I wonder…

When life is getting to me. When interactions feel uncomfortable. When I get treated in a way that makes me feel inferior or unimportant or less valuable, or just plain unfairly, I want to complain to someone!

I don’t really like any of this. I don’t like the feelings and I don’t like being complainy. I don’t enjoy hanging out with my complaining self, even if I can be a little witty. I’d rather be clever or funny in different ways. I rarely look back on my complain rants with fondness.

Except, there was this one time…

My son was in college and home for a stretch, he and I had both had a bad day. We had both been offended repeatedly, so by the time we met up, we had had it! We started off venting, and validating each others’gripes, then we noticed this bottle of wine someone had gifted us, we were sort of saving it but…

Somehow we ended up toasting everyone and everything that had ruined our day. Sometimes the audacity of others remarks can be comically absurd. Especially when we stood back and lost the feelings of offense.

This became one of my favorite memories and best examples of humor shifting energy. We let off steam, and laughing at the absurdity of all the day’s injustices, let go of being angry and offended. We actually ended up in really good moods.

I can’t recall even one of our grievences that day, but I will never forget the fun of toasting them and all the people involved!

Cheers to everything that happened that led to all our laughter.

I wonder if the switch from ugh to good is where power lies. A big energy shift can feel so monumental. Either way, high to low, low to high. Energy is visceral. So is a good belly laugh.