Law of Happy with Lauren Tatner

Reuniting With My 4th-Grade Laughter Buddy: Advice From Our 10-Year-Old Selves

• Lauren Tatner

Share episode

This is a very special and emotional episode for me. I met Stacey Letovsky in Grade 4. I changed schools in the middle of 4th Grade. Meeting and laughing with Stacey was the greatest gift. The laughing Stacey and I did together, intuitively as children, played a huge role in reducing my anxiety as the new kid in school, it boosted my self-confidence and self-esteem, and helped me connect with my new classmates.

It was surreal to reconnect with Stacey now on my podcast, to laugh together again, and hear about Stacey’s inspiring journey as a mom of 5 daughters and the co-owner and operator of Pellatt Cornucopia Gift Baskets. I was especially happy to have this opportunity to thank Stacey for essentially being my first Laughter Teacher, helping me bring laughter into my life in Grade 4, and inspiring me to find my laughter again as an adult.

Read Stacey’s story here: https://www.pellatt.ca/pages/our-story

Find Pellatt Cornucopia Gift Baskets Here: https://www.pellatt.ca/


About your Host:
Lauren Tatner, founder of Law of Happy, is an inspirational teacher, attorney, author, wellness arts practitioner, and inspirational clown. She is certified as a Reiki Teacher, Consulting Hypnotist, and Meditation Teacher, Laughter Yoga Leader, and Fitness Instructor Specialist. She also trained in Theatre, Dance, Zumba, Voice, Mediation, Public Speaking, Improv, Clown, Comedy, Past Life Regression (with American Psychiatrist, Dr. Brian Weiss), Shamanism, and Qigong.


Lauren has always been fascinated with the mind, body, and spirit connection. She is passionate about teaching the power of laughter, meditation, and movement in a fun and relatable way. When Lauren gives talks and leads workshops in the corporate and private sectors, she uses a unique approach that integrates elements of her diverse skills and experience.

Lauren is the mother of twins and a rescue pup.

- Follow Lauren on IG @TheLawofHappy
- Watch & Laugh with us on YouTube
- Interested in laughing with Lauren on the show or in a customized workshop: Get in touch

Welcome back to the Law of Happy Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Tattler. I'm an attorney and I teach laughter as an exercise. When we laugh, we feel good, and we raise our energy. This allows more good fun things to flow into our experience. This is the Law of Happy, so let's laugh half fun and practice the law of Happy together. I'm so excited for you to meet today's special guest Stacy this is a very special and emotional episode for me. I'm at Stacey in grade four. I don't like labels, but let's just say that I was a very shy and sensitive kid. I had just switched schools in the middle of grade four and meeting and laughing with Stacy was the greatest gift. The laughing Stacy and I did together. Intuitively as children played a huge role in reducing my anxiety as the new kid in school, it boosted my self confidence and self esteem and it helped me connect with my new classmates. It was surreal to reconnect with stacy now on my podcast To laugh together again and hear about stacy's Basis Inspiring journey as a mom of five daughters and the co-owner and operator of polite cornucopia gift baskets I was especially happy to have this opportunity to thank stacey for essentially being my first laughter teacher helping me bring laughter into my life in grade four And inspiring me to find my laughter again as an adult Thank you Stacy for being you then And now I'm inspired by your strength vulnerability passion and kindness please join me in giving a warm welcome to stacy

Lauren:

Stacy, welcome. I'm just so excited that you're here. Welcome to the Love of Happy podcast. I'm so honored and excited that you are our special guest today. Thank you so much for being

Stacey:

here. I'm so happy to be here. I'm really like, when you reached out, this was just inspiring. Let's

Lauren:

go. I'm excited. Okay. Stacy, you were one of my first friends, as a kid. I had, okay, I'm gonna get into that. I'm just, there's so many things flying around on my mind. You're also the co-owner and operator of Kopia Gift Baskets. I can't wait to to talk to you about your incredible business that you co-own and run. I'm just so inspired by you, but I'm wondering if we can just go back in time for for a moment.'cause I have to just share the extra reason why I'm beyond excited that you're here It's because when I was in grade four, I switched schools switched elementary schools in the middle of the year. And I was the new kid and it was very stressful because people had, kids had already gotten to know each other I was so anxious. I remember coming home initially and, crying and being so stressed out because I didn't know how to, who I would eat lunch with. And I would yes, you were amazing. You were so open and welcoming to me. And I just remember just laughing just laughing with you. You had such a warm, welcoming energy and and just your you, laughed freely and I just felt so connected to you almost instantly and it was really through the laughter. I feel that that I was able to feel this instant bonding connection with you, and that allowed me to, oh my God. It, almost remove, took away most of my anxiety.

Stacey:

I, have to interrupt you for a second and say that it was not all me, it was you. I, you were. You were real. Everyone puts on a front and they dress the way that the cool people dress and they want this and they want that. And they, you were just real and I felt like I could be real with you. And we just clicked on our giddy, funny, whatever it was. If it was, I. I was just real with you and it was easy, like you said. So it was also you. It wasn't just me.

Lauren:

I appreciate you saying that and and I just know from my end it was just how yeah, I felt your, your. warmth and your realness and and just, and it was the, connecting with you through the laughter and the laughing. It was just so much fun. It just was a great release. And, it was, it just, My mood, it boosted my it, increased my self-confidence. I felt because of our, laughing together. I just felt more confident and comfortable with everyone else in the class and with everyone else in the group. Because of our laughing together and because I was able to Shift my energy and my focus through my laughter.'cause we can't change how anyone else is or acts. And, now I know as an adult I know that kids are, everyone's dealing with their own stuff. So I, don't believe anyone wants to be hurtful or wants to be. And I think everyone's dealing with their own issues and it comes out in different ways. And but still it's, tricky when you're trying to like It just, I don't wanna say you find

Stacey:

your way at right school. Were we 10 years old at the time? 10, 11, 12.

Lauren:

It's, only recently now through I guess Facebook, like through the, through virtually that we were able to reconnect, which I'm so excited about that I was

Stacey:

so happy when you called. It just brought back a lot of fun memories and it just remembered how, like how. How we all started, how, who we really are. I've changed a lot. Clearly we've grown up a little bit since then. The business, the family, the kids, the community. But I still am who I am and I don't think my, like my, current group, if you wanna call it, knows me. Like you know me. So I'm happy that you connected and I wanna, so that part of me, I wanna have fun. Life is not all about stress. So I'm so happy to be a part of this and I wanna learn from you and. Just share, continue sharing, and I wanna be a part

Lauren:

of it. Oh, I'm so excited because Stacy, it started Oh, with, for me it started with you. Okay. So I'm gonna explain what I mean by this you and I were sitting at my kitchen table my mom was preparing supper maybe or something, I don't know if you remember this, but we were opposite each other. And we used to do one of our favorite activities and we would start simulating laughter sounds. Keeping eye contact with each other. And we started to just go ah, ta And we would simulate like, just like starting to laugh, like just, and then it would grow and grow and then we would be crying, laughing, and It was, it felt so good. It was. It was. It just was my most favorite activity or exercise. It's game to do. And I just remember, but we were in the kitchen and like the adults were trying to prepare, suffer so I just remember they were happy that we were having fun, but they're like guys, can you keep it down? It's, but And then I started to, realize as we would, as we grew up, that okay, it's not always an appropriate time or situation to just be belly laughing. Like that out loud. And so I started to I. I don't wanna say suppress my laughter, but it just wasn't I, just made sure it wouldn't flow as freely okay. That's a good way to put it. Just because I didn't know it was inappropriate. Now is, should I, and who wants to do it and when should we do it? And so when I when it was about 2014 and I moved to Toronto, right? Originally from Montreal, but I moved to Toronto, started a, new job, which was all exciting, but also stress, like there was a there was a stressful component to, to moving and, changing jobs. I realized, Whenever I would laugh, I would feel better. So what I did was I'd heard about laughter, yoga laughing as an exercise, looked into it.'cause I'm like, or you should bring laughter back into my life. And then I I discovered this, what is now a worldwide movement. Started by Dr. Madan Aria, a medical doctor in India started laughing is an exercise called laughter yoga, where you do different breathing and laughing exercises. Just as a form of exercise.'cause the body, we get so many benefits from laughing and the body can't distinguish or tell the difference between whether we're laughing spontaneously or whether we're laughing. Choosing to laugh as an exercise, as long as you're laughing for an extended period of time and a deep belly laugh, which you and I used to do, you're getting the same health benefits the physiological benefits, the emotional benefits, so many benefits, and you just feel good. And then when I was learning the exercises, I thought I thought about you and I thought, This is what we did when we were 10 or 11 years old. We what, I described before we were doing it at my kitchen table, starting just making the laughter sounds, was the gradient laughter exercise, what they call it in laughter yoga, where you start off gradually just making the sounds, having a build and flow, and then it just turns into. Contagious laughter, which is what we did, but we didn't market it back then. But that's fine. I'm, glad that it's become nothing. But a

Stacey:

lot of people as they grow up, they think that laughing is taboo. If they're in a meeting or a conference, it's very specific. It's all about business or the kids and they have to grow up in school and all that is important. Don't get me wrong, but where is the laughter? Like, where is it? When you laugh something so hard it's oh my God, I'm gonna pee. Or, they laugh. Your mascara's running. So what it's, important. And myself included, I don't laugh enough.

Lauren:

You know what, thank you for sharing that. Yeah I, get what you're saying and I, can relate. Can we do a quick laughter exercise just to feel it and, just experience that together again.'cause I don't think I've laughed with you. Exercise. Do you

Stacey:

think we should be doing this off camera first? Lord,

Lauren:

I'm just kidding. No Let's, just be crazy and just do it on camera, right? Who cares? I should've even worn mascaras so it can run, but I didn't. Okay. It doesn't matter. Let's, do an introduction after exercise. I'm gonna say my name and then I'm going to say my favorite month of the year. And then I'm going to then I'm gonna laugh and then you'll join me in, laugh with me, and then it'll be your turn. Okay. Just to break the ice and introduce yourself. Okay. Hi, my name is Lauren and my favorite, I like a lot of months, but my favorite month is March.

Stacey:

So many things are going through my mind. So many things. Okay. My turn. Yeah. My name is Stacy and I don't like a lot of months, but I love August. Guess why

Lauren:

Is it your special, is there a special day in that month for you? Yes. The 20

Stacey:

Yes, the 29, exactly. I always love my birthday and all the more reason to celebrate. I love celebrating, so let's just laugh about it. Yes. Okay. It's contagious laughter. I know. Especially when babies laugh, right? When you see these theses and these memes that are going around Facebook and social media, have a baby laughing. It's just hysterical.

Lauren:

It's an amazing reminder that kids are Connected to, to source energy, like to, to just who they really are, and and they're great reminders for us about about what we were born knowing. And we can learn so much from them. And. And, then as we grow up we, just, we we develop these self-limiting beliefs and then we're trying to relearn what we knew when we were very young kids.

Stacey:

All the psychologists in the world now are telling you self-care, self-care. What's your self-care? You're diving into spa treatments or manicures or, laughing. What? Self-care is selfish. It doesn't mean it's a bad way. Selfish is also, you have to take care of you. How? Come on The airplane. You have to put on your mask before someone else. You need self-care for anything, for business, for family. Yes. So back

Lauren:

to our roots. Yeah, exactly. Cece I, would love to hear about a bit about your inspiring journey and how you're doing what you love, and you have a beautiful family. I would love to just hear. About your journey and what tools you use to, to to stay feeling good and having fun?

Stacey:

In the moment, I'll tell you, I didn't have any specific tools, but I can give you just how I, where I am and where I came from and grew up secular. Jewish traditional growing up with my two brothers and my parents from a divorced family, very happy, very comfortable. Was a little bit of a rebel, but I called myself the. Goody two shoes rebel. So I was like a bad girl, but I was the good of the bad girls, so I was never beyond the line. So that was like my go-to so I could be a part of both worlds. Huh. Then one day my mom said, get a job. And I said, A what? Like I was 18 years old and I was like, what? So I walked to the mall, I got a job, I walked into the gap, and I. I got a job as a sales associate and that lasted 17 years. So not as a sales associate, but I finished my university degree, my cgep, then university degree in psychology. While I was working part-time at the Gap, moved from a small store to a bigger store to a flagship store. I became manager. I did merchandising specialist for a while. I was training new, people. So that was what I did after university. I was very happy with customer service and working with people. I loved laughing. I loved seeing real people, following the trends, the style. So I was in fashion met my husband who was also secular Jewish learning to become a little bit more religious. He was from Holocaust surviving grandparents. So we. Started hanging out and I made a decision, we made a decision that if this was gonna work, I was gonna need to learn a little bit more. And I was super happy to jump on that journey, that bandwagon and connect more with Judaism. And so I. That was 16 years ago. We were married, 16 years. We are very prominent members of our community, the Torah Center in Hampstead with Habad. I'm still super friendly with all my other friends from, before I became religious. My families, some of them jumped on the wagon with us, some not, but we're still super close. So now, like I said, 15, 16 years later, married, I have five beautiful daughters. Wow. From 15 to three, and it's, a journey. I decided to leave the gap after my fourth child. It was just too hard to work retail. My husband pushed me into owning my own business. I was I loved sales and I loved customer service, and I was always a go-getter, but I was also comfortable knowing which paycheck was coming in at the end of the week. So then after I left the gap, he said, come here to this meeting. And we found the this palat cornucopia gift baskets that Palat family was retiring. And it was sales. More importantly, it was gifting. And I love gifting. I love making people happy. I like to personalize gifts, whether it's a birthday or not a birthday. Any reason to laugh, to make someone smile. This is why this was so connected to us. So it's been six years now that I've had this company. I have a partner MKA with me. She also has a family. So we're doing this together and. That's a quick synopsis of where I am

Lauren:

now. That's amazing. Congratulations. Everything your business, your beautiful family

Stacey:

It's not always easy I have, like I said, five kids. Rachel, my second daughter's 13, she's special needs, she has Prada, Willie Syndrome. That's definitely taken a, big. That's a big stress. Thank God she's healthy. She's well. But it is a big, I don't even know the word. It's just takes so much. And since she was born, we didn't know what it was when we found out anyway that we could go into more details than other time. But it's a big stress. And I have other kids to normalize, do we normalize, do we not? And what I find is different in my situation is that I. Some people who are born they follow their parents' footsteps. If you're born into a secular family, then you have marry someone secular and you have secular kids and you move on and you help with your parents. Or if you marry into a, Shabad or a Lovich family, you know where your kids are gonna school, you know that this is gonna have be the type of wedding. And mine was all new. We did it all new. And when we are having kids at school age, which school do they go to? Do we go to private school? Do we go to Jewish school? Do go to public school? I went to public school. I have a great upbringing. I have a business background. Do everything is new to us. I'm loving it, but it's stressful and I have to smile. It sounds silly, but you, I'm not gonna lie and say that I'm laughing all the time because I'm not, and I'm, now I know that I can just call my friend Lauren if I need to laugh, but it's not wrong to laugh. A few years ago, I lost my brother. 37 years old. My brother passed away. We're sitting at the shiva, the family there my dad is crying clearly. It was a terrible situation. I'm so sorry. And I'm talking all about how, great memories we have of, my brother and. Yes, it's sad. And yes, I did my fair share of crying and I still do, but I have to laugh and I have to think about all the awesome things.'cause he doesn't want me to remember all the shitty times I had since he's gone. And it's important to think about all the good things in your life Life is busy. Be happy. Take your your, struggles and pull the, good things out of it.

Lauren:

Exactly. It's all a journey and thank you for sharing everything that you've shared and reminding us that that in life there are ups and downs for everyone. And there ever there are challenging situations and everyone is on their own unique journey and dealing with different things that come up in life. Good things, but also difficult, challenging things. And and it's normal to, to to feel whatever emotion we're feeling in that moment and to acknowledge it and allow ourselves to grieve if it's a situation that where we're, grieving and then if we want, to feel better or, give ourselves some relief so that we could feel a bit better, We have different tools and different ways that we could do this. And it's not laughing at a situation or making fun of anything it's just giving ourselves some relief to feel a bit. Better, and of course.

Stacey:

And I think it's amazing to laugh and it's contagious, like we mentioned earlier. Here's someone laugh, you're gonna laugh most

Lauren:

of the time. Exactly. Stacy Is there another tool of practice that you'd like to call upon or remind yourself about when when you find that there's a challenging. Situation or time because you do so much. And I think

Stacey:

for me I'm very organized. I like, I'm a Virgo and I'm like a real Virgo. I like things specific and organized and, planned. But what I find helps, especially in a difficult situation, I think about it like, what are all the good things of this situation? I think it's important to not lose sight of the good things in a bad situation. Like it brought me closer to to my, parents. So my brother passed away after the Shiva, the seven days. I had all my family in my house for the Shabbat dinner and every single Friday night. With the exception of outta towners or whatever. We've been together as a family, divorced and stepparents as well, all at my house for Friday night dinner and all the holiday dinners together for almost like seven years now. Wow. So it's good things, and God forbid that should ever happen to anybody. But you have to think of the good as well. Like what? There's good in everything.

Lauren:

Thank you for sharing that. That's an interesting and powerful exercise and it's, that's, it's a practice because in the moment that's very challenging to try to find the the uplifting part to something that can feel devastating or very upsetting or challenging. And I find it's a practice, and I even turn it into a game sometimes too. I'm like does this thought about this make me feel better or worse? I love what you shared about your practice, about thinking about the process. I, even if it's not in the

Stacey:

moment later, because even if you don't think about, let's say it was a business decision or whatever it may be later down the road you'll beat yourself up about it. No, because this came out of it, or this was positive and it's, everything's a learning experience anyways. We have so much. We have woke up another day. It's, there's just so much beauty out there.

Lauren:

Definitely. And okay, you mentioned your Virgo and organized, and yes, because Stacy, you run with, your partner Haya, you run this incredible gift basket company brings so much joy to others through what you're doing. It's Montreal based and it's women owned and you, women owned,

Stacey:

women run. Wow. We're all women here. Yeah. And we're mostly moms. I love what I do. I, still gotta get home and do the laundry and prepare supper seven nights a week. It's a lot. But we do everything. Yeah. Keep organized. I'm very organized and thank God I, my kids they help out with certain chores around the house and help with the little one. But yeah, it's a challenge and it's busy and we need to be organized and you need to be able to rely on other people. And we have structure at, cornucopia gifts. We, really have, we're a team.

Lauren:

An important reminder. You're part of an amazing team, like you said yeah. That's amazing. Stacy, can we jump into a I just wanna laugh with you again'cause it's just been it's been so long. We, I know we just did an exercise, but I just mean from elementary school. We, we used to love to put on I think skits and do some acting stuff. And I remember doing, looking through some I don't know, skits and wanting to do some mini plays with you. And I remember we came across this two person two-hander play or, skit where they were wearing, I dunno if you remember this bi, was they were wearing bifocals or in the A type of glasses.

Stacey:

Yes. It's ringing a

Lauren:

bell. Continue. We didn't at the time we were, I think we were 10 or 11. I didn't, we were trying to figure out, do you pronounce it? S bifocals or bifocals? Do you remember? It just popped into my head, so I was like thinking maybe we can like, and we were, I just remember being so preoccupied with that, like, how do you pronounce that word anyway, when? When we were 10 or 11. So I was wondering if we can do a laughter exercise where we pretend we're wearing biffs.'cause that's how you pronounce it, right? No, I'm just kidding Anyways, but we can just, it made me think of making up this laughter exercise where we can pretend we're wearing glasses. Difficults. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. And we can mime wearing glasses and we can put them on and then the more we laugh, the more the prescription adjusts and we can see each other. Or things more clearly. I'm just making this exercise up right now on the spot. You're so awesome.

Stacey:

You're so awesome. How you think of these?

Lauren:

That's awesome. Thank you. There are the standard LOF yoga exercises, which are fun, but I'm trying to like, challenge myself creatively and come up with, new ones on the spot with people. So thank you for playing along. And, if you're if, anyone is a professional mime out there and watching this on a a video on YouTube, don't mind me how I'm mi miming my glasses.'cause they're, anyway, just pretend you're wearing glasses. And we can make the glasses shape around our eyes with our fingers. So just mime glasses and'cause the people are tuning in from audio and then we can look through our glasses and, we laugh because when we laugh we can just see more clearly.

Stacey:

So we're gonna look at this later and we're really

Lauren:

gonna laugh. Yeah, exactly. And laugh now too. Yeah. And we'll laugh later too. Okay.

Stacey:

This is so professional. I love it.

Lauren:

I love your

Stacey:

glasses. It's a manicure.

Lauren:

Oh, don't look. Yeah. I love it. Let see. I can, oh yeah. I see you. I see you.

Stacey:

You're, this is funny. This is funny. This is funny. I, just, I can't I'm, it's just a practice. It's good. It's good. I'm doing this happy. I'm almost crying. I'm like,

Lauren:

li listen, I just wanna remind everyone, including myself, that this is a practice because when we're kids, when we're. Young, kids, they, like we were saying, they can laugh freely. Okay. And then when, as we get older, we're just, we're taught and we learn just. Being out there in society we just learn that, okay we gotta keep it together and not just it's, not always appropriate to to just laugh out loud like that. And that's why laughter yoga is so great because it creates a safe environment and a safe place. To let yourself to just be silly and laugh out loud.'cause it's still not always if you're sitting in a I don't know, a waiting room or an off, like a meeting or if you're in an office, that's not soundproof. We can't always just laugh, belly laugh and laugh out loud. It's, it is not always, it's not always appreciated or safe to do that. So Loft yoga creates a, time and place to do it where we can get all the benefits by laughing for an extended period of time. Having a good, hearty laugh. And and that's it. That's why, and I've been doing this now for as an exercise for several years, so it's, come back. But for anyone who is just tuning in and, practicing this for, I don't know, the first time or, just starting out in this practice, just know that it's a practice. Be gentle with yourself and the more we

Stacey:

practice, oh, it seems weird, awkward. To be honest yeah, we had lots of years where we laughed freely or played these games and so on. But yeah, it feels a little bit. Different. I'm in the business mode, I'm at work today. I have to leave in half an hour to pick up the kids. And I'm thinking, I'm sitting here laughing in theory it sounds great, but when you're putting it into action, it, I'm gonna be honest, it does feel weird. I want it, I believe in the benefits, but it takes time and I'm gonna continue with it.'cause I do appreciate you reaching out and I do see the benefits through your background through. Even just now researching it a little bit since we met again a couple of months ago.

Lauren:

Thank you, Stacy, for being open-minded to this because I, tell people that if it's as long as they're open-minded that's all you need. And I wanna ask you, is there something that you would like to, share to people tuning in about any part of your journey or, something that you've learned or practice. Everything happens

Stacey:

for a reason. So I think we need to just roll with the punches kind of thing. Yes, it's important to use whatever therapy works for you. If it's not laughter therapy, what self-care, whatever that may mean to you, find out what it is. Use it. Coming from experience, I, yes, have a very busy life. Not always see the positive. Not always I can. Talk a good show, but when you put something into action, it's a lot harder. So this is a big eye-opener for me, especially because laughing is taboo at the business. I have a meeting and the big head honchos are coming down. Maybe it's not the time to belly laugh about things from grade four, but, It's important to get that out at some point. So I definitely am open-minded. I will definitely pass on the message. I will definitely practice. I will continue to follow you. Hopefully we can chat a little bit more often than we did the past couple years and keep doing what you're doing. It's, and reach

Lauren:

out. Thank you. You too. You're doing amazing things and I'm inspired by everything you're doing and what you've shared. I just wanna thank you for being so instrumental for, for. me in my journey and helping me like find it in grade four, the laughter, and then find it again and remember remembered how much fun and how amazing it was doing it with you back then. That's what inspired one of the reason, one of the ways, or one of the things that inspired me to find it again, is an adult. The laughter. And then you jumping on here and being so open-minded and Yeah, open and kind about this. It's just it, means a lot and is so helpful for so many reasons. And thank you.

Stacey:

Thank you. Thank you. I think it's, thank you. It's, good. I really appreciate you inviting me and thanks for. For doing

Lauren:

this. Thank you Stacy. And listen, where can our listeners find you? We'll have everything in the show notes but, if you can tell us too where, how people can find you. We are

Stacey:

online store@cornucopia.ca. C o r n u c o p i a.ca Can find us on Google Palat cornucopia

Lauren:

gift baskets. Okay, amazing. Thank you. Have a good meeting. It's gonna go well and and we'll speak and live soon. We

Stacey:

will, let's do it.

Lauren:

Okay, thanks. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you for having tuned into this Law of Happy episode. If you smiled, laughed, or felt inspired, please subscribe, rate, review, and share the Law of Happy podcast with someone you'd love to have fun with. And if you'd like to laugh with me as a guest on the show or in a customized program, you can email me at lauren@lawofhappy.com. I look forward to laughing with you soon.