Episode 10: How to Use Comedy as a Life Skill

Transcript…

An Interview with Melanie Curtis about how to use comedy as a life skill. 

INTROKatie WrigleyMel, welcome to the Pain Changer Podcast Episode 10Melanie CurtisThank you so much. I’m fired up to be here.Katie Wrigley You too. Thank you again for joining me today, you know, and even though I know you every time I read your bio, I get impressed all over again. Like, I get cool enough to know people like you. Like, the first time I ever heard my mom use the word badass in a sentence was in reference to you.Melanie CurtisOh my gosh, I love that. That’s like, such a high compliment.Katie WrigleyIt is awesome.Melanie CurtisThank you, thank you. I don’t know. I mean, you know, me, I’ve been a doer and a liver my whole life, I really have had to find ways through anxiety and find ways to engage in my life and move through fear. So that’s a big part of what I do professionally. And, and, you know, this, how it’s so important to get support when we’re needing to when we’re just recognizing that we are feeling those kinds of things that are limiting us. So yeah, I mean, that’s a funny place to start in a way like, How did I become so badass? How did someone answer that, you know, but, uh, I really take it back to growing and healing myself as a person, and going to those places of fear and trying to really look at them bravely, and get the support that I need in order to move through the things that are too challenging for me to move through by myself?Katie WrigleyAnd I love the way that you frame that, you know, and your master of perspective shifts of blowing through fear. You know, and a lot of the audience has chronic pain and fear and pain are so closely linked, and when we can start to get through those layers of fear. You know, and I’ve watched you over the last, we’ve known each other five or six years now, and I’ve watched you just continue to peel back those layers. And it looks so fearlessly, you know, and I’ve I know that you go through the process, like all of us, yeah, but that impact of being able to get through that fear and be able to let go of those limits that we feel that we have, especially for those who feel limited by their physical body.Melanie CurtisOh my gosh, yeah. All right. I can only imagine and I have such compassion for that experience. Because gosh, I count my blessings but I haven’t knocked on wood ever been hurt, majorly hurt in skydiving. I have had some pain but I’ve not experienced chronic pain. So for me, I would almost say people listening to me on the pain changer podcast would be those looking to support people in pain and really understand how powerful empathy can be. Because if I think about it from the frame that I have experienced around, it’s in people in emotional pain. Right and I’m sure I can please correct me if I’m wrong. I am certain I would I would guess I’m not certain I imagine that anyone in chronic pain also is in emotional pain. And so that empathetic skill, that empathetic muscle, that empathetic just ability to put ourselves over and someone else’s experience, not that we can never know what that is, but to wonder such that we can meet people in a level of support, or hold space for them to be sad or hold space for them to be frustrated or challenged or whatever, might need to be expressed emotionally as someone moves through the healing process of like as you what you do healing, the chronic pain that people experienceKatie Wrigleyin empathy, not only for others, but for yourself is so so key to that, you know, and you actually you touched on something there. I actually include emotional pain as part of chronic pain because I had a chronic, ongoing decade-long anxiety issue, and it hurt.Melanie CurtisAbsolutely, absolutely. I love that you include that. I think that’s actually really insightful. I would agree. Because it’s just because we’re not and this is the thing when I talk to people about emotional wounds, I liken them to physical surgery or physical pain. Yeah, there’s like no one would expect a person who just had surgery or just was in a major car accident and got injured physically, no one would expect that person to be up and out of bed doing their job like normal. No, no one would expect that. No. And yet, societally we’re starting to work on this, but I think it’s certainly something that needs a lot more work is allowing for that mental health emotional health piece at the same level of respect as physical healing as well.Katie WrigleyAbsolutely, I absolutely agree with you. And part of the reason that I include at one is that the experience of emotional pain is physically painful. You know, if you’ve ever had a broken heart, it hurts. Yeah, it’s emotional pain that hurts deeply to a point sometimes people can actually die from a broken heart. It’s no joke. Yeah. The other piece though, that I include as chronic pain, if you are unable to be able to, to heal those emotions to calm the anxiety, it will take a toll on your physical body. And then you have more going on. And you have more that you were trying to deal with on top of the emotions that were already eating at you. Yeah, there’sMelanie CurtisYeah, yeah, sorry. There’s so much science, there’s so much research now that’s connecting emotional pain to physical pain, stress to physical disease, and breakdown of the physical body. That’s, I would be surprised. It surprises me when people still don’t think that’s true. Because to me, it seems very obvious. And also amazed, obviously, I read a lot, I’m a voracious continuing education person, I’m constantly listening to podcasts and books and, and leaning into learning in the ways that I want and that it can be an empowering thread for people as well, where and I’m not talking like hashtag WebMD.Katie WrigleyRight for your peopleMelanie Curtislike, Oh, God, that’s not what I mean. I’m more mean, like, resources and books and credible sources where we are opening our minds to ideas, and we are feeling a sense of possibility because we’ve introduced an idea that we might be able to move toward, which is what I think is so great and amazing about what you do, because allowing people even something they can try, you know, even just something they can get, give it a go. Why not? Right? Like that is a big deal for people who feel hopeless. Yeah, I feel like there’s no way out. There’s no end in sight to this really, really rigorous awful experience there. And so that’s a big deal. So anyway, I just wanted to say that because I think it’s very relevant.Katie WrigleyWell, thank you very much for that as well. And I so I want to talk a little bit more about you and how you have cultivated comedy as a skill. So I know you have so much going on in your world right now. Would you be willing to share a little bit about what you’re working on and potentially, you know, how comedy is helping you?Melanie Curtis No way. Not gonna share? No, no, I might as well. Might as well close this one up. Yeah, I just get to talk to you again. Yes, of course. I’m totally happy to share. I mean, what do you want to know about I mean, you want to know about cuz I do have a lot going on in my life in the sense that I do my life coaching work I have my creative pursuits which are my soul fuel and a way that certainly they’ve connected to my work my writing and the stupid movies that I make and stuff like that. Oh my god the leaf blower scenes peeps it whoever’s Lizzy gotta go to my YouTube channel I’m sorry, I have to shameless plug my YouTube channel because there’s a leaf blower situation that you’ll probably enjoy anyway. Yeah, and the and the social impact work with the demonstration jobs and it’s I do a lot, I have this again, this sort of deep calling to be in my life. So I’m happy to talk at length about any of those things if you want to know more about them, but to speak to the comedy piece, and the lightness, the levity. I believe deeply that love and hilarity are the two most important things in life. And I say this, I’ve said this for years and I still believe it even as I’ve grown and evolved and healed myself spiritually and, and emotionally as well. Your thoughts and beliefs absolutely can change. This is one that stuck around for me is that I say love and hilarity are the two most important things in life in that order. And it’s how you perceive that sentence. But man life is hard enough. If we can not bring some lightness and levity to it. We are screwed. I don’t know if you can swear on this podcast. Oh, you totally. Yeah. I mean, so that. And also, I had influences early on in my career. And in my personal life. We have people who were really fucking funny. And I just loved engaging in that so much. The first person that I would certainly bring up is my brother. He is one of the funniest people I know. And my mom used to call me his best audience, I would laugh at everything he said. But there’s something more to that. It’s not just the things that my brother says it’s that I recognized early on, at least in myself that there was a more a deeper, I want to call it a more spiritual calling to that levity, because as I’ve seen it evolve in my personal existence in my life. It’s so clear that it lights up my soul when I let myself and it’s also a key when I can. It’s how I also can see I’m stressed if I’m not as funny, or I’m not finding things funny. It’s clear that something’s in the way. And so that’s a good cue for me to look and go, Whoa, what’s going on right now? What do I need to look at?Katie WrigleyYeah, and I love that you mentioned that, you know, I have the same litmus test, so to speak of where is my stress level, and when I lose my sense of humor, I know that my mental state is taken a dive, and there’s action that I can take to try to move that.Melanie CurtisYeah, totally. And sometimes it’s hard to notice it. You know, it takes some time to notice it. But when once I’ve seen it smooth, something I can more mindfully watch for, it’s easy to see when it starts happening.Katie Wrigley Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve started to check myself on that more. You know, we, when we look at laughter as a whole is just so good for us. And it’s one of the free resources, we don’t tend to naturally access, you know, especially when you think about those of chronic pain. It’s not funny, her all the time sucks, clean, simple. It sucks to be dealt the hand of chronic pain. And there is a lot we can do to improve our pain state. And so that’s why I wanted to do this podcast with humor as a component in it. Just one of the studies I read, I think it was done by the National Institute of Health. So legit study. Eight weeks, this control group had people doing 15 minutes of laughter a week, pain went down by 10%. Inflammation was down by 20 quality of life went up by 30. Yeah, you start and that was eight weeks, and it had that big of an impact. You know, and I’ve seen and I stumbled into this when I was disabled myself, there was about six weeks all I could watch were comedies, I totally modified my Facebook feed, so nothing antagonizing or when yummy all wound up was on there and smart all these things you know and when we go back to everything that you you know are doing for the world in general for growth for yourself for skydiving, the stuff that you guys are doing for gender equality, racial equality, all equality of all sorts is just amazing. To me, and it really is my focus goes there today because I had a new client sign up with me the other day. And he’s now 67. He didn’t come out of the closet until he was 42. And one of the questions he posed in our session, and he’s actually coming back again next week for another session, I’m so exciting. But he goes, Wow, I wonder how much damage I did to myself repressing part of my true identity for 42 years. Do you think that’s had an impact? And I’m like, yeah. Body dude, like, I don’t know how, but we can discover this together. And we can help get that pattern out of your body. But absolutely. You denied a big part of your existence for a long time. Yeah. is going to impact you big time.Melanie CurtisAbsolutely. Oh, my God. I mean, gosh, it’s wacky, this is the thing. Like it’s so most funny and difficult to talk about comedy lightness, right? In the scope of what we are trying to lift, and it’s because these are serious things, right? There is serious pain there, there is serious fear there. All of that is easily I can easily validate all of those things, right? Like I don’t and I don’t want to dismiss or diminish anyone’s pain by trying to simply tell them to light lighten up. Like that’s a classic diminishing remark for marginalized communities, where people say you make a joke that makes someone uncomfortable marginalizes them, or dismisses their life experience or personal experience. And that’s a problem, right? There’s a problem. You see this in the skydiving community a lot. It’s a very male-dominated, very white male-dominated very, very white sis hetero, male-dominated space. And so there’s lots of misogynistic remarks and jokes. And listen, I didn’t really even know that I was in that environment cuz I grew up in skydiving, it would took me years to even get that I was in something that wasn’t Kyle wasn’t really okay. You know what I mean. And there, people are working now to illuminate those things we’re working to, you know, make spaces safer for women, and LGBTQ plus, and just all all marginalized groups to feel welcome in skydiving. And I think at its core, skydiving very much means to be a very welcoming, inclusive space. So that’s really awesome about skydiving, I’m more bringing up the parts of it that are unconscious, that we can’t see that then marginalizes or make someone uncomfortable. And anyway, with that said, if I were to give your audience some thoughts on how to infuse more lightness, more comedy in their life, I did do a class on this. And listen, I’m not a comedian. I think you can probably guess that already. But I’m not a comedian. I just love this calm. Like I said, from my, from my roots, I love humor. And it’s something I’ve been called to learn about over the course of my life. And, Katie, one thing you mentioned that I want to bring up and touch on before I forget, is you mentioned I could only watch comedy movies, I did this. That’s what I needed to have been coming into my space, right? That’s the stuff the content that I needed to be consuming. And that’s a trick, that’s a hack that we can do. If we’re having a really hard time we can listen to comedy on Pandora, we can watch comedy movies, we can genuinely rigorously decide our content feed. So that’s good. We mentioned the books and stuff, the continuing education, that’s also good, but we can narrow it down to comedy as well and see how that impacts us. He also mentioned 15 minutes of laugh. Just even thinking about doing that makes me laugh because it sounds so stupid. I just love that. Stupid things that the ridiculous in life brings me great joy. So I say that as a positive. But there’s an amazing TED Talk, talking about the power of laughter. And I challenge everyone listening to go watch it to go listen to it, because the woman is talking about the science of laughter and how it is an innate human experience and innate human response. And so when we are in the presence of genuine laughter, we can’t help but be moved by that and we can’t it’s it’s very rare for us to hear genuine laughter and not also be brought into that ourselves. So she shares a very as like a slate of different laughs and it is in hysterical and so that again that if you’re like, I’m too I’m too depressed I’m too this. I’m too that that’s another hack to get into to access comedy as a healing agent, when we’re like, I can’t think about myself as a character. And I can’t reframe this situation, I’m not in the place where mindset is going to work for me, you know what I mean? Where a different perspective is going to work for me, I’m just too entrenched, I’m too stuck. So that’s a way to start to lift some energy off your shoulders. I’ll pause and give you a chance to comment. Just keep going on and on.Katie WrigleyNo, that was awesome. And I made a note to put the TED Talk into the show notes for anybody who wants to see it. That sounds amazing. I love laughing as you know, you actually touched on something there and I’ve experienced in not in a marginalization way. But there is a very distinct line between what’s funny and what’s not. You know, and one of the things that’s not funny when it hits home, it’s not funny. AndMelanie Curtis when it people does not touch a when it touches a Pain Center, a pain body. It’s not funny. That’s that’s something that’s real. It’s in my class. Again, I did a class I don’t think I don’t know what I said, I did a class comedy as a key skill and growth, happiness achievement, I did one comedy as a key skill in life in business and animation. Part of that is, it’s essential to make sure if that we do not ever want to make fun of someone else, right? That is never going to be funny. It’s never going to be cool, ever, right period, we can make fun of ourselves. So if we, if we’re talking about this, we’re talking about is it how is this a skill we can use for ourselves. And I’m not suggesting using comedy and humor as a an avoidance tactic and avoidance tool, because it easily can be used as that. It we’re talking about using it mindfully to lift a little bit of the pressure, a little bit of the steam out of the pot. Like one of the frames that I sometimes use when life. You know, life in itself is unpredictable. There’s the unexpected can be funny, like the unexpected, depending on the severity of what happens can be funny. I joke about this, but like a pie in the face. Why is that funny? Like that was an old-school comedy back in the day. Why is a pie in the face funny? Basically, because that’s not supposed to be happening. And no big deal is just kind of weird and unexpected. So we can look for that and go oh, that’s why something unexpected happens. But it’s not scary or it’s not hurtful. We laugh at that. Yeah, right. So we can take that frame. By but there’s when it’s extreme when it’s impacting our life, when it’s like kind of sucks, right? And it’s a little bit diff more difficult to access the humor, the comedic frame or the comedic lens. We can just be like, you just can’t make this shit up. Right? Like you just can’t, you know, and that speaks to the comical lack of control that we have in life. Yes, right. But yeah, go ahead.Katie WrigleyThose moments where we’re sitting there going, Oh, this is actually happening right now. Fuck. Yeah, like, Oh, I get it. Okay, here we go.Melanie Curtis  Here we go. Here we go. Let’s do this. Okay,Katie Wrigleyyou know, yeah, I think back at the first call I had with you and it took a long time until I could see the comedy of it. And now looking back, I’m like, wow, it was just past five years ago. It was February 2017. And I’m taking my first call with you in the bathroom of my house so it was filled with people who did not have my best interest at heart. Oh, and I have the bathroom fan on to try to have white noise to drown out my voice while I have the vents close to the people below me Can’t hear I’m crying to you on the phone about how much my life sucked. And that will that is my visual of my rock bottom and that was even before it became disabled. Right at the crux of the stress that made my body crumble you know, but looking back it’s healing for me to go Wow. Like I let myself get to that point before I did something like why? Why did I end it because it wasn’t like it just I woke up and was having a bad day it had been coming for decades. Like why deny until totally from call floor talking to you? I’m cryingMelanie Curtis and that is Normal most people do that most people have to get to a certain level of pain in order to, to admit and to actually not even just admit because it might be totally unconscious to, to recognize that they need help, that there might be this old belief of I should be able to do it all on my own or, or blaming themselves. I got myself into this. So this is my bed I’ll lay in it versus going What can I take responsibility for what is here for me to look at more closely and I say this. And I’m I don’t want to glaze over that you have all people know that is brave work. Oh, yeah, super brave work to really turn the mirror on ourselves and start to look at how we might be able to make change. And so the from the comedic lens about you being able to go, Okay, time has passed. And that’s one of my favorite things. Comedy equals tragedy plus time. Yes. Right. Like, it’s another thing to note. And again, I’m trying to give listeners the pieces that might help them access things that are funny or things. So it’s so dumb. I don’t know, like, how do we even do that doesn’t just happen? Well, it doesn’t just happen. You know, like, it really doesn’t just happen we have to bring these lenses to our life and like I’ve lived for a long time thinking life is comedy because I believe a lot of life is comedy and as such I experience life as comedy, as opposed to experiencing life as pain experiencing life as hardship, all this stuff, right. But you point to the extremity, you point to the timeline and you point to the extremity. So like the extremity we learn you’ve done stand-up comedy. I’ve done stand-up comedy once. Wow, was I awesomely terrible? And I love that I did it. It was so worth it. Talk about brave. Oh my god, girl fuck walking out on that stage my knees. I have 11,000 skydives. And I was more scared doing that.Katie WrigleyYeah, yeah, I was too. I was so scared getting on that stage and like, and I’m the only one that can tell. But in the video Like, my body, I’m like this with the microphone and like, got a death grip on and no one can see me right now. But I’m like, picture like a death grip, like this microphone was going to keep me from drowning is like, Oh, I’m doing it. I’m pasting on the stage. You know, and physical comedy is kind of how I express that. And I did it one to help me overcome fear. Yep. And to really understand what makes things funny and what’s not funny. Yeah, andMelanie Curtisthat’s the thing learning and stand up you learn certain pillars of comedy. And again, I’m no I’m not a comedian. I’m probably going to forget things for my class and stuff. But one of the things that I remember is this extremity, right that when we magnify, so they teach you in stand up that you are going up there as a character. So you’re most of the time going up there as a character yourself. And that’s the first thing that I teach in my comedy class, my comedy as a skill key skill class, is that we are all characters, right? So I and I’m, I brought up my brother before, but that’s the person I talk about first when I’m illuminating that, because I wrote a poem as a kid, where I talked about the major bro and he was in my first book quoted and I quoted him as the major bro. So I’m like, does the major bro exist? Is he a fictional character that I’ve made up? You know, but no, he’s a real person, but he’s also a character. He’s the brother that will defend he was the, you know, the brother that will build birdhouses and curse the government, whatever, right? Doesn’t matter. But the fact that we’re all characters helps us start to go what who am I? Right? And stand up gives us that experience of going How do I like magnify or build on and go to the extreme of my character? So like, what is it that so that and experiencing the extremes are is really funny, really, really funny if I mean, look at any comedy movie, and where they take jokes to an extreme end, that’s something you can look at and anyway, yeah,Katie Wrigleyright. Like, you just brought this to mind this one and seeds from bridesmaids, where they’re trying on the bridal gowns talking about with I almost peed myself in the scene. I was laughing so hard and it wasn’t because I was having a bad back day. I’ve said another episode that brought to incontinence. Well, my back hurts, which I can laugh at, because I’m like, wow, oh, I screwed up, didn’t I? Wow. But I really really rarely have those days. But there’s the scene and bridesmaid in particular, Maya Rudolph is in her bridal gown someone is in the bathroom, they’re getting hit with major food poisoning. And she’s basically trying to get to safety to a bathroom across the street. And you see her just slowly Oh, no, it’s happening it this is actually happening. I’m shitting myself on the street right now. And I’m, for some reason that the inner 12-year-old of me just thinks farting and pooping is always going to be. And that scene had me just leveled in the best way. And I watched that movie when I was going through a really hard time in my life. And I still go back to that movie. When I really want to laugh. I watched it to other times when I was disabled and that scene, every time without fail, I will laugh to the point of tears ever. IMelanie Curtislove that. I love that. And again, how do we get access to that when we feel like we’re never going to laugh again? Yes, right. Just try it. You know, like, try it. Yeah,Katie Wrigleytry even if you sit there and you’re pissed off at the screen for the first few minutes. Just keep watching Robin Williams. Great One to go back to some of his standup routines. They’re hilarious. Yeah, totally inappropriate. And that’s, my favorite kind of comedy is the inappropriate jokes that make fun of nothing except maybe a bird. Actually, I’ve got one free now if you want to play along, though. Sure. No, it’s it is a little inappropriate. So what bird Do you equate with? elegance? And that just has the ability to soar and be a magnificent Eagle. Yes. What you associate with wisdom? Owl? Yes. You’re so right. What bird do you associate with love?Katie Wrigley Or do you equate with true love?Melanie CurtisTrue love? Pelican? I don’t this swallow? Oh my god. Well, that’s the thing. Do you have to decide what kind of humor is for you like that? Like I said earlier? I like just all things that are ridiculous. Yeah, I love things that are stupid. I mentioned the whole hahaha leaf blower scene. But I’ve had this vision of wanting to do this. Because one of the things in Skydiving is that there’s this cool factor, where it’s like skydiving is this really cool, badass thing, right? Yeah. No, I mean, whatever. Not everyone’s gonna think it’s cool. I don’t mean to say I’m cool. I’m more saying that’s the tone of the community. It’s no andKatie Wrigleypeople because it’s airplanes. Not illegal activity. Yeah, the world.Melanie CurtisYeah, exactly. From that’s exactly what I mean. And so because it’s about me, I can make fun of it to the hilt, because I am a professional skydiver. I’m quote-unquote, cool, whatever that means. And so I get to make fun of being this wild egomaniac, who’s like really into herself. Like, just like really are right, yeah, like crazy ego jokes. And so my friends are so wonderful. They’re willing to do these things with me and make fools of themselves in public. And so very long story short, we make fun of skydivers and how they say like, they yell door, when they are opening the door on jump run going skydiving. And it’s a big thing in skydiving, where some people are like, it’s good to yell door because then everybody knows it’s opening and other people are like, fuck, you don’t need to yell door. Come on, everybody sees the green light. It’s like one of those things. It’s a thing. So anyway, we did that at Dunkin Donuts. But it was part of my visual like the part of the humor that I wanted to again, take it up a notch is we’re not just yelling door in public and making fools of ourselves being publicly seen and ridiculous. I also always had the vision of a leaf blower blowing our hair up in slow motion to be like, that’s what it looks like when we walk into a fucking Dunkin Donuts, right? It’s just so dumb, but it’s like taking it to the next level and choosing into the extremity. So like that’s another way where we can infuse. And it’s not necessarily always humor, but it can be just aliveness into our life experience thinking. Like part of the I imagine you enjoying cute humor that’s on the edge is that it’s a bit of a rebellious choice. Most people aren’t allowed to make a joke about a swallow. You know? Yeah, it’s the Right. Yeah, but it’s, it’s a choice that your professional comedians make horrible jokes all the time, right? You know what I mean, in their career in their space? It’s totally allowed in quote-unquote, normal society. It’s not. And so it’s like looking at these places, where do I want to be a rebel where, and it’s not that you need to be a rebel, but like, Where can I access a liveness. And so if you are called to humor, you can access it by choosing into these, this extremity, this level of kind of magnifying the joke.Katie Wrigley Right. And that makes sense. You know, going back to a point that we made earlier, I think that joke is funny, cuz I don’t believe it. Like, right, right, that was wired to get someone to love me. That would not be funny at all.Melanie CurtisTotally. That’s actually right. I’m glad you said that. Because that is the crucial part.Katie Wrigley  Right? I don’t think that that is a prerequisite for true love at all. Just to be clear, that is a choice. If you enjoy it, go for it. But right, zero judgment either way, whatever you decide you want to do with your mouth is your business, not my Absolutely, absolutely. So but that’s what makes it funny to me is that I don’t believe those things. Whereas if I actually, like I said, you know, if I thought that that wouldn’t be funny, you know, but I told that joke to my boyfriend, and he does die laughing. You know, but again, not a requirement for love in our relationships. Yeah, it’s funny to both of us. So actually, I think we’ve actually covered a lot of what I was going to ask just through the flow here, but you know, and before I ask this next question, I have to admit that this totally came to me when I was listening to Pandora doing my dishes and my house by flow rider came on, and I suddenly flashed to a very funny memory. So what are some of your favorite ways to get yourself to laugh? Mel? Think you’ve already what are some ofMelanie Curtismy what are some of my favorite ways? Yeah, well, obviously, we touched on a lot of different things of what I do. But yeah, I mean, I’m, I’ve mentioned it already, but I love love, love deeply making these funny, silly movies. It, it’s just it to me, is it doesn’t matter to me, if anybody else thinks it’s funny at all, like really, I am, like, totally, genuinely cool with it. Because in the process of doing that, again, we’re on the edge doing something we’re theoretically not supposed to or isn’t serious, like, who gives that much time and attention to something that theoretically has quote, unquote, no value? Right? Right. That alone makes me go, double middle finger to the system, fuck all, y’all. I’m going to spend a whole day in two days editing on this, this thing that just makes me laugh and feel so happy that we did it. You know what I mean? And then when they exist on the internet, and I can watch them over and over throughout my life and access those laughs over and those memories of those experiences over and over again. So that’s a not something that necessarily is easily accessible to people, but in the age of Instagram reels and Tik Tok, it kind of is accessible now. Yeah, is to do those kinds of funny little things. So that’s one way I, I mean, for sure. And I mean, other than that, something a bit more accessible would be to talk to my funny friends. Mm-hmm. Like you have friends that are funnier than other friends. And it’s not a superior thing. It’s not a judgment. It’s more like my friend Lou, for example, I mentioned early influences in my life of people who are really funny. My friend Lou was one of my early skydiving teammates back in the day, and he’s still one of my closest friends. He’s awesome. He’s the quintessential Jersey boy like he’s the Jersey boy. Anyway, he is really really funny. He’s a serious person. He’s very smart. He’s an academic. He’s a dean of a school, and he’s fucking hilarious. So if I really need to laugh, I know I can call him and we’re going to eventually get to something really funny.Katie Wrigley Nice. I love that. Yeah. And that’s there is there’s nothing like laughing with someone that you know, you know, that’s one of my favorite things about the guy I’m dating as he cracks me up like he’s had me laughing so hard. I can’t breathe. I can’t talk. I’m like shaking. You know, he’s like He okay. It’s like I’m nodding but there’s no sound like, and I love that, you know, my best friend. She cracks me up You crack me up, you know, and I And you know, you said something about the lens earlier, which is probably a good place for us to start to wrap up is that we’re going to see whatever lens we go through, you know, and one of the things that you introduced me to a long time ago, and I thought you were nuts at the time, I thought you were both nuts atMelanie Curtisfirst, your weight, your Jeet your weight. You’re crazy. Until you’re a genius. Yeah, right. Yes. Sorry, go on. Yeah,Katie Wrigleynow you’re a genius. But you, you were opening up my mind after that first call to the idea that the world was full of awesome people. And when I was living in a house full of people who were less than awesome, in my experience, that was really hard to believe, for sure. She’s really happy. And she’s not on anything. So maybe something to this. So I’m just gonna keep my mind open. And it took a couple years, I had a lot of work that needed. Yeah, in those years. And now my life is filled with awesome people, and you meet awesome people everywhere. Yeah. And I continue to look for the comedy in life. And I find it Yeah, it may take a while. But that’s one of the things I want to kind of leave everybody with today is you will find what you’re looking for. So do you want to keep looking for more pain? Or do you want to start to shift out of that?Melanie CurtisYeah. And Wreck-it I love that you brought that up, because I think that’s super important, especially after a conversation like today, where we’re really talking about accessing the lightness, accessing humor, living into the humor. Some days, we we choose, we can’t choose that. And that’s okay. You know, and I and I say can’t but don’t really mean that I, I mean, some days, we need to honor where we are, and maybe that’s crying. And maybe that’s resting and honoring ourselves really gently, being really kind to ourselves, right. So if you are in a space where you feel like this is difficult to access, that’s totally normal. I want to just really validate that. And I think it’s also important that you brought up the duration of the work, in the sense that everyone I posted something about this the other day, the universal thing that I’ve been life coaching for 15 years, the universal thing that everyone who comes and works with me says and experiences. Everyone wants it to go more quickly than it does. Everyone, every single person myself included, by the way me working with my I want to I want to heal from my emotional pain points to I want it to go sooner than yours. But you know what, sometimes, and oftentimes, it takes years. And that’s okay, because that’s another really important, like, reason, why to talk about humor and lightness, is that because it takes years to really heal and go through these, this ascending sine wave of growth and healing is that there’s no way that’s sustainable. If we can’t lighten like, really just let ourselves relax, sometimes with a laugh and a little bit of a funnier perspective.Katie Wrigley Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and since we are talking about time, I just want to add to what you’re saying that it’s not like if it takes years to fully heal, that you aren’t going to see improvement. It’s not like you’re going to stay at this baseline of rock bottom for two years. And then suddenly, you’re going to spring up. Yes. But you said it’s a sine wave in an upward motion, I’m not going to use the stock market for comparison, that there will be little pitfalls like we’re seeing in the stock market right now. Yeah, in your own growth and those Yeah, okay. And it’s so important to acknowledge whatever emotion is there, don’t try to rush to comedy. Now it is available to you at any time, we’re going to put links to all these funny things in the show notes today, on a day that you are feeling better, and you’re ready to open your mind to comedy, I invite you to check them out. But please acknowledge whatever emotions are there first, otherwise, those are going to stay in your body. I know that crying can suck. I know that being in pain can suck. Be wherever you are, and allow it if you stop fighting it your body is going to thank you it is going to release some of what is making you suffer. Yeah. So thank you so much for joining me today. Now this one.Melanie Curtis Yeah. And if people want to check out I did do that class. It’s on my website. So if people want to check that out, they can. It’s Melanie Curtis, calm, but I’m just grateful to be here and I love you so much. And I love the work that you’re doing.Katie WrigleyThank you so much, Mel. Yes, and we will include so we will have a link to the class. We’ll have a link to the TED Talk. We will also go grab the leaf blower Dunkin Donuts, only want to see that now did not It existed, I must see it my day will not be complete if I don’t go see that leaf blower video now. And then also go ahead and put my standup video in there as well. You know, for those who haven’t seen it yet, it was actually based off of a true story that happened to me in Australia, where I peed my pants due to a Spanx mishap 20 minutes before I was about to get on stage in front of 700 people. So that was a day.Melanie CurtisYou can’t make this shit up.Katie Wrigley Can’t make it up like really wish and I was actually sitting there in the bathroom at the time going, Wow, this is, it’s like, is this actually happening? Like, okay, all right. Before I’m getting on stage, we’re going to need to do something about it. And so I did. 

Well, thank you so much, Mel. I appreciate it. And everybody have a wonderful day. Thank you, as always for listening and until next week, never forget that chronic doesn’t have to mean permanent. If you want more of my tips and tricks flowing into your life, then I invite you to connect with me and follow me on social media. Just go to KatieWrigley.com/connect and follow the links to whatever your favorite social platform is to follow me.

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