Laugh Your Way to Happiness by Lesley Lyle

Author:Lesley Lyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Laugh Your Way To Happiness: Use the Science of Laughter for Total Well-being
ISBN: 9781780287737
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2014-01-19T20:00:00+00:00

Learning through experience

I remember when I passed my driving test (on the third attempt!), my father remarked that I would really have to learn to drive now. I thought it was an odd remark at the time because surely I had just got a driving test certificate that ‘proved’ that I had learnt how to drive? I now understand perfectly what he meant. Passing the driving test is the first stage of a long process. It is the same with most skills that we learn. We first need to learn the basics, and then we need to build upon them until we are proficient. It is the same with running a laughter club.

The most important element I wanted to bring into our laughter sessions was fun, and to achieve that, each week would have to be different. There are hundreds of Laughter Yoga exercises and no end to the amount you can make up. What you do is never really as important as why you are doing it. The group dynamic is different every week, and we often include other elements that complement Laughter Yoga. Over the years, Dr K has adapted his Laughter Yoga style slightly, incorporating elements of play, singing, dancing and using Gibberish that were not included originally. Through his website, Laughter Yoga teachers around the world are able to share their knowledge and findings, and, in this way, Laughter Yoga continues to grow and evolve, which has probably contributed to its increasing popularity.

Although the laughter sessions in Brockenhurst are deeply rooted in the concept of Laughter Yoga, I made a conscious decision early on to exclude the reference to yoga. Although the yoga reference is to the yoga-type breathing only, I found that, in the UK, people are less familiar with this idea, and most presume that Laughter Yoga will include yoga-type poses. Rather than risk disappointing people who wanted the yoga experience and alienating those who did not, I have always referred to our activities as a laughter session.

As the weeks and months passed, we all got to know what worked best, and I began to know intuitively what was going to work and learnt to be flexible with the session plan. I began to include some NLP techniques, and others began to share some of their skills like Chi Kung and Circle Dancing.

After our sessions it became customary to stay and chat. Our conversations were frequently about health and happiness, and we shared our views and experiences with each other. I discovered that for some, this was one of the few opportunities to socialize, and I think that Laughter Yoga clubs all over the world provide a valuable social benefit in addition to the physical and psychological ones.

Dr K’s excellent training course had enabled me to start facilitating Laughter Yoga sessions, but it was only when I started to work with a variety of different people in different situations that I would extend the skills that I had been taught, all the time not only learning valuable lessons from the members but also new things about myself.

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