Hello and Warm Winter Greetings to you all!
Winter brings opportunities and temptations. Opportunities to extend ourselves, stay committed to our goals, becoming stronger as we are tempted to drop the ball, veg out and take life easy inside with shorter days. We like to honour our human by staying warm and indeed, it is a time to turn within, take time to rest, rejuvenate, ponder, reducing our physical activities as it works out individually for us.
Many may rely on the weather and one thing that changes in our lives, that is for mine and my husband John, is not walking every day due to the inclement weather. Sometimes we walk our beautiful little dog, Abby, in the rain with an umbrella. However, most of the time we tend to give it a miss and say we will catch up tomorrow. I feel she understands and adjusts to it very well although looking towards us less when we need, or choose to stay indoors.
How is it for you? One thing I can guarantee is that hail, rain or shine, the laughter club will be on. When it is raining, we brace ourselves up in hats, coats, gloves if needed and meet behind the Ferntree Gully Library on the decking, which is under cover.
I reckon that does show resilience and commitment. Not only for John and myself, also for regular club members who show up regardless of the weather. I can speak for other committed laughter club members, like me, who never miss it due to the weather conditions.
I must admit though to be completely honest, this year we started back in February for the first time, as people were not keen to go late January due to the high temperatures we were experiencing, and it felt like a good idea to let it go until February.
Community Laughter Clubs are there for you, the people and for those who get a kick out of running them. We learn a lot in this free service, one is to be non-attached and grateful. We learn to be without expectations, and that it is not all about me. It is about the people, the members, who are free to come and go as they like. Naturally, it is a lot more fun when more people attend, which means more energy. And there is non-attachment, even when it is only a small group, we still come together with as much love and enthusiasm as we can muster up, making the most of every day.
It is not easy to be without expectations, and I believe it is something we have to consciously work towards. In part this is because we are basically human animals and learn by doing and experiencing things. When things go well, we like to repeat that experience which simply does not seem to work.
I had a firsthand experience of that a little while ago. We went to see the our most favourite musical of, The Pirates of Penzance, put on by Victorian Opera company. I was absolutely and completely enthralled by it and we went along again. Guess what? It wasn’t the same. Not at all. The magic that comes with a new experience was absent and that taught me a lot, not to try to repeat fabulous things that happen in our lives. To live more in the moment and treat each experience as a stand-alone, new experience. Different.
Noting also that wasn’t the first time that I attempted to see a show for the second time and something inside me felt lacking, which left me feeling disappointed. Sometimes we need to learn the hard way for things to really sink into our deeper understanding, often with some advice from others about the disappointment we went through.
I hope this is a helpful sharing for you to think about and feel into. Where do you do that? Are you even aware of wanting to program your life to repeat ‘good things’? Please do not take this literally, feel into what I am sharing. Perhaps we are really less in control of our lives than we would like to be which means that we need to be open to the Universe bringing forth happenings, experiences, for us, which we also have attracted to happen. They may be either conscious or unconscious.
At the same time, there is the potential for learning in everything in life. Whether we do or don’t do something. Whatever we choose does become the best choice, when we cannot make up our minds what to decide, once we decide we will get the learning, the growth from that.
We can also learn a lot from things that go ‘wrong’, because there is always a gem in everything and when we do our best to greet our days, lives, everyone and everything in it with new eyes, what I call ‘greeting anew’ we will become richer, more open to discovering, feeling freer and more in touch with our soul and spirit.
Coming back to health and commitment, this takes enormous dedication and focus to be upbeat, holding a positive attitude, able to bounce back from adversities and the furballs of life happening. We need a sense of humour, to take life seriously, yet not ourselves. When we are coming from our negative ego, centred in that instead of being centred in our heart’s knowing, we tend to lose sight of our original inspiration and commitment.
Are we committed to growth, evolution and doing our best, in every area of our life? You will be guided every step of the way and you don’t need another person’s permission to have fun and make the most out of life enjoy life what it brings. We do not have to deny ourselves, rather see how we go when we give in to lower, base desires, where we know we can get away with something but not make it an ongoing habit.
I encourage you to join us sometime at the laughter club and make it a practice to choose joy when you rise out of bed in the morning. Listen to your intuition, be kind, compassionate to yourself and others and do not be afraid to ask for help inwardly, as we really and truly have support and guidance happening. Simply take one day at a time and see if you feel better having some quiet, reflective time this winter. Balance that with some kind of physical activity that suits your body type and time in life. Keep on keeping on. See where it all leads to. Make the choices about bringing more spirit, love, connection with others and nature. You will be in greater harmony with self and your outer world. More joy enabled too. How about that? Would you like to live more joyfully?
I invite you to connect with me and would love to hear from you. That about said it all at the moment, bye for now. Lots of love, wishing your life to be filled with laughter, harmony and joy. Lynette xo
When we meet and Contact information
The Ferntree Gully Laughter Club meets behind the Ferntree Gully Library at 11am on the 2nd & 4th Sunday of the month and inside the Ferntree Gully Library on the 4th Tuesday of the month at 2pm.
Please note that we often meet at 1pm on the 4th Sunday, due to unavoidable circumstances, which means it is wise if it is your first time to check with me before coming.
Let me know if you wish to receive either the email newsletter, or the Friday email reminder when the laughter club is next on. There is also a Ferntree Gully Laughter Club Facebook group.