Transform Your Shame into Comedy
[Music]
i’m barefoot
walking the hospital corridors but i
stop
because suddenly i’m overwhelmed by this
awesome feeling of love it’s like
light is pouring through me in waves of
pure joy
filling the space around me and beyond
endless
and infinite
this love is going to change the world
and my mind trying to make sense of this
experience
tells me you’re jesus
reincarnated
okay that experience
let’s have some context yes i was a
patient in a psychiatric ward at the
time
and yes it was a lot like christmas
thank you for asking
that experience happened 21 years ago
today i’m a professional comedian a
registered trans personal counsellor
and i’m a comedy therapist
and don’t worry i know i’m not jesus
reincarnated
because i refuse to wear birkenstocks
plus i still walk away from people while
they’re talking
if they’re boring would jesus do that
maybe but that’s another ted talk
so why am i telling you all of this well
i’d like to share with you
how comedy can change the world
if you make friends with your shame
as a child my world felt unstable
broken home both parents struggling with
life
but we had humor and i remember this
amazing
feeling of relief when everyone was
laughing
because it meant for a minute everything
was okay my mum wasn’t having a
breakdown
my dad wasn’t depressed my sister wasn’t
crying
so i became the clown in my family
that was my attempt to bring light to
the very
serious business of being alive
nobody escapes trauma being alive is the
definition
of traumatic it starts with being born
okay the ultimate separation
and it pretty much carries on till we
die
when i was eight years old i saw
a comedy sketch show on tv and i
remember thinking
going to work with my friends and making
each other laugh i
must have this job
but as a teenager i was struggling
with the mounting weight of our families
undealt with
trauma and loss humor was my mask
i developed this unconscious belief in
childhood
that my worth and value came when i was
funny
so i hacked off everything else
in my effort to belong
like my parents addiction issues
caught hold and by the age of 19 i was
so unwell that i was sectioned under the
mental health act and put into
psychiatric care
against my will
and when i recovered my sanity and i say
that
very loosely when i recovered my sanity
i was deeply ashamed
mental illness carries a terrifying
stigma
and the shame of it pushed me into
isolation
and depression and life got even more
dark
but don’t worry friends i’m a resilient
fellow
i put my mask back on i buried
my past and i went back out into the
world
now in my mid-20s i tried stand-up
comedy
but my creativity was strangled by fear
and the comedy scene felt toxic and
lonely
but more to the point i sucked
so i quit but isn’t it the way
that our dreams erupt inside us like
volcanoes and eventually
i had no choice but to follow this
calling
and see where it took me i stopped
running from myself
and i started my healing journey and
this took me to university where i
studied comedy writing and performance
and it was there that i did a research
project that changed everything
i wanted to know could i use comedy as a
therapeutic tool to shine a light on my
own self-stigma and shame
short answer is yes obviously but before
i could even
begin to find the funny i had to revisit
my experiences of mental illness or
madness as we like to say in our family
i had to come to terms with the big
juicy
fullness of being human
perhaps we’re not meant to be perfect
perhaps life gets dark and messy
and awful for everyone
sometimes maybe i’m not the only one
and all that suppressed emotion and
shame
it needed to come out so i used a
creative tool
called stream of consciousness writing
and this allowed me to write without
censorship
i free-flowed that shame up out of the
darkness
and onto the page and my soul knew what
needed to be said
and for the first time in many years i
cried
and then i did something that i’ve never
done before
i began to share vulnerably with
other people and it was terrifying
to admit how broken
i thought i was
but something unexpected happened
something beautiful
instead of the rejection and abandonment
i had spent
a lifetime running from
i found love and understanding
and it was from this place of connection
and acceptance that i was truly ready
to pan for comedy gold
life is full of absurdities
believe in your jesus reincarnated that
has comedy mileage
a joke works because the punchline
provides a release from tension just
like healing
brings relief from pain
and when it became performance night
i needed to create a safe space to share
this comedy
so i invited people from my healing
community
because i knew that they could identify
with my story
because it was also theirs well maybe
not the jesus part
although you’d be surprised how many
people are walking around the earth
right now believing they are jesus
reincarnated
god knows there’s enough of him to go
round that’s a terrible joke
and the normal people or i should say
the people who are good at
pretending to be normal they also
laughed
because humor promotes empathy
it tears down barriers and creates
sameness
humor encourages us to be open-minded
and forgiving whether our stories are
the same or not
we’re all human although some of us
could be aliens
but again another ted talk
throughout the entire process of writing
sharing practicing and performing
i had to be with my shame
but i found it was a necessary descent
into darkness
because what i discovered was that
making friends with my shame
dissolved it this process
allowed me to reframe and celebrate
my experiences of madness
as valid human experiences that have
made
my life richer i want to repeat that
this process allowed me to celebrate
my experiences as valid
human experiences that have made my life
richer
and when i got off stage that night
grinning my friends and family
surrounding me the weight lifted
a classmate approached me and with tears
in her eyes said
thank you i have bipolar and i never
tell anyone
a psychiatrist saw it on youtube
and requested a performance to educate
his staff
and bring hope to his service users
my comedy was becoming a tool for change
and then i realized well this can work
for anyone with any story
so i began teaching other people how to
heal with humor
and over the last few years i’ve
witnessed hundreds of people get
vulnerable
open their hearts to each other
and then go on to share their truth
through comedy
and the response is always the same the
audience
cares they are inspired delighted
and empowered i call this model
hilaripy yes it’s a made-up word
three things that make hillary work
a supportive community to give us
courage
and to catch us when we stumble therapy
to face the darkness and comedy writing
and performance techniques to share
our humanity i want to share a story
with you
a student of mine mary is performing
comedy about what it’s like
living with social anxiety everybody’s
laughing
mary is beaming confidently clearly
enjoying
being herself after the show
anna a successful businesswoman
approaches me
excited and outpours her story
she tells me she’s partially deaf
and never tells anyone because she’s
ashamed
then with this huge grin on her face she
says
people think i’m aloof because i ignore
them but i can’t hear them
that’s funny i want to share myself
through comedy
you see mary’s comedy had changed anna’s
world and it could be anna’s turn
to change yours
it’s my vision to live in a world where
we’re free to own
our stories without need for sympathy or
approval if you’ve ever been through the
messy process
of facing your shame you will know it is
far
from funny but i promise you
when it comes to performing
world-changing comedy
making friends with your shame will
allow you to confidently
express the authentic fullness
of who you really are on the stage
and off your comedy
will change the world if you make
friends with your shame
thank you
you