extinguishing inappropriate laughter proving progress

Ever since I was young, I had a problem controlling my laughter when it was inappropriate to continue laughing hysterically. Not uncommonly, I'd be in a relatively formal meeting (e.g. committee meeting, emotional sharing, in a class) and something would trigger my laughter and I'd just die due to hysterical/uncontrollable laughter to the point of aching abs and teary eyes. It would be so embarrassing sometimes because I really wanted to stop, and all the others in the setting would look at me, some amused, some shocked, some frustrated, and hope that I would get my act together after a few seconds so that whatever serious social functions at hand could kindly continue their course. Their hope was for the most part disappointed as I would earnestly try to stop laughing, yet inevitably fail because I found something just so friggin funny. I would be successful for 2 seconds, then the laughter would just continue gorging itself out of my mouth and I would just frustratingly fail to suppress my laughter.

Yesterday, something interesting happened that incidentally was somewhat of an indicator that I have progressed deeper into the spiritual realm in Christ.

So what happened was that I was in Sunday School and I subjectively found something really funny (with the exception of a friend, no one else in the room found it funny). So, what typically happens in a situation like this with me is that I would just helplessly try my best to unsuccessfully suppress my laughter while the rest of the people beside me would just have to suck it up and bear this disease of mine. I started to laugh and try to control my external expressions of laughter to avoid disrupting the class. No use.

Then, all of a sudden a thought came into my head something along the lines of this:

"you have tried to "plug" this laughter at the relatively shallow surface of behaviour modification. Why don't you try to "plug" it at an even deeper level of your consciousness, the levels that you've reached through all these months of practising God's presence?"

Let me temporarily go off on a tangent and attempt to explain the background of that thought.

So after almost 21 months of trying to play the Game with Minutes, with the grace of the Holy Spirit combined with strenuous effort, I have, I feel, successfully learned and have been able to descend into deeper layers of my consciousness. I used to only be able to access my immediate thoughts/emotions before playing this game. Now, dare I say, I can access stuff that's deeper, such as my will (my volition, my faculty of decision making). This is the dimension of my humanity that Jesus was referring to when he was in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed to his father "not my will but let yours be done". This is a deeper layer of consciousness than Jesus' immediate thoughts and feelings.

This is extremely hard to explain to someone else on second hand terms. Basically because if someone's never experienced this dimension of their consciousness, they have absolutely nothing to relate to when an explanation is given to them to attempt to help them vicariously comprehend the nature of this unchartered territory of their consciousness. I mean, I only started to be able to consciously access this layer of my consciousness about 10 months after I played the Game with Minutes. Anyways, all I'm trying to say is that I am able to access a deeper level of consciousness that the average human being cannot (or isn't even aware of) and of which I could not access a year ago.

When I access this level of consciousness (or remember to, because a lot of the times I forget to), I existentially tell my will to submit to God's will. I have to say that this is different, although interconnected with act of disciplining my thoughts. And it is not just a one time thing. It is a dynamic, organic, ongoing thing that has to be done every minute (ideally that is. I am so far from this state, I figure it might take 9 more years for me to master it, maybe more).

So back to what happened yesterday during sunday school. After that thought came into my mind, I attempted to try to work on the level of "will" to change my will against "laughing hysterically when socially inappropriate to do so". Guess what? The hysterical laughter just extinguished. In a fraction of a second. Much like using a fire extinguisher on a fire. No gradual elimination, nor back-and-forth struggle. Just pure/permanent-like rapid extinction. I've never experienced something like that before in terms of controlling laughter when I wanted to.

I guess the incident showed me just how much direct/practical value in my daily life this Game with Minutes has in playing it.

That incident acted somewhat like a "spiritual barometer" to use an immediate situation to measure my practical mystical progress in Christ. I can control my hysterical laughter when I'm called to now! Although of course sometimes it's okay to laugh hysterically haha