The multi-faceted aspects of amusement
Permission to feel amusement.
Hello new subscribers! A little flurry of people have arrived!
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
.Just a quick catch up, each week I write about a feeling; sharing a poem I’ve written which is sometimes strongly and sometimes tenuously linked to that emotion and then I offer some psychological insight into that emotion so that we can all skip away DELIGHTED that we have such a broad gamut of emotions to endure experience each waking hour.
Maybe you were a kid who was told you were…
Too much, too loud, too sensitive.
I can relate, but the problem was, I didn’t know how to be any different. I was just…me. Messages like this from our childhood burn into our psyche because at that age, we don’t have brains developed enough to discern what messages may be about us and what may be the projection of others. When this happens repeatedly, we can end up living with toxic shame.
If this resonates with you, you are welcome here in all your gloriousness.
Maybe you were a kid who found it better/easier/safer to bury down those feelings, or act them in or out in some way.
If so, I see you, you are welcome here.
“As human beings we can only experience life emotionally”.
Eduardo Bericat
We all feel emotions, but we all have different interpretations of our emotions; different beliefs about them. Take this week’s feeling for example, which is, by the way, amusement.
Before we start, I just want to share this video of something which I found very amusing on Wednesday. Last Christmas I took a writing job by Summersdale publishing to put together a book with 50 date night ideas, some inspirational sayings and a compilation of quotes about love. I completed it to a very tight timescale, and then this happened two days ago:
The amusing thing is, I have a running limiting belief of ‘I don’t get to be an author’, even though I have published my own poetry collection and just received this in the mail. I guess the amusement stems from recognising how that limiting belief can run to such an extent that it blinds me from what is actually in front of me.
Can you relate?
In preparation for this essay I sent a question out via notes on Substack.1 I asked, ‘What word comes to mind when you think of the word ‘amusement’?’
I was delighted to get some responses! Could you imagine if no one had responded? It would have been an embarrassing tumbleweed moment, which may well have been an amusing moment for some, but not me.
But thank the gods,
came straight in with a no-nonsense ‘laugh’ whilst went down the slightly more word association route of ‘arcade’.Kind of gets you thinking, doesn’t it, how much nuance we bring to the conversation when we start to talk about emotions.
Personally, when I think of the word amusement I think ‘Dalai Lama’. I know, get me. Despite everything that he has endured, he manages to live with a lightness of touch, often seeming amused at life. In his book, ‘The Book of Joy: Lasting happiness in a Changing World’ he writes,
Laugh at yourself and don’t be so pompous and serious. If you start looking for the humor in life, you will find it. You will stop asking, Why me? and start recognizing that life happens to all of us. It makes everything easier, including your ability to accept others and accept all that life will bring.”
‘Amusement’: One word, three very different responses.
How much does our life experience influence the way in which we relate to certain emotions?
Yes, we may all feel emotions, but the meaning we make of them and our comfort for feeling them is as unique as our finger print.
We may physiologically feel the feeling in a similar way, but our expression of them and the significance this has can be wildly different.
How many times have you felt something and then berated yourself with a should?
‘I feel disappointed, but I should be grateful.’
‘I shouldn’t be angry, they were only trying their best.’
This often happens with clients in a session. We explore a situation, they tell me they feel a certain way, but then give me reasons as to why they shouldn’t feel that way, but
The shoulds block progress, but they are also there for a reason. When we should our feelings, our shoulds are good sign posts that we are actually getting in touch with some feelings that we ordinarily disallow.
Allowing for this discomfort and the uncertainty we have in feeling this feeling, having curiosity around why you should be grateful or shouldn’t be angry, can tell you so much about the messages you have internalised along the way.
When we can discover what messages we have internalised we begin to learn what parts of ourselves we have exiled. These exiled parts need to welcomed back in and that is part of the work in therapy, witnessing and accepting those ‘too much’, ‘too sensitive’, ‘not now’ parts of us that, for whatever reason, we had to hide.
This is the act of self-compassion. Part of self compassion is understanding the shared humanity in what we are going through, just as the Dalai Lama says, ‘life happens to all of us’ and our reactions are the ‘flawed’ human reactions that we all have.
Amusement is one of those emotions that allows the should and shouldn’t. It plays at the edges of what is acceptable. There’s an element of the unexpected.
Like, you know you shouldn’t laugh, buuuuuuttttt…
Amusement can help to replenish us, offer light relief, refill our cup.
Talking of cups, I found this little ditty.
I wrote it to the tune of ‘Oh Christmas tree’.
I think I must have written it one Christmas when I spent a disproportionate amount of time washing dishes! This is my amusement offering to you:
Oh dishwasher, oh dishwasher
Why are my glasses still dir-ty
Oh dishwasher, oh dishwasher
There’s still some crud on all my bowls
I put in saaaaaaaalt
And de-ter-gent
I try to aiiiiiiid you with your rinse
Oh dishwasher oh dishwasher
I’m off to buy some Faaaaiiiiry.
Sometimes amusement can turn sour, when having fun together is centred around making fun of someone or something. This is when amusement can turn from an opportunity for social bonding to isolation.
I was going to introduce the idea of teasing here and talk about it as a negative thing.
However, I found this article on teasing which talks about the benefits of it. This article celebrates teasing as an opportunity to keep someone’s arrogance in check, as an opportunity to openly acknowledge someone else’s perceived weaknesses and show them that you love them anyway.
Although teasing someone is on the same spectrum as bullying, the argument of this piece is that through teasing you can signal to someone that they have got too big for their boots and bring them back in line with the group; that it’s a way of offering criticism without destroying the spirit of play.
I’m not convinced, because I’m not sure how teasing can be compassionate, and we need self-compassion to accept those parts of ourselves that are being teased.
Surely, for teasing to be ‘ok,’ there have to be a couple of pre-requisites:
The thing that you are teasing someone about is something that the recipient can change.
The person being teased has the strength of character to be able to play along. i.e capable of self-compassion.
One programme which I think does manage to offer a masterclass in the balance of teasing well whilst providing amusement for the audience is Have I Got News For You.
What are your experiences of amusement? Do you think teasing is ok? How much of your opinion about it is based on your own experience, do you think?
Would love to know your thoughts!
This is my final time of reminding you that MindfestUK is on tomorrow!
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Thanks so much for subscribing, as ever!
That’s it for now. ‘til next time!
Jacky x
Here is a screen shot of where you can find the notes function on Substack. This is where
post thoughts and comments in between the larger posts. It’s a place to come and hang out with the writers that you want to hear from. I’ve been enjoying daily poetry prompts from and helpful updates on all things Substack from Clare Venus, creator of . It’s a lovely place to hang when having a coffee and is not at all shouty like so many other platforms nowadays!