ICU – “I See You” Podcast
Healing with Humor & Gratitude
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In this episode of the ICU Podcast, we explore how humor and gratitude can become powerful tools for coping with chronic vestibular disorders. Living with dizziness, vertigo, or imbalance can often feel isolating and overwhelming—but laughter and thankfulness can help restore balance to both body and mind. Research shows that humor can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, boost immune function, and even trigger endorphins—our body’s natural painkillers. Similarly, practicing gratitude has been linked to better sleep, improved mood, and enhanced overall well-being. Our guests—a vestibular patient who’s found resilience through laughter, and health coach Hilary Russo, creator of the “HIListic” approach to mindful self-compassion—share how humor and gratitude have transformed their healing journeys and offer practical ways to bring more lightness and appreciation into everyday life.
Guests
Mary Ziegler used to be reliable, hard-working, and a dedicated wife and mother. But when Meniere’s disease and vestibular migraine hit, she had to leave her job and stop driving. One of the things Mary misses the most is helping other people. She misses parties with friends and family. But she has devised ways to dwell in joy and gratitude. She likes being a VeDA Ambassador because it allows her to help people in Chicago, where she lives, and all over the world. She is grateful for her family and friends, and grateful that she has a team of doctors who recognize that she is an expert in her condition.
Hilary Russo is a certified trauma-informed holistic mental health practitioner and health coach, one of only 50 certified Havening Techniques® Trainers globally, and one of the first 100 Certified Havening Practitioners in the United States. Due to her work in Havening and trauma-informed care, Hilary is a recommended referral partner with the nationally recognized Amen Clinics for brain health. Her extensive background in media and military life gives her a unique perspective on working with secondary trauma, chronic stress, and burnout. She is the host of the globally top-rated podcast HIListically Speaking® and creator of the HUG it Out® Method, which reminds you to access self-healing through Humor, Understanding, and Gratitude and be a Pioneer Practitioner™of your own life. Connect with Hilary at hilaryrusso.com, on social @hilaryrusso, or on her Substack, The Brain Candy Blueprint.
Summary
Mary: Humor as a Lifeline in the Hardest Moments
Mary traces her relationship with humor back to one of her earliest and worst vestibular attacks in 1999. She describes getting into the shower half-asleep only to realize the room was spinning “about 600 miles an hour.” She crawled back to bed and spent six hours vomiting into a metal wastebasket she’d owned since college—decorated on the outside with movie stars like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, and lined inside with dizzying Peter Max–style op art.
In the moment, nothing about that experience felt funny. But with distance, the image of her throwing up on Paul Newman in a psychedelic wastebasket became something she could laugh about. That, she notes, is the essence of “tragedy plus time”: many things are only funny in retrospect, once the body has stopped panicking and the nervous system has calmed down.
Humor, for Mary, is both cultural and personal. She grew up in a family where laughter routinely showed up in the wake of tragedy—after deaths, in hospital rooms, in moments most people might consider too tender or too dark. When her sister was diagnosed with leukemia and given a low chance of survival, their family began using humor even in the most ordinary interactions. Wrong-number callers or telemarketers might hear Mary flatly say, “Not too good, my sister only has a 20% chance of living,” and her sister, in turn, would respond to mundane fundraising calls with darkly funny quips. To outsiders, it might sound like black humor, but to Mary, it was a way to survive overwhelming fear and grief.
She’s carried this perspective into caregiving and chronic illness management. When her mother was in her 90s and dealing with serious health issues, Mary accompanied her to a long series of medical appointments with extensive intake forms. What started as a chore became a source of gratitude and shared laughter. Going through pages of symptoms reminded Mary how much still worked in both their bodies—vision, touch, mobility—and how much worse things could be. Then came the page on sexual health. Reading those questions aloud to her 90-something mother in a public waiting room—about sexual partners, substance use, intimate history—turned a dehumanizing, clinical process into a moment of connection, silliness, and perspective.
This reframing extends to everyday mishaps. Mary describes falling as painful and dangerous, but also—in the right context—visually absurd. She acknowledges that many of us laugh at videos of people or animals slipping, tumbling, or fainting. With vestibular disorders, those falls are real and risky; yet, when the crisis passes and nothing is broken, she sometimes allows herself to see the comedy in her own ungraceful moments—like making snow angels with her granddaughter, then realizing she had no plan for how to get back up with a wrecked leg and poor balance, and crawling across the yard to reach something sturdy enough to pull herself up.
For Mary, humor is both natural and cultivated. It’s woven into her family culture and personality, but she also treats it as a practice—something she returns to deliberately, especially in community. As a co-leader of a vestibular support group, she initially worried the group might be depressing. Instead, she found that while there is grief, problem-solving, and tears, at least a third of their time is spent laughing. New members often start out embarrassed to share symptoms—like constantly dropping things—only to realize, when everyone raises their hands, that they are not alone and not “crazy.” Laughter becomes proof of belonging and a release valve for chronic stress.
Hilary: Gratitude, Self-Compassion, and the “Hug It Out” Method
Hilary approaches humor and gratitude through the lens of trauma-informed care. She’s clear that using humor does not mean minimizing pain or telling people to “look on the bright side.” Instead, she sees it as recognizing that laughter and lightness are always possible, even if they’re not always appropriate in the moment.
Her “Hug It Out” method captures this approach through an acronym:
- H – Humor
- U – Understanding
- G – Gratitude
Humor here is not about performing happiness for others, but about the small, private moments where we can see absurdity or lightness in our own struggles. Understanding points to self-awareness: knowing your core values, how you show up in the world, the “walk-on” song you’d choose for yourself—the inner narrative that shapes your resilience. Gratitude, importantly, is not just about being thankful for external blessings, but about self-gratitude: recognizing your own efforts, strengths, and growth.
Hilary emphasizes how rare self-gratitude is, especially among women. When given compliments, many women deflect—“This old thing?”—rather than simply saying “thank you.” That deflection, she explains, is a form of self-protection rooted in the brain’s bias toward negativity. The amygdala (she affectionately calls it “Amy”) is wired to scan for danger and uncertainty, which can make hope feel unsafe or unreliable. Gratitude, by contrast, is something we can practice in the present—naming what is good right now, no matter how small.
She points to research showing that short daily gratitude practices can significantly increase the likelihood of having a good or happy day. Just two minutes spent focusing on what’s “new and good” rather than scrolling the news or social media can shift neural pathways and emotional tone hours later. Gratitude, she says, is not “woo-woo”—it’s measurable neuroscience. It functions as a frequency that, once activated, invites more of the same.
In her work, Hilary never positions herself as the one “fixing” people. She describes herself as a “Guide By Your Side,” mirroring back to clients what they can’t see from the bottom of their emotional hole. A core practice she uses is starting every session by asking, “What’s new and good?” It’s a simple question that gently forces the brain to scan for safety, connection, beauty, or meaning—even in the midst of pain.
Hilary also speaks to the power of community. Whether in her monthly “havening happy hours” or in peer-led groups like Mary’s, being “heard and held” in a safe container allows people to regulate their nervous systems together. Stories don’t have to match to be resonant; simply sharing space with others who “get it” can be profoundly regulating.
She uses the metaphor of vintage Weeble Wobble toys—“Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down”—to describe resilience. Living with chronic illness will always involve wobbling. Gratitude and humor don’t erase the wobble, but they help us remember that we are designed, again and again, to rise.
Practicing Humor and Gratitude with Chronic Illness
Both Mary and Hilary agree that humor and gratitude are not about denying reality. Vestibular disorders are life-altering. People lose jobs, independence, social connections, and a sense of safety in their own bodies. There are days when gratitude feels out of reach, and laughter feels impossible.
But they insist these tools remain available, even in small ways:
- Finding something absurd or ironic to smile at after a frightening episode.
- Noticing the sunlight on your back, the sound of a loved one’s voice, or a small red flower in the grass.
- Allowing yourself to appreciate your own effort: “I’m doing my best,” “I am advocating for myself,” “I showed up today.”
- Choosing communities—support groups, online spaces, or close friendships—where people reflect your strengths back to you and laugh with you, not at you.
Most importantly, they frame both humor and gratitude as practices, not perfection. Some days you can’t access either—and that’s okay. The practice is in returning, when you can, to the possibility of lightness and appreciation, no matter how modest or fleeting.
In a life shaped by dizziness, uncertainty, and loss, Mary and Hilary show that humor and gratitude are not luxuries. They’re survival skills—gentle, human ways of remembering that even in the wobble, we are still here, still connected, and still capable of joy.
