Laughter is the Best Medicine.
I don’t know about you all, but for me laughter has always been the best medicine. Especially since I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and then 2020 happened. Let’s be real, we all needed a laugh or two. I have always leaned on my friends to help me dig myself out of a rut but Covid-19 ensured that wouldn’t be happening. So I turned to social media as a way to stay connected and keep my funny bone in good working order.
Marco Polo and Instagram offer me a connection directly to my tribe. I’m also in the process of growing my social media following across Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. The idea here was that I wanted to expand my social reach in an effort to improve my ability to attract readers for my books. The more people you can reach to hawk your stories, in theory the more stories you sell. That’s the stated goal.
I had a pretty healthy Twitter following, because I’ve been so active on that medium for several years, but hadn’t worked Instagram or YouTube quite the same way. So I first created my YouTube channel with the intention of doing videos about writing/my books, Crohn’s disease, and my improv sketches of answering random practical advice as my sketch comedy outlet.
Then my funny friends suggested we collaborate and make a recurring series expanding on my ‘Dear Barrett’ character and introducing them into the mix. It was the most welcome idea I’ve heard in a minute. We talked about it for a few weeks and decided we were going to try our hand at it one day of shooting and see how it went. Maybe we wouldn’t jive, maybe the feeling wouldn’t be right.
Boy were we wrong. We ended up filming for about 5.5 hours, and got more than 75 minutes of raw footage. That’s a whole lot considering my ‘Dear Barrett’ filming takes about 1.5 hours and results in 30-35 minutes of raw footage. It was a blast and we decided we wanted to do more in the future! So look for me posting about ‘Life Coach Cousins’ episodes in the months ahead.
You can watch our first episode of the series ‘Life Coach Cousins’ and if you like it be sure to smash that like button, before subscribing!
For anyone out fighting through chronic illness keep going. When you can look for ways to raise your spirits through a hobby or chat with your people. I also recommend as much laughing as possible. It really can brighten my mood.
Christopher Budding, Tonya Darbabcsek, and Barrett Laurie: Dardenne Prairie, MO filming ‘Life Coach Cousins’