Unattractive. Old. Not enough. How many of us have felt like that? I certainly have. Finding out the man I’d believed to be my soul mate and partner for life was in love with a girl almost the same age as our son shattered my confidence. Then, barely a year and a half later, just as I felt I was digging myself out of that deep, dark pit of devastation, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

My humorous self-help book, Adulterer’s Wife: How to Thrive Whether You Stay or Not, was inspired by dealing with the emotional roller coaster infidelity put me on. My staunch belief that “the best revenge is to get past the need for revenge” became the mantra of the book. I didn’t think I had another book in me, but getting cancer was the trigger for me to write another one—My Wild Ride: How to Thrive After Breast Cancer and Infidelity.

When I called him out about that infidelity, my husband offered me a part-time wife position.

“I’m perfectly capable of loving two women at once, he declared. “I’d be happy spending two or three days a week with her and the rest of the week with you.”

I actually considered that proposal for several months, trying to get my head around it.

Then I was diagnosed with breast cancer—for the second time. I carried the dreaded BRCA gene that Angelina Jolie had believed could be a death sentence. While I was going through chemotherapy, my husband was in Europe with his girlfriend. It was obvious I’d never be able to stomach a part-time husband.

Before my marriage broke up, I never thought of myself as having any self-esteem issues, but I only realized once we split that I had been living in my husband’s shadow, sublimating my entire personality into serving his needs.

Laughter therapy was one of the main tools I used to get back on an even keel and regain my confidence when I was coping with infidelity and breast cancer.

I made an effort to hang out with people who made me laugh rather than brought me down, and watched comedies rather than depressing dramas. Despite being a former BBC journalist, I gave up watching the news, because it’s all about bad news. Growing up in Britain, I was brought up on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which helped me notice the absurd humor of my situation, whatever was happening. If you don’t laugh, you cry, and I’d much rather laugh. That’s why I fill the self-help books I write with cartoons and a lot of humor.

There is even an Indian practice called Laughter Yoga to promote health and wellbeing. It combines yoga breathing techniques with laughter exercises. This sounds like a good idea, but I would rather laugh naturally from good conversations with entertaining people and from watching comedies, without having to force anything.

Seeing humor in your everyday existence isn’t the same thing as always cultivating a positive attitude. That’s hard to manufacture. I can think of one or two people who sternly insisted I must stay positive when I was dealing with my breast cancer who themselves manifested bucket loads of negativity when problems arose in their own lives. Yes, do whatever you can to keep your spirits up but don’t ever feel bad about feeling bad. Each side of the positive thinking debate has research to support it. For example, some studies show a positive attitude helps cancer recovery, while others indicate that positive thinking doesn’t improve the outcome. It’s impossible to be positive all the time, especially faced with setbacks like a failing marriage, breast cancer or being in pain.

But laughter can give you confidence and take your mind off your difficulties, both physical and psychological. American political journalist Norman Cousins was immobile and in extreme pain from a condition called ankylosing spondylitis, that doctors thought he would never recover from. He watched stuff like Marx Brothers films and Candid Camera and discovered that just ten minutes of induced hearty laughter would produce about two hours of painless sleep. Eventually he became almost completely pain-free.

Humor allowed me to take both myself and others less seriously. It’s one of the most effective ways to make everyone smile and feel more relaxed. Laughter breaks the tension. I can now look back at my ex’s part-time wife offer and see it as so ludicrous as to be a gift in terms of material for my humorous writing.

Humor can be a wonderful antidote to insecurity and anxiety. It counteracts striving for unattainable perfection that would otherwise drain your confidence, because the imperfections of life are a key part of comedy. It also supercharges your professional impact. Think about it: most people prefer to listen to presentations that are infused with humor, and those are the speeches they’re more likely to remember. Yes, it takes courage and confidence to be humorous, but being humorous builds courage and confidence. I’ll end with an old saying that still rings true: “Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves and their lives, for they shall never cease to be amused.”