Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Don't Let Others Stop Your Laughter

In my life there have been times when people have tried to stop my laughter.

Was my laughter a threat? Did it spark their insecurity? Were they jealous? Was it too painful to see others in such joy when they were in such misery?

I don’t know.

At such times I was young and vulnerable to the reaction of others and I let it lessen my laughter.

Living on an island community, I regularly got in a roll of laughter with the clerk at the market on my daily shops. We laughed and laughed until one day I got a visit from his jealous wife who misunderstood all the laughing. I stopped laughing there altogether.

When I was in my twenties I worked at a restaurant where some of my peers tried to stifle my boisterous laughter. They never cut loose to that extent themselves and they didn’t want to hear it. It hurt and I somewhat muffled myself.

Even my own brother violently attacked me when I was a teenager who used to get into fits of giggling with my mother. That definitely stopped my laughter for a while.

Over the years I have watched some laughter club members experience cathartic liberations from years of stifled laughter; some being told as children to “stop all that laughing”.

Have compassion for those around you who have no laughter in their lives. But simultaneously don’t let anyone stop your laughter.

Nelson Mandela said, “…Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you….As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same…”

Photo: Wikimedia

No comments: