When Laughter Wounds Instead of Heals

I've come to trust when words come

to me, they are meant for someone…if it’s you, you will know.

When Laughter Wounds Instead of Heals…

I’ve never understood the kind of humor that laughs at people who are the punchline.

I’ve never enjoyed comedy that asks an audience to laugh at others.

To me, it’s always felt like cruelty in disguise.

The laughter in the room masking a quiet relief that they were not the one being laughed at.

It’s cruelty that shines a spotlight on someone’s pain, their past, or how they’re perceived as different or less than…All for the sake of a laugh that excludes others instead of uniting us in shared joy.

It seems to me that this kind of humor teaches us to normalize the dismissal of others.

It invites us to bond through exclusion.

It offers the illusion of superiority as we hide behind our own fear

of ridicule.

It teaches us that certain identities, stories, or wounds are acceptable targets, as long as those around us are  laughing along.

But what I’ve come to understand is

True humor doesn’t mock others.

It disarms.

It dissolves shame.

It brings us closer together, not further apart.

It helps us laugh at the illusions that once kept us small, not at one another.

The most healing laughter I’ve experienced comes when someone tells their own story.

Not to seek pity or approval, but because the speaker has liberated themselves from what they once clung to for safety, believing it would protect them, when in truth it kept them caged.

And now, they are free to tell their story with a playful lightness that only they have the right to offer.

That kind of laughter is sacred to me.

That kind of humor sets the soul free.

To those who’ve been hurt by the laughter of others, I see you.

I understand the sting of humiliation.

And I stand with you, offering space to set down whatever has made life feel too hard, too serious or too heavy.

Because yes, humor can be healing.

But only once we’ve stepped outside the pain of the wound.

I invite us all to choose a more compassionate lens.

To use humor in telling our own stories, where we become the lighthearted heroes, or even the butt of our own jokes.

And in doing so, we invite others to join us in laughter that heals, not laughter that harms.

Humor is sacred.

And it loses its power the moment it comes at the expense of someone else.

With love,

Jodi Hinkle