Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of My Guest tonight. I'm your
host, Jeff Revilla. We have a very special Cathy
Nesbitt joining us tonight, Cathy with Cathy's
Crawler Composters. All kinds of fun things. We're going to find all about
it after the theme song.
It's my guest tonight with Jeff
Revilla. Pull up a chair. You'll laugh, you'll
learn, you'll feel ya. Tonight's guest is changing
the with worms, Cathy
Nesbitt's got compost herbs. From bins
full of soil to laughter so bright. We're
green in the globe and giggling right.
So settle in and dim the
light for Cathy Nesbitt. On
My Guest Tonight.
One of my favorite lines in that song is from bins full of
soil to laughter so bright. What a great line
to describe my guest tonight. Cathy Nesbitt, welcome to the
show. Oh, Jeff, I'm excited to be here. Thank you. So
glad to have you here. We've met before, we've crossed paths on another podcast and
having you back again is going to be so much fun. We had a great
time. That was like a trivia game show podcast. But
today we're going to talk all about Cathy and learn all about Cathy's
Crawley. Composter is one of my favorite terms and also
I'm going to pull this up for a second. This is one of my favorite
websites in the world. I every time
I go here I am reminded of the
way the Internet was when it was first coming up and it
was such a treasure hunt and going through your website and clicking the
links and exploring pages, it's really the way the
Internet was designed to be explored. And I show this
site to everybody. I love this website and it takes me back
to when I really, really fell in love with the Internet. So
officially now, Cathy, welcome to the show. Tell us
where are you at right now? Where are you calling in from? I'm in Bradford,
Ontario, just north of Toronto and Canada.
And yeah, I'm excited. Thank you for the website.
You know, my website is from 2002 and that's the original.
Like I'm sure it's not small screen friendly.
No, it's great and it really is. I mean we talk about the early days
of the Internet when people were were putting up their own pages and designing
and the Internet, you had to go out and find
things on the Internet. It really was a treasure hunt. If
you want to learn about things, you had to go find it. And
going to different pages and exploring and finding other links on other
pages. To go to other pages. That was a beautiful part of the Internet and
now it's all been replaced by algorithms that serve you content
all day long. So I truly, truly appreciate the website
and I love everything about it.
You said you started this in 2002, which is already
a testament to, to what we're going to talk about tonight. But tell
us what led you to, to setting up the website? Or how did you even
get involved in composting in worms back then?
Yeah, that's a great question. In 2002, the landfill for
the Greater Toronto area closed. It filled. The landfill. Filled. Huh.
Imagine. And although Canada's second largest country
in the world, we couldn't find a place to set a new landfill. So
we started to export our garbage to the U.S. sorry about
that. Yeah, we've done our share, our fair share of exporting
garbage. You're right. I mean, it goes around,
around, but it's not very sustainable really. And it's really a
waste of tax dollars. It's like, wow, look at all the. There goes our tax
dollars hard at work. Sorry, we do that program, but we, we've spent
it on garbage. I remember in the
90s that there was global news stories of these
barges just circling the ocean because they didn't have a place to go anywhere.
Like it was a, it was a huge problem trying to
handle waste management back then. So, you know, this probably the same time
period you're coming out now, they filled their landfill. Where
you're from now what, what's the next step? How do we, how do we
get past that? Right. Yeah. So
it's, I think it's fascinating how it works. It's not, I'm not
shaming the people, by the way, but I think shame on
us as Canadians for shipping our garbage out of the country and double
shame on Michigan for accepting our garbage for cash,
you know, and I, I think you're in Pennsylvania, is that
correct? Yes, that is, yeah. So Michigan was the
automotive capital. Ford, Chrysler, gm, they were all there.
And then everyone started making cars. We make cars in Ontario.
Well, for now we won't get into
that. So everyone starts. So Michigan
needed a new industry. And I joke and I'm like, well, they were like,
oh, what are we going to do? What, what kind of industry? Well, let's, let's
be the trash capital. So Michigan is the trash capital because they
have the lowest tipping fees. Strange facts
fact, right. That people don't want to know about garbage, but we need to know.
So the other surrounding states send their garbage to Michigan.
But the trash that caused trouble was Canada's trash,
the imported stuff, even though ours was all separated and clean.
So this, what I'm promoting here is indoor composting with worms.
Worms in the house. Why not,
like, 6 million people in the greater Toronto area, half live in condos,
townhouses without space for outdoor composting.
So this is a way to manage our organic matter in the house. We
don't think about the waves that we cause with our
consumption. And I'm a family of four in my
house, and I guarantee you, every Monday when
trash goes out, I've got three full garbage
cans full of garbage, just from packaging,
from leftover food, the different things that we collect
somehow during the week, having two children, you know, things come
into the house all the time that you don't even expect. And being a
consumer and being a person on this planet, you
create a tremendous amount of garbage. I often think about, what if
these social services collapsed and we
just. On my street, I have three cans of garbage. My
neighbor has two cans of garbage. To how many weeks before we are
inundated with what we are putting back into
the landfills? And if there's a way for us to take some
of that, even reduce it by half, using some of your
methods, maybe composting in the house, composting in the backyard. And the
things that you're going to talk about coming up here, you know, that's going to
help us go further because we're going to. We are going to. Not that we're
going to run out of space somewhere, but there's not going to be a way
to manage this much garbage forever. It's going to.
It's going to come back and bite us. You can't just create things without
some sort of side effect. There's going to be, you know, repercussions
for the way that we've been consuming. And. And what you're proposing is
natural composting indoors, Is that what you're saying? I've never even
heard of indoor composting with the worms. So outdoor, you would
have. You could add the worms or not, is fine in the house. You
do need to have them because they speed up the process and, you
know, turn the organic matter into black gold. It really is.
It's changing our mind. We're. We're in this convenience
modality. We just, you know, we just consume. As you said,
we're looking for convenience. We don't have time to do different things.
What I'm advocating is taking our food scraps Separating
the garbage out. We put it here, we put it here. It's not really more
work, it's just putting it in a different spot.
And the thing with composting, it takes the stink out of garbage. When
we take out the organic matter, that's what smells.
And it's a resource. It's alive. It's the fuel.
That's what causes the heat in the composter. So you have the carbon
nitrogen. And it's a wonderful science project for
children. So for families, get the kids involved, they get
to watch it. You know, composting while vermicomposting in particular.
Worms are the original alchemists. They turn garbage into
black gold. And what does that look like inside the house?
Because in my mind I'm thinking of a big open bin
and there's this worms, you know, you know, doing loops and flipping around
and doing all kinds of crazy things. But internally,
like what does that even look like? Composting inside the house?
Thank you. Any kind of container will do. A Rubbermaid or any kind of
tote. I would recommend having a lid. I used to think it was
a psychological barrier because the worms can get out of any
holes. But it does
keep it dark. The worms don't like the light. And.
Yeah, so a Rubbermaid tote. The bedding is your shredded
paper. Could be leaves, straw, cardboard, the
food. And although they eat the bedding as well, the food scraps,
coffee grounds, vegetable peels, that's
the nitrogen portion. The worms require both. They eat all
of that and they turn it in. Their poop is the fertilizer.
So it's a closed loop system. We keep talking, we keep hearing
about the circular economy. Rather than having
stuff shipped and manufactured all over the place, what if we
have it manufactured, used in the same space? Any
waste gets turned back in and it gets turned
into something new again. And you mentioned the organic matter
is. This is the thing that stinks in your garbage. But when you're
composting in the house, is there any smell like that or is it
get contained because of the worms are moving so fast to break it
down. Thank you. Composting is aerobic process,
meaning with oxygen, with worms, without worms. Done
properly, compost never smells. And
it's like a built in factor because we're doing it in the house.
We don't want it to smell like rotting food. That would be a little bit
discouraging. It would be like a put off or off putting.
Both ways. Both. So this
is aerobic process. We breathe oxygen. The worms breathe oxygen.
As well, if it smells bad now that oxygen has been converted
to methane, now it's gas. We can't breathe gas.
They can't either. So it's a beautiful thing. I think
it's. It's the whole. The whole process is magic. And
once people change their mind about the worms and having these
critters in the house and see the
magic, that's where. It's why it starts with the children. When I started in O2,
I was like, oh, this is so great. Everybody needs worms. People don't buy
what they need, Jeff. They buy what they want. And they didn't want what I
was vlogging, right? I'd have a
booth and. And I'm animated. I'm probably fun to watch. And I'm
high energy. So I'd be like, oh, da, da, da. And I believe in what
I'd have. So I. People would come, I'd be like, blah, you need to have
these. And then they'd be, well, what do I do in the winter? And like,
no, they're year round. They're in the house year round. Like, how do you like
me now? Just try to get rid of me.
That's it, you know, And. But how am I going to pay
my bills if people are just like, laughing? Ha ha, that's weird. And I think
word worm is a bad word. Like, can of worms. Now
you've opened a can of worms. That's always a bad thing. I always go, yay,
can of worms. The wacky worm,
you know? And you know, parasite worm is just a
bad word. And I. When I would have my display and people, people
understood that I was selling worms, it gave them permission to tell me all their
horror stories about worms. I'd be like, yeah, get away from my
booth.
And once the, you know, so you put the organic matter in with the
worms and they compost, they break it down. And what's the process then
for, like, filtering out? You said that black gold, right?
How do you get that out and separate the worms? And where does that
go? Now you have this. What do you do with it?
If you have a system, there are systems for people that don't want to do
the harvestings part. If you're using a single, like for the do it
yourselfers, a single Rubbermaid. At a certain point, it's
about three to five months from setup to harvest. You're going to dump your
material out on a plastic sheet, put it in small round piles.
The worms are photosensitive or afraid of the light. They go down into
the piles, scoop off the top, scoop around the sides
about an hour to separate a bin. Once you get your
worms separated, set up the new bedding, add the worms back in,
and use the fertilizer if you're going to use it at that time in your
gardens. If you have house plants, you can fertilize
your house plants. If you don't garden at all, it's a wonderful
gift for your gardening friends. Here's some worm poo. I love you.
How about the. The. What do worms do when worms
get together? You know, male and female worms, and they make more worms. Is
there ever a situation where the worms are reproducing
and, you know, how do you handle a colony that's growing? I guess.
Yeah. So the worms are hermaphrodites, male and female. Still
takes two worms to reproduce, so they wrap together. Have
you seen the swollen band on the worm? Here's a
worm sex 101. Is that the thicker section? Yeah,
yeah, the swollen part. So that's always closest to the head on earthworms.
And that when you. When they have that swollen band, that means they're sexually
mature, they're adults, and they wrap together, they both get
impregnated. What a cool system. And
once they're once. So three weeks for the egg to hatch,
10 weeks to sexual maturity. Every seven to 10 days, another
egg, and both of them create an egg. Up to 20
babies in each egg. Five or six is average. They breed more than
rabbits, Jeff. People are like, oh, rabbits. It's like, no worms.
So what do you do with it? If you have this colony of growing worms
and this healthy environment, it seems like at some point
you're going to have to do something with all these
new creations. People are having nightmares right now, Joe.
They're like, oh, my gosh, I'm learning more now than I've ever learned in
school about this. This isn't something that they teach us going
through the public education system and even college. They don't tell
you how to take care of yourself. And how do you
make the product that helps you make more products? They don't
teach you that. They want you to buy the product so that you have to
buy more products. So to me, this is fascinating because this is kind of
like that. Maybe not the entry level, but it's a way to
rethink about what you're doing, what you're consuming, and maybe
starting maybe a little bit of a different hobby or
a different way of life so that you can later on
grow beautiful tomatoes in the backyard or during the summertime. And you
can do all these other things because now you have the tools to do it.
And, and so me, I'm fascinated. I'm just worried about worm control right
now. Now you got me thinking about just all these creepy
crawlies crawling up through the surface. All right, let me, let me calm the
fear. So the worms have a built in mechanism. They're
so freaking smart, Jeff. They will breed
based on available food and available space. And
then the adults start dying off to make room because they're not going to stop
breeding. Right. I mean, who would do that?
Worm got to do what a worm got to. Right?
So. But the babies are very adaptable so that, so at a certain point
there will be a whack of worms and they don't need a lot of space.
So you can take some worms out, expand your system, so
eventually you can be managing all your waste. And here's the beautiful
thing that you do need. You do need a special worm. It's not the one
that comes out when it rains. There's four. There's thousands of
types of worms. Four have been identified
for vermicomposting. We're looking for surface dwellers.
So at a certain point you'll have a whack of worms. You can take some
worms out, set up another bin. They'll reproduce here,
they'll reproduce over there, and you can manage more
scraps. So here's the formula. If you had a
pound of red wiggler worms, 800 to a thousand worms
in a pound. They need about a square foot of,
of surface is what you need per pound of
worms. You don't, you don't start with the maximum because you want to give them
room to breed, to expand.
They eat about half their weight per day in food scraps. So if you had
a pound of worms, half a pound per day, three to four pounds per week.
Now go back to your neighbors, your house, that house
beside you, and them and them and them. Everybody managing three
pounds per week. Wow. And creating this black
gold. So we're not dependent on the chemical
fertilizers. We're making the soil, it's building the
soil. The soil has. This is the coolest word
called micro herd. Have you ever heard micro herd? I have
not. Micro herd is the word that was coined
for the critters that live in the soil. The whole,
all the bacteria, mites, springtails, all
the, all the critters that are, that are the teeth for the worms
and the, the upper predators. So the worms are kind of the
Cleanup crew in a worm bin. You've got a whole host
of, of biodiversity. And it's really
wonderful for children to experience it,
you know, because we've. We've come to a place where we, we
put chemicals on our hand, like sanitizer, and we're always
sterilizing everything. We are bacteria.
What we do to the soil, what we do to our, you know, our
surroundings, we're doing to ourself. And we, And
I just actually wrote an article comparing the micro herd in
the soil to the microbiome in our gut. And
when we have a healthy micro herd in the soil, we have the
biodiversity. It's healthy, there's lots of worms.
We don't really need a shovel. In my soil, I've been composting.
I've lived in my house for 30 years. I can just use my
hands. I do have a shovel. But it's
so friable, the soil is so healthy because I've never
added chemicals. I don't till my soil because when we till the
land, it looks beautiful. It's like, wow, look at it. Yeah.
Because it's all freshly plowed. But we've just destroyed,
destroyed the whole underground, the, all the whole
Internet underneath. If we think about the interweb with
all the, you know, all the, the connections, that's what
we have underground. The trees, they talk through the roots.
One, one tree. If there's, if there's a predator, the
roots send notes through chemical messengers
to the roots of a tree saying beware. And then they
start secreting chemicals to protect themselves. We, we really
do need to get a little bit more connected to the earth. Absolutely. A lot
more. And you were saying your, your yard. So you've been
taking some of this black gold and you don't have to just use it for,
you know, growing plants or vegetables. You've been adding it
to just your backyard to make a nicer soil. All
around your house, you have a. Probably have the greenest yard on the block
with all this extra nutrients that you're feeding to the yard.
When I sell my house, it won't be the pro. The value won't be the
house. It'll be the land. Yeah.
Were there any surprises? Did you start composting
before 2002? Is this something you've been doing for, for many
years? And have there been any surprises along the way that
anything that's caught you off guard during this whole process?
So many things. So many things. Why do I sell worms by the
pound without repeat customers? It's ridiculous. I had to be
divinely guided. The whole thing is magic. And I think the
universe is such a funny jokester because timing is everything,
right? And so I bought my house in
93. I couldn't wait to start gardening and composting.
I lived in an apartment in Toronto and so this was so exciting.
Like most people that move out of the big city, I still had to travel
to the big city for work. And on the commuter train I would take an
ice cream bucket to collect my co workers lunchroom scraps. The more you
add to your compost, the more you get out, the better your garden grows naturally.
I thought I was upsetting the PH balance of Bradford. And then
when I. So in 93, a teacher friend asked me to look after her worm
bin for the summer. I didn't want worms in my house.
Ew, gross. Now it's my
life, like truly, that's what I. But
I think that we should try things. We're too quick to read the headline
and go, oh yeah, no, I'm not doing that. We need to, we need to
try things like let's experience life and then go,
not for me. I tried it. No, not for me. That's what happened. I took,
I took. I said, okay, I want the black gold, but I don't want to
do have worms in my house, but I'll do it. And I would open up
the lid, throw the food in and close the lid. I didn't want even, I
didn't want to befriend them. They were in the basement. Gross. And so I was
a fruit fly farmer. Oh no.
I, and I think these all things all happen because,
okay, so that the end of that summer I was like, ah, let me get
these worms out of my house. I did keep the worms alive because the worms
and the, the fruit flies coexist quite nicely, thank you very much. The
worms don't have teeth. The fruit flies are decomposers. They're like
pre chewing the food. Thanks so much fruit flies now fly away. That's fine.
Into her house, into my face as I opened. The thing was really awful.
So pardon me. I said, I'm never going to
do worm composting again. If I need worm poo, I'll just buy it right. From
one of the many worm farms in the area.
Right? Still not many.
Buyer beware. If you're buying worm compost, you better know the, you better know
the grower. Yeah, I've heard, I've had people say, oh, I bought some at
Home Depot. I bought worm compost at Home Depot. I'm like, what did you buy?
Like, I don't know. It's not regulated, this industry. So interesting. It's probably
sand with food coloring. Knowing we don't know,
we really don't know what we're buying. So fast forward
2000, I get my psych degree, I get a job at a group home working
with challenged adults. I thought I had come home.
They had 10 homes and a farm, but they didn't compost.
When I approached management about composting, because when you know
something, when you see that's like, that's what my radar is,
food waste. I see it everywhere. And I'm like, oh, I have a solution.
I don't know why. When I approached management, they said, we don't need
the fertilizer because we have cows. What?
No, no. You have a. What? It was the first time that
I. I realized people don't connect. What they do. Yeah, here they are. They're a
group home. They have, like, challenged adults at a farm, and they have a
vocational program. They had a greenhouse. What
if you don't need a perfect fit? Like, you would. You'd walk into that situation
and. And see that based on your experience and what you
perceive there. So that. Yeah, so. Yeah, continue.
I'm just. I always love seeing when roads cross. And here you
were learning about composting, and you walk into the situation that was
ready for it, and that's kind of what gave you the bug.
That. Right, That's. That's it. Not for everybody. Of course not. But for
those that love gardening, they might like the process
of making the soil. So I. That
while I was talking to management, the greenhouse manager said, well, what about Fermi
composting? Oh, no, not the worms again. I said, I would never
do that. That again. And if you've ever done something, Jeff,
and it was. You were all excited about it, and then it didn't work out.
You're like, yeah, I'm not going to do that again. And then someone's like, hey,
Jeff, why don't we. And you get that
feeling in the pit of your stomach. You're like, ooh, I don't think so.
That's what happened. But then I was like, oh, it's an institution. They're not getting
worms anytime soon. Right. They gotta have meetings if it's a good idea.
Do they have the money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then just
discard it. Anyway, so I came home, I started to do research,
and I was like. Because I had been introduced already
this was my second introduction. I
learned that the red wiggler worms could transform a pound of red
wiggler worms and their descendants could transform a ton of organic waste in a year.
And that the average family produces a ton of organic waste in the year.
I was like, every, every family needs a pound of worms. I'm just the one
to put a pound of worms in every house. And then,
yeah, so I kind of had a shift. All the while I'm
bringing my food home from this group home, tossing it into my
composter. I worked 14 hour shifts, three days on, four
days off. And so there was no time really to tend to
my composter. But I just added this stuff in.
I tried to buy worms after I, after that experience, I'm like, oh, maybe I
should do this again. I couldn't find worms. And
then one day I had time to go to my backyard composter and
there was red wiggler worms in my backyard composter.
Get out of here. And that was the beginning of my seed stock. And then
I got injured at work and I, and I was really stressed.
I came home from work and there was an ad in the paper. It said,
are you a woman? Do you have a business idea? It was a six month
course to write a business plan. I turned to my husband, I said, I'm quitting
my job. I'm taking this course, I'm starting a warm business.
Won't this be grand? And so the jokester
part. So 2002, I take the course, start my business.
There's a garbage strike in Toronto 2002. In the
summer, of course, why have it in the winter? Everything's frozen.
It's not much of a world class city if there's stinking piles of garbage everywhere.
Yeah, they needed a solution. So I was watching the,
watching the garbage, watching the news, and people were lining up for hours to drop
off their garbage at the transfer stations. And I was like, those people don't
compost. Composting takes a stink out of garbage. So I
decided to go on the, on a road trip with my worms. And, and
I sent out press releases to the Toronto outlets. Five minutes
after sending a my press release to the Toronto Star, a reporter
called me. Thank you for your article of on comp worm
composting. Last week I wrote an article on composting, but I
forgot about the apartment dwellers. Six million people in
Toronto, half living condos. He said, when
you're done at the transfer station, come on down to the Star. I
want to interview. I was like, oh, yay. I could go right to the Star,
But I was curious, right? I have a psych degree. I'm curious about people.
And, yeah, so that was fascinating. So I got my first article in The Toronto
Star July 18, 2002. I call it My Husband.
I'm. Yay. I got an article in the Toronto Star. He's like, I'm on my
way home. I just got downsized. No, stop it. Right the same day.
And now I'm like, couldn't you have just got downsized tomorrow so I can celebrate
my article in the Star? But here we
are, 23 years later, still standing. Did he join part of
the business? Is it something that he enjoys as well? Well, kind of
interesting. He's an introvert, and he decided he did web design
at his company. So he said, I'm going to have a web business.
Okay. Yay. He didn't like networking. So there
I was, out networking. Hey, I got worms. You need a website here.
I was like a hustler. What do you need? I got it for five years.
I did that because I have a ton of energy. And then it was like,
this isn't working. Like, either you got to come out and network, you got to
get a job, or we got to merge. I got to be your only client.
So he's my only client. I mean, I'm his only client. And he's the head
worm technician.
Right. And it just works. Like, we really have this wonderful
partnership. He can. He's. He's quiet. He does need his alone
time, which, you know, I found out after we went on one of those
retreats where you doff your demons. And
I found out, you know, I. When he. When he leaves the room, I follow
because I'm still talking and he's trying to get away.
And I was like, oh, I didn't know. You should have said.
Well, that's one thing about you. Cathy is a great laugh. And I know you
have Cathy's Club, I want to say. Is it Cathy's Chuckle
Club? Is that it? Is the official name of it. And tell us a little
bit about that, because it seems like, you know, a great sense of humor. You
made a couple jokes during the stories that you've been telling, and
now you get together. And I think using laughter is
this therapeutic release. Tell us about Cathy's Club. Thank
you. Yeah. So 2012, one more person said, ew, worms in the
house. Even though I'd heard it hundreds of times, I wasn't listening.
I'm like, la, la, la. You need this. But people don't buy what they need,
right? They, they buy what they want. And I was like, oh, my
gosh. I, I heard it, I felt it, I questioned everything. I was
like, 10 years, I tried. I don't know what to do. Maybe I should get
a job. Oh, no, this has to work.
Scared me again. And the very next day, I was introduced to
laughter yoga at the very place I wrote my business plan. You
can't make this stuff up. You really can't. And the speaker did a five
minute introduction to laughter yo. To laughter yoga. And I don't
even do yog. Thank goodness. It's not doing yoga and laughing. It's laughing.
It's laughing as a cardiovascular exercise.
And so I got trained as a laughter leader. I got trained as a
teacher, and it's changed my life. It really saved my worm
business. I think on a certain level, when people said,
ew, worms in the house, I took it personal.
Like, ew. Something about me. Even though it sounds so
superficial now, saying it out loud, I, I think that's what happened. And
so laughter yoga gave me permission. Laugh
longer, louder, harder. Laughter is the best
medicine. When we're laughing, we're secreting the love
drugs, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and
endorphins. And versus cortisol and adrenaline.
When we're stressed, it's the opposite. We can't be
stressed and laughing at the same time. So
it's, it's, it's an incredible, it's an
incredible thing that has helped me. I've been laughing since
2012, just kind of as a hobby, you know. And then I
did get trained and I was getting paid gigs. When you get trained as a
laughter leader, there's kind of an unwritten principle. You'll have a free club. And I
was like, ah, universe, I do enough for free. I want to get paid
gigs. So I did. So I did, right?
Whatever you ask for. I was going into long term care, working with
folks with Alzheimer's and dementia. And it was so beautiful, Jeff,
because it's like music we remember. We
remember the feeling or the song. Folks with Alzheimer's, you
put on one of those old songs from their time and they'll get up and
dance and start singing. Sometimes it's really
phenomenal. Same with the laughter. They might start laughing and be like,
I remember this. I don't know why I'm laughing, but it feels good.
And that's what it is. It connects us. It
connects us on a really deep level. It's profound.
And so 2020 came along and the
world shut down. Even the founder. So Laughter Yoga was started
in 1995 by a medical doctor in India and his goal
is world peace. How beautiful. Magnificent.
Even he believed that prior to 2020, that laughter yoga
needed to be done in person for the effect.
And then there we are, we're all in our homes and we all jumped
online. And now you can laugh 24. 7 online. And it
works beautifully with the platforms where you can have
gallery view and you're making eye contact, there's
little games, so you're clapping palm to palm and you're
activating Meridian, so you get energy just by clapping. And then
there's a rhythm. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. And the words are ho ho.
Hahaha. And that's the primer.
There's no jokes or comedy because those are cultural,
right? If. If it's about somebody going somewhere, it's not funny for that person.
So this is just laughing as the exercise. That's the
thing and that's the challenge. Because our brain gets in the way. We're like,
what? How can I laugh? There's. It's so serious. There's so many things. There's
war, there's famine, there's all these things going on.
We have to laugh. That's why. Because all those things are going on. We must
laugh because it will. Because what? When we're
stressed, blood, lymph, oxygen leaves our frontal lobe
so we can go, you know, all those fluids go into our muscles so we
can kind of escape, even though we don't need to literally escape
anymore. Laughter changes everything. It.
Our body doesn't know the difference between real and simulated laughter.
So it can say laugh. And our body
says, wow. We start secreting the love drugs. Our brain's
oxygenated and our brain might be saying, or like it's
our ego saying, oh, you look ridiculous, stop. Like, what's
happening? That's where. When a good leader will say,
allow yourself permission, like, get out of your head,
get into your body. The practice the laughter
yoga. The practice Laughter yoga is the yoga
part of laughter Yoga is the practice of the laughter and the deep
diaphragmatic breathing. Where do you see. Where do you see
Cathy go? And Cathy's club, Cathy's composters. Is
there any crossover between the two? Or. Or the two shall never
meet? Or. Where do you see both of these projects going into the future?
Yeah. Thank you. I was waiting. You know, because
of 2020, the world is struggling. We really do have a global mental
health tsunami. It was here before 2020, it's just bigger now.
There's. There's many more people that were isolated
during that time. We lost people without being able to say our proper
goodbyes. People are struggling and then
if, if you're watching the news or you're tapped into social media,
all those things get into our energy. So what
do I see? So, so I've, I was waiting for younger people to come along
to do the worm part. I'll. I'm. I'm always going to be the talking head,
the talking wormhead, because I. Because I love it and I'm
very passionate about it. And without. Aw. Action is impossible. If
you don't know you can have worms in the house, you don't.
I had no idea. Like, it's, it's the first time I'm hearing it
and that's something I want to try with my daughters and see what we
can do. I worried about the fruit flies, though. I don't think you gave us
a secret how to get. Let me do that, Let me do
that. Thank you. Let me, let me do that. Because that, that's important. Because that's
going to, that's going to prevent people from doing it. If they think they're going
to have a house full of fruit flies, it's not a necessary component. And I'll
use bananas as the example. They're fruit flies, so they're on all the fruit but
the banana, you bring it home, it's green or
starting to get yellow and then it gets brown and speckled.
That's the perfect environment for the fruit fly eggs to hatch and fly around and
bug us. And we don't wash the banana. Right. We just
peel it and eat the banana. So the fruit fly eggs are still on the
peel. They're intact. If you put that in your worm bin now,
it's the perfect environment for the fruit fly eggs to hatch and fly around and
bug us. So you can give your banana peels or anything you don't
generally wash a quick rinse. The, the fruit fly eggs
are very fragile. They'll just wash off and then cut up your
peels and add them into your bin. They're actually right on the surface of the
banana. They just. On the surface. I didn't know they're on the apples, they're on
the pears. But we wash those. Yeah. Or we eat them and all as
well. The kids go, oh, I'm never eating an apple again. It's like, you will
just wash it. Yeah, just wash it. It's fine. And if you do
happen to eat an apple without washing it, you're not going to get
fruit flies in your belly because we have too much acid so we don't have
to worry about. That little puff of fruit flies come out of your mouth.
The Green Mile. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. This is like a horror show. Yeah.
This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for your time.
What's the best way people connect with you? I'll pull the website up one more
time if people want to reach out and connect with you, learn
more about the worms. Do you ship internationally?
I don't, I don't ship the worms out of Canada and I'm actually getting out
of the worms. But I would love to invite your audience, you
and your audience to my free online laughter club.
I started in June of 2020. It's Tuesday morning,
9:30am Eastern. 30 minutes of super fun, self
care, tapping, brain gym, qigong. You don't have to wear
your yoga pants. Come as you are. No experience necessary.
It's just really fun. And if it's your first time, plan to come twice.
The first time might be weird. Like it's like, oh, what's happening? What? And that's
your ego. It's fine. What I say is allow yourself permission.
And then at the end of it, it's like notice how you feel.
Notice how you feel your body's having a party. And then notice how you
sleep because the effects last for hours.
Very good. I was trying to find the link. Is there a direct link? Oh,
it's Cathy's club.com and it's, it's right at the
top. There it is. Let me get, I'll pull that up here.
There we go. Weekly zoom. Laughter. That's it.
They're all virtual right now. Do you do in person events? Do you do
if you know I'm for hire,
yes. Call me. Call
Cathy Cathysclub.com
and that's the best way to connect with Cathy. Cathy, once again, so much fun
talking with you. Had a great time. Thank you for joining us
on My Guest tonight. We'll go back to that theme song.
It's my Guest tonight with Jeff
Revilla. Pull up a chair, you laugh, you'll
learn, you'll feel ya. Tonight's guest is changing
the world with worms. Cathy
Nesbitt's got compost herbs. From
vengeful soil to laughter so bright.
We're greeting the globe and giggling. Right,
so settle in and dim the
light. From Cathy Nesbitt.
On my guests tonight.
