5 keys to learn to laugh at yourself

Learning to laugh at yourself is the easiest path to peace inside. Also towards resilience and kindness. It is not as easy as it seems, nor is it a capacity that is born overnight. Only the most evolved or the luckiest achieve it.

To learn to laugh at yourself it is necessary to have reached a good level of self-knowledge.. But above all, a high degree of self-acceptance. If you are fortunate enough to have grown up in an environment that facilitated these capabilities, wonderful. If not, it is necessary to do daily work to acquire or increase them.

We live in a society where everyone judges everyone. And they do it, many times, without any tact. This is the result of collective insecurity. However, a good number of people are scared of these judgments. Learning to laugh at yourself is a way to become independent from the opinions of others. How to achieve it? Here are some keys.

1. Combine being and wanting to be

One thing is what we are and another what we would like to be. It seems very clear, but sometimes it is not so clear. We often confuse both aspects. This happens especially if we have been instilled with a very rigid “should be,” which is why we do not distinguish between reality and the expectations we form. When this happens it is as if we were always in debt.

This “want to be” and “should be” prevents us from appreciating and valuing what we are.teasing

We are intimidated by tall ones or we put on scary heels to camouflage ourselves. Instead of taking advantage of all those situations in which coming in a smaller package is an advantage. Or laugh at the height when, even on tiptoe, we can’t reach…

2. Develop selfish intelligence

To learn to laugh at yourself you need to turn down the volume on narcissism and raise it to healthy selfishness. Narcissism has to do with the feeling of personal pride. Healthy selfishness, with seeking good and benefit for oneself, rather than for others.

When you have a very high sense of personal pride, it is very difficult to learn to laugh at yourself.. In these cases, there is a desire to be the best, the prettiest, the most intelligent… Since it is an impossible desire, what prevails is frustration. This clinging to an idealized image of ourselves often prevents us from laughing at ourselves. Those with an excessive ego tend to have a high frustration with jokes..

Instead, By analyzing situations selfishly, we accept ourselves as incomplete people, who must, above all, be true to themselves.. And it is easier to laugh at our mistakes or our failures, without taking into account whether we look good or bad to others. Now, we are talking about healthy selfishness.

3. Judge yourself with kindness to learn to laugh at yourself

Sometimes we are ruthless judges of ourselves.. We evaluate ourselves severely. We do not accept our mistakes and we beat ourselves up for them. And many times we end up demanding more from ourselves than we can give.

To learn to laugh at ourselves, we must first learn to look at ourselves with benevolence.. This means understanding that we are fallible, incomplete and unfinished beings. Doing, saying or thinking wrongly is not a serious sin, but rather a weakness that makes us more human and an opportunity to improve and continue growing.

When we judge ourselves too harshly we leave no room for humor. Everything revolves around seriousness and duty. In this way, we will create more suffering than happiness. Since we will only be happy if things go only the way we want. However, if we are flexible we can laugh at ourselves if something goes wrong. Because in the end, Situations will turn out as they have to, but the way we deal with them depends on us.. And we can choose: face it with suffering or face it with humor.

4. Learn to be your own accomplice

If you don’t count on yourself, you don’t count on anyone. Instead of having a stern and inflexible inner voice, we should cultivate one that is supportive. Make efforts to forgive ourselves, instead of blaming ourselves. Motivate ourselves, instead of condemning ourselves. Appreciate ourselves, instead of scolding ourselves.

Those who know how to support themselves do not become more careless or negligent. Being excessively harsh on oneself only leads to nurturing emotional discomfort. Instead, becoming more flexible and friendly, leads to greater balance. To a better relationship with oneself.

If society imposes on us what we should be and we realize that this harms us, the best way is to take it with humor. Many bald men joke that they always carry a comb in their pocket instead of being self-conscious. And it is that Being ourselves our best accomplice is the best way to be happy. In this way we also deactivate the criticism of others. We can make humor out of everything they tell us.

5. Exercise laughter

It is good to look for the opportunity to laugh daily. Laughter is great for emotional health, but it also helps us to be less psycho-rigid. It facilitates this process of taking life less personally and allowing everything to flow more spontaneously. In the end, all of this leads us to feel better about ourselves.

As they claim Jáuregui and Fernández (2004) , “Humor also provides the necessary spark to get out of a creative quagmire or an interpersonal conflict”. Thus, laughter and humor serve us both on a personal, social and professional level.

Learning to laugh at yourself is essential to achieve and maintain mental health. It also greatly facilitates social performance. When we understand that feelings of pride or arrogance are only there to get in our way, we take a big step. Humility, on the other hand, makes us less sensitive to criticism, ridicule and the opinions of others.

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