Monday, 31 December 2012

Applepie & Custard

Coming to the end of another year... 2012 is almost out and it is time to celebrate the months well left behind and the new year to come! Exciting!

For many people this year has been a challenge, a great learning curve, and a year full of ups and many downs, and if you are through 2012 with the skin intact on your nose (or is that a Danish way of saying 'survived') then it is definitely time for applepie and custard!

What a great way to express victory! Perhaps your 'applepie and custard' is a glass of champagne or a roast dinner or a walk on the beach but whatever it is, it is an expression and winning attitude of 'we made it!'.

It may have been a great year for you or it may have been full of personal and professional challenges.

If you read this, then we are both still here no matter what went on and went down and went up and even sideways and backwards!

What a year!

And if you are not quite sure what to make of 2012 and how to enter 2013, well, eat your pie and live your dream.

A new year, new hope, new dreams, new beginnings, new love, new life and shortly a brand new Spring where every little thing that has been waiting  and waiting... Everything is ready to unfold.

What a wonderous and awesome world we inhabit!

Time to activate the gratitude channels and remember what is worth bringing forward.

Cheers to applepie and custard! and cheers to a new year full of new challenges, bumps, successes, love, great health, happiness, joy, friendships and wonderful families - most of all, good times!

Happy 2013!

Monday, 24 December 2012

...wup wup wup...

...wuppa Gangnam style!

What makes popular? and wide-spread? and approved? and accepted?

And why is it that in the UK we are so great at so many things, but so slow at adopting and adapting new methods for health and happiness?

Or rather, what determines the success of a programme?

Take for example Zumba, it struck overnight and is a health craze that swept the nation in the blink of an eye. Why is it then only a select few who can see the same potential with Laughter Yoga? But then, worldwide there are 10,000s of Laughter Clubs so perhaps the question is mainly a local one...

Laughter Yoga is life-changing and health-boosting! It is at the tip of your tongue, literally, so what is the real difference?

We practice Laughter Yoga in a closed group so people can be as self-expressed as they wish, no difference there, but there must be something that keeps people from joining the classes regularly. Some people say it's fantastic and they will be back but never return, some are just honest and say it is not for them.

And I suppose that is how it is with all types of exercising and practices.

However, if you have only been to a Laughter Yoga session once then it is definitely too early to say whether it is for you or not. You need at least a few tries!

Even if it is slightly out of your comfort zone!

Coming to the end of 2012 with all the exciting things that have been going on over the past many months, I am in a state of questionning, reflecting and reviewing how things progressed and how to move forward in the new year and years ahead. Natural process, I imagine - for me at least, it happens every year around this time...

Laughter Yoga has been around for almost 17 years, laughter even longer, and I can guarantee you it is here to stay. I am totally committed to and in the mood for creating success together with everyone who has invested their time, money and their health in laughing! We are on a wonderful journey with plenty of space for smiles and laughs as well as any tear that need surfacing. And Laughter Yoga really gets you on a rollercoaster through physical, emotional, mental and spiritual sides of life - it is not just about laughing, it is about growing.

Life will change if you take on the challenge and truly want an extra-ordinary life full of all you ever wanted and then some.

So - who's with me?! It will be fun, I promise - plus a lot of other things.

All I want for Christmas (apart from you!) is the further spreading of Laughter Yoga for health, joyfulness, happiness, and longevity, for personal success, emotional expansion, and at the core of it all - for World peace! 

Wishing you all a jolly good Christmas and a wonderful festive season celebration!

Love and Blessings, Lotte.

Monday, 17 December 2012

Carers week!

Innocent people lost their lives this past week, others were injured violently, and still many more were hurt in a way that only few can fathom because most of us have not had the personal experience with weapon crime and losing dear ones in this brutal way.

Based on my friends story a few years ago, her and I came up with a campaign against weapons, 'Knife Crime is Life Time' but it doesn't single out knives as the only weapons that cause severe grief.

The crime, for the survivors, is for life. No matter how much you try to forget, how many hours of therapy, how many spiritual healing sessions, no matter how much you say you forgive - the memory will always be there.

Yet, we get on with life!

My friend is one of the most courageous people I know. Two years on from the brutal stabbing that nearly took her life she is still coping with her ups and downs and with knowing that her stabber could be out in less than three years.

Why do people confine to violence in what seems to be perfectly idyllic places? What tips the load?
Is it just becuase we hear more about it than we used to 50-60 odd years ago so it seems worse now? And the films we watch allow for new ideas of violent behaviour? Or is it in the food and drinks?

Lets face it, our foods and drinks really are stashed with additives with numbers and codes that only pharmaceutical geniuses can decipher and decode. What is it that we eat and drink? What makes us addicts to unhealthy life styles?

And could those additives and GM based changes in fact be affecting our mental health and wellbeing in ways that have not even been considered because the testing of products doesn't account for our individual make up and individual DNA with or without defects...??? How ARE we impacted by substances we don't even know from real life?

I'm sure all of this has been covered in lenghty reports and been commented on in various blogs and news flashes, but in essence I am just emptying my head which has in all fairness been buzzing all weekend. Urging to keep the high spirit and positive outlook without coming across as superficial in a time when people need nurturing and care at a deep level. We are all looking for comfort from each other and a view as we move on and maintain the positivity in our efforts to conquer bad attitude and mental health challenges altogether!

Years ago when asked about the appropriateness of laughing on 11th September anniversaries and other tragedy anniversaries, Dr Patch Adams said that if there was ever a time to laugh it is when we are faced with adversity, tragedy, terrorism, war and other serious crimes agains humanity. This is the time to not falter, the time to keep our spirits high and believe that all good will win in the end.

Laughing doesn't make events less serious, and there is always a time for grieving and respecting the tears and mourning, but laughter does help you move on in life and connects you with those who care.

Let's raise the energy, keep our ligths strong and our hopes high, reminding ourselves that we only lose when we give up. The love and healing we summon, through thoughts and prayers, is for the people who suffered tragic losses last week, the people who suffered in the past and the people who have been hurt badly through time whether it is physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Our global energy of light and love raises the vibration and resonates throughout the Universe to create the change we need - even if it seems far-fetched or perhaps even a slow return on investment. What is there to lose?

Let's care this week!

Let's care again next week, too!

I am a Laughter Ambassador  - and caring is what I do!

Monday, 10 December 2012

Just an observation.

If you read my posts regularly you may have noticed that it has been quite serious stuff lately (perhaps with the exception of last week about 'styling it out')!

Yet it has been about grabbing life and living it with panache and power. About seeing the humour in life and living it light-heartedly. About letting go of 'stuff' that wears you out. About values and appreciation. About lots of things you already know.

So, where was I? Oh yes, laugh along with living - there is nothing better than starting the day on a laughter-high, except perhaps on a love-high but that is a different story and different blogpost, what are you waiting for?!

Take a deep breath into your whole body, drop your jaw and let the belly sounds out, HA HA HA HA! Does it matter if anyone stares? I bet they wish they knew what you know.

Share what you know about laughter and life, give people the gift of a joyful perspective, it all comes down to not feeling precious about it all or too self-conscious in your sharing of the key to longevity with laughter.

Share your laughter and your smiles with the world!

Holding back serves no one and especially not you. So many people crumble because they hold back instead of letting themselves be their own self-expressed natural beings.

Getting back to being serious now... that was not the intention in this blog post. How to get back?!

Laugh, giggle, chuckle, grin, guffaw, smile, smile, smile.

I noticed my neighbourhood people when I was walking up shopping on Saturday morning, it was a beautiful and cold morning, but it didn't seem to matter because the sun seemed to bring out the best in everyone including their smiles.

For the first time in the 11 and a bit years I've lived in the UK I was not the one initiating a smile with walk-passers, they smiled just as much.

I could see the smiles on their faces from a distance and it was just such a life affirming and joyful moment in time to know that other people smile, too, out of free will, and not always because I smile first - although it mostly helps...

But these spontaneous, uninhibited smiles embrace the beauty and abundance in the day.

Smiles are fantastic and contagious, wear a smile and go viral!

Monday, 3 December 2012

Style it out!

What a brilliant expression!

I only heard it the other day when Kat mentioned it on the One-On-One Laughter Coaching Training (which, by the way, is a BRILLIANT training for Laughter Professionals so I have included the link to the details of it).

'Style it out' - what is it all about then?

It makes me laugh out loud just thinking about it!

Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you can feel your cheeks heating up, the stammer is making its way across your lips or even the nervous laughter is on a crash course?

Only because you have bonged a step and stacked it down the stairs, tripped over an invisible stone or burst out something completely inappropriate, made a gesture that only created cringing toes or just been out of place in general?

Well, I do find myself in that situation ever so often, and no doubt a select group of friends will agree that this is what I master to perfection.

I guess being Danish in a British Reservation Area makes me less politically correct than I should probably consider being all things taken into account.

So that do you do?

The answer is right there! Style it out!

You can do nothing to reverse time to the moment before that error or embarrasing event so just go with it and do it in style.

Commit to that cringy mishap and act as if it was the most natural thing to do and not a misconducted gesture.

Style it out!

I love the example in the Urban Dictionary...
I did a Hitler salute, but when no-one laughed I decided to style it out by pretending to scratch my armpit instead
And that is exactly what it's about - so simple! If you near-trip just pretend you are reaching for something you dropped or whichever seems to work for you, it's just a bit of mischief in the daily routine. It is good fun and creative, and it happens in a flick of an eyelash. Of course it works with spontanous misadventures only.

I skip when I trip hahaha - let me hear your stories!