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Life Coaching for Summer Fun

Jul 19Author: Catharine EctonCategories: Building Sustainable Habits, Inspiration No Comments

“Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.” – Mel Brooks

This summer is bringing a shift to some positive perspectives from my clients:

“I want to have fun.”
“If I can get organized, I will have more time for fun.”
“I am a great dancer, but I don’t dance anymore.”
“Laughing with my friends gives me energy.”
“Music and art are two simple joys that make me feel good.”

How do you have fun? Summer is a time for playfulness, laughter, and pleasure. Our culture starts reminding us of that in May with advertisements for beach rentals, camps, fun clothing, pretty pictures of oceans, lite menus, barbecues, and beach toys.

The Science of Good Humor

Positive Psychology, the scientific study of well-being, classifies humor as one of the universally important character strengths essential to living a good life. According to the Mayo Clinic, laughter can be “the best medicine” to strengthen your immune system, boost mood, diminish pain, and bring your body and mind into balance. We intuitively know that laughter helps shift perspective, allowing us to see things in a new light. So, it makes sense that those who find humor in all sorts of situations will have more resilience to life’s difficulties, enjoy better relationships, and benefit from more positive mental and physical health.

In life coaching, adding lightness and a sense of humor often means looking at an issue from different perspectives. When we get too serious or feel stuck, putting on a favorite song and dancing around the living room or being creative in the kitchen can have incredibly therapeutic effects! Watching or listening to stand-up comedy or reading a light summer book are all strategies I use to catapult myself out of a rut.

I am a true believer in lightening up and finding humor wherever we can.

Life Coaching Strategies to Find Your Fun

While coaching clients who feel stuck, indecisive, and disorganized I encourage them to (re-)discover what is fun for them.

How do they play?
What part do sports, games, crafts, cooking, vacations, and friends have in their lives?
How can they add more zest to their current schedule?

Enriching your life with laughter and fun is a worthwhile goal. It helps to minimize your worries and maximize inspiration, fitness, and spontaneity.

Physical activity and play give us energy. Play can restore and recharge us during difficult times.

Playfulness, comedy, and fun aren’t just for summer, either. They are things we can do all year round, and they help my clients:

Reduce their resistance to new things
Feel better / more relaxed
Access more creativity
Become more resourceful
Become more successful
Have more fun
Become more fun to be around!

We’re In This Together

The pandemic left behind a residue of grief. Everyone noticed changes in their goals and new, sometimes disturbing, thoughts about the future. AI is bringing about a similar shift to anxiety, worry about what’s next, and fear of loss of a way of life.

There are times when the only appropriate response to grief is solemnity, but these shared experiences also bring us together as human beings and remind us of our core values. We’re in this together. Affiliative humor is when we laugh at things that are universally funny or that we all have in common, and the goal is to bring people together. Finding healthy humor in shared experiences can create a sense of fellowship, happiness, and well-being. To move out of a pessimistic mindset and a sense of overwhelm about choices, career, or lack of focus, try a dose of playtime to put you in balance and move to an optimistic mindset.

Laughter that highlights our mutual awareness that the reality we are living in is not the reality can be incredibly beneficial. Underneath it all is the absurdity of life. The conventions we follow, the energies we project, the ridiculous situations we find ourselves in can be hilarious, if we see them as such. Laughter allows us to touch on that absurdity with lightness instead of anger or condemnation. In doing so, we find relief for and community in the human condition.

Need to add some playfulness and levity to your life? Enlist an ally to help you in this work. Call me, Life Coach Catharine Ecton or schedule your free Life Coaching consultation today. You can have what you want, live with more ease, and bring your life into alignment.

Contact me for a complimentary, no-obligations life coaching consultation and we can work on your goals together. Or use the Appointment Scheduler and pick a time that works for you. I coach 90% of my clients over the phone, and my DC-based Life Coaching clients have the option of meeting with me in person. I look forward to hearing from you.