My former colleague JoAnne Greenham used to say that some of us were born with a clown in their head. In this way we recognize one another — one of us puts on a rubber clown nose in the middle of an argument and the other stops arguing to guffaw.
One of the values of our training at the GIT is a sense of humour, and this seems to be a rare commodity – bestowed by genes and circumstance on some and forbidden to others.
What is your sense of humor quotient? We differ from one another in mental aptitude, emotional depth, physical awareness, sexual desire, spiritual path, values and style, and we also differ in sense of humor. Often those of us with strong values decry laughter “as long as there is injustice in the world.” Often humor is at one’s own expense or at another’s expense, and its use is tinged with shame.
The past saw social groups for whom a place of humor in the community was held by a sacred jokester. Sacred because this person was the one who kept the community honest, by mocking “sacred tenets” that kept the people from the evolution that comes from free thinking. Without them rules and laws would rigidify and new generations would not find the space to evaluate whether those rules were still applicable to life.
To have a clown in your head is to always see the other side of things. In gestalt we say — see the smallest trouble as exaggerated to the level of a tsunami and to see the worst disaster as minuscule within the universe. The moment of this perception opens our mind to solutions we never imagined. That is the place of humor. Not to demean or minimize but to open our minds.
Tips to develop a sense of humor:
– Find a position to which you feel very committed and argue against it with a friend for two minutes
– Carry a red clown nose around with you and when you catch yourself in the midst of a very serious argument, put it on
– Do the most absurd thing you can think of in the middle of an intense moment – for example, start laughing hilariously for no reason as if your sides would ach… eat a flower from a nearby vase
We take ourselves too seriously, and the outcome of this is that we don’t see the other or the world. Our human situation has its tragi-comedy. We can argue tenaciously on our own behalf with another who has such different perspectives that they have no idea what we mean. We use logic when emotions are at the heart of the matter and try to stuff chaos into boxes. We repeat our favorite way of making contact regardless of the fact that this way never worked and is still not working. Despite our best avoidance of its inevitability we grow old. Despite years of therapy we sound like our mother or father when the sh** hits the fan. We are unconscious clowns taking pratfalls on the vaudeville of our lives.
To become the conscious clown is to remove the “fourth wall” from our lives. The fourth wall is an actor’s wall – behind which sits the audience who watches us “strut and fret our hour upon the stage.” Clowns perform without the fourth wall – there are only three walls. Which means I am always in a real play – the other players will surprise me, shock me, test me and the only way to be ready is to be real and in the moment. The thrown pie really sticks. To live like a Gestaltist is to learn to live without the fourth wall.
Jay Tropianskaia, Director of Training
Copyright April 2018