I support the slowdown because I love starting my day with poetry and listen to the podcast

with my students and it has allowed us to talk about and celebrate poetry in new ways.

Join me by making a gift to the slowdown today.

Go to slowdownshow.org-flashdonate.

Hey slowdown listeners, today's episode is hosted by the poet Shira Erlichman.

Don't worry, I'll be back on August 28th.

I'm Shira Erlichman and this is the slowdown.

In one of the darkest periods of my life, I found myself in a small grey room with

ten strangers laughing.

The leader inhaled deeply.

Before releasing into fake, loud laughter, the effect was contagious.

Laughter immediately spread between us like a clownish virus until everybody was gripping

their bellies or doubled over.

Cracking up, wiping tears from my eyes, there wasn't really space to think, which was

perhaps the point, desperate times call for laughter yoga.

Fourteen years later, when I reflect back on that moment of forcing laughter in a room

with wet-eyed strangers, I don't feel embarrassed or pitiful.

It was a time when I felt no agency.

Illness had happened to me, hijacked my body and mind, upended my post-college plans,

ended a stay at a mental hospital where I was at the whims of doctors and staff who

were not always ethical or compassionate.

Once released, I stayed in a friend's living room hundreds of miles away from my estranged

...