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Just Before the Giggle was published through iUniverse in 2007. It is currently available from on-line book sellers, or you can order it at your favorite book store. There are a few nice reviews on Amazon.com. I hope that this introduction helped you. The concepts defined here are expanded in Healtnosis, which is currently undergoing its final review before publication. 

-AlanW

JB4G

Chapter Summary from Just Before the Giggle
2007

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Just Before the Giggle

From Chapter 1 - Re-discover Joy

A baby notices a soap bubble floating magically suspended in the air. The bubble drifts close and the baby sees his or her own shimmering reflection. The bubble pops, and the reflection is no more than a moist breeze. The wonder and mystery turns into a baby’s giggle. And we, who are privileged to watch, respond with an inner giggle of our own.

There is a place of healing inside of us, a place of wonder and mystery that we move through just before the giggle. What would your experience of life be if each moment was lived in that place just before the giggle? Could a giggle be a gateway to enlightenment? I know that the calm that comes to me after a good giggle opens me to compassion for my situation and compassion for the other members of my community. Pain is sensation viewed through a filter of fear and aversion. In the space just before the giggle there is no room for fear, there is only the impending giggle. A joyous giggle can, for the moment, reset my sense of self back toward the innocence of babyhood. 

The transformative power lies in being in the space just before the giggle. I eventually slip into doing, and I giggle pain away. I invite you to explore with me, to discover, and to giggle.

From Chapter 2 - Journey Preparation: Understanding

Many journeys are aided by a map. This map is a user’s manual for the mind. It exposes both the positive and negative sides of memory and personality formation. It suggests a working definition of personal reality that embraces the possibility of positive change. When most people I know buy a gadget, they ignore the directions and just start using it. This usually works out OK. Sometimes, when all else fails, in desperation they reach for the user’s manual. If your life contains more suffering than you like, it may be time to refer to a manual.

From Chapter 3 - Journey Preparation: Training

A user’s manual will not help you if you do not use it. We start by clarifying our goal and getting in touch with our motivation. We identify a solution to the problems inherent in mind formation. We learn the tools of meditation and self-hypnosis to help us move quickly through the book and move easily through our days. We can take advantage of the restful state between awake and asleep to give ourselves a time-out from our life’s drama. The words you are reading now may appear in black against the white background of your computer screen. You can see them only because of the contrast. Look for a moment at the margin of this page. It would exist even if nothing were written. Applying this concept of contrast to personality formation:

• Are you the thoughts that make up your drama?
  
• Are you the silence between those thoughts?
  
• Are you the witness of both thoughts and silence   

From Chapter 4 - Inner Balance

When I delve deep into the nature of my personality, I discover parts of me that never grew up and parts of me that grew up all too well. Is this true for you? It turns out that there are alternative ways of holding experience; ways that engage the child-like creative part of you with the knowledgeable adult that you have become, ways that support integrated balance, and ways that can be both adventurous and hilarious. I invite you to consider that since the inner you is totally private, you are free not only to enjoy your world, you are free to laugh at it. It hurts no one in your external world if internally you freely giggle at every revolting development you find yourself in.

From Chapter 5 - Relief from Pain

Now that we have been re-introduced to play, let’s play with our pain and suffering. The reader is provided with mind-control techniques of increasing sophistication that can be ranked for applicability and effectiveness in a given situation. The first (and least effective for me) of many techniques is to ignore the pain. Instead of watching the pain and trying to get away from it, we can simply ignore it and in so doing eliminate the panic feelings from our experience This technique is not so easy to practice. If I try to not think of an elephant, I find the task impossible. If instead, I think about the grass under the hot African sun then the elephant just wanders away. This works for a time and then the elephant may wander back and step on me. When my breath returns, I can think about the grass again.

From Chapter 6 - Outer Balance

Anyone who has been in pain for any length of time realizes the importance of support groups. Interacting within our groups and our community while in pain presents us with a unique set of challenges and opportunities. We can balance helping ourselves and helping the people we interact with. Until now pain was used as a driver to focus inward and find out more about ourselves. From this point forward pain may be used as a driver to focus outward and learn how we can be of service to our communality regardless of our personal situation.

From Chapter 7 - Balancing Self-talk 

Inner dialogs and unnoticed misconceptions can blind us and bind us. We all learn language and use it to describe our physical world. We accumulate images from our experiences, and use these to mold our view of the world outside us (physical) and the world within us (mental). Misconceptions arise because the mental world is not the physical world, and different rules apply. For example, we know that the laws of physics impose fairly rigid restrictions on what can happen in the physical world. These rules do not apply to our inner world. Our inner world is not rigid; it is full of contradictions, paradoxes, and even the possibility of doing the impossible. In the outer world change requires effort. We must overcome inertia to start moving. We must overcome inertia to stop moving. In the inner world change is easy. Thoughts flit in and out and emotions keep moving. It takes effort to maintain the same emotional state.

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From Chapter 8 - Shared Meaning

There is tremendous power in our story and tremendous power in our silence. How often has our focus on our own drama kept us from fully being in touch with our companions on this journey? I need to quiet my internal dialogs enough to listen to the people in my life and hear what they say. Then I need to get out of my personal perspective enough to hear what they mean. 

From Chapter 9 - Balancing Emotions 

Knowing that misconceptions affect the flavor of our self-talk, we can learn to balance the interplay of our thoughts and emotions. We can use affirmations to drive the unfolding of how we manifest in the world. 

From Chapter 10 - Shared Feeling

Even the closest partners are worlds of mystery unto themselves and emotional miscommunication can move a relationships toward dysfunctionality. Years ago Transactional Analysis introduced the concept of the “I-Statement” as a tool to communicate with our partners when we want to effectively influence their actions. JB4G introduces the “I-Declaration” as a statement of being expressed to our companions or just to ourselves. My I-Declaration and my newfound clarity gives me the ability to define myself in a way that allows me the freedom to change myself. The freedom to break out of the shell that contains who I thought I was and expand into a greater world beyond. No one else is involved and, in fact, if someone else feels compelled to change their behavior, I have not expressed myself well enough! Just as the eye of a hurricane is calm and clear in the midst of the storm, we discover that our new clarity provides a place of calm in the midst of life’s storms.

From Chapter 11 - Surprises at Journey's End

Some of the implications of pain-free living provide a few surprises. I have the tools and the ability to maintain a state of vibrancy, immediacy, and high energy. My body seems to overflow with vitality. There is no room for tension and pain. They have to wait outside! Giggle!

The way to freedom is to renounce any attempt at controlling another person. My desire is that my behavior is not predicated on or designed to cause any particular behavior in other adults. This hard cold truth makes victimization of me and/or others impossible. Giggle!

From Chapter 12 - Maintaining Balance

Our journey led to transcendent celebrations of life. Am I willing to consider the possibility of being a model for how a person behaves when he or she is vibrantly healthy on all levels? Of the many compelling reasons to share this learning and write a book for you. I notice that:

• With each breath I have the opportunity to learn new ways of being .
  
• I have the freedom to create each day new and alive.
  
• Each moment my giggle grows to include more people.