Laughing With Life

There are funny things everywhere.
by Alison Bonds Shapiro, M.B.A. in Healing Into Possibility
Originally published online by Psychology Today

There are two kinds of humor, it seems to me. One is based on the use of power - mocking someone for shortcomings or inabilities. This is laughing at someone. The other is based on love - celebrating the general joy and goofiness that comes with being human. This is laughing with someone.  

One kind of humor hurts and separates us. The other heals and connects us. Because humor can heal and connect, the laughter it brings can help us when we are sick or injured.
For many people faced with a severe injury or illness, laughter might seem counterintuitive. What's funny about being injured or ill? Of course the fact of being injured or ill is not funny. To laugh at someone who is disabled by injury or who is ill is the laughter that hurts - the mocking kind. Laughing at someone isolates them and separates them from us.

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