Michael Pritchard and Tonya Dawn Recla Remind the World to Laugh

Tonya Dawn Recla:
I love it, what a fabulous tool to give them.

Michael Pritchard:
And the other thing is you don’t stop laughing because you grow old because you stop laughing. One of the things that’s really urgently important for all of us to gather that community unity and to bring it back into perspective, is there’s so much road rage and anger and hostility at times that people are ego driven to do to suppress that feeling that sometimes let it go, forgive, allow these things surrender this up, and you’re always laughing. I used to tell the kids all the time that, you know, I like to be on elevators with serious people. And you know, folks, everybody dies, but serious people are in a big hurry. Got it. You’ve got to try and approach today with love, clarity, and the wisdom of just laughing at things. You cannot control what happens to us. But we can choose to deal with it in a way that is more healthy. And well. I tell kids all the time I use illness, we are wellness when you have patients or you’ve been helping in a hospice as I have in the past, trying to get people out of the doldrums and the anger and the resentment are really urgent.

And so I told the story one day, about, you know, being at an airport and the lady there, we had an angry guy in front of us and he was screaming, you don’t want any idea who I am at all. And she got on the loudspeaker and said, folks, there’s a man over here who doesn’t know who he is. If any of you recognize him, please send him off. I guess he’s lost. Well, the roar of laughter through the crowd is that you know that perspective that helps you get through the day when there’s hostility, anger, and stressors that are beyond so try and stay blessed to be stressed. Think of those ways to unwind, and find a kind of mind. And that’s the beautiful thing is that you let it go. And you will know that they’re coming. Because we don’t know the trauma in their background. We don’t know what their day looks like, we don’t know what their life is like. And that’s why when I first started to work in corrections as a probation officer, I used to say to everybody, you know, we don’t know what a person’s gone through that day.

So try to allow them the leeway of letting you and them in on their life secrets by just asking, how was your day going? Right? And just finding that and that’s a spiritual gift to us. I think the Solomonic wisdom comes to all of us. Tonya is that once, like, when you adjust and you know, when I first met you guys, I realized the stressors you guys must have been on your sometimes in the jobs you had, was important for us to be together as a group as a team when we work and we have laughter going on. And that laughter is what helps you. I had a world war two dad, and I love him and I miss him every day. But he had mantras that used to make me laugh, you know, stop grinding for I give you something to cry about. And if everybody else jumped off the bridge, would you jump off the bridge? And my favorite was? Do you want me to turn this car around right now? Well, you laugh. But you also realize that they were in training for years in the military, to be serious to be buttoned down. And when they came home from the war, I felt it was the obligation of all of us, as family members, to help them unwind from the stressors of their lives previous and the promise of what they had seen by being warm, kind, friendly, and loving. laughter and just sometimes, I was great at this because I was Tonya, I never knew I had super superpowers until I started to work at Skywalker Ranch. And folks, if you can imagine, I’m 74. And when I was a kid growing up, I would sit around and do little voices. But then I was in a booth and I started to learn at Skywalker Ranch that I can do this report.

I’m not gonna be strong with you on that force me a strong shell. That joy that laughter comes from the ability to be inside your brain. And it came from a guy who offered me a job to sing in a cartoon thing for Sesame Street. And he looks at me and he goes, Can you sing? And I said, No. I’m not a great singer. 20. I looked at myself. I’m not a great singer. I cannot. I went to a Catholic school. But I can carry too, but I’m not. He goes, I’ll pay you 2500 bucks for four hours. And I went no.

Tonya Dawn Recla:
Right. Nevermind. I’m great at it actually. Michael, you’re such a gift. And I love the connection into everything you’re talking about, about your connection to Robin Williams. And really the story there is that there is a lot under the surface that we don’t know, and your fabulous stories about where you run in, where most people run out. Right?. And that sort of awareness, I think that we’re coming to in this day and age is like who’s running in? And who’s running out, right? And we know a lot of folks who are opting out, we know a lot of folks who are saying, Hey, this is too tough. We don’t know what’s gonna happen, like all of these things. And Justin and I looked at each other the other day, and we said, You know what, we took an oath, and like, that oath didn’t end when we got out of the building, I don’t remember to do a thing or like, unknown thing myself. Like, I don’t really recall that step and our country needs help, you know, the globe needs help and so really working through what that means to see yourself as beyond yourself, right to see yourself in everyone else.

As you said, you just had this awareness that you could assist, right, coming back from war situations, coming back from trauma situations, is no joke. It’s that individual’s own little personal walk. But as a community, we can certainly support, we can certainly shine light and say, You know what, there is another perspective, right? This may feel very, very real to you right now. And you’re also all these other things to us too. And that’s a really, really important role to hold. And I think you’ve done such a remarkable job throughout your existence, stepping up and being that I know you’ve served that for Justin and me on more than one occasion. We consider you incredible Lydiard, especially given the limited number of times that we’ve gotten together or have talked, but the connection in what, how we’re programmed, right? It’s like, we’re gonna step in, and we’re gonna run to not away from and you kind of see those people, you know, miles away and you find each other because and I believe that’s what is being called for now those of us who are willing to come together and say, We don’t agree like we are not happy with each other, what are some things that have happened that we really do need to talk about? And we’re in this together?

Michael Pritchard:
What are we going to do? And I think it is exactly everything that you said when we can move towards accommodation and diplomacy and respect, and acceptance of all people, all backgrounds, all cultures, and understanding how important it is to live there. Because the first thing you learn in the military is that it’s all of us together. And the team is together. Everyone, anyone matters. And we live like that. That means that when you know I always say this to people. And I spoke yesterday to retirees, and I said we’re never done serving America. And the vision that we have to have a great teacher by the name of Helen Keller, they said, Mrs. Keller, it must be hard for you to be blind. And she said, Well, it would be if I had no vision we see with our hearts. And we want those around us to see their hearts to our compassion. I did a movie called The Happy Movie. And we went all over the world. And we found out that one word is the reason for happiness and life from all religions, all backgrounds, and cultures. And that is compassion, loving, caring about people around you, and helping serve them in a humble way. Without looking for payback, or rent, and, or some sort of acceptance or you get it’s not quid pro quo. I help you. And I am blessed. And that’s how we have to live. And I’ve lived my life like that for 55 years. And I know that you guys do as well. And your little daughter is so indicative of that. I am talking about little kids in a way that understands that. I said boys and girls don’t understand people and one of the fourth graders raised his hand and said, but Mr. Pritchard, what about inner standing? Wow, he had a real shot.

Tonya Dawn Recla:
That’s beautiful. And in our world, we actually took a really scientific lens to exactly what you’re speaking to. And what we found was at a programming level, we all have this program that says to protect yourself at all costs. We can’t override that it’s a survival program. But what we can do is we can look at how we define self, right? How do we know ourselves and when we know ourselves is connected to others and we know ourselves as being one with others you can look at it and even in biblical teachings, right, treat others as you want to be treated and in our world that actually equates to very, very strict programming rules in the sense that we program each other that way how we want to be treated is programmed by how we treat others it actually is much more you know, kind of technical than maybe we’d like to admit that the philosophies are brilliant, they work time and time again and what we wanted to see was why why do they work time and time again, but if you can envision yourself beyond the self and let yourself align with a bigger conversation, a community conversation a family conversation, a creation conversation, however big you can get yourself in collectivist cultures understand this much better than individualistic cultures, a lot of us have been reared to see ourselves as as the entity in our existence and nothing much beyond that.

And so there is a retraining happening for a lot of us. And we can prove it at a programming level like the survival programs require us to protect ourselves but when you’re able to identify and see yourself and your self-interest as being part of a greater whole, that program will apply to the greater whole also, it’s quite remarkable. It has more to do with how we identify than anything else and when we’re able to see to your point like if you’re angry past 30 Was it 30 minutes? I love it. 30 seconds is good. I was gonna make it 30 seconds if it wasn’t cuz I like now I’m gonna decide I’d like that 30 seconds and it’s so apropos because now you’re storytelling, right? And as soon as you can tell the story you can have a choice you’re in a choice that you’re no longer in crisis, you’re in choice. And you can, you can stop and you can reinforce that so brilliant. Brilliant guidance Michael had. So you named a lot of things that would tribute to this walk that you’ve had. But I’m sure knowing you that there have been many moments when you’re like, Why me like like, how am I one that runs toward instead of the way because that wasn’t the military? I contend you’re attracted to the military because you had it anyway, potentially. Maybe it was. But for a lot of us, I think it’s sort of there. And we kind of find the places that accommodate it, what was it for you?

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