress. People tend to be bluesy in this climate.”
Bluesy, right. And we only have an entire winter ahead of us.
Along with the weather, Loving said the holidays are anything but happy for many people. “Christmas can be a rough time,” she said.
Lending levity and community to winter’s darkness, Loving plans to start a weekly Laughter Club group. The free group will meet from 11:30 a.m. to noon each Wednesday starting Jan. 7 at Arlington’s Mirkwood and Shire Cafe.
“When I was learning to do laughter groups, I’d shut all the doors and practice,” she said. “It feels silly doing it alone. In our culture, we’re not good at opening up and laughing.”
No one knows what 2009 will bring. Loving is hopeful about change in the country’s leadership with the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
“I look at the economy, the problems with oil and climate change, and this big shift in our political scene. We all have lots of adjustments coming,” she said. “They may not all be yippee. They may be uncomfortable. But if changes come, they come. In my life, grumbling has not been known to slow them down.
“Maybe some healthy changes are coming,” Loving said. “Maybe we’re going to get a little happier with who we are.”
Maybe I’ll write that down. It can’t hurt.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Laughter group
Therapist Betsy Wright Loving is starting a weekly Laughter Club group in Arlington. The free group will meet from 11:30 a.m. to noon every Wednesday starting Jan. 7 at the Mirkwood and Shire Cafe, 117 E. Division Ave., in downtown Arlington. For more information, call 360-501-8894.
For learn more about therapeutic laughter, go to www.worldlaughtertour.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
