Joy to the World: The Gift of Humor

For many years I have been vigorously complimented for my authenticity. I've enjoyed the exhilaration of sharing the most intimate details of my life with strangers in opportune moments and reaching the dearest of friends and family by wearing my heart on my sleeve. I'm from New England, so this kind of honesty comes naturally to me, but pleasantly surprises people in the West.

During this Christmas season I've been wondering if there are other ways to use this gift of authenticity to bless others. As I was pondering I realized that I've been withholding the joy of my humor from the world. When it is convenient and when I meet like-minded people, my humor becomes quite obvious, but that's unfortunately not very often. I rarely allow that side of my personality to come out because I usually wait for someone else to initiate playful witty banter, but it's time to show up and shine.

Frankly I find humans ridiculous. We think we know what we're doing, but really we have no idea and we look like fools most of the time. I've learned to take great joy in watching myself fail and make the biggest messes of all time by laughing at myself and not taking myself too seriously.

I put together my first stand-up routine almost a year ago and I received a surprising amount of positive feedback. There have also been other instances in which I've received feedback that I have the power to unite a whole room in uproarious laughter. I realize now how substantial my contribution to the world can be when I intentionally create the space of joy and laughter wherein my friends can play.

Humor has been my saving grace. Late-night re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond or the Bill Cosby Show have lifted my spirits many a time in the dark nights of my soul. There is something magical about pointing out the absurdity of tragedy and human foibles that disempowers the foe. The forces of evil can't stand a chance when someone puts on a smile and makes 'em laugh.

Remember Robin Williams?

Some of the happiest and funniest men and women developed humor as a weapon against the most debilitating demons, darkness, and depression. I cried the day he died. Although I didn't know him, in many ways I knew him. He was a tragic hero, yet an example of intentional optimism, joy, and faith in the face of trial and tribulation beyond what most people ever experience. His fantastic and authentic performance as a husband grief-stricken due to the suicide of his wife in What Dreams May Come may have been relatively unnoticed, but not to me. Suicide is not the end, Robin, as you know.

Remember Funny Girl?

In the movie version Barbara Streisand plays a comedian married to a husband addicted to gambling and the musical ends with the couple tragically separating. The song Send In the Clowns has always been hauntingly beautiful to me:

Humor is also an opportunity to put the problems of life into proper perspective. To those of us that are truly committed to humor, it is not entertainment--it is a lifestyle. My love of good humor began as a teenager as I attended a bi-weekly improv comedy troupe akin to "Whose Line is It Anyway?" I fell in love with wit, flow, and authenticity and the experiences of sheer joy and connection I had changed my life forever. I have since remained totally committed to good humor.

Without further ado, here is a clip of my first standup routine. Anticipate more to come in 2017.

Hardest Breakup Ever

Some of you know that the man I was considering marrying a little over a year ago just married one of my closest friends. After we broke up I suggested that he date her and he took me seriously.

My heart has been very broken for a long time and my faith has been tested to its very core. I have allowed myself time to heal and to date more casually, but I have longed to have the same kind of connection I had with him in addition to what was missing.

In a way I feel overjoyed that I was instrumental in preparing him for his future wife and that I set them up. On the other hand, my sorrow has been multiplied and prolonged.

Just when I thought my tears had run out and that I was fully ready to move on with my life, this morning I heard Josh Groban's rendition of Michael Jackson's song She's Out of My Life. Sometimes a song touches you in a way that nothing is ever the same again. Forgive the Japaname.

After we broke up, I prayed that the Lord would put someone in my path that would lead me away from that relationship because I knew I was vulnerable and would go back. My prayer was answered and I was led to a wonderful man online at a critical time that I needed to know that everything was going to be okay. Although he turned out to not be the one, he gave me the joy and undeniable hope for the future that was so necessary for me to be able to pick myself up and keep going. I still count my precious moments with him as some of the most tender mercies of my life that provided me such needed strength and courage.

Breakups are difficult, especially with the ones we come to love. They are perhaps the greatest tests of life. They bring about the greatest pain measurable to man. Yet I know and I have seen for myself that the Lord prepares us for the greatest joy imaginable through our relationships and that in the end it will be worth it and we will ask, "Was that all that was required?"

I have been shown that the Lord has a specific plan for my life and he has led me to the resources that would give me the confidence to go for my dreams. He led me to a man that showed me the meaning of unconditional love and positive regard. I have seen the Lord's hand in the lives of the people that I love in bringing them together.

While I'm still waiting for my happily ever after, I am so overwhelmed with gratitude for the works the Lord has wrought by my feeble and unskillful hands that have been willing to serve. Somehow he miraculously lifts my burdens and hushes my fears when I reach outside of myself and 1) Trust in his plan, 2) Follow his plan, 3) Choose to be happy.

I have come to understand that without understanding true and total loneliness, I would have never been able to understand love and the worth of a soul at the level that I experience now. I can already say that it was all worth it. The world is now in full color. I have already been compensated.

I stand for your happiness and for your victory and my own. In the words of Ingrid Michaelson, everybody wants to be loved. No matter how hard and long the road, we will at last declare that it is finished and will be welcomed with open warm and loving arms to our Savior that will wipe our tears and say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

I love you, God bless until my next post, and keep the faith!

To Live is to Play

We come into this life with a few inborn skills—to Breathe, to Smile, to Love, to Laugh, and to Play.

Robert Fulgum once said, “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.”

Well, when I was in kindergarten, at home my playground was a bloody battlefield. Instead of playing Princess Tea Time, House, and Dress-Up, I played GI Jane, fleeing flying shrapnel while taking refuge in my sandbox of foxholes and trenches. I got to play real-life Cops and Robbers, Keep Away, and Hide and Go Seek. Life was an ongoing game of 52-Card Pickup and everywhere was Hot Lava, Hot Potatoes, and Dodgeball. BTW, you really need to watch this video:

Then God finally said, “Olly Olly Oxen Free!”

But still it just didn’t feel safe to come out of hiding. The war was over, but carnage everywhere, nowhere to call home, now a refugee. How does one find sanctuary from the war-torn country of one’s mind? God gave me an education, a job, friends I could call family, and eventually restoration of relationships with my family. But the PTSD.

War makes it hard to go back to ‘normal life’. Veteran Eddie Ray Routh was tormented with mental illness the day he shot American Sniper Chris Kyle. A whopping 17% of the homeless population are veterans and 96% of homeless veterans come from poor, disadvantaged communities. Both war abroad and war at home veterans. Double whammy.

At one point in our sojourn through life the terror of war raped us of the innocence and joy of play.

Although innocence can never be recovered, is it possible for a human to return to the joy of play equal to that of a child or greater?

I remembered when I was a child the excitement of going to Riverside, present-day Six Flags New England. I made a chart in pencil on an index card and crossed off every day, anticipating the Saturday we would go. I was devastated when it rained and our trip had to be postponed for another week.

I remember being filled with anticipation Christmas morning, bolting down the stairs, beholding the glory of tightly-wrapped presents under the tree with my name and only my name on them that were clearly not there the night before.

I remember the peace and joy of waking up in the family tent, smelling fresh pinewood, campfire, and coconut sunscreen, knowing the day would be filled with beachside fun, clamming, tide-pool exploring, and smore-making.

I remember Sunday afternoon walks around Elizabeth Park, holding my chocolates Dad gave me and savoring each one for every step of the way, walking up and down the rose garden.

I remember Asher, our sweet-spirited cocker spaniel, with his wagging stub of a tail and happy smile with drool spilling out of his mouth, taking a drive over the hills of Simsbury, where the now Hartford Temple will be dedicated this fall.

What happened to the anticipation, excitement, joy, peace, and pleasure that came so easily and freely to my human heart and how do I get it back?

Dad says I started to lose my joy at 5 years old.

Recently I took a group ziplining through the picturesque Rocky Mountains of Heber, Utah. The weather was perfect and there was no obvious reason for any kind of sullenness from the three beautiful triplet Puerto Rican preteen boys. I could see that something had stolen their joy. It was unnatural for all three of these boys to be so depressed so young. I wanted to look into their eyes and tell them it was safe to come out and play and enjoy, but I knew that it was not safe. They would go back to war as soon as they went back home. Must keep armor on.

“Amy, you look so sad. Smile!” “Amy, you must be depressed, smile!” “Amy, you’re so shy.” “Amy is reserved.” “Amy doesn’t like to talk very much.” “Be happy!” “Amy, do this.” “Amy, do that.”

“Amy, I don’t know if I’ll be able to let you into the choir. You’re not very expressive.” “Amy, you’re so quiet, I can’t hear you. You need to project more.” “Your voice is so monotone.” “Your face is like THIS: (dead stare)” “I didn’t want to be friends with you in high school; I thought you were so boring.”

Apparently I died way before my body died. Humans’ feeble attempts to revive me by telling me to smile, shaming me for being quiet and withdrawn, forcing me into self-expression, and other such behaviors felt like beating the dead horse, which was me. Only the love of God Almighty could reach into my soul and infuse the light of life back into me.

Singing was the first portal for my spirit to create life within me again. Then in high school I fell madly in love with a boy that made me laugh and so humor became access to my joy. In college, I took up acting, running, dancing. Then I found joy in learning Spanish, speaking, teaching, writing, and studying.

But it all felt like work. Work, work, work.

When I sang, it was work. “Amy, you’re pushing too hard. It sounds strained. Let go and free up your voice.”

First Voice Recital

When I danced, it was work. “Amy, you’re trying too hard. Just have fun and the you’ll remember the steps.”

First Dance Performance

When I acted, it was work. “Amy, you look so serious. Use more facial expressions.”

First Play

Everything I did was effortful, trying, push, shove, hard, stress, exhaustion, not good enough, needs

to be better. Flawless. Perfect. Perfection.

Even when I was trying to play, I was trying to play and it was work and it was hard.

“God, please show me how to simply play again?”

Years of perfect--trying to be perfect, anyway.

Then one day, out of the blue, the answer just came.

I was talking to a friend on the phone and I came to the understanding that it was my responsibility to choose play. I told her that I was committed to do something fun—fun for ME—every day, every day, every day. I wasn’t going to do anything to please anyone else or making anyone else happy. I wasn’t going to be happy for anyone else or smile for anyone else. But I was going to do something that I considered fun every day.

The next day I woke up, got in my car, and determined to find a trail to hike. I drove a very long, long time and found a hidden cul de sac with a hidden trail in Deer Valley. I started hiking and not before long I nearly ran into a mother moose and a baby moose! How fun was that!!?

The following days I went to a live band karaoke, country dancing several times, birthday parties, played a guitar, went hiking three times in two days, went swimming with friends. Then suddenly I received an email from a Destination Management Company in Park City asking me to work as a contractor, resulting in total joy and satisfaction in employment for the first time in my life, earning more than I have ever earned, doing what I love, which is planning and executing special events. Now I take corporate groups rafting, ziplining, painting, horseback riding, and golfing—having fun every day, every day, every day.

Spontaneously I thereafter attracted several men that I would have previously thought were totally out of my league. The angel voices in my head said, “Why NOT you? Who are you to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be!? You are a child of God. You’re smart, you’re fun, you’re worthy of someone amazing TOO!”  I woke up and realized I’ve been worthy all along; they’ve simply been waiting for me to come out and play.

The clouds have lifted and it is as if I am living instead of surviving for the first time in my life. I now see so many people living in survival mode with tired and sullen eyes, focused on war, terror, famine, and darkness and then I’ve discovered this whole other race of humans that are bright with light and joy that heal the world with love because they choose light, joy, and love every day, every day, every day, every day.

Kevin Trudeau said that the most important thing you can do is to “feel good now.” Play is a choice and  over time play instead of work can become an ‘unconscious competence’ as an adult.

Thomas Edison once said, “I never worked a day in my life. It was all fun.”

As for me, if I must choose between survival and death, I choose death, because survival is death of the spirit anyway. I want to live.

My mentor, Gary Acevedo, taught me, “To live is to play.”

I fell in love with Michael Jackson's personal favorite song "Smile" on Hope Floats, a telling tale of his own struggles:

Smile, though your heart is aching
Smile, even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky

You'll get by if you smile
Through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just

Smile, though your heart is aching
Smile, even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by

If you smile
Through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

The Curiosity Driven Life, the Flight of the Hummingbird

Over the past ten years, I've been a wilderness guide, actress, event planner, receptionist, musician, accountant, babysitter, gate agent, social worker. I've lived in Idaho, Arizona, Washington, DC, California, Utah, and I moved back and forth from those places several times. I noticed that I was almost following a migratory path. Worrisome. In the past two years I have been interested in 51 men--a pilot, a comedian, a millionaire, a mountain climber, a celebrity, a world traveler, a politician, a techie, a lawyer, a doctor--you know who you are.

At first, I relished and took pride in my exciting life of variety and adventure.

Role Player for National Guard Training

Martha in first production of Savior of the World, DC

"Flying" a commercial plane after landing

Chance meeting in San Antonio with Chris Harrison, host of The Bachelor, set is in the background

Baptism of Juana Martinez, healed of diabetes-induced blindness, believes in miracles, loves the Savior

Then I noticed my resume started looking a little choppy. I started to get worried. Would I be able to find a job? Am I doing something wrong here?

Excitement and pride turned into shame and embarrassment. I started to believe the voice in my head telling me I needed to "buckle down" and pick something, somewhere--SOMEBODY. Yet another voice, deeper down, continued to call me forth from here to there, from this thing to that thing, from this person to that person, back to that place again, back to that thing again, back to that person again--incessantly--CONSTANTLY--creating a state of continuous "chaos" in my life. Or so it seemed...

My one constant complaint for the last year of my life has been, "God, why did you MAKE ME like this!??" I felt so misunderstood. So completely. Totally. Alone.

"He hears my soul's complaint." (Where Can I Turn for Peace)

Could I not have some kind of peace of mind? Could I not just be like everyone else and "fit in" just even if only for the very sake of being able to make a living so that I didn't have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel all the time and hiding in shame and embarrassment?

Trust me, I've tried to be "normal", to avoid the social stigma of what I feel like others see as 'gypsy life', but "normal" has resulted in starting something, 'sticking with it', growing to HATE IT, my LIFE, mySELF, the PEOPLE IN MY LIFE--to the point that I quit or they quit me because I'm so miserable.

And then I watched Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love on SuperSoul TV, her talk called Flight of the Hummingbird--The Curiosity Driven Life. Watch the full talk on SuperSoul.tv: http://www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sessions/elizabeth-gilbert-flight-hummingbird-curiosity

At last--I discovered that I was not the only person on the planet that had a clue how me works. What is interesting about this is that while I wish I would have found this years and years ago, I needed to walk this journey in accepting myself and my nature before I found any kind of validation. Recently I finally came to not worry about what other people's judgment of my life choices. It's as if I needed to complete that part of my journey before I received into my life others that understand and accept me the way I am, even if only through my computer screen.

I don't have a passion. I don't have one thing that rocks my world. I love everything. I love life itself and the great adventure that it is. I'm sorry, but I just can't pigeon-hole myself into the passion box you created for me, American specialist culture, and when you say I have to fit into it or else and that if I don't, I won't "make it" in life or in a "career", hear me when I say I don't WANT a "career" and I'm "making it" just FINE without your artificial measures of success!! That doesn't work to guilt-trip me like that, passion bullies. My "why" is just as good of a reason as yours is to have a passion. Cross-pollination. 

After 10 years of despair, frankly, I find solace in truly being validated for the first time ever for WHO I AM, HOW I LIVE MY LIFE, and HOW GOD MADE ME. I've been waiting for God to tell me to "buckle down" or to "commit" like everyone else and that never happened. Now I know why that's never going to happen. Because He made me like this for his purposes!! I never felt any guilt about my choices because I always felt directed by my Creator. I only felt guilt and pressure from society. I have always felt guided to every person, place, and duty in my life and that is all that has ever mattered to me. I've gone where He's wanted me to go and that's all I need to know.

I'm sorry if I sound defensive, but I defend the life God has given me from all of the Judgy McJudgersons that have wanted to tear me down and make me feel like there's something wrong with me throughout my life. I've had enough!! This is my fight song, take back my life song:

I'M PROUD TO LIVE THE CURIOSITY DRIVEN LIFE, THE FLIGHT OF THE HUMMINGBIRD. I'm proud to call myself a disciple of Christ.

"It may not be on the mountain’s height,
Or over the stormy sea;
It may not be at the battle’s front,
My Lord will have need of me;
But if by a still, small voice He calls,
To paths that I do not know,
I’ll answer, dear Lord, with my hand in Thine,
I’ll go where You want me to go.

I’ll go where You want me to go, dear Lord,
O’er mountain, or plain, or sea;
I’ll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,
I’ll be what You want me to be.

Perhaps today there are loving words
Which Jesus would have me speak;
There may be now in the paths of sin,
Some wand’rer whom I should seek;
O Savior, if Thou wilt be my guide,
Though dark and rugged the way,
My voice shall echo Thy message sweet,
I’ll say what You want me to say.

There’s surely somewhere a lowly place,
In earth’s harvest fields so white,
Where I may labor through life’s short day,
For Jesus the Crucified;
So trusting my all to Thy tender care,
And knowing Thou lovest me,
I’ll do Thy will with a heart sincere,
I’ll be what You want me to be."

May my other hummingbird friends find validation, strength, and courage to continue in their flight; I fly with you.

Gypsy Life and Attachment

At some point I lost heart. 

At some point I gave up.

My heart aches for all the men that I have loved. 

My heart aches for all the places I have loved. 

I once deeply valued my ability to so casually cut off any kind of attachment I had to anything. After one last and final heartbreak in 2008, I decided that I was no longer going to be the rejected, but that I was going to be the rejector. I would no longer get left behind, but I would be the leaver. And then I became a gypsy, wandering to and fro, from this guy to that guy, from this job to that job, from this apartment to that apartment, from this side of the country to that side of the country.

I now face the cost.

I have adored and idolized the free spirit and adventurer. And now I tell the sad tale of a lonely soul that has no attachment to anything or anyone. I've moved three times a year, dated three men a year, and had about three jobs a year for the last eight years. My belongings are now in storage, I am single, and I am unemployed.

Truly Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, had it right years ago when he warned about the dangers of perpetually keeping all options open. "Clearly the cumulative opportunity cost of adding options to one’s choice set can reduce satisfaction. It may even make a person miserable.” I unfortunately have been the epitome of a "maximizer". “If you seek and accept only the best, you are a maximizer...The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer. To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better." Oh how I wish I would have learned the art of being a satisficer long, long ago.

And yet my lifestyle has not been so much a result of indecision as it has been a result of playing out my divine nature. I have no explanation as to why God created my brain and my body in such a way that I simply find it endlessly exhilarating to meet new people, see new things, and go new places.

Perhaps I am looking for home.

Like Moroni of the Book of Mormon, who wandered 20 years in the wilderness alone, I've found home in God. Truly the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of God, has been my one and only constant comfort and companion since I left home as a teenager, some 14 years ago.

Today I am taking my life back. I want to live and I want to try again.

I no longer want to live life without attachment.

There is something I have so deeply misunderstood about Buddhist philosophy and stoicism.

I deeply, more than anything, want to remain attached to people, places, and things. I want to take everything with me when I die. I want to take the sunshine and the sunflowers, the rain and the rainbows. I want the beaches and the best friends, the shared ice cream and shared memories. I want the love and the laughter, the pain and the pleasure. I want it all. With me. Forever.

Somewhere in there I disassociated myself from the grief of it all--the grief of mortal experience--and thus dissociated from all joy. I just couldn't take it anymore. I know God understands why I gave up, loves me, and doesn't condemn me. I physically and emotionally dissasociated myself from pain with distance and time. Embracing and idealizing adventure and thrill-seeking, I numbed myself to the satisfaction of everyday life because everyday life included all of the yucky things about life. Like a drug, I was always on the move--tragically the reality was that I was always in survival, taking uncalculated risks and laughing in the face of danger and finding myself again falling on my face.

I originally titled my blog "Gypsy Tales", but I quickly realized that I no longer wanted to write any more gypsy tales to my life. I don't condone complacency and rigid societal values that chain down ingenuity, creativity, and freedom. Yet I see now that my free spirit will never be free in survival. My wings will always be clipped as long as I am unable maintain financial security, stable work, reliable housing, and consistent relationships that feed my soul. Likely that the all-American entrepreneur fails four out of five times because creating something new out of scarcity is believing that miracles will replace hard work and wisdom gained through experience.

At some point I became a realist when reality became stronger than my dreams. I believe in miracles and I believe in God. But I know that I will eat by the sweat of my brow and it's going to be hard and I'm going to fail. A lot. The miracle I'm seeking now is not that God is going to do it for me, but that he will give me the strength to get up again and again and the wisdom to know when to quit--the wisdom to know when to give up and try something else.

And then the wisdom to know when to "hang in there" and hold on to people, places, and things. It's not his "will" that I have to give up everything all the time and making sacrifice more important than love. Love is attachment. Love is desire. Love is wanting. I have shamed myself for so many years for wanting what I want and now I declare what I want and I declare the desires of my heart! I want to love! I want to be loved! I want home! I want stability! I want adventure! I want freedom! I want attachment! I am gloriously attached to life itself and I am ready to embrace a new way of life that includes words of permanence like 'always' and 'never' and 'forever' and 'never' and 'I love you' and 'eternal'.

I want to acknowledge my friend Sam, my mentor Gary Acevedo, my friends at Landmark, my friend Adora, my literary friends Barry Schwartz and Lori Gottlieb, and my best friend Heavenly Father for leading me to this pivotal point in my life at which I intend to turn my life around and allow myself to embrace love and all that it means and all the things Heavenly Father wants for me in my life.

Happy Valentine's Day!