177 – Laugh at yourself and pat yourself

How do we do this? How can we laugh at ourselves? Why should I laugh at myself? The answer to these questions is how seriously you take yourself. I will start with what happens when we go to the Beauty Salon.

We are told that we need to nourish our hair, and our skin is dry and thirsty. We should use these serums which are miraculous and it will change our appearance. I can go on, but I will stop here. Now just think about it if our hair and skin were nourished by these potions, it would be a miracle. Would our appearance be transformed by these unguents? It would be phenomenon. Give a huge laugh internally at the enormous expense and feel good about it.

The salon is promoting its goodies, which literally make you feel good because they are so well presented. If you ask the assistants, they will say with a straight face, that it is an amazing product. I am reminded of fairy tales and abracadabra. We come under the magic in the salon, with its lights and fragrances. Again a good laugh will bring you to reality and richer as you have not bought all the stuff.

I remember, I bought a hair lotion which everybody was talking about. It made your grow long and lustrous. It was expensive and when I brought it home, my husband dropped the bottle accidentally. I was so mad and then he said, “Step aside, the hair is growing on the ground.” Of course we started laughing and could not stop. There are so many things which are quite absurd, we take them seriously, but if we laugh at ourselves about it, we find we can see the reality.

Now I come to patting yourself. Have you noticed when you pat your pet and stroke your cat, how pleased they look? Patting is a wonderful thing and when we were patted by our parents and teachers, we loved it. If we started patting ourselves physically, everyone would laugh at us and so would we. I am speaking about the mental patting. It is amazing, and it worked remarkably well in the times of covid, when we were all so fraught with anxiety.

When you have accomplished a task, just tell yourself well done. There are so many activities in the day and we must not become hypercritical about ourselves. Of course the given is that we must be modest. Giving yourself self-approval or even applauding is healthy. Be appreciative of when you make a coffee and it’s delicious. You will be surprised how it restores your equilibrium.

You have given your dog a bath with your shampoo, and s/he is smelling like roses, pat him/her and mentally pat yourself. Your dog will of course will try and roll in some muck, but for that time you both remain happy. Self-patting can be done for handling a tricky relationship, controlling anger, being generous, not overeating and being reasonable.

Laughter and patting yourself raise your level of self-worth. You learn not to take yourself too seriously and also not undermine yourself. Again, we touch down on our thoughts, laughter and self-patting enable us to see the world through the clean mirror of our mind. Add the breath awareness to the mixture, become conscious of your inhalation and exhalation. Your thoughts will become funny and foolish and lose their intensity. I have coined the word self-patting, and I find it very powerful.

Aim Hrim Klim

 

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

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