Corinne Cosseron, France: My husband Fred and I live a life of Parisian bobos. While he is a lawyer, I am a journalist and our two little boys, Armand and Orel go to Kindergarten. In the year 2000 we hit our 40s and decided to go and live on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea – a life more in tune with new ambitions.
Arriving in the charming village of Frontignan, I wondered how to convince my peers to join me in my new venture so I penned down all my talents which were partying, having fun, seeing friends, helping others, taking pictures etc. I was actually very confused because I did not know what profession will be able to bring all these “gifts.” Except, perhaps, wedding planner…
I then prepared a draft calling myself a biographer who collects the testimonies of centenarians, when a journalist friend asked me to write the biography of a woman living a nightmare story. I hesitate, wondering if I would be able to write a story in the first person, without being contaminated by sadness. I lay thinking next to my husband, who was asleep in front of the TV without any sound, when I started to laugh alone. I was definitively crazy to laugh for no reason!
But, actually there was one reason – There were happy and sublime Indian women, dressed in colorful saris, laughing with all their heart on television. And I was drawn like a magnet by their joie de vivre. I realized that this is what I wanted, and what I needed. In fact, it was then I discovered Dr. Madan Kataria presenting his incredible invention: Laughter Yoga. I was stunned to learn that there are people who do not laugh and who fall ill. Amazed to find a doctor who after ten years of studies decides to close his consulting room because he thinks it is more important and effective to create Laughter Clubs. I was left speechless as I had found the answer to my question of that evening: yes, I will write the sad book, but I will also create a Laughter Club as an antidote!
I cannot imagine that evening in 2001 my life changed and would never be the same ever. I subsequently met Dr. Kataria and trained with him to be Laughter teacher and soon started my Laughter Club. At that time I obviously did not expect that, in the first year, 500 people will travel from all over France as well as dozens of journalists, just to laugh with me on Frontignan’s beach.
Fascinated by the happiness I feel in facilitating sessions and the wonder of the participants, I start a “world tour of joie de vivre’s techniques” next year whose collection will lead to the creation of rigology and the International School of Laughter and Happiness. Thus, through Laughter Yoga, I found a profession that I practiced for more than ten years with passion, seven days a week, and that includes all the criteria that I had selected “partying, having fun, seeing friends, helping others, take pictures to capture the good times and even write.” It also gave me worldwide laughing friends.