Laughter Yoga "Makes Room" for Us and Others - Then Helps Us Fill the Room!

I was wondering how to talk about the concept of laughter leading to love for the Heart Lifting Laughter Session on February 15th on my drive to Gordon Avenue Library.  I usually wait until just prior to an event to listen for what to relate laughter yoga to as far as a "theme" - it's just received by the group better that way - when sharing an alive concept - or at least I think so. Ha!

So, in the beginning of the class, I was giving my take on how laughter leads to love. The phrase, "You must first love yourself before you can love others" came to mind during my drive. I'm a fan of Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet who wrote poignant and often heart-piercing poems about love. He used 245 different words for love in his poems. In English, we mainly have one word. So it gets used everywhere and sometimes feels diluted or vague, often like that phrase about loving yourself first. How does one do that? What does it look like in real life?

A translation of Rumi's word for one kind of love is, to make room for, like a mother makes room for the growing baby in her womb. This is also the root concept for the ancient Hebrew word, mercy. This is my experience with a regular practice of laughter yoga. Laughter opens my heart, and allows "free space" for others to be just as they are, for me to be just as I am, AND, still feel affection for us all!

One regular participant from our laughter club said that she was amazed about how "naturally" nice she was to everyone after our meetings. Everything people were doing was OK, she said, even good. She was able to make room for them. My guess is, her laughter made room for her during laughter yoga, then she easily made room for everyone else afterwards. This is one way I see the coined phrase happening in real life.

It just so happened that a quite pregnant woman attended the event. We gave her and her beloved in the womb special laughter blessings towards the end of class, a practice Dr. Kataria teaches leaders to do. How neat-o for a living visual example.

Another woman at the event also shared about "filling the room" - taking space for yourself. Giving yourself room, then filling it up! She had been through some recent challenges in her relationships and encouraged her beloveds to go ahead and "take up space!" She was able to provide the emotional room for them - then encourage them to feel free to fill it up with what they were experiencing. 

The laughter exercises and spontaneous comments after that were all about filling the room and making room. Meaning, the literal room we were laughing in. Things became very silly after such abstract and thought-filled talk about love and laughter.

Laughter naturally connects us and makes space for us at the same time. It has lovely boundaries and seems to have it's own wisdom for each of us. Come on and laugh with us and experience this for yourself! Love yourself (first)!