Is joy possible while our lives and the world itself seem like such a balagan (Hebrew for “mess”)?
How can we find joy in the messes we and others make? Is there a way to be with my mess, their messes, your mess and God’s messes, and still embrace life with radical amazement?
We can choose to feel our very real losses and grief, and then return to the joy and gratitude of being alive with our robust, vulnerable and precious life just the way it is. But how do we access joy, robust vulnerability and connection when we feel overwhelmed by negativity, both ours and of others? How can we feel safe and secure when the times feel impossibly dangerous? Can we stay with our feelings of grief, terror and uncertainty long enough to acknowledge them, not bypassing them, while still creating space for the possibility of joy in more of our moments?
I have spent years in holistic retreat centers as a participant, staff member and teaching faculty, practicing mindfulness along with many other mind/body practices, with the many of the pioneers in the mind/body field. And yet, it wasn’t until I left these incubators that I began to integrate a messy yet effective way to play imperfectly with grief and joy, and ultimately, to be of service to others.
Lightening the seriousness of life
In 2012, I arrived at Eden Village Camp, and the puzzle pieces start to come together. The first clear piece: Laughter Torah, sponsored by Hahashem. (Hashem = “The divine name.” Ha-ha-shem = “The laughing name.”) Hahashem began to vibrate through me in prayer after prayer, mostly in gibberish and laughter, and almost entirely without words. I began to see that Hashem seemed to be guiding me towards my role of bringing out laughter and humor as a way to lighten up the seriousness of figuring life out, doing it right, having it look a certain way and not looking stupid. I started to see that laughing with the painful became a way to release perfectionism and connect with the grief, leading me to embrace the uncertainty and vulnerability of life. This joy vey became an access point to aliveness, happiness and connection.
Laughing with the painful became a way to release our perfectionism and connect with the grief, leading us to embrace the uncertainty and vulnerability of life.
At Eden Village Camp, I was hired to merge spirituality and movement and to make it fun. I led a “Laughter Yoga ‘Modeh Ani’” morning practice, later called “Laughter Torah Yoga.” We would move, let go and laugh into what we were grateful for and what was getting in the way of that gratitude. I slowly ninja-ed through teenagers’ cynicism and resistance to smiling and to laughing for no reason except to celebrate life, and feel playful and connected as they once had felt as kids. It took a full summer before they realized that I might not be crazy — that it might be fun to laugh as a way to connect with the body, mind and spirit, as well as with their friends.
It seems too simple to be true. Can laughter be Torah? Is laughter Torah? Is laughter what is missing from all the serious texts? Is laughter a form of prayer that allows us to accept and forgive ourselves, each other, life, God and get reconnected to joy? Is this a possible recipe for tikkun olam (repairing the broken world)? After all, the Psalmist teaches: Ivdu et Hashem besimkha/“Serve God with joy” (Psalms 100:2)
Permission to be joyful
It has been a very difficult several years, both in Israel and in the United States. Maybe we feel afflicted with depression, anxiety, anger, fear. It often has felt to me that I must stay connected with grief and feel this sadness constantly, in order to stay connected to reality. And yet, I have found that there is only so much oy veh that I can contain before I spiral too far downward. There must be a joy veh. We must grant ourselves permission to be joyful, even in the face of deeply disturbing news.
Where do we start? We could start with the assertion that God-Hashem–Hahashem-the Universe wants all beings to be joyful and to thrive. By “thriving,” I mean as having all our physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs met in order serve the world with the skills and talents we have to uplift any and all beings with respect, care and reverence. To keep it simple, let’s say life wants life to continue in some shape and form, and to be nurtured and expressed.
What makes life work? Movement, fluid, rhythm, communication, connection and much more, including laughter. Since joy can seem so far away and grief too heavy to hold alone, it seems Hashem may have made laughter as a super-human power to declare “I want to be alive” and “Yes! I am willing to not know how to do it! Please guide me!”
What is laughter?
Culturally, laughter is a communication that connects people of all backgrounds and languages, even different species. It is a rhythmic vibrational movement of the musculoskeletal system. It engages the respiratory, endocrine, digestive, circulatory and reproductive systems, activating over half the muscles in the body; softens the connective tissue; enervates organs; moves fluids; reduces stress; and increases neurotransmitters to regulate the central nervous system and the poly vagal system. It turns us on to life, and helps us to shake with, process and release stress, so we can creatively connect with each other and to be joy veh … a light of aliveness amid darkness. It functions similarly to the way trees support each other in forests. When we laugh, we unite. We communicate our stresses vulnerably in our environment and share emotional nutrients (oxytocin) that support us to feel like we belong and are safe to grow.
Laughter turns us on to life and helps us to shake with, process and release stress, so we can creatively connect with each other.
How does the ‘Laughter Torah Yoga’ work?
It starts with setting a kavvanah/intention to create a safe container of acceptance, compassion, curiosity/radical amazement and a willingness to lean into the unknown. We do this through breath (and laughter) exercises that cultivate playfulness, presence, robust vulnerability and connection. I start by being courageous and willing to feel all the sensations of grief, joy and everything in between that I pick up in the moment, sensing both where I am at emotionally and inquiring about others in the room. This helps them to trust me and others to share their gift of joy through the movement of laughter or to be witnessed in their grief lovingly, whether it is transformed to joy or not.
I have found that the best way to loosen people up is to loosen up myself beforehand. Then, playing and flowing through laughter and other mindfulness and body-oriented practices, people seem more willing and responsive to laugh and share their joy. I often explain how and why laughing works in the body according to scientific studies, the history of it, and eventually, the benefits, which is what almost everyone is concerned about: Will this help me to release stress and return to enjoying myself, my relationships and be a contribution in some way to humanity?
‘Being Joy’
How does living this way affect my life? It puts me on an even playing field with others and inspires me to be of service through joy. I see joy as an emotional currency that only increases by sharing mine and receiving others’ version. The practice is to “Be Simkha/Joy” by smiling and sharing inspiring moments of humor, humility and acceptance. I notice that practicing this way of being helps me to stay in the flow, to adapt to the uncertainty and to move out of fear, uncertainty and doubt more quickly.
I won’t claim to be someone who doesn’t get angry or frustrated. And I will say that the more I laugh with what is — whether it is a laughter of disbelief or of forgiveness — I find it gives me a teshuvah (“return”) to being present. I see laughter ultimately as a somatic/body-oriented practice to return people to the present moment, and then to share and receive this light generously. It encompasses the key elements of mind-body practices, such as conscious breathing, embodiment, curiosity, compassion and insight. But to all those valuable practices, we add joy.
We don’t laugh because life is funny. We laugh because often life isn’t funny.
Laughter helps us to develop a sense of humor to the comedy and tragedy of being human. It has helped me to become more aware and less attached to the drama, both mine and others’. Although I still get upset daily, I move rather quickly out of the upset by not taking it or myself so seriously.
Laughter as a Portal to Prayer
By connecting with the physical body and the emotional body through the somatic practice of laughter, we are better able to focus the mind on Hashem/God, a force greater than we can perceive in our tunnel vision. When we laugh and lean into the grief (oy veh) and joy of life (joy veh), it opens a portal to prayer and aliveness we have not perceived as possible. It opens a portal to the mundane that becomes both ordinary and extraordinary. Laughter clears the ways to digest the interference so we can unify with the God of our understanding, regardless of what we are doing. To experience and be seen in our joy and our grief is to be Jewish, and it is the way we survive and thrive as Jews.
We don’t laugh because life is funny. We laugh because often life isn’t funny. Comedians make us laugh when they talk about the ridiculousness of our personal and collective hardship. The invitation to bring laughter into hardship is to use laughter as a lubricant, as an offering to Hashem, as a form of prayer to be with what seems too hard.
It is an invitation to relax into our emotional trigger points and to feel greater ease in our bodies. The practice works as an emotional mezuzah that brings us back to joy, both in the moments that seems good and those that seem bad. Laughter is a way to give up the need to fix ourselves, our partners, our friends, family neighbors, leaders, enemies, God, life. It becomes not the answer, but an inquiry into fresh possibilities and solutions for our massive overwhelm and confusion. To laugh as a last and first action of faith can be our teshuvah.
Laughing with the unfathomable allows us to embrace our bundled grief and to open it just enough to process the pain, shame, blame, guilt, anger, frustration and what’s underneath: sadness. And underneath that, joy. Once we can laugh to tears, feeling sadness in all in its terrain, joy bounces back, and we can feel deep joy and gratitude of this precious life we have. Joy is what Brene Brown says is “the most vulnerable emotion,” as it opens us to others’ self-expression and feedback about both our joy and grief, as well as theirs. Laughter shakes us out of numbness or other emotional strangleholds so we can forgive ourselves, others, life and God.
In other words, when we laugh together, we practice robust vulnerability to touch joy and grief. This laughter relieves us of our personal suffering and connects us to a shared reality of fear, uncertainty and doubt. It liberates us. It takes us through the Red Sea to receive at Sinai both the broken tablets and those intact — reminders of our imperfect presence, and our faith in life and in God.
