Click here to see our other courses!
- Swami Beyondananda
While there’s a lot of serious work to be done to heal and transform our lives and world, now more than ever we need to fully care for ourselves.
And laughter is one of the best medicines for healing our bodies, minds and spirits. It brings us great joy and inner peace, which then makes us more available to serve others and the world’s most pressing needs.
This 5-week course with internationally-known author and workshop leader Steve Bhaerman offers you breakthrough tools to unleash your inner comedian, transform any negativity or pain in your life, and help free your spirit to connect more deeply with the world and those around you.
You don’t have to be a professional comedian to use the magical tools of the comic to bring love, laughter, wisdom and perspective into your life! And this fun, funny and incisive course helps you apply the tools of the comedian to your own personal human comedy and the many dramas our planet faces.
For decades, Steve Bhaerman - who has gained a worldwide audience as the “cosmic comic” Swami Beyondananda - has been entertaining (or “innertaining”) thousands with wit and wisdom. He also blogs about politics and current events from a spiritual perspective, prompting Marianne Williamson to call him the “Mark Twain of our generation.”
We are delighted to offer this rare offering in conscious comedy to our global Shift community. The class will consist of five 90-minute evening sessions, starting Monday, April 16 - Monday, May 14 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm PDT, 8:00 to 9:30 pm EDT.
Plus, you’ll receive a A Course in Laughter workbook and two Bonus e-books - Wake Up Laughing: An Insider’s Guide to the Cosmic Comedy and The Zen Cohens of Harry Cohen Baba - that will help you apply and embody what you learn in the course into your daily life.
As the Swami says, “You will wake up laughing and leave laughter in your wake.”
The old adage “Laughter is the best medicine” actually has a wealth of scientific research to support it. Many studies have linked laughter directly to improvements in physical health, relationships, job satisfaction and emotional wellbeing.
When you laugh, your whole body chemistry changes. It’s like a cleansing effect - you feel better and lighter. Laughter also cuts across boundaries and helps you connect better with others, even those you don’t know. It promotes group bonding, and laughter’s infectious nature elevates the mood of all those around you.
A Course in Laughter will give you time-tested tools for helping you stay resilient and grounded during these tremendous times of change. It can help you rise above personal challenges and gain new perspective on our global struggles. This course can also:
- Boost your immunity and lower stress hormones
- Decrease any pain in your body and relax your muscles
- Add joy and zest to your life
- Improve your mood and increase your resilience
- Ease anxiety or fears
- Heal your heart and free your mind
- Transform your view of our global crises
- Strengthen your relationships and help you diffuse conflict
- Increase your bond with co-workers or your connections with groups
In this session, we will explore the metaphysical nature of humor and how and why life is indeed a joke. This understanding is the gateway to both healing the heart and freeing the mind. This week we will learn:
- What is the Cosmic Joke, and why is it funny - and not funny?
- How and why seriousness is always the set up for humor, and how to know when the joke is on you and not take it "poisonally"
- The journey to "fool realization" and the pathway to becoming the "wise fool"
This week we will look at the four elements and how they apply to comedy. We’ll recognize that with earth, water, fire or water, humor can be used as an "alchemical" (not to mention "all-comical") balance. In this session we will have fun with:
- The alchemy of humor: how to transform the grosser stuff of life into laughter, joy, insight and wisdom
- Finding YOUR most powerful element, and identifying your humor type
- Using the four elements of humor to heal (i.e., restore wholeness)
In this session, we explore the protocols of when to go for the jocular... and when not to. We will put humor into the context of all transformational modalities, so a joke builds bridges instead of blowing them up. This week we’ll play with:
- Why the first - and best - joke is always on yourself
- How and when to take the conversation from serious to humorous
- How to tell a joke - really!
This week we learn how a joke uses a trance to end a trance, and how and why humor is a dance between the logical and intuitive brains. We will understand the deeper context of jokes so they can be truly used as "healing stories." Some of what we will cover includes:
- Why the mind needs to - and loves to - be tricked
- The "aha" after the "ha-ha" - how to seed insight in a "harmless" joke
- The Zen Cohen - what it is, how to use it and how to create your own
Swami says, "Laugh at yourself - and the whole world will laugh at you, too." This session is about creating "self-facing" humor that dances with your personal shadow while staying "in love." Some of what we will cover in our final session includes:
- Finding the natural humor in your life story, and using it to transform your story into a healing one
- Tracing your own "fool’s journey”
- The transformational nature of: "... and then, a funny thing happened..."
You will learn about comedy - with a transformational twist - from the inside out, and find out how even a non-comedian can practice "situational comedy" in almost any situation.
In addition to the five course sessions, you will also receive two “fool length” e-books and a workbook that will help you apply and embody what you learn in the course into your daily life:
- Wake Up Laughing: An Insider’s Guide to the Cosmic Comedy, a 75-page downloadable e-book that tells you all you need to know about the Cosmic Joke, The Fool’s Journey, the Divine Comedy... and how and why to laugh even when it’s just not funny. $15 value.
- The Zen Cohens of Harry Cohen Baba: Three Dozen of the Funniest Stories Ever Told, a 58-page downloadable e-book with wise and hilarious stories suitable for after dinner speakers, or way after dinner speakers. $15 value.
- A Course In Laughter Workbook. Includes exercises guaranteed to help you achieve your humorin’ potential. Downloadable PDF.
Steve Bhaerman is an internationally known author, humorist and workshop leader. For the past 23 years, he has written and performed as Swami Beyondananda, the "Cosmic Comic."
As the Swami, Steve is the author of Driving Your Own Karma (1989), When You See a Sacred Cow, Milk It For All It’s Worth (1993), Duck Soup for the Soul (1999) and Swami for Precedent: A 7-Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic and Cure Electile Dysfunction (2004).
In his "past life" (before Swami), Steve started an alternative high school in Washington, D.C. and co-authored a book about his experiences, No Particular Place to Go: Making of a Free High School. A political science major, he later taught history to autoworkers at Wayne State University in Detroit as part of the Weekend College.
In 1980, Steve co-founded Pathways Magazine in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the first publications bringing together holistic health, personal growth, spirituality, and politics. Subsequent to Pathways, Steve was a freelance writer and co-author with Don McMillan of Friends and Lovers: How to Meet the People You Want to Meet (Writer’s Digest Books, 1986).
Since 2005, Steve has written a political blog with a spiritual perspective, Notes From the Trail, hailed as an encouraging voice "in the bewilderness." His latest book, written with cellular biologist Bruce H. Lipton, PhD is Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here (Hay House, 2009). Steve is active in transpartisan politics and the practical application of Spontaneous Evolution.
International bestselling author, A Return to Love
Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center
- Five 90-minute class sessions with Steve Bhaerman (aka Swami Beyondananda), including live, interactive calls plus Q&A time. Classes at 5:00pm Pacific on Monday evenings.
- Five 30-minute small group practice sessions.
- Weekly exercises and practices for inquiry and action-learning.
- Optional online learning community throughout each week with other course participants.
- Unlimited access to recordings of all class sessions (listen online or download the mp3 file to your iPod or audio player).
- PDF transcripts for each class session.
- Two bonus e-books and A Course in Laughter workbook.
| Course: | A Course in Healing Laughter with Steve Bhaerman |
| Dates: | Mondays at 5 pm Pacific / 8 pm Eastern, April 16 – May 14, 2012 |
| Price: | $147 |
Q: What is a virtual course?
A: It’s a great way to engage live teachings and each other from the comfort of your home! All you need is a phone line (or an equivalent voice service). If there is more than one person in your household taking the course, you will each need your own line. We use MaestroConference to make it just like an in-person event, where you can ask questions, participate in groups, and deepen your exploration of the course themes.
Please note that dialing MaestroConference from your phone is a regular toll call to California, and your telephone service provider will charge you according to your existing long-distance calling plan. You can also use Skype credit/subscription (www.skype.com) or Google Voice (google.com/voice) to dial in to MaestroConference, and you’ll need to use your virtual keypad to enter your PIN and to indicate that you want to ask a question. Other options include calling cards and discount long-distance carriers, and we also have a webcast which is free to use from anywhere in the world.
Q: Can I get benefit from the course if I miss the live classes?
A: Absolutely! You can download the recordings and transcripts of all course sessions from our online media archive, so you never need to worry about missing live calls. You can also engage the full community and leaders on our private community website.
Q: Are there scholarships available for this Training?
A: Yes, we always make a certain percentage of spaces available for partial scholarships, giving preference to those in developing countries or doing important but underpaid work to which they can apply the training material immediately. If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please review our guidelines, which include a link to our online application form.
Q: What is your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! If you find that the course is not meeting your needs, please submit a request to support.theshiftnetwork.com so that we can address your concerns. We offer a satisfaction guarantee for a full week so that you can try out the course risk-free. The deadline to receive a full refund is before the start of the 2nd class on April 23. Submit refund requests at support.theshiftnetwork.com with the subject "Refund request."
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to a problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
Q: What are the benefits of telling my friends to join the program?
A: You can sign up as an Affiliate of The Shift Network and receive 20% for anyone that you introduce who registers for the virtual event. If you bring five friends into the event, you can cover your own! Register at theshiftnetwork.com/affiliate and you’ll receive a promotional link to use.
