Bonus: How Humor Can Help in Hard Times

When a crisis hits or heartbreak happens, it’s certainly no laughing matter. However, at some point in our coping process, humor may have a place. Last week’s guest on the episode “Knocking Down Life’s Obstacles”,  Lisa Jesswein talked about how learning to laugh at things helped her survive and even thrive during some pretty extreme adversity. In this bonus episode, we’ll hear a little more on that from Lisa and talk about how it’s helped us also.  Through all of it, we hope to encourage and equip you to use humor to help where it's appropriate as well.

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Transcript

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:02]:

Welcome to Imagine Yourself, where we help you imagine your next chapter of life with grace, gratitude, courage, and faith.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:10]:

Thanks for joining us today. I'm Lanee here with Sandy. And today, we have a big question to ask. Do you really Think that laughter is the best medicine, and I'm all in with a big fat yes on that. How about you, Sandy?

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:28]:

I am definitely And with a big fat yes. And since we had Lisa Jesswein on our last episode, who's been through more adversity in her life than than any, like, 10 or 20 people that I know. She talked about how laughter really helped her get through hard times, things like Two kidney transplants and 2 hip replacements and just medical issues from when she was a child onto Her adulthood. And I thought, well, you know what? If she can do it, then any one of us could do it. And recently, I was trying to think of an example in my life of How that happened. And we did have something tragic happen in that our dog passed away, and we had had her for 11 years. We adopted her when she was 4, had her till she was 15. And, it was hard on all of us.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:18]:

But one thing that got us through was not just sharing memories about her, but telling funny stories about silly things that she did. You know Ali. Remember Ali?

Lanée Blaise [00:01:28]:

I know both your cat and dog, And they had a very interesting relationship. They did. Which I've you know, I'm so sorry for your loss, but I know your cat Might actually not be grieving as much as Mike because it kinda gets to be the star of the show now.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:46]:

Yeah. Krypton is Very spoiled. He's the center of attention now. You know how cats are too. They always thought that they're the head of the household anyway. As a matter of fact, during Ali's later years and she was a little less picky about what was going on, she would let Krypton eat Next to her, like, on a they she ate on a tray, as opposed to a bowl. And so Krypton would literally get in the tray and eat with her. We call it co eating.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:12]:

It was really funny to watch. We'd let it go on for a while, but then, of course, you know, we'd have to pull Krypton away. That was one of the funny stories we'd share along with, you know, Ali tripping him going down the stairs and just the different things that they did together. So, yeah, humor helped us get it through now. We wouldn't have right after she passed away, we didn't start telling jokes or Even Yeah. Really sharing that many videos. It was only after we had had a chance to process, but it helped.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:38]:

And I it helps. It actually it just helps the whole journey through. I come from a big family, and I've got lots of sisters and 1 brother. Poor baby. He's so 6 of us girls and 1 dude. But, it's one of those situations I just kinda look back and reflect on All the different ups and downs we've had along the way as far as health things, and I think about what our guest from the last episode, Lisa, Was kinda telling us to try to, you know, remember some of those things. And even while you're in the midst of some of it, trying to keep your humor intact. And I just remember when I was 13 years old, I had been through sex education at school and learning all about how to Keep yourself safe and make sure you don't have situations.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:27]:

And that exact year, both my mom and my stepmom Thought that something was really wrong with them. My mother kept exercising and exercising, but she kept getting heavier and heavier. My stepmom kept going to doctor after doctor saying something is wrong with me. I feel sick every day, and we were just really worried. And 9 months later, my mom popped up with a baby. You're my mom and stepdad. And then my dad And stepmom popped up with twins.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:59]:

Oh my goodness. 

Lanée Blaise [00:04:01]:

so it's like one of those things where they were both 40 years old also. And so this is not like a tragedy, but imagine yourself 40 years old already with kids thinking that you're done and then pop up with twins. So Just, you know

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:16]:

Now you got a great story.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:18]:

It all worked out. They're wonderful. I love all my little sisters, love my little brother, but it's just something where humor It's just wonderful. I love it in our relationships. The with my husband, we try to, like, make things light and funny with so that you can kinda Temper down arguments.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:34]:

Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:34]:

All that good stuff.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:35]:

Oh, we do the same thing. As a matter of fact, we always say that that is the thing that gets us through is humor. You You know, like, a lot of couples will have our own little private jokes. And, of course, watching funny stuff together is fun too. Sometimes, we like to kick back and, Watch old Seinfeld episodes. That's now on Netflix. They just put that back on Netflix.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:56]:

So it's like If you think about it, that's actually comedians. Their entire career is to help people remove themselves from the regular frustrations of life And kinda transport us to a place where we can feel free and laugh. Comedians are kinda heroes in their own way.

Sandy Kovach  [00:05:16]:

Yes. They are. Yeah. I mean, whether you're watching Spice Adams on Instagram or you're watching Seinfeld on TV, It definitely helps. And Lisa used to love Carol Burnett. In fact, the picture on our blog is with her book. She was she said she was Very inspired by her. And you read that too.

Sandy Kovach  [00:05:33]:

Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:05:34]:

Yeah. I don't know exactly what made me do this, but, I think it was Amazon told me, this is a book that you might like, Lanee. So I ended up buying and reading Carol Burnett's autobiography, this time together, laughter and reflection. And she just talks about how she had this dysfunctional family that loved each other, and that is just kinda how that whole comedy Thread ran through her, and I know that Lisa talks about her. That's that was, like, one of her heroes. you know, gotta listen to the episode and see what she says about that, but She kind of alludes to it even, in a little snippet that we have also.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:13]:

Lisa, you're definitely known For your humor and your characters and all the things that you've done on the radio and in voiceovers. And you Sent us a picture of you and Carol Burnett, and you said that all kinda ties in the whole laughter character issue with your overcoming. Right?

Lisa Jesswein [00:06:29]:

Oh, absolutely. First of all, I think I would fall over if Carol Burnett and I actually took a picture together, but it is Oh,

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:35]:

it's her book. Right? Well, I can Photoshop it in.

Lisa Jesswein [00:06:39]:

Girl, yes. put me standing right next to her. She is my idol. And I Think a lot of that comes with even as a child, I was watching sketch comedy and laughing, and all of that laughter that I took carried over into helping me when I was going through the really hard stuff because you gotta tweak a little bit of humor in there even when stuff gets hard. So she's Actually, a really big reason why I ended up doing characters and stuff when I was in radio, because not many 5th graders would dress up as the washer woman from the beginning of the Carol Burnett Show, but I did. I did, and I had a bunch of kids going, who are you? I was like, oh, Carol Burnett.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:22]:

She's like, no. No. I don't know.

Lisa Jesswein [00:07:23]:

We didn't. Like, no. I don't know who you are.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:27]:

I love it

Lisa Jesswein [00:07:27]:

That laughter is Huge. So whatever makes you laugh, do more of that.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:33]:

I appreciate that. We need that. Overall, I just encourage everyone to try to you know, we we're definitely gonna have downtimes, But to try to, if at all possible, incorporate a little laughter, a little humor, a little fun, because laughter Really is the best medicine.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:53]:

And you can check out the episode we were talking about, knocking down life's obstacles with Lisa Jesswein. Humor is just one small part of that episode. It's very interesting to hear what she's been through and how she has overcome it. You can find that in all of our episodes, and we hope you do, not only wherever you normally would listen to podcasts, whether it be Spotify, Apple, Google, etcetera, but also right on our website at imagineyourselfpodcast.com. And we'd love for you to drop us a note while you visit there either through email or social media. We've got the links all there for you.