Melanie Vick, USA: An emotionally painful past led me to turn to relationships to fill myself with happiness as an adult. After my 3,334th love relationship failed (ok, not really the 3,334th, but you get the idea), I finally had a great realization that if I wanted to be truly happy, I needed to take 100% complete responsibility for my own happiness. That is when I found Laughter Yoga on the Internet. Now that I have Laughter Yoga in my life the pain and loss from my past feel greatly diminished. I experience joy on a regular basis and am happy even when I am not involved in a love relationship. I now have fun doing breathing exercises and laughing alone nearly every day.

I am usually a very shy person, especially in large groups, but the shyness vanishes when I practice Laughter Yoga. I decided to become a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader after I had attended only one Laughter Yoga session which consisted of just me and the Laughter Yoga Leader. I recently trained with Dr. Kataria and became a Certified Laughter Yoga Teacher. I led my very first Laughter Yoga session on World Laughter Day 2010 and hope to start a Laughter Club in the near future.

Laughter Yoga is very important in my life because, as part of my personal spiritual quest, I am always seeking ways to bring more peace and unity into the world. When I see the joy and love that shines forth from participants as they connect with each other through eye contact and playful laughter during a Laughter Yoga session, it deepens my appreciation of laughter as a universal language that anyone can understand. I believe Laughter Yoga as a universal language has more potential to bring about world peace than anything else I have thus far encountered.