{"id":1423,"date":"2008-12-12T09:45:37","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T09:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html"},"modified":"2008-12-12T09:45:37","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T09:45:37","slug":"humor-for-difficult-situations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html","title":{"rendered":"Humor for Difficult Situations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"smileys.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/71\/import\/imgs\/smileys.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\">Beyond Blue<\/a> reader Minette who asked this question on the combox of my post, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2008\/10\/second-agreement-dont-take-anything.html\">&#8220;The Second Agreement: Don&#8217;t Take Anything Personally&#8221;<\/a>: &#8220;Do you have any suggestions on incorporating humor into each difficult situation?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I directed her to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/2008\/09\/9-Ways-Humor-Can-Heal.aspx\">my blog post, &#8220;9 Ways Humor Can Heal,&#8221; which you can find by clicking here. <\/a>It begins &#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Of all my tools to combat stress-especially the stress of dealing with my illness or someone else&#8217;s&#8211;humor is by far the most fun. And just like mastering the craft of writing, I&#8217;m finding that the longer I practice laughing at life (especially at its frustrations) the better I become at it, and the more situations and conversations and complications I can place into that category named &#8220;silly.&#8221;\u00a0\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>G. K. Chesterton once wrote: &#8220;Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.&#8221; And Proverbs 17:22 says that &#8220;a happy heart is good medicine.&#8221; I&#8217;d add that human beings and their caretakers can heal and find joy again if they learn how to laugh. Here are just a few ways a dose of humor might transform something ugly and stressful to slightly entertaining, and, well, a tad less catastrophic.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/2008\/09\/9-Ways-Humor-Can-Heal.aspx\">To continue reading, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">To read more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\">Beyond Blue, go to www.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue<\/a>, and to get to <a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\">Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to Beyond Blue reader Minette who asked this question on the combox of my post, &#8220;The Second Agreement: Don&#8217;t Take Anything Personally&#8221;: &#8220;Do you have any suggestions on incorporating humor into each difficult situation?&#8221; I directed her to my blog post, &#8220;9 Ways Humor Can Heal,&#8221; which you can find by clicking here. It&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Humor for Difficult Situations - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Humor for Difficult Situations - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thanks to Beyond Blue reader Minette who asked this question on the combox of my post, &#8220;The Second Agreement: Don&#8217;t Take Anything Personally&#8221;: &#8220;Do you have any suggestions on incorporating humor into each difficult situation?&#8221; I directed her to my blog post, &#8220;9 Ways Humor Can Heal,&#8221; which you can find by clicking here. It&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-12T09:45:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/smileys.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Humor for Difficult Situations - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Humor for Difficult Situations - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Thanks to Beyond Blue reader Minette who asked this question on the combox of my post, &#8220;The Second Agreement: Don&#8217;t Take Anything Personally&#8221;: &#8220;Do you have any suggestions on incorporating humor into each difficult situation?&#8221; I directed her to my blog post, &#8220;9 Ways Humor Can Heal,&#8221; which you can find by clicking here. It&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2008-12-12T09:45:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/smileys.jpg"}],"author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html","name":"Humor for Difficult Situations - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/smileys.jpg","datePublished":"2008-12-12T09:45:37+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-12T09:45:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/smileys.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/files\/import\/imgs\/smileys.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2008\/12\/humor-for-difficult-situations.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Humor for Difficult Situations"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression &amp; Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}