Green Organic Happy Hack: Worm-Up & Laugh

Special guest, Cathy Nesbitt, is a Health and Wellness Advocate. She’s the Founder of Cathy’s Crawly Composters, Cathy’s Sprouters, and Cathy’s Laughter Club. Cathy is a certified Laughter Yoga Teacher and was appointed Laughter Ambassador in 2017 by Dr. Madan Kataria (founder of Laughter Yoga).

As Cathy says, Laughter Yoga is not about fancy pants or poses, it’s all about getting into your body and having fun. Join us as Cathy leads us in some fun exercises to raise our vibration, laugh, and get infused with the love drugs in a natural, organic, and sustainable way.

Links to connect with Cathy: 

https://www.cathyscomposters.com/
https://www.cathysclub.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CathysCrawlyComposters https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathynesbitt/
https://www.youtube.com/user/rhgn2112
https://twitter.com/Squirm 

Register and Join Cathy’s Zoom Laughter every Tuesday at 9:30am EST:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtd-6prjsvG90wmlw3tRazNqiTzSG4Qq_s

Transcript

0:09

Welcome back to the Law of Happy Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Ner. 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, have fun, and practice the law of happy together. I'm so excited for you to meet today's special guest Nesbit Kathy is a health and wellness advocate. She's the founder of Kathy's Crawley composters Kathy's sprouters and Kathy's laughter club. Copy as a certified laughter yoga teacher and was appointed laughter ambassador in 2017 by Dr. Medan. founder of laughter yoga. I had so much fun, laughing and chatting with Cathy and today's special episode. As Kathy says, laughter yoga is not about fancy pants or poses, it's all about getting into your body and having fun. So join us as Kathy leads us in some fun exercises. To raise our vibration, laugh and get infused with the love drugs in a natural, organic, and sustainable way. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Kathy.

Lauren 1:22

Kathy, welcome to the Law of Happy Podcast. I'm so happy that you're here as a guest.

Cathy 1:27

Welcome. Oh, thank you, Lauren. I'm excited to be here. Law of Happy. It is the law. It should be a law. Yes.

Lauren 1:36

You have to be happy. You must. Oh, yes. It feels good to be happy, but I always like to remind myself and people that it's not about being happy all the time. Because that's not possible, because we're humans and we, have all the the, all of the different emotions that in life there are ups and downs. But I'm glad you mentioned this because the lot of happy means different different things to me, but what I've, what I. Love or what I like to remind myself and share, and that's why you're here today, is when we practice ways to feel good or to feel better and to raise our energy up and to be in alignment with who we truly are, just feeling better, feeling good and then what's cool is that when we feel good, we allow more good things and more good experiences, more good people to flow into our lives. And that's what I love about laughter and the power of laughter, cuz it's like an instant energy boost. I'm so happy you're here for so many different reasons.

Cathy 2:38

Thank you, Lauren. I, would like to add to that when we, I say when we feel good, we do good. That's simple. So laughter and, being in joy helps us to see the light and be more hopeful.

Lauren 2:52

I agree. And Kathy, I thought it'd be fun too because there's nothing like experiencing the the effects and the power of laughter. So I was wondering if if you can share with us your favorite or one of your favorite laughter exercises or games?

Cathy 3:05

Ah, there's so many, but let's just rub our hands together like we're starting a fire. That's what I would say. And whatever we're doing, we're gonna be smiling and remember to breathe. If I forget to tell you, that's what I say. There's so many things, just have fun. So we're just getting the energy going and then just shake'em off. As laughter yoga's not about fancy pants or poses. It's just kinda getting into our body having fun. So, we're shaking our hands. Shaking our hands just to get our ha energy into our body. Ooh. You, we can add a little giggle and that. Okay. So I want you to just put your hands, your thumbs on your temples. And then just curl them in. This isn't a laughter exercise, but this is to help us get into our brain. So just push down where your fingers need in the middle, and then we're gonna pull across your forehead. This is called the crown pull, and then we're gonna go to our hairline. If you don't have hair where it used to be, and then just push in and drag across. This is opening up our skull so that more. Oxygen can come up there. Sorry, I don't want you to mess up your hair. That's ok. That's ok. Let's be silly and do it. Ah, it's so beautiful. And then we can even just tap right on our head. Tap itty. Tap tap, Hello. Head Yes. Hello. Thank you for being my beautiful brain. That kinda Oh, that just helps us, like it actually gets brighter when you tap on your head. It's so beautiful. That's it. Thank you. We go. You're welcome. Thank you.

Lauren 4:36

So that's a good breathing, tapping and laughter exercise all in one. I love it.

Cathy 4:41

All in one. Yeah. Yes. Laughter goes with everything. That's what I found is whatever you're doing, I. If you're doing something you don't like doing, if you add laughter now, it's a fun thing. And if you're doing something you like doing and you're laughing, it's a funner thing. Yes. It's a win-win really. When you add laughter it just enhances everything.

Lauren 5:02

Yes, I agree. And I wanna ask you what does laughter yoga mean to you? Or how would you describe it to somebody who's never heard of it before? And And has never done it.

Cathy 5:12

Yeah. I say it's, not about fancy pants or poses, is what I say. Like it's not doing yoga and laughing. It's laughing for the health of it. So it's intentional laughter exercises designed to make us feel good. So we do and, we we're very serious. Society and there's a lot of stressors going on in our world. A lot of things like that are being added on. There's war, there's pandemic, there's economy. There's so many things that are, climate, so many things are heaped on. They're very stressful. So people will ask me, how can I laugh? There's so many serious things going on, and I say, we have to laugh. We're not laughing at, we're laughing because of because if we're not laughing, we're totally stressed, we're not breathing. And when we laugh, it opens up our brain so that more oxygen can get into our brain. So we can come up with better solution. We can look up we raise our vibration and we feel better. And then we're looking up. And then Pew, pew, pew Solution comes in. Yes.

Lauren 6:21

I love it. I love it. It allows, thank you. Yeah, it allows the right things, good things helpful, positive things to, to come in and we're able to recognize them, be aware of them, and receive them.

Cathy 6:34

I was just gonna say, I've been doing a lot of podcasts traveling around the world, and I ask everybody, have you ever heard laughter's the best medicine? And everybody has. Lauren. I haven't met one person yet that said, oh no, tell me about that expression. No. Everybody's heard that, right? No. What does that mean? And so if laughter is the best medicine, as Dr. Aria says, why not just laugh? Why don't we? And the problem with that is, or the challenge I guess, is that. I think laughter's being squished out of us, you can't control people when they're laughing. Centuries ago, I think they made laughter forbidden. Not maybe in so many words, but just squished it out. Be quiet in church, be quiet in classroom. Like always. No, stop that laughing cuz we can't we can't stop people once they're laughing. So now we not, we need to remember our, brain is geared for negative. That's why the news works cuz we just get gravitated in there and we're into the news. Or when a group of people get together and someone starts talking about the horrible day they had, and then we all start spiraling down, oh, you think that was bad? You think that. And I think why that is because our brain is, hasn't evolved. The little amygdala in our stress, the stress center of our brain hasn't evolved since prehistoric times. Which was fine back then. It was to keep us safe. If there was something that was gonna attack us, we needed to know. Our brain hasn't evolved. So when we go into stress now, that's where we are. Our brain, our body is secreting all those stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline, and we're not breathing. It's like we're going into fight, flight, or freeze. As if we're in imminent danger and we're not, if we've just lost our phone glasses, keys, we're probably not gonna die. It's a nuisance, but it's not life-threatening.

Lauren 8:36

I agree with everything you said. That's why I personally don't watch the news. I'm, aware of what's going on in the world through headlines, through and there's always gonna be somebody who's gonna say, oh my God, did you hear about that? And then I'm like, oh. Now I did. And so I am aware of, what's going on. I just don't have to keep rehearing details that are upsetting and I like what you also said about About remembering to laugh and how it's important because like you said, laughter is the best medicine. We all know that. But as adults, do we really, do we practice that? And as kids too? You mentioned that in other centuries it was forbidden. But I even remember as a child just laughing for no reason. Laughing freely. Just my friend and I getting each other to laugh and I just remember the adults in the room saying get ahold of yourself. I know they didn't mean any harm the adults, but they were just, they weren't used to it. They didn't realize the benefits that we were getting or how important it was. This was this century, but a few decades ago. So we're people, I think were less open to this stuff. And all this to say is children we, know how to laugh freely and we, can do it. And then as we get older, we're taught stop It's not necessarily appropriate. And that's what I love about laughter yoga, where we can choose to laugh on purpose, and we're belly laughing

Cathy 9:54

Laughter is the best medicine, but you can't just take one dose. It's, a practice. It's really a practice. And I've been laughing since 2012 is when I was introduced to Laughter Yoga, but I've really been laughing since 2020.

Lauren 10:08

What do you mean by really laughing since 2020? And what do you think changed or shifted for you where you were able to now feel, okay, now I'm really laughing, and what does that

Cathy 10:16

mean? Yeah, so 2012 I was introduced I just briefly have a worm business in. It was the 10th anniversary in 2012 of my worm business. And one more person said, Ooh, worm's in the house. It's indoor composting. I'd heard it many times, but that time it hit my heart and I was like, ah. Started to question everything. Why am I doing this? Why do I care? Why don't others? Those kind of questions. And then the next day I was introduced to laughter yoga. I don't even do yoga. I still don't do yoga. I ca I came into laughter yoga, but the back way and I was like, what's laughter yoga? That's interesting. Anyway, I loved it, started to do it. Got trained as a leader, then got trained as a, became a laughter ambassador in 2017. So I've been laughing. I was getting paid gigs before and it was fine. Everything was great. And then 20, 20, March, 2020, we were all shut down. Before I'll just say BC I was doing between 102 hundred events. A year. So I was out there, I was busy I was in my little hamster wheel running around from event to event, and I, thought I loved my life. Now I realize that was too much. I don't wanna go back to that. But I'm an extrovert and I really need people, and I was struggling like everybody, and I know there's still a lot of people struggling. What? What's happening? We didn't know what was going on. So in, in June of 2020, I started my online club. I really, in the past three years, I've taken a deep dive into why is laughter the best medicine? And I've, oh my gosh. It is, it's so beautiful. So what do when I say I've, I'm really laughing. I found myself a laughter buddy. So I laugh every day for five minutes in the morning every day. With someone on the phone. I think before 2020 there was very few opportunities to laugh online and laughter yoga, as started in 95 and I, say now, wow. Laughter yoga started way back then, so we would be ready for 2020. So that we could help the world with this global mental health tsunami that we have right now. Laughter clubs around the world, we all jumped online. Like everybody, like every industry is online now. So this allows people the opportunity to play from their living room and you put it in gallery view so you can see everybody and you can play, and if anybody's uncomfortable, they can always zoom out. So I was laughing since 2012 and I loved it and thought it was great. Really laughing, like really taking it seriously. I don't miss a day of laughter now. I, make sure that I get my full on belly laugh every day for my own benefit. So that when we're laughing, we're secreting the love drugs. And I start my morning so, now it's This injection of all those love drugs, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, shooting through my body like a fountain first thing in the morning. Like this beautiful high energy high vibration energy. And, every day my, laughter buddy and I, after we're laughing, we're just like, wow, so beautiful. We're just like, ah. It like, ah.

Lauren 13:34

I love this and I, wanna ask you about this. So you are, so you've made it a point to incorporate laughter every day because Yeah. Like you said, it's not a one dose thing. It's something, it's a practice. Just like anything going to the gym, if you wanna maintain you know what you're doing with, Gym workouts. You don't just go once and, okay I'm, good for, life. People go regularly if they're into the gym, but so this is exercising another muscle and getting all of the amazing health benefits through laughter and to maintain it and to Have all the benefits, we've got to do it regularly, consistently. And so I love how you're doing this, making a point to do this every day. You have a laughter, buddy. And you said for five minutes. So how does it work?

Cathy 14:17

She calls me every morning, seven 30. She's in New Brunswick, I'm in Ontario. You don't we, could be anywhere in the world. It could be on face, like you could do it anywhere. Yeah. So it's just on the, on, on the phone. When I answer, I don't say hello. I just start laughing cuz I know it's her. And we laugh for two minutes. So the beautiful part, I did a I, took an extra course with Dr. Aria.

Lauren 14:41

And Dr. Kataria is the medical doctor Fe India, who is the founder of the L Yoga Movement.

Cathy 14:45

Yeah. So Dr. Kataria is the founder and he's been doing All these extra trainings because he knows that we are poised to help the world. Right now, his goal is world peace with laughter. That's why he started his mission. And so I've taken some of his private trainings to en to grow my laughter knowledge. And one of the things that he said, When you're doing the laughter meditation, when you're if you laugh full on for a minute or two and then you're silent, you do deep diaphragmatic breathing for a minute, and then you laugh again. Your laughter enhances your silence, and your silence enhances your laughter. So they both get deeper as you practice this. So when you're laughing, ha you're secreting all the love drugs, you're all oxygenated, then you breathe deep for, a minute, and that then you go deeper when you're in your silence and then you laugh again. I can't explain it, but it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful expression of just getting your body ready for,

Lauren 15:51

for the day. Is this something that we can just have a sample of right now together with each other and our listeners?

Cathy 15:58

Let's do it. Okay. Do you wanna time us for a minute? Yes. I have a timer if you want me to get my, I have it one sec. I'll just be right back in one second. Okay. No, Look, this is, I have this for my laughter club. I say it's, don't worry, it's a three hour timer.

Lauren 16:17

Oh. It's one of the what do you call

Cathy 16:19

them? The old, it's a sand timer. Thank you. So it's one minute. I'm gonna just give us one minute. So we'll laugh for one minute. Let's do one minute laughter after one minute silence and see how we do. Okay, but silence on a podcast. Let's see how we do. All right, so play along everybody. So I'm gonna turn over the thing and we'll have one minute. So you ready? Yes. 1, 2, 3. Silence. Beautiful deep breaths. If you're just tuning in, we're just breathing. Oh, so beautiful. Almost. Woo. All right. We did it. It's really a beautiful thing. It's just like you feel calm. How do you feel? I, should ask you how you feel. Oh, yeah. So

Lauren 18:33

that's a good question. First of all when I asked you if we can you do this together I, didn't mean to put you on the spot and I didn't think this I didn't overthink this, so I just, I, but I went with my feeling and I just felt, you know what, I love what you said about how the laughter enhances the silence and silence the laughter. I, believe that's, correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the gist. That's what you said. Yes. And I was so intrigued and I thought, I love how this sounds. I wanna feel how it feels. So that's why I asked you on the spot if we can practice this together. A few things I didn't realize initially how long? Laughing for one minute can feel. And I know that the more we practice laughing on purpose or choosing to laugh as an exercise, the easier it can become. So the first time you do it for, a minute maybe? Yeah. It can just feel cycle like a long time and we, yeah, and we can stop. I always tell people not to force anything. So you go at your own pace so you can pause and, breathe and take a break

Cathy 19:32

And it's, not easy if you haven't laughed, if you're not a trained professional where you're laughing every day and you've built up those laughter muscles for anyone listening, if you've ever had a great chuckle with somebody and you laugh so hard, you can't stop laughing. Your cheeks are hurting, your stomach's hurting. Maybe you're crying a little bit. Those are the laughter muscles. It's like going to the gym, but it's free. It's waiting inside you and you don't have that pain the next day, like as if you've gone to the gym for the first time in a long time and then you overdid it and then you're sore for a few days and you don't wanna go back to the gym. It's not like that at all. It just hurts for that time. And that's like reminds you Oh yeah. I haven't laughed for a while. That's why my stomach's, my muscles, my laughter muscles haven't been used for a while.

Lauren 20:20

Yes, agreed. And I to finish answering your question, I I felt good. It's just the more that I kept laughing, the more it flowed and and I was able to just let myself. Go more. And and it felt good. It was so good to allow my laughter to flow into practice that, for that minute of laughter of laughing and then to. Breathing in silence. And I, yes, I felt the silence more deeply and more fully. So it was a powerful exercise and experiment for myself. So thank you for leaving that on the spot for this. And you feel good? I hope, and I'm assuming,

Cathy 20:58

Oh, I feel, yeah, I feel great. I think laughter has really changed my life. It's changed my life in so many ways, and it's high vibration energy And, if you see me laughing and you start laughing, then my job is done. I've done my job. Because I want you to laugh. I want you to smile. I'm the one that's singing in the car with the windows open. I can't sing.

Lauren 21:21

No, that's amazing.

Cathy 21:22

My husband was laughter hesitant for years, I would say for, about at least eight or nine years. He was laughter hesitant. And, I say this with all love and compassion for, my lovely husband. It's high vibration energy. Last year he got trained as a laughter leader

Lauren 21:41

really. That's incredible.

Cathy 21:43

It took time. It took time, like I I took it personal oh, it's, come on, laugh with me, but if you can't, then Yeah. Which he wasn't able. And then just slowly, he was able, and now, he's trained. And how that came about. I had a training in in November. We went for a walk. I had one. Person signed up, one person, and Sylvia and I, Sylvia de Ville our, training partners online and we're awesome together. So you get two teachers for the price of one, but we only had one student, so that's really hyper training, isn't it? Cause she paid. So I was like, we're going ahead. She paid, so we only have one, so we're walking in the forest. And I said, oh, huh, I only have one, one student signed up for next week. And he just turned to me and he said maybe I'll take the training. I was like, what? That was so beautiful Because we're different, right? And we present different. It's, so now with the laughter, I think it's gonna be a magic. A magic a magic combination.

Lauren 22:49

So that's so lovely to hear. Thank you for sharing that. And yeah, excited to, to see what you guys are gonna be doing. Speaking of which, oh my gosh, Kathy, there are so many things like I can. I love hearing your laughter stories and I can talk about the benefits of laughter and for, forever. You, you, I keep wanting to ask you about your warm composting you're, the founder of of course Kathy's Laughter Club, but also Kathy's Crawley Composters and Kathy's Sprouters and. What do we, I have a dilemma. Not a real dilemma, but a good dilemma where I wanna hear more about this. Those other businesses or those other practices that you have, and then the link between worms, if there's a link between worms, SPRs, and laughter. There is yes. What do we do? Can we have you?

Cathy 23:36

Yeah, let's do it. Let's okay. So my working title is Kathy Crawley, laughing Bean Queen.

Lauren 23:42

I love it. So

Cathy 23:45

it's simple solutions for today's challenges worms for amending the soil, sprouts for eating and laughter for overall health and wellness. And how do they go together? They all go together beautifully cuz they're all about sustainability. They're all about. Helping the planet, helping ourselves, and just helping the world. So the three my three seemingly random things that I have, the worm, composting, stroke, growing, and laughter I, wa I wondered for a long time like, what the heck are these three things that I have going on? And I realize now they really are all connected. They really and, things that I do for my businesses are how I live my life. We love what we do. Which is another which is another trick or another secret if you love what you do it's, not a chore, it's not a job. It's, play every day is like play. And it's the 21st anniversary of Kathy's Crowley Composters. And I'm still like, so excited about it. I'm, still like, this is really important. And I really want people to care about the planet. It's indoor composting with worms. I really want people to care about the planet. But when, you're having a mental health crisis, You can't care about anything. But how do you get outta the crisis? How do I get outta this stress? So laughter now. So now I'm really taking off into laughter and I not that I don't wanna do the worms, I wanna still be the talking worm. But I really wanna bring laughter now. I think that we really need this more than ever. As a laughter leader or a laughter yoga leader I've, incorporated tapping brain gym and other healing modalities just because I really wanna help people get out of stress. Stress is related to, I think it's 90 something percent of our today's ailments are stress related.

Lauren 25:36

Yes, exactly. So that's amazing what you do. Combining the different modalities and helping people take care of themselves because the only way that we can help anyone we care about, anyone else, is really, if we are feeling good and taking care of ourselves first, so that we have something good and positive to give and share. Laughter is a form of self-love and self care and so it's so important what you're doing and I love how all of the everything goes together. You're taking care of ourselves, taking care of our earth and our planet and each other. So it it's a beautiful important cycle, but it, really does have to start with ourselves and taking care of ourselves and laughter and is, such a Good way and place to start. Thank you so much, Kathy. My God, there's so much more that I want to talk to you about. Hopefully we get, we'll get a chance to talk and laugh again together. I'd love that. I wanna ask you, how can our listeners find you online and connect with you online or in person?

Cathy 26:33

Yeah, so my laughter website is kathys club.com and I would love to invite your listeners to my free Tuesday Club. It's a 30 minute super fun self-care on Zoom 9:30 AM Eastern. And I incorporate all those things so they're all in, in my session and everyone's welcome. Come once, come twice. If you've never done Laughter Yoga Plan to attend twice. Because the first time might be odd. Just like when we do anything new, it's new. So it might be weird like when we start a new job and it's, we're nervous cuz we wanna do a good job and we don't know. Oh, we don't know that job. So it's scary. So it, so laughter can be scary too if you know when you arrive and you're like, I don't know what to do. Which is why Zoom is so beautiful, because if you're not happy there, you can always just zoom out, right? You can just leave the Zoom club. It's not if you come in person.

Lauren 27:27

Yeah. Okay. Good point. And we'll have the links to where people can find you in the show notes and love it. Thank you so much, Kathy, for for being a guest and for being here. It was so nice to to see you and to laugh with you. Thank you for everything that you share with us today.

Cathy 27:42

Thank you, Lauren. I appreciate it so

Lauren 27:44

much. Okay. Have a good day. You too. Bye.

27:50

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 law of happy.com. I look forward to laughing with you soon.