Don't Wait To Feel Like Laughing - Laugh So You Feel Like It

Today’s guest is David C. Jones - Coach, Teacher, Keynote Speaker, Actor, Filmmaker, Host/Emcee, and Improv Artist.

David has grown from a bullied young man into an adult who has won awards for advocacy work, teaching, and comedy. 

Join me and David in this Law of Happy episode for our chat about emotions, and the power of laughter! I had a lot of fun playing some Laughter Yoga games with David as a way to raise our energy and feel good. And I loved learning some of David’s own feel-good tools like the “Yoda Rap”.

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Learn more about David C. Jones here: https://www.davidcjones.ca/

Learn more about David’s Film work here: https://dcjproductions.ca/

*If you’re in Vancouver between Sept. 7th and 17th, 2023, you’ll want to catch David’s new multimedia musical, “Eviction Conniption”, about the battle with trauma and mental illness, at the Vancouver Fringe: https://www.vancouverfringe.com/

Transcript

0:10

Welcome back to the Law of Happy Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Tattler. I'm an attorney and I teach laughter as an exercise. When we laugh, we feel good, and we raise our energy. This allows more good fun things to flow into our experience. This is the Law of Happy, so let's laugh half fun and practice the law of Happy together. I'm so excited for you to meet today's special guest David C. Jones. He's a coach teacher keynote speaker. Actor filmmaker, host MC and improv artist. What brings David the most joy is helping people get out of their own way. David has grown from a bullied young man into an adult who has won awards for advocacy work, teaching and comedy. If you're in Vancouver between September 7th and 17th, 2023, you'll want to catch David's new multimedia musical called eviction connection about the battle with trauma and mental illness at the Vancouver fringe. Join me and david in this log, happy episode for our chat about emotions and the power of laughter I had a lot. a lot of fun playing some laughter games with david as a way to raise their energy and to feel good And i loved learning some of david's own feel good tools like the yoda rap. Now join me in giving a warm welcome to david c jones

Lauren 1:30

David C. Jones. I am I'm, just, I'm laughing out'cause I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you so much for being our special guest today on the Law of Happy podcast. Welcome.

David 1:41

Oh, I'm so excited to be here.

Lauren 1:43

David, I am excited. I don't even know where to begin. I love, first of all, David C. Jones. And you, mentioned that the the C stands for Creative.

David 1:54

Creative. Yeah, because I love it. I. I used to say it stood for comedy, but now I say creative because I, do so many things. I jump around. One month I'm making a music video for my friend, Noreen. The next month or next week, I'm wearing a giant eyeball and entertaining people on the street. The next day I'm. Prepping a lecture that I have to do about the power of comedy and laughter. And the day after that I'm MCing an event, I mc and host a lot of events and often we'll create stuff for that event. Wow. Much good night.

Lauren 2:31

That's incredible. I'm just I have a passion for the creative world, and I'm just fascinated by everything that you've done and, do in the creative realm. Can you tell us more about how you got into the creative world and a bit about your journey? I would, I'm just so intrigued and fascinated.

David 2:51

Hold far back, do you want me to go? When I was a kid, I really, was attracted to acting and drama, but I was also incredibly shy and bullied and stuff like that, so I never took any of those classes because I was afraid I'd be picked on. In high school. I started going if I don't do it now, I'm not going to. And so two things happened. I, took drama, but our drama teacher, Mrs. Ney, taught us theater sports comedy improv. And I took to that like a fish takes to wa. I had so much fun doing it and I was pretty good at it I sometimes say I'm a presenter, a pro, a producer, and a performer. And I lo because everything I do involves audiences, it involves entertaining. That's even when I'm teaching. I once said at the end of a class to a fellow teacher, oh, I'm so tired. And he goes,'cause David, you put on a show, you put on a three hour show. You don't just give them information, you wanna make them laugh and have a good time and, That's because I think that's when they learn.

Lauren 4:03

Oh, wow. Yeah. It's amazing everything that you do and that you do it fully and with so much passion and Yes with, so that people have fun and laugh because that's the key to. So much I find.

David 4:18

I think the, biggest thing that I discovered growing up is if you get people laughing they don't, they can't punch you, right? Because they're, grabbing their sides. They're not grabbing your throat. So I, learned pretty quickly that if I can make a quip or. Get people giggling.

Lauren 4:46

Laughter has changed so much for me and helped me so much over the years, and that's why I was drawn to laughter yoga, using laughter as a, as an exercise. I've also I've also done improv and clown, but, and I love, yeah I, just love everything about the art of play and having fun and laughter

David 5:07

I think it's really important to say is that it's also not about what sometimes can be referred to as toxic positivity. No, you it, you need to feel your emotions. You need if you're sad, like I get profoundly sad, I have crying fits. Sometimes I get angry. I try not to ever get angry at people. If I'm in a situation, I will sometimes jump up and down and go, ah, okay. And it's not like I would never say to anyone just smile. It's no, you gotta get those negative emotions out too. I am, one of the things that I was taught and I do it in my public speaking, is we tend to suppress our emotions, men in particular, but women too. We suppress our emotions. We'll go. It will hold them in. And what happens is that they build up into the gut and you either have to do deep breath work or deep belly laughs when you're just going right, you're actually scooping out all that negativity. And that's why sometimes people start crying when they're laughing or they almost get this angry look on their face when they're really laughing'cause they're scooping out All those emotions that they've pushed down and held down. At previous times, they didn't go anywhere. They just went, they sunk into your swamp and you gotta get them out of your

Lauren 6:30

swamp. Yeah. Thank you so much for mentioning this now. It's so important and I often say, tell people and tell myself the same thing that even the, name of, my wellness practice and the podcast, lot of happy. It's not about being happy all the time. Like you're saying, it's not possible. We're human. We have all of the different emotions and, in, in everyone's life there are challenges, ups and downs. And I agree with you. I believe it's so important to acknowledge how we're feeling in the moment, to honor that, acknowledge it, feel it, and and then go from there I see it to the emotions as an emotional ladder or scale where we cannot go from feeling overwhelmed to bouncing up immediately to feeling pure joy and bliss. I think that it's a gradual process if we wanna move when and if we wanna move, if and when we wanna move up the, scale. Yeah. Feeling, anger, feeling frustrated, then up and, yeah. So I, completely agree. Nothing toxic about about any of this. I think that it's, all about honoring and acknowledging how we feel in the present moment, knowing it's okay and that our emotions don't define us and we can choose to feel some relief. Yeah, when we want.

David 7:39

Emotional intelligence, right? We are not victims or emotion. We often like to say we're victims or of our emotions, it's only when you get stuck in repetitive behavior, right? If the stuck in negative complaint, what's that thing about? Complaining begets more. Complaining. Gratitude begets more gratitude, right? Complaining feels great. It feels so good, right? But it's, tiresome to be around and annoying and not good for your health.

Lauren 8:09

Exactly. Exactly. And, like you said when we focus on what we're complaining about, we could, that's okay. But then I find that I just stay in that cycle of, feeling upset about what I'm upset about. Then, if I keep talking about it, I'm attracting more people who are upset into my life.'cause it's like that's the, vibration that I'm on so to speak. But then when I'm able to shift my thoughts and feel a bit of relief or a bit better, by, shifting my focus to a thought that feels a bit better. I find that I then I feel. I feel a bit better. I feel better. So that feels good in and of itself, but then I find I allow and attract more things to appreciate or more things to feel better about. Into my experience. And yeah, that, there's just so much to, to say about this topic, but I think it's so important what you said about acknowledging and honoring all of the different emotions. And it's okay to feel not so great, but then we have the power and the choice to feel some relief or a bit better when we want. And I find laughter is my. Go to, I started to say Happy hack or just a tool that I can use, even if I feel at the moment, there's nothing to laugh about. And it's not a, not using it as to laugh at a situation or about, how I'm feeling, but just to give me some relief and and to just Shift my energy a bit so I could start to move up and feel a bit of relief and a bit better. I wanted to ask you, do you ever use laughter as a form of exercise? Like without the humor part just, doing an exercise where you laugh or to get all of the benefits of laughter, but like just choosing to do it as a pure exercise.

David 9:44

Like as in laughter yoga and stuff? Yes. I, have to be, I have to be honest. It's like I don't I don't suddenly go, oh, I think I will laugh now. I. I think I should, but I I, just genuinely try to find stuff that is funny I do physical stuff with my face and I teach physical stuff with the face

Lauren 10:01

I'm wondering if you can humor me. Can we do, just a little laughter exercise together so that Sure. So that we can laugh and our listeners can see what that's like doing it as an exercise. And then I would love to, to hear more about what you do to to bring laughter to laugh in your life. Okay,

David 10:22

cool. Yeah. Okay. No I, love trying new things. I'm always I'm always doing different things. I think I wanna get my laughter, yoga CER certification. It's on my list. I have a list of things that I wanna do and that on there.

Lauren 10:38

Yes, I recommend it. I am a, I'm a laughter yoga leader. Okay. I, call it the the laughter name game. So I'll start to demonstrate, I'm gonna say my name, and then I'm gonna say one of my favorite movies, and then I'm gonna laugh, and then you join me and just laugh with me as an exercise. Okay. And then it'll be your turn. Okay? Okay. Okay. Hi, my name is Lauren and one of my favorite movies is Who's Afraid Of Virginia Wolf.

David 11:21

It's not a funny movie, but that's a great. I love it. I love that film.

Lauren 11:29

I love the actors in that movie. Oh, thank

David 11:35

you for joining me. My name is David C. Jones and one of my most favorite movies that's popped into my head is The Great Muppet Caper. Bear. Dad says, that's not a bear. Bears wear hats.

Lauren 12:16

Oh my gosh. Oh, that was fun. Thank you for, being open. And open-minded. And listeners, thank you too for, listening and laughing with

David 12:27

us hopefully, and go watch both those films. They're very different. Yes. You have to find how they're similar and

Lauren 12:35

report back. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that, thank you so much. Oh, I'm just so excited. I just using laughter as an exercise, like where we're not, we're just laughing to, to get the health benefits.'cause if we're laughing,'cause the body doesn't know the difference. If we're laughing spontaneously or if we're laughing I don't like to say faking the laughter, but simulating the laughter. Yeah. And then oftentimes the simulated laughter, like we just did for the exercise, will can turn into reels. Spontaneous laughter, which is a fun surprise. I don't go in I don't know, expecting it. I just keep my I just go annoying. I'm gonna get the benefits, but then when it does turn into spontaneous laughter it's, extra fun. I

David 13:21

had so much fun. Totally. I said earlier, fake it till you make it. And that's very true about changing your mood or finding triggers that can help change your mood when you feel you've indulged enough in a different mood when you go time to get out of this dark place. It, you don't have to wait until you've, you, I don't feel like laughing. It's no laugh. So you feel like it

Lauren 13:51

Exactly. David, what are some practical ways that you, use in your own life to give you some relief or help you feel a bit better or feel good? Raise your energy? I would love to learn

David 14:05

Sure. One of the things you don't do is go into bad habits. I used to be a drinker and a smoker, and I don't do either of those things now. I've been sober for 12 years and haven't smoked a cigarette like in 25 years. It's amazing. And some practical things I do.'cause I can get being a creative, sometimes you rely on the gatekeepers to get you work and sometimes the gatekeepers say no. So you feel down, you're like, oh no, I didn't get the thing that I wanted to do. So I can get into a head space of negativity. It's it's'cause I suck. That's why I didn't get the job. I do a physical thing similar to laughing, and this is what I teach, is if you raise your eyebrows up. You can already feel your face opening. And then if you, if open it into a big mouth, tooth, toothy, smile. And just hug it. You already feel silly. And, if you can find a mirror and you look at yourself, you'll often then go, ha and laugh.'cause you're, lightening your face.'cause when we're upset, our eyebrows furrow, they push down as our brain is thinking and pondering and flipping things over in our minds. So when you suddenly force your eyebrows up, And lift your mouth, get your mouth open, eyes up you can even look up to the right. That even helps too.'cause the right is where you're in your cre, your creative space. So all of those things are I. Where you start just changing your physicality. A couple other little things that I do is I have a box now. I haven't used the box for a long time. It's, a silver box that I decorated, although I think I have to reapply some of the decorations. And for a couple months that I wrote down only affirmations or gratitudes. I put them in the box and the idea was, okay, open the box and read a couple until you feel better.'cause you have to remind yourself that there are just as many good times as there are crappy times there's a little poem game. It's called the Yoda Wrap, and oh, it gives your brain a little twister. What you do is you say two words. It's a little complicated. I'll demonstrate it. Okay. Say two words, and then you say two more words that rhyme with those two words. Not both of them, like the, sentence. So if you said instant rice. Then you might say, this is a little gross, sorry, head lice'cause it rhymes with instant rice. But then what happens is you flip the second set of words. So now you go lice head and now you rhyme with that one nearly dead on getting very morbid. And then you go, then you flip that word dead nearly feeling dear dearly. I'm gonna try a new one. Okay. Okay. Shining light. Feeling bright. Bright, feeling fishing reeling, fish. Grant a wish. Wish granted. Egg planted. Planted egg. Big leg Big. Nice wig. Wig. Nice. Frozen ice. Ice. Frozen. Nice and cozen co. Nice head lice. We're back to headlights.

Lauren 17:51

Full circle.

David 17:53

Wow. Yeah. And when you're doing that, your brain is just having to do really simple thinking. Simple thinking. Yeah, it's simple'cause you have to think of the rhymes and you have to remember to flip, flip, flip. And what happens is if you were thinking about, oh, life sucks, or I hate that person, or I don't, it's very hard for your brain to do two things at the same time. So if you do that Yoda wrap. Okay. Afterwards, you suddenly notice, oh, I haven't, I didn't think about that thing.

Lauren 18:25

I love this. I've never heard of this and this is brilliant. Yeah. I just love learning your tools, so thank you so much. This is it's creative and it's fun. And like you said it, allows our mind to just shift our focus from the, negative things that we just kept ruminating or thinking about to, this Yeah. We're not focused on stressing out about the future, worrying about the past. We're in the moment thinking about these words and this fun. Creative rap. We're create, we're doing. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, it's great fun. Yeah. And it's it, what a great game because the more we tell ourselves not to think about something we shouldn't be thinking, but then we just we're, giving it energy and we're thinking about it. So you've got to, the only way to let go is to shift your focus to something else. And this is so much

David 19:08

fun. Simon Simons. Nick Sinek said that in one of his videos our brain doesn't deal with a negative. I tell you not to think about an elephant. The first thing you're gonna do is think about an elephant. I know. It So you have to then go, okay, I gonna put other things in my head. You probably have known,'cause you, because you deal with the healing arts, the anxiety thing, right? The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 rule. Yeah. Yes. So this is like a version of the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 rule only. It's just all in your brain as you're flipping words around. Can I tell you another one that's really, simple? Please. Okay. So you can also tell a story. Remember, for a story, you need a protagonist and they have to have something that they want, and they have to have obstacles in the way, but you have to use things that your eyes are landing on. So you just gotta make sure you have a person's name there. So I'm looking around Bob was getting some stuff done when he realized his stapler was outta Staples. So he knew he was gonna have to go down to the stationary store. So he got on his light cycle. Which is really, fast. And he turned on the radio'cause he had really good speakers on it, when suddenly he heard that there was a giant teddy bear blocking the road. So you just, you're just like looking at things around you and weaving them into the story.

Lauren 20:33

Okay, that's fun too. Very creative and Fun. Do so do these tools are I love them. Because it is so great to have a toolbox that's full of stuff because we're not always in the mood for the same thing all the time, and we can just then pick and choose what feels right in that particular moment. So it's fun to have different tools. You've inspired my creative mind. So here's the thing. What I'd love to do, is there something that I don't know that, that you. Done that you do, that's mundane or, can just be annoying or not fun to do. And then we can improvise and pretend we're or m pretend we're doing that and, throw in some laughter. What do you think about there's, there are different

David 21:21

scenarios. I just did just before doing this. Yeah. Because I'm gonna go to the gym after this. I cleaned the litter box.

Lauren 21:31

Can you teach me how to clean a litter box? I have a dog. I don't know how to clean a litter box,'cause one day I might have a, I might have a cat, I think. Okay.

David 21:41

So one of the things you have to do is you have to have a proper scoop. Yeah. And you have to have a litter. Now you shouldn't use a clay litter. Because cats lick their paws and stuff like that. And clay's bad for cats. You have to get like a corn cob litter or something that's gonna be okay. Okay. If the cat cleans itself,'cause cats clean themselves all the time and you have to scoop into the litter box. You scoop in. Okay, so we're

Lauren 22:05

gonna mind scooping, scooping in, and

David 22:07

then you shake, just shake away the the stuff that's not cat poo

Lauren 22:14

So for this exercise, we're gonna, can we m Yes. Scooping and then there's a shaking, right? Yep. We scoop, shake it out, and we shake it out and we laugh, we shake it and we laugh. Oh, you, oh, okay. You're back. Okay. Thank you. Because you know what I find something that I like to do is I like to I like to incorporate laughing. Alone. It's fun to laugh with somebody else, but it can also be something you do as an exercise on your own. If you're washing dishes, you can just wash the dish and laugh and or scoop the litter and laugh really anything. Even if you're sitting in traffic, you can just start laughing instead of. Getting into a rage, not you if somebody gets frustrated and it's, so easy to get frustrated in traffic. I just try to think of scenarios that can be, let's say boring or, frustrating and, just throw in a, make it a laughter. Exercise a good way. Thanks. I love

David 23:28

that.

Lauren 23:29

I wanna ask you just a couple last things. Sure. David if there was, a question that I didn't get a chance to ask you during this current session, but I, would've been a good question or I should have asked you, what would your answer be and, I do, I ask you this for two reasons, so that afterwards I don't say, oh, I should have asked him this. Or, and also in case there's something that something that you would like to share that I didn't touch upon. And, Okay. But no pressure. Okay.

David 24:00

Like one of the things that I'm doing now before the pandemic, I. Happened, I was starting to do more speaking engagements, going in and doing like a keynote speak, and then sometimes doing a workshop as well. And then that all, of course all went away. And now I'm, gearing up again and I have three major keynotes that I focus on. One is the power of laughter. Happy employees, make happy customers. The other is how to mc your life.'cause I've worked as an mc around the world and on tv the things that make a good mc also make a good person to be around and, interact with. And the other one is called you got Character, which is about using tools like status microexpressions, and things like animal work and posture, things that actors use to create characters. How can you take advantage of them in your life? I don't know if you know that Beyonce is very, shy, but she, puts on a different persona. When she performs, she puts on Sasha Fierce. Sasha Fierce is the person who performs her songs in concert. So she, works with like an alter ego or a different personality, and it's a little bit like you might've seen What's her name? Amy Cudi. Amy Cudi. She's a Ted Talk very popular TED Talk where she talks about different body postures to help you feel more powerful in your life or in a situation that is stressful. You got character is all about that going Meryl Streep has played a prime minister. She's played a chef, she's played a river tour guide. And those all required her to do different things. What we learn from that. So you got character, how to mc your life and the power of laughter are my three main keynotes

Lauren 26:06

That's, amazing. And how can people, how can. Our listeners find you.

David 26:10

Yeah. The, my new website is David C. Jones dot ca, and my film work the short films that I've made and corporate, I've done corporate videos as well for people. That's dcj productions.ca. So the films I, try to keep those two worlds a little bit separate because being a multihyphenate, confuses people. They go, what do you do? And I go, what don't I do? I'll be faster. Yeah

Lauren 26:41

I just love all the things you do. It just keeps, it must keep it fresh and fun and interesting for you and your audiences and people. Yeah,

David 26:51

it ke and I think it keeps me young. Like one of the things that you go, how long have you been doing that? And you go eight years, and it's you must be pretty young then it's no,'cause I did 500 other things. I used to run a charity called Laughter Mission Society, and we went into organizations that were dealing with terminal or life-threatening illnesses and their caregivers. I.'cause I was a caregiver myself. I was the caregiver from my mom. She had a horrific disease. She had Lou Gehrig's disease. Found great solace in was making her laugh. She couldn't vocalize anymore, but she would smile or she would throw her head back and I would go, okay. In that moment she's not thinking about how her body is betraying her. So then I would just try to get her to do that all the time. Wow. And that's the same with my students. When they're scared or nervous or they don't know if they're doing the right thing. If I get them laughing, then they're not thinking about it anymore. Even if it's just for a second. And it might give them, or everyone, all people, the energy to face the problem now, right? Yes. You have a little bit more energy, maybe a different perspective. Let's figure out what we're gonna do.

Lauren 28:16

Yeah, that's beautiful and powerful, and thank you for, sharing that. You're really amazing. I'm again, I'm fascinated with all the different creative hats and different projects that you do and your audiences and students are very lucky because yeah, you're, you bring so much because of your background and experience and talents and gifts and and I'm also Honored and happy that you were our guest today or our guest. My

David 28:44

guest today. Thank you. Yes. You people listening at home, stop listening. This is just between the two of us. Oh,

Lauren 28:50

yes. I meant, yes, our, because sometimes I laugh if I refer to myself as we, but yes. Myself and our listeners and the collective week. Nice. So thank you so much for everything, David, and I wish you super honored to be here. All the best. Thank you. And all the best with your upcoming And I'm very excited and I hope to speak with you and laugh with you soon. Awesome.

David 29:13

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Lauren 29:15

Thank you. Okay. Okay. Bye. Bye.

29:20

Thank you for having tuned into this Law of Happy episode. If you smiled, laughed, or felt inspired, please subscribe, rate, review, and share the Law of Happy podcast with someone you'd love to have fun with. And if you'd like to laugh with me as a guest on the show or in a customized program, you can email me at lauren@lawofhappy.com. I look forward to laughing with you soon.