A friend told me she was very glum after her husband died. She was burned out, having thrown herself totally into the relationship and had nothing left to give to herself.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself,” she recalled. “I had spoken to my therapist and asked her if that is what I had been doing all my life, and she said yes. I was really in the pits. I felt like giving up, and seriously considered suicide. Then the phone rang. I picked up the receiver, and I suddenly burst out laughing, because I had this vision of myself lying in a coffin, the phone rings, and I say, `Just a minute, I can’t die yet. I have to answer the phone.’

“I shared this vision with the friend who was calling me, and she was in stitches. I realized how ludicrous the whole thing was. At that moment a life long pattern of nothing but giving, giving, giving changed because I gave myself the gift of laughter.”