Searching for Laughter 🤣

When’s the last time you laughed? I mean one of those deep belly laughs, the kind that makes you cry? Or maybe even feels a little bit painful, but also really good at the same time? Yup, that kind of laugh. 

Lately, I've been thinking about laughter as a mood shifter, a disruptor, and as an all-around pleasant feeling.  Everywhere, it seems, is another reason to be angry, sad or both. Yet, I’ve been asking myself about the importance of laughter. Perhaps despite, or because, the world seems to be hemorrhaging with an overflow of oppression, trauma, death and grief - laughter feels like a necessity.

I remember my grandparents’ home in Birmingham, Alabama – it was always full. Full of people coming and going, full of good food like barbecue and fresh vegetables, and throughout the day, and well into most nights, filled with storytelling, and yes, full of laughter. Lots and lots of loud, contagious, laughter.  It was a comforting backdrop to my childhood. According to science, laughter is firmly rooted in affirmative physiological and emotional processes, although they aren't exactly sure how or why. I just know it made me feel good. 

These days, I try to find something that will induce that kind of laughter for me. When I do, I feel my whole body shift. As a coach and facilitator, I always ask others to self-regulate, stimulate the vagus nerve, and heal through breath and movement. The forced calm and stillness is effective, but fundamentally different from what happens with a full-on, gut shaking, make-me-wanna-cry laugh. That’s the one thing that shifts my mood, my outlook, and my physical being. It's not better than breath work, meditation, tai chi and yoga, but it's different. And I crave more of it. 

At the same time, I feel a familiar tension as I settle instead for searching for laugh-inducing media because that feels like a cheat somehow. Even though we breathe every day, I know that a forced or prolonged, deep breath can change your life when you do it regularly and with intention. And so, I search for the deep breath equivalent of laughter. Unlike neutral deep breaths, however, what’s funny to some isn’t to others, and sometimes one person’s humor can be deeply offensive to others.

I admit that, at times, things that strike me as deeply offensive can also be funny to me, even as I feel the guilt-tinged breath escape from my lungs. Yet, still I laugh. I can't help it, or I don't want to help it when I'm indulging alone. But I know what will follow. I can’t get away from the ensuing mental gymnastics where I question my conscious (consciousness? liberation?) credentials. Who’s harmed by this? Am I witnessing someone’s trauma? Is my viewing, laughing, engaging with this media somehow endorsing it, acknowledging and affirming it? (It is.) Still, I laugh. 

I recognize I’m trying to recreate that easy, unmitigated everyday laughter that floated so effortlessly from and around my maternal family that I thought would be plentiful, available, throughout life. That is, until I heard my family discussing “the laugh.” It was as if it were a family trait, passed down from generations, that some people “got” and others didn’t. Perhaps it was an epigenetic gift, a coping mechanism, a way of dealing with the world that allowed them to heal the best way they knew how. That was the first time I realized that  even if a certain type of laughter may not be an inherent, or inherited trait, it could be something that can be cultivated, supported, and maybe become a part of anyone’s healing journey.

To discover what makes you laugh and choose to indulge in it – to shift, even temporarily, out of negativity, the doldrums, depression, whatever is happening, without fear of judgment, retribution or even guilt is a privilege, a simple gift. I’d swap that for a few deep breaths any day. 

How often do you laugh in a day? A week? What was your relationship to laughter growing up? Share your stories in the comments.

- Latonya Slack