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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
In order for us to have free will, true free will, there has to be 12 hours of darkness, 12 hours of light. There has to be an equal amount of contrast and light at all times. Because if it was more of 1, it would be obvious what to choose. But the the mic drop of humanity is that at every moment, we get to choose to not buy in to the the self sabotage, the negative, the separation of self, which is false. We get to choose the more wide open expansive.
Kate Northrup:Hello. Today's conversation of plenty is absolutely incredible. It's with one of my dear friends, Kathy Heller. Her brand new book, Abundant Ever After, comes out today. Kathy has a podcast with over 50,000,000 downloads and she is a pure transmitter of love.
Kate Northrup:Cathy is who I voice memo when I've got my panties in a wrinkle about some kind of abundance thing and my own, like, ego and shame and guilt, and she helps me open up to be a conduit for more flow to reach more people every single time. And that is what this episode is all about. If you have been wanting to heal your relationship with money, you are in the right place. Enjoy this conversation with Kathy Heller.
Kate Northrup:Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host Kate Northrup, and together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups.
[voiceover]:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrop brand.
Kate Northrup:Hi, Kathy. You are my favorite person.
Cathy Heller:Oh my god. You're so cute. I love you. Do we do we toast coffee? Yeah.
Cathy Heller:That's so sweet.
Kate Northrup:I don't drink, and that's pretty much always been the fact fact.
Cathy Heller:Oh, that's always been the fact. Okay. I drank a little in college.
Kate Northrup:It's just like I get hungover after, like, 2 sips. Okay. My body is just like, no.
Cathy Heller:Thank you. Smells so bad. Oh, no. This smells like New York on the corners when it has those sugared almonds. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Oh my god.
Cathy Heller:That smell is like
Kate Northrup:Those nuts. The candied nuts.
Cathy Heller:The candied nuts. Crack. It's crack cocaine. It's so good. Oh my god.
Kate Northrup:Oh my god. I used to always get them when I would go to New York as, like, a teenager. And my mom would like, I would go with her sometimes, whatever, to New York, and I would just like she'd be doing work things, and I would just go free. And in retrospect, I'm like, is that normal? I was, like, 14.
Cathy Heller:I Is that like a I
Kate Northrup:did, like Was it just the nineties
Cathy Heller:and that was fun? To New York with a group of my, like, theater friends because I went to theater camp, obviously. Clearly. Made me everything. I know where?
Cathy Heller:Outside of Boston. Mhmm. It's called Walnut Hill.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. I know Walnut Hill. You do? Yeah. I do.
Kate Northrup:I looked at that theater camp. I didn't go because they required auditions, and I was too scared. So I went to Stage Door Manor because you didn't have to audition.
Cathy Heller:Can you imagine if I would have met you
Kate Northrup:on the Hill? Imagine, and you would have if I hadn't been such a freaking scary guy.
Cathy Heller:I went there I went there every summer from 13 to 17. Special. Oh, it's so special. And I had some of my closest best friends and I'm still best friends with them. Oh, my God.
Cathy Heller:But we were walking around Washington Square Park and I was 14. Yes. And we had just seen Rent and we were which was I saw it, like, the week it came out. Yes. Oh my god.
Cathy Heller:With the original cast. Adam Pascal and
Kate Northrup:I died.
Cathy Heller:Every I died. I walked over to Taye Diggs afterwards and I thought he was the hottest thing I'd ever seen.
Kate Northrup:I mean, is was all
Cathy Heller:of it. I walked over and I'm like, oh my god. I don't know what to say to you. And then he I was standing at the stage where I'm thinking Yeah. Probably should say something.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. All I'm saying is I don't know what to say to you. But then we walked through Washington Square Park and we walked to my cousin's place, in, like, whatever the, like, in the village. Yeah. But I knew the street, but now I forgot it.
Cathy Heller:And she's like, are you alone right now? And I'm like, well, I'm with 3 friends. She's like, you're
Kate Northrup:14 But you're all 14.
Cathy Heller:We walked through Washington Square Park. I'm like, Sierra No good? Not a thing?
Kate Northrup:She's like, no.
Cathy Heller:No. No good. You should not have done that at 4 o'clock at night. Time? 11 o'clock at night.
Cathy Heller:Oh, for the love of God. Not aware. It's so
Kate Northrup:scary, but it's so beautiful to realize that, like, there is some degree of naivete that is protection. And, like, I actually think that so Nicole was just here.
Cathy Heller:That's a whole thing, what you just said. Because, like, I would think Esther Hicks would say that that's really not being naive. It's actually just being plugged in.
Kate Northrup:Exactly. Okay. Yeah. So that's perfect.
Cathy Heller:Let's go, guys. Let's roll.
Kate Northrup:Just so you know, like, this is the show now. So Nicole Walters was just here, and I was asking her, and I was gonna ask you a similar question, and now I know, like, this is the theme about I was like, okay. So, like, you've done really off the beaten path things, and you just, like, have dreamed big. And you just, like, were you always like that, giving yourself permission to just do unusual things? And she said, yeah.
Kate Northrup:I was just born that way, and it's my naivete. And I think it's a superpower, and you have it too.
Cathy Heller:Oh, it's so sweet. Were you looked
Kate Northrup:at too? Yes and no. We'll come back to that. But I wanna know for you You're like, this isn't
Cathy Heller:my interview. I'm interviewing you.
Kate Northrup:Actually, you can ask me questions too.
Cathy Heller:Or is it though? Speak into my lapel. I'll turn the tables on you. Love it. That is actually
Kate Northrup:my favorite thing when I'm on other people's podcast and I start asking them questions. I'm like, well, I'm also curious. Is it okay if I just dig in with you
Cathy Heller:a little bit? She's the
Kate Northrup:most You don't always do that, but it's
Cathy Heller:You literally to me, you are the definition of the most in beginner's mind person, which is such a gift because it makes everyone feel so safe because you're just like, I just come to you clean. I come to you as a witness. I come to you as a friend. I come to you to learn. I come to you to understand.
Cathy Heller:And then, oh my goodness. How wise does that make you? You know, I just Thank you. That's that's a really special thing that you have.
Kate Northrup:Thank you, Kathy. Well, as you know, because you're so amazing at loving people and seeing people, everyone has something to offer. Everyone.
Cathy Heller:And that's not the only thing you have to offer.
Kate Northrup:No. No. No. No. But I mean, like, that's why I'm so it doesn't matter, and it was interesting because I used to run this mastermind, and there was, sometimes, like, we had actually, like, a, you know, like, an income threshold just because the the topics we were talking about would only be relevant a certain time.
Kate Northrup:But 9 times out of 10, the thing that the person in the room who made the most money needed to hear the most came from the person in the room who made the least money, or who was like, the earlier in business. And I just like, we need to be reminded of that of like, there is no hierarchy.
Cathy Heller:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. There is no, like, I figured it out. No one knows what they're doing.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. And also, if you take that even further, it's like even contrast is such a That's true. Like, even when you're talking to someone and your nervous system says, my gut doesn't agree. What's helpful is it allows you to then create what is your preference. It allows you to know, like, where then do you which is why we just so need all the different periodic table of elements, like, we need it all because it's, like, it all allows us to find our way to where we're Right.
Cathy Heller:Supposed to come back to our assignment. Right. So it's all, like, so important.
Kate Northrup:It's also important. Okay. So you have so we we were just saying about this, like, kind of naivete or, like, what we don't know can be such a gift. Right? Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Because it's like, you do you've been through some shit. Like, you've not it's not like No. We all have. We all have.
Cathy Heller:And I have my own version of that.
Kate Northrup:Of course. And yet, you really are like rainbows and sunshine, but not
Cathy Heller:That's true.
Kate Northrup:In a bypassing kind of way.
Cathy Heller:Right. Well, you and I both do that too. Like, we like to feel good. We do. It feels
Kate Northrup:good to feel good.
Cathy Heller:And it feels good to be however high vibe you can to help other people feel good. I totally understand. It just feels good. Yeah. So like, I was in Starbucks earlier and there's a guy next to me, he's like, is this your drink?
Cathy Heller:And I'm like, no. No. No. And then, I was like, I like your shirt. And then he's like, thanks.
Cathy Heller:And then there was this beautiful black woman next to me with this, like, hot pink lipstick. And I go, you're really beautiful. And she goes, thanks. I go, don't you know that women can do that with each other? And I thought to myself, what does it cost me to do that?
Cathy Heller:And those are the things in your day that actually mean way more to you than the things you think will mean more to you. It's like a stranger just going out of their way. And in any moment, you have this superpower, which is you can make people around you feel freaking amazing. It feels good. So I'm the recipient of that.
Cathy Heller:I know. You know what I'm saying? And yet, I got a message from a friend who came to the event that we were both in this week. We were in it. We were creating it together.
Cathy Heller:We were very
Kate Northrup:in it.
Cathy Heller:We were very in it. I was very in it. I'm still in it. And she left me a message and she said, I'm crying as I'm leaving you this message because I don't cry enough And I love that you're so willing to cry on stage and behind stage and that you feel your feelings. And we talked about that a lot at the event being in our aliveness.
Cathy Heller:And we had a moment on stage, and I keep referring to that because you were there. But, there were so many moments where we would laugh and then cry and somebody made this comment like, I know it seems so crazy and it's like, no, it's the opposite of crazy. Because if you're really in your aliveness, then you have the full spectrum, as Jon Kabat Zinn says so beautifully as the title of one of his books, Full Catastrophe Living. Yeah. And you just, like, you sit beside the river, you know.
Cathy Heller:And so it's such actually I think the greatest feeling is not actually joy, it's equanimity, which is just being with what is. And if you're really being with what is if you're really being with what is in any moment, like, even at my even at my dad's funeral, while there was so much deep grief that was present, there was also deep beauty. Yeah. So that's the trip. That's the freaking trip of being alive.
Cathy Heller:And when you are alive to that, it feels there's a deep feeling of integration, which I think is really the work that you teach us. Like, our bodies and our souls can tolerate the full spectrum of being alive. And then you can easily find the joy because you're easily available to feel the grief. Right?
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:So why why stick to one side or the other? Like, why not just fully embrace it? And, Within 5 minutes. And I feel like one of the gifts all within 5 minutes. And I think one of the gifts that you and I, we were talking about how, like, there's, like, this new era of of of the people raising their hand to write books.
Cathy Heller:And I feel so grateful to be in this, like, senior class with you. Like, you know, the class that's, you know, going out into the world now and really fully stepping into what our assignment is. And I think that's one of the themes is that we're all in this, like, let's just fully Let's feel. Let's feel all of our feelings. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Because that was not the main message of the previous class.
Cathy Heller:That's what I'm saying.
Kate Northrup:Like, Louise, hey, Lulu, may she rest in peace. I freaking Oh my god. She's responsible for our industry in many ways. I love her so much. She's responsible for some of my career.
Cathy Heller:Human beings.
Kate Northrup:And Louise was not really actually about going into shadow.
Cathy Heller:No. She really
Kate Northrup:was more like, just change your thoughts to feel better. And that only works I find if you're also willing to go into the like, which ultimately, like takes about 90 seconds to move through if you go all the way in and that's I
Cathy Heller:know.
Kate Northrup:Kind of the mind f of it of just like, wait, really? You can only I
Cathy Heller:can't Band Aid it.
Kate Northrup:Shift that fast?
Cathy Heller:Yeah. You can only for so long just keep telling yourself to think better until you finally have to Feel. Come arrive at your own door and feel how much, Lily, little being inside of you is screaming. Mhmm. Which is why I mean, the first time I learned to meditate, I hated it.
Cathy Heller:Like, I flat out. I went to
Kate Northrup:Thank you. Nursing.
Cathy Heller:No. No. It was it was the most miserable experience. And I, Lisa Henson Mhmm. Just an interesting anecdote.
Cathy Heller:Not to name drop. Daughter.
Kate Northrup:Daughter. Thank you. Sorry.
Cathy Heller:That's hilarious. I don't know who I love you so much right now. Number 1, what would that make Jim Henson age wise? Because he died 50 something in 1994. So that's talking about night.
Cathy Heller:That's thank God. Right? Because why should we be up the ass of every famous person and need to know everything about them?
Kate Northrup:Actually 90% of the time, I don't know who people are talking about.
Cathy Heller:Permit the frog? Yeah. Okay. We're good. No no no.
Cathy Heller:I'm kidding. I know you know who he is.
Kate Northrup:Oh my God. I'm obsessed with the muppets. I
Cathy Heller:know. Fraggle Rock, are you kidding me? Right. But why Best show ever. Best show.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. Was it an holiday? Down in Fraggle Rock.
Kate Northrup:It's so good.
Cathy Heller:It is so good. That was the first record
Kate Northrup:I ever bought. Literally. Of course,
Cathy Heller:it was.
Kate Northrup:Fraggle Rock on a record.
Cathy Heller:That's adorable. The first record I ever bought was the soundtrack to Wayne's World. I love you. Which then I thought.
Kate Northrup:Which is basically Wayne's World.
Cathy Heller:No. No. There's lots of This soundtrack Is it really good? Is Bohemian Rhapsody? Of course.
Cathy Heller:Hello. And so I thought that Wayne and Garth wrote that song. Amazing. Yeah. That was amazing.
Cathy Heller:Yep. It's great when you get your history from pop culture. Good luck with that. So Lisa Henson, took me to my first meditation retreat and I just was like, oh my god. That's gonna be so great and so relaxing.
Cathy Heller:And it was just like an immediate panic attack and I was sitting on a mat and everybody around me was just seemed to be totally enjoying it and I was like, I felt like my skin was gonna peel off. I was burning up from being present. I didn't know how to do it and so I, I kept thinking, should I stand up? Should I go outside? I was at UCLA in this room And eventually, I just got up and walked outside and I didn't even understand the beginning of what I was feeling.
Cathy Heller:It was like angry, scared, panic, lonely, really confused, really angry at myself, ashamed, why can't I do that? All I'm trying to do is sit still and be there. And then I came back in the room and the woman who was leading it, she said, just so you know, when you're meditating, the object of the meditation is not to stop thinking, it's to witness your thinking. And I was like, oh, okay. That's a relief because I couldn't stop thinking.
Cathy Heller:And she said, no. Just the way your heart will always beat as long as you're alive, your mind will always spin. The idea is your thoughts are like the blizzard you're looking at through the living room window. And when you're standing looking out at the thoughts, all of a sudden, it's actually just beautiful. It really is.
Cathy Heller:And you can stand in nonjudgmental awareness. And then you find this part of you that's really you that's beyond the mind, and you start to embody yourself with a capital s. And then she's she was saying to us, and now you can just be curious. Like, what is here for me to witness? What is here to know?
Cathy Heller:And I was so compelled by that that I then, like, went straight into that and, enrolled at the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA and just spent a few years there. And, what I love about what you and I do is we're just regular people who are trying to make complex things make sense. And I think you and I are both not like look at me but just come with me because I'm figuring it out as I go.
Kate Northrup:Percent.
Cathy Heller:So if somebody as anxious and neurotic as me can find my way into meditation for just even a few minutes now. My practice is, like, 25 minutes in the morning. But even the first time I was doing 5 minutes in morning completely changed my life because I started to know what it felt like to be present Yeah. With myself. And I'll I'll just share this because it's in my book, but it's, like, very much a part of the whole journey for me.
Cathy Heller:So we know, you know, that so much of my eyes became wide open when I went to Jerusalem after college, which was a total mistake, like, it was an accident. I was supposed to go for 3 weeks and I stayed for 3 years. But the reason I stayed is because I went on this trip, this is the year 2000, and we just did all the, like, things to see the land basically, like, jeep rides in the desert and like, like, floating in the Dead Sea and all of this and it was, like, beautiful. But I was like, okay, I'm great. Check that off the list, going home.
Cathy Heller:And the last day of my trip, I was in Jerusalem and we were supposed to take a flight in the evening. And we're kinda like roaming around the city and we see that there's a class that's being taught by a Buddhist Jewish rabbi psychologist.
Kate Northrup:Cool.
Cathy Heller:And I'm like, that sounds so up my alley, so I wanna go. And I had already at that point considered myself like a Jew boo and knew nothing about Judaism and knew nothing about Buddhism, but like went to yoga. So like I thought I was like and didn't really meditate but went to yoga. I mean, like Yeah. People people know as much about most things as you could read on the back of a cereal box, and then we're like, but that's it.
Cathy Heller:I'm all in. I know. Tell ask me anything. I'm the one to know. So, anyway, so what happened is I went into this class and he was very like like you.
Cathy Heller:You you know when you're in the room with someone who's just like loving, you know, and you're like, oh, that's already 90% of the reason you stay in the class. So I sat down, he had this very sweet goodness and he was talking about Ram Dass and he was talking about all these people that I thought were really cool. And then he said that, the very first time a word is used in the Torah, we understand its meaning from its context. And I'm like, okay. And so he's he wrote on the board in Hebrew the word he spoke in English, but he wrote in Hebrew the word Shabbat, which is the Sabbath.
Cathy Heller:And he said, does anyone know the first time this is used in the Bible? And I'm like, no. I know nothing. The only thing I knew about Judaism was Mel Brooks and lox and bagels. That's it.
Kate Northrup:I mean, what else is there to tell you?
Cathy Heller:Really? What else is there? Oh my god. What is Mel Brooks?
Kate Northrup:I mean, honestly, a lot of what I know about Judaism is from you, Kathy. Oh my god.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. Like, I love learning
Kate Northrup:about Judith. Oh my god. Hello. Say it
Cathy Heller:by Jewish. Jewish, this is it's good stuff. Through the Kathy Yeah. The Kathy the Kathy a little abundance. Honestly, it's my favorite.
Cathy Heller:Oh my god. I feel like some people would run under a chair to find out that I but I also think that, it's something I'm really passionate about and I do feel like, if I might say, I feel like I took the coolest things ever in this tradition and get to put them in the world.
Kate Northrup:That's just what it gets.
Cathy Heller:But one of those things is this, is that he wrote this word on the board and then he said the very first time that this word is used in the Torah is when Abraham is sitting at the foot of the tent in the heat of the day and then these, like, three angels appear. But it says he's sitting, but it doesn't use the word sitting. It says the word Shabbat, which is the Sabbath, which would would what that means is that we we say that, like, the Sabbath is a day of rest. Right? But there are different words for rest in Hebrew.
Cathy Heller:That word is the same word for meditation. The meditation is not exactly the same word in English as rest. It's stillness and it's a intentional stillness. That's a different word. It's not sleeping.
Cathy Heller:No. It's actually wide awake presence.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:So the next line is and God appears to him. So the sweet Yeah. Jubu, sweet rabbi, psychologist said, or any of us when we get centered in this level of stillness, the divine will always appear.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And the tears started coming down my face because I think when we experience something that we see or hear that we know in our deepest part of ourselves is the truth, we cry. I think tears sometimes are pain, but sometimes they're the recognition of our soul that we just came back to what we knew was true. So I thought that is the most powerful thing and I wanna know everything about that. And so I stayed and what happened over the next 3 years was, as I often said, it was like hitting control alt delete on the software program that was in my brain and then it was like clearing the browser history, like clearing the cache of what was sort of put into the program of how I saw the world, how I saw myself and it fundamentally, completely, and totally shifted. And I talk about this in the book, but what I learned was that and Rabbi Aaron became, like, my greatest teacher.
Cathy Heller:Rabbi Aaron is quite brilliant. In fact, he was once on Larry King and it was Rabbi Aaron, Mary Ann Williamson, and Deepak Chopra. And, it was an incredibly beautiful, episode and they all basically did something really true which is they just kept saying what he said, what she said. I agree. I agree.
Cathy Heller:I agree. And when I met Deepak, I said to him, what do you believe is the answer to the meaning of life? And he said the ein sof, he said that's me in Hebrew, which means the endless light, because we are all part of this infinite oneness. So what I learned from Rabbi Aaron then was that we are each only someone because we're some of the one and it's very similar to when doctor Jo says, you wanna move to a place where you are nobody in no time and no place and when you meditate, you start to perceive how much more reality there is and what I learned in Israel in that time studying is that we don't really see as far with our eyes open as we see with our eyes closed and I think the reason the word insight exists is because you see further, you have more sight with the eyes closed because you're not looking at three-dimensional reality. You're really able to perceive reality.
Cathy Heller:As Einstein said, it's not three dimensions, it's more like 10 dimensions with just the naked eyeball sees things in cubes, of course. So I learned inherently, that big distinction that the I am when I say I am Kathy Heller, we really just can go with the I am, right? And so whatever that is, that that that spark of divinity, that spark of consciousness, that is really who I am, and I've always been that. And as Deepak said to me, he's like, Kathy, who who are you? You know, are you the 12 year old version of you?
Cathy Heller:Are you the 45 year old version of you? No. You're the part of you that's always been and always will be and it's the essential self and it was you from the time of conception and that was you before you had a name, it was you before you had a haircut, that was you before you chose which music you liked or what. There's something in the essence of us and it's unchanging and often when I talk to people about who they really are, when you really go inside of the the the essence of yourself, what you find is, you have the capacity, to receive endless because you have the capacity to love endlessly, and there's so much more that we want in the world than piles of things. What we really want is the returning to this, like, part of ourselves that is so awake and and and feel so connected to all that is.
Cathy Heller:Like, there is nothing more yummy than that feeling. And so when I lived in Jerusalem, I I mean, I had no money. I was 21, 22, 23. I was eating, like, pita bread and hummus, and I didn't go to the movies or, like, I didn't have a phone. There weren't even phones then really, like, with apps or anything.
Cathy Heller:So to think that, like, I was so filled up and so alive and so joyful and so filled with so much. And it was it had nothing to do with needing anything in the world externally. It was, you know, it was my eat, pray, love, like, moment. And then, what was just really helpful is, like, when I moved to LA, little did I know this other component would come in which was my journey into mindfulness, which just became a really helpful was more like the science of understanding what's happening in my brain and in my system. And the more I understood about that, the more I wanted to tap into that and to have a meditation practice that could support all those mystical beliefs could actually become embodied because through the science, I started to understand how I could actually take these concepts and like put them and code them into my body Yes.
Cathy Heller:Through meditation. Exactly. That makes
Kate Northrup:sense. Exactly. No. The data on meditation is undeniable. It's so magical.
Kate Northrup:How has your understanding of abundance shifted just in the last year?
Cathy Heller:Oh, I like how you add that tag. Just in the last year.
Kate Northrup:Just in the last year.
Cathy Heller:Okay. Profoundly, actually, is the answer because, we've talked a lot about this. So when I first came to understand abundance, and really understand it, I was like, oh, game on. Because now I totally understand how to work with the matrix and I can turn my thoughts into things and it literally Kate was like Mary Poppins, like opening a drawer, opening a drawer, like, I can teach people to do that.
Kate Northrup:I'm pulling a clothes tree out of my carpet bag.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. Literally. So good. No. It's so good.
Cathy Heller:Because we live in a vibrational world and so your magic wand is the vibrational signal that you imprint and when you learn how to imprint wholeness into this three-dimensional or not three-dimensional rather, but into this infinite field, 10 dimensional field, you create a three-dimensional experience. Yeah. That is so cool to understand how that works. Yeah. And what's so fun is that fun is the path.
Cathy Heller:So the more like, that's what's so fun is like, the big, like, take home is like the more you practice memorizing what it feels like when you're having a really good time and you're surrendering the figuring it out in your analytical mind, you're literally becoming Harold and the purple crayon and drawing with your vibration all the most magnificent things. But what's so much even cooler than that is that the universe is not net neutral. It's actually tipped. It's net positive. And so that it winds up being even more scrumptious than you could possibly have even believed.
Cathy Heller:And it's so magical and so magnificent. So I became obsessed with that. Yeah. And I'm so happy to talk about what Rabbi Aaron taught me about the law of reception and how that works because it's, I think it's literally like genius and I wrote it in the book and when he shared it with me, I was like, no one says it this way and this is the way to say it.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Say it now and then we're gonna come back to answering the previous question.
Cathy Heller:Okay. So I'll say it now. So, when I was in Israel and like learning all this stuff about like the world and how to see reality with a capital r and it's like it's incredible. And then he said to me, have you heard of the law of attraction? And I'm like, yeah.
Cathy Heller:It was like starting to become like a saint.
Kate Northrup:Same cray.
Cathy Heller:Just starting to become and he said, because it's really interesting. He's like, I had never heard that before, but he'd been studying Kabbalah since he's 18. And so he's like, I wanna share with you what I would say is the Jewish response to that. It's not the law of attraction, it's the law of reception. And he said, and the reason I know that for a fact, he said, is because the word kabbalah is the conjugation of the word likabel, which means to receive.
Cathy Heller:And he said a second ago, you're very sweet director, he said, let me just grab the receiver for a second which my mic is plugged into. Okay? So we know this word receiver, but we've often sort of not understood the word. So the word kabbalah itself means to receive. So what does that mean is that the destiny, the lived potential of all of us is to be the widest receiver possible.
Cathy Heller:And what does that mean? He said, is a lot like what he was just talking about with the sound because Rabbi Aaron so brilliantly said to me, a radio is a receiver. Another word for a radio if you walked into and I'm about to say a word, no one's this is so not a timely reference, but if you walked into RadioShack, which I now think is gonna bankrupt.
Kate Northrup:They went out of business, but yeah. I am 45.
Cathy Heller:People don't have it updated my,
Kate Northrup:listen. Our listeners are
Cathy Heller:You can go back. Aware. Okay. Remember Silver Spoons? I grew up on that.
Cathy Heller:Our listeners are established. Okay. Amazing. I haven't had also had a I haven't had a TV since 2006. I'm a little rusty.
Cathy Heller:Really? Really? Really? Let's talk
Kate Northrup:about that.
Cathy Heller:The last Oprah show, I, like, got rid of a TV after that. I was like, you know what? I think she's going off I don't think there's anything else for me to watch.
Kate Northrup:And Offers is dead. I'm dead.
Cathy Heller:I and then and that was it. And then I have never come back. In any case, it's a true story. But so he said a radio. If you put a radio in this room right now Yeah.
Cathy Heller:If you turned it on, all of a sudden, you'd hear music. Yeah. And then he asked me the most brilliant question you could possibly ask. And he said, where was the music before the radio was turned on? And I'm like, you've got me.
Cathy Heller:Like, I've never even asked or thought of that question. He said, and the answer to the question is it was hidden in plain sight. It was already here. And he's like, but listen, if you turn on that radio, not only can you hear music, but by changing where the tuner is tuned to, you can change the song. And growing up in Florida, which you now have an experience in Florida, on my old 7 40 GLE Volvo that my dad handed down, it was like, it was dented on one side.
Cathy Heller:So I used to preemptively think if I'm driving to this person's party
Kate Northrup:Oh, my god.
Cathy Heller:I don't wanna pull up on that side. So then I'll pass the house, and then pull up on the other side, like, hey, guys. It was like Amazing. So Yep. Amazing the amount of bandwidth I spent on that.
Cathy Heller:But anyway, so it programmed into the car programmed into the car, we had y 100, so a 100.7 Mhmm. And 103.5 and 104.3. But then, just to make the point, we had 97.3 and 97.9. 97.3 and 97.9, what's what I'm trying to bring home is that's not even an entire point
Kate Northrup:Right.
Cathy Heller:Away. Right. But the two stations are totally different. Like, 97.3 is like Jack FM, I think it's called. It's like alternative, like Nirvana, at least at the time.
Cathy Heller:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Ours was called, in Maine, was called W Moose. Oh, that's very mainly. Believe it or not, 92.3.
Cathy Heller:Okay. So the 97.3, 97.9
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Not even a full degree away, but totally different. And so what Rabbi Aaron said is, what's controlling the the music, what controls the broadcast is where the receiver is tuned. And so if you wanna hear hip hop, you go one way. If you wanna hear salsa, you hear one way. If you wanna hear AM radio show, you go one way.
Cathy Heller:And then all of it is here. And so what we come to realize is, we go first. All potentials exist in the quantum field, and the reality that you are receiving is the one you're choosing. It's where you're attuned. Mhmm.
Cathy Heller:And so the wider your reception, the less static. Because a lot of people, I would contend, there isn't even music playing. It's just static. Totally there between channels. It's between channels.
Cathy Heller:And what Rabbi Aaron said, which is, I think, even more beautiful is that if you aren't yet tuned to the point where you hear a love song, then you're actually not selecting the most expansive reality because he said, and this is really deep and this is real deep Kabbalah, but he said, because the only thing that the creator of the universe wants you to receive is love. And he said this too, which is that we're all these vessels and so the only thing that can be coming into the world at all time from God is light. K? And this, by the way, the Big Bang is literally written in the Kabbalah from 1000 of years ago that there was this endless light and it shattered into millions of pieces and all of the science at MIT, like, eventually caught up with what it says in this which is like just fascinating. But what Rabbi Aaron teaches, you know, which is like straight Jewish mysticism is that, if all that's coming in is light, then what happens is and this is this is part of the work that you do.
Cathy Heller:If you have a light bulb that can hold 45 watts, great. But if there's more light than the 45 watts that moves through that light bulb, the light bulb experiences it as shattering. And so, if you are not experiencing just the full totality of magic and light, the Jewish mystical answer would be you need to expand your capacity to receive because what is necessary is just a greater vessel to hold the light. And so some of us are walking through the world just experiencing this quantum playground of magic and some people the same light if the vessel isn't there, it's just feeling like contrast.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And then you can look at certain situations in your life and think, oh, in hindsight, I now see how what seems like shattering was actually opening me up Yeah. To then 2 point o identity evolution, which became the bigger version of me in flow state. Right? And the brain, we know this, you you teach this, is the anti self, you know. And Rabbi Aaron is brilliant when he talks about the ego and every wisdom tradition that I've studied, you know, has a a real, you know, clarity on sort of that ego state versus the soul state and the flow state.
Cathy Heller:But Rabbi Aaron says so beautifully, if Batman didn't have the Joker, Batman wouldn't be Batman because it is that contrast that makes us the hero because, you know, what Judaism says is that in order for us to have free will, true free will, there has to be 12 hours of darkness, 12 hours of light. There has to be an equal amount of contrast and light at all times because if it was more of 1, it would be obvious what to choose. But the the mic drop of humanity is that at every moment, we get to choose to not buy in to the the self sabotage, the negative, the separation of self, which is false. We get to choose the more wide open expansive and the truth is as Esther Hicks would say, our greatest deepest desire is to continue to choose. Our biggest desire is when we we get to create another piece of expansion.
Cathy Heller:Like, she says, if overnight you just had every single thing you wanted, you would be so bored because you came to the world to create the next desire. You loved it. You enjoy it. When Charlie Bucket and Will it Willy Wonka is, like, opening the chocolate bar a little bit more it's the best part, like, you are enjoying building the grid. You are enjoying pulling things out of escrow.
Cathy Heller:What we
Kate Northrup:know, you know, I'm obsessed with this always. What we know from the neuroscience is that actually the anticipation of our desire, we get more Oh, it's so fun. More satisfaction from the anticipation than we do from the actual getting
Cathy Heller:of the thing. So the answer to your question, now that I've kinda like set it all up is, I think what happened with me is, the person that I've been becoming along the way was like, oh my god, this is so cool. I get it. Like, while everybody zigs, I'm gonna sag. While everybody is into, like, trying to figure things out and hustling, I'm gonna step back and find the most immediate way to feel ease
Kate Northrup:Yes.
Cathy Heller:And I'm in. Yes. And I don't need anything outside of myself, and I can share a really good story, which I probably told you. Here's a good example of that and then I'll I'll answer the question about this year. I've always known that that is what you wanna manifest.
Cathy Heller:Mhmm. You're you're not here because you actually wanna manifest a Range Rover or you really wanna manifest more achievements or more followers. What you wanna manifest that's an even bigger dream is inner peace, is the lightness of your own being, is the feeling that Siddhartha probably had when he sat under the Bodhi tree. Yeah. And that's always here.
Kate Northrup:It was like the best, just sitting here with you right now. Literally the best.
Cathy Heller:Where else do I need to be?
Kate Northrup:I'm so happy right now.
Cathy Heller:You're so sweet. And it's true. It's just disconnecting. So, while everyone was, you know, around me sort of in that I need to succeed and I need this, I was, like, looking at the 19 shades of green outside my window and, like, continuously bringing my attention back to feeling my feet on the ground and just, like, meeting a new friend every day at Starbucks or opening, like, little Christmas gifts that are just put all around you with, like, being in the freaking moment and so it's a it's a blast. And that, of course, leads you to all these other amazing things because everything wants to move towards wholeness.
Cathy Heller:So when you're just in the resonance and you're coherent, you don't have to worry about anything, you know, because you're already feeling great. The only reason you think you want something happens to feel great, but you can just feel great now. I say to people all the time, the same way you select what you're gonna wear every day, why don't you choose how you wanna feel?
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And close your eyes and ask, like, what would play feel like? What would ease feel like? Feel it in your body and then enjoy that for the day, practice that, see how that feels and memorize it. Anyway, so an example of that is, when I first started my podcast, again, people are like, but how on earth were you able to be patient between, you know, when it started and then when you made money at it? I'm like, because I wasn't needing to be patient because I was just having like, that's the whole thing.
Kate Northrup:Not even the right question. Because I'm really impatient. You don't need to be patient because you are ready.
Cathy Heller:Right. I wouldn't be able
Kate Northrup:to do that. You weren't waiting for something. You were in the thing.
Cathy Heller:I'm if my kids don't put their shoes on fast I'm so speedy. Right? Which is why meditation is so good for me. I don't have the patience. So I don't even but I don't I didn't even get the question.
Cathy Heller:Because, like Wow. I could never be in something for what I'm building it in order to get on the other side of what I think. It's like I wrote a book. I'm not, like, I have to hit the list at oh, my whole insides would be, like, my whole thing was, like, first, it was, like, I wanna have the fulfillment and satisfaction of, like, writing every day and feeling, like, can I say something I wanna say? Oh, my god.
Cathy Heller:I did that. Okay. Can I finish it? Oh, my god. I finished it.
Cathy Heller:Can I record this in this oh, my god? I loved recording it. Oh, my gosh. A couple of my friends read it. They liked it.
Cathy Heller:Oh, how cool is that? Like Yeah. It's really good. It's all good. Like, there's nowhere else to be.
Cathy Heller:There's no moment in the future that's better or has something for you that this moment doesn't. All you want is the totality of getting to be you authentically having your own experience. So I go to this I start my podcast. I go to podcast movement and
Kate Northrup:Which is like a conference for podcasters.
Cathy Heller:It's like a conference for podcasters and everybody's there and everyone has business cards and I'm like, oh, I don't have business cards, like, why am I even in this cocktail, you know. Everyone's in this reception passing these things around. And I'm like Literally, like, gives me eyes. I can't. I I just don't know how to be myself in that environment.
Cathy Heller:No. So I turned to Emma, who I'm still with. She's, like, my permission.
Kate Northrup:For real? It was, like, that long ago?
Cathy Heller:Yeah. I started with her 8 years ago. Happy. I know she's adorable.
Kate Northrup:She is.
Cathy Heller:So I'm like, what is everyone doing here? And she's like, you know, they're all trying to meet people who can advance their careers. And I said, well, they're also, like, in this I can't. And then she said, the person they really wanna meet is the head of Apple Podcasts.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Cathy Heller:And so I said, oh, well, okay. I think I'm gonna leave, you know. And, and and she said, yeah, I guess if you get featured on Apple, because 75% of podcast listeners go through the Apple app. This was before Spotify took on podcasts. She's like, you know, that can increase.
Cathy Heller:And I was like, okay. I can't do this. I'll come back in an hour when this thing is over.
Kate Northrup:You're like, too strategic. Out. Exactly. It doesn't feel good.
Cathy Heller:Makes you feel all of a sudden this sense of urgency, like, oh, if this doesn't happen thing. Yeah. So I left and we were in Anaheim in this, like, convention. There were all these hotels. So I left this hotel, went to a different hotel, and walk in, and all of a sudden, I felt, like, back at ease.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. It was just me ordering an iced tea. Yep. I I know how to do that. So order the iced tea, sit down, and then this guy walks over and he sits down and he we were both wearing the same badge to get into the other conference.
Cathy Heller:So he said, oh, were were you in podcast movement before? I said, yeah. And he's like, so hectic in there. And I'm like, I know. It's just that energy is just stressful, you know.
Cathy Heller:And then we start talking and he tells me he's originally from the Midwest, and I tell him my husband's from Chicago and
Kate Northrup:That Midwest connection is real.
Cathy Heller:It's real and it's really he was just genuinely, like, so nice. And, it was just interesting. And we had this lovely conversation, and then he handed me his business card. And he was the head of Apple Podcasts.
Kate Northrup:Of course.
Cathy Heller:And then he said the guy? It was the guy. And then he said, we have an office in Culver City, and my kids at the time went to a school. I don't wanna give where Apple is because they Yeah. Their building is unmarked.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And I said, oh my god. I know this street. Right. My kids' school is on this street. Is that you, that unmarked building with valet parking?
Cathy Heller:He's like, yeah. When will you be there next? And this was a Sunday.
Kate Northrup:You're like every day because I do drop offs. Tomorrow. Yeah. Of course.
Cathy Heller:So he's like, great. So come have breakfast with me. Yeah. And then he took me to New York, and I was there with Ira Glass
Kate Northrup:Oh my god.
Cathy Heller:From This American Life.
Kate Northrup:Oh, yeah. No. I'm familiar.
Cathy Heller:They're famous.
Kate Northrup:He's one famous guy I know.
Cathy Heller:A lot of people don't know.
Kate Northrup:He went to Brown.
Cathy Heller:Oh, not surprised. Smart guy? Very smart. So I go to the upfronts, and I get featured on Apple, and 5 years in a row Is
Kate Northrup:that what it's called, the upfronts?
Cathy Heller:Yeah. Just like they do that. Just like That's fun. With yeah. I go to the upfronts.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. The upfronts, and they asked me to speak. Yeah. And, I meet all these people, and, that was the beginning of my relationship with Apple, and literally my whole life is like that. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Right? So I have known that sort of technology for a long time. Yeah. You're
Kate Northrup:so good at it. It's really delightful. It's, like, really delightful. And I think that's like that I don't wanna call it naivete because it's just actually how it works. Right.
Kate Northrup:And all the jaded bullshit is just the lie. And, like, that's actually the truth. And I think we call it naivete because when we're children, we just haven't been brainwashed yet. You know?
Cathy Heller:It's true.
Kate Northrup:And, like, you are like a real living adult Cabbage Patch Kid.
Cathy Heller:Oh, my God. That's the best compliment in my lifetime. Like, literally Oh, my God.
Kate Northrup:Are like that.
Cathy Heller:And it's so
Kate Northrup:great. Sorry. I just wanna say Thank you. That's a lot.
Cathy Heller:Carry on. Carry on. Carry on. I grew up in a living room. I in the eighties, when my parents just fought all the time and then watched Phil Donahue, but mostly fought all the time and then played Barry Manilow.
Kate Northrup:Uh-huh. But
Cathy Heller:no one was really happy in my house, Kate. And my dad, sort of living a double life, he had another woman and kind of would go there sometimes and my mom sort of found out about it. Mhmm. And then I was, like, asked to keep the secrets and my mom, was super depressed and I was the person in my family for better or worse, sometimes it was worse, mostly better, who just chose. I said to Byron Katie once, when I had her on my podcast, and she's, like, so unbelievable I can only imagine.
Cathy Heller:Beyond. But I said to her, like at one point, I made this, like, comment, you know, my parents made me, you know, the the one to have to, like, be responsible for everybody's happiness, and she said, did they make you? And I said, well, I mean, they sort of did. I got praise for keeping everybody calm and being the happy one and Yeah. She's like, I wonder if that's true or I wonder if your soul shows that as your survival strategy and she said, I wonder if it's because you knew that you'd wind up being that person in the world, like Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And it's interesting. So whether that was, like, the healthiest choice or whether that was my adaptation, this has been my strategy Yeah. To and everybody kind of picks their choose your own adventure way of getting through their childhood. But I was the one when my mom was suicidal and staying in a mental institution, like, I was bringing her flowers that I would pick and poems that I would write and I was her little who's that little you can fly, you can fly, is it chimney cricket or is it a mouse and it's Dumbo? I was like the I don't know.
Cathy Heller:The one like But you
Kate Northrup:were like the cheerful hype girl.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. The cheerful the cheerful hype girl.
Kate Northrup:You brought the sunshine.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. And so then, I would very much identify with, Punky Brewster Oh, yeah.
Kate Northrup:Oh, my god. We are also very Punky Brewster Rainbow bright. I wanted to
Cathy Heller:be this is like my greatest I've arrived, you guys. I've arrived. Somebody is naming out loud my deepest aspirations. But so that became kind of my thing. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:However, going back to our earlier conversation, I then came crashing down at a certain point when I realized I was bypassing everything I needed to deal with and feel. So, the beauty of the last 20 years, 45 now, from 25 to 45 was, being willing to start looking at that. And then the joy of this rainbow bright esque person could be real joy because
Kate Northrup:she could also be
Cathy Heller:really sad too. Yeah. But in the last year, since you asked me about abundance and I wanted to first just share what does abundance really look like and mean to me, what I have now realized is, yes, you can kind of learn this technology of, like, how it works to, like, take things out of escrow, I say, like, everything's already in escrow for you. It's already yours, and the more your, Abraham Hicks says that, like, when you put the water on the stove, it gets warmer and warmer and then it boils, right, when the vibration is, like, really hot. And if we stay with that water on the boil, you know, it's energy that creates matter.
Cathy Heller:So when your energy is in the vortex and, you know, boiling, you're just gonna pull everything out of escrow for you. Like, the best opportunities, whatever you want, all the yummy abundance in every way, creative abundance, monetary abundance. And as awesome as that is to know that, which I do I do think that that's pretty fun, it's kinda like the back of the book answer key to the universe. I think for me, the new level of what I wanna take out of escrow is, what you've helped me understand. It's really like a sanctuary because you helped me understand that just because you understand how to manifest, which is by letting go of needing anything and just moving into the full totality of your most coherent, resonant, joyful, full, most alive self, which then makes you have a good time now Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Just because you can then manifest anything. What if what you wanna manifest is ease? Right? So I think I got to a point where I thought if I was such a good manifester, I can manifest all of it. Right.
Cathy Heller:Like, everything that I possibly could dream of, and then now I realize, oh, there's an adaptation version of me that thought I needed to hold so much for the world when really what I think is, like, my next big challenge is, can I really nourish and water the garden within myself? And then when I feel inclined and inspired, go out into the world and give to the world. Yeah. Then I think when you have a mother who's teetering between life and death and a father who kind of leaves literally, your little self feels as though it's on you.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And so it dawned on me only this year that other people don't wake up feeling responsible for everyone in the world all the time and I legit do. Yeah. So and I'm like, I can't and I and then I go further and I'm like, and I can do it. Yes. You can.
Cathy Heller:I can, you know, start a podcast in my closet and get it to 50,000,000 people, which means I can tell those millions of people, it feels so filled up that they can affect change. And then it's like, wait a minute. God's got this. Right? He's a better god than me, like, the divine order of things is the divine order of things.
Cathy Heller:And and and my rabbi said to me, you're not being asked to change the world every day. You're being asked to change the world for 1 person every day and let that one person be you. So what does, it feel like when you don't need more of anything, even more purpose or even more goodness, you can just be with what is, how much could that, heal you? So in our culture and in our business and as women in business, you get a lot of, like, attagirls when it's like, you're crushing it. Oh, my god.
Cathy Heller:That's amazing. And then you very quickly realize you've become addicted to what you can produce and what you can do and you forgot how to be. Yeah. And as soon as you're like doing the Black Diamond run over and over, people expect you to post the next big thing. What's the next thing you did?
Cathy Heller:Well, come on. And you've shared, obviously, that that's not the way nature works when it works at its best. And so, I think in my, like, midlife era, it's like, can I, can I learn that abundance is in the slow, steady, nature walks, gardening, you know, all those things, and composting, as you would say, like, whatever is really nutrient inside of me? And then when I choose to, you know, then go into the world and do whatever magical thing I could possibly do. So that's my new form of abundance.
Kate Northrup:So great. I love I just, like, love witnessing it. I love all of it. And one thing you really helped me with, because I think, you know, what I love about our friendship is, we're really similar, but also super opposite. Mhmm.
Cathy Heller:It's so like It's so perfect, actually.
Kate Northrup:Each other with stuff. Yeah. And and, you know, this was like a massive turning point moment for me was when we were sitting at that mastermind
Cathy Heller:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:With, just that little South Florida mastermind we had for a little bit when but literally everyone has left except for me pretty much. Well, actually, Tracy is still around too. But anyway and I was saying this was, like, right when I had met you that year. It was December 20 22 and ish, right around there. And I said, like, I just and it felt really vulnerable to say this in a group of very successful women.
Kate Northrup:Many have always had bigger businesses than me, so I'm just like but again, false hierarchy, but, like, that comes up with ego. Right? And so I was like, you know, the thing is, I've been at a revenue plateau for 5 years. We have brought in more or less the exact same amount of money every year despite me having published a book and, like, doing new strategies and, like, what's going on here, you know? And and and and do you remember, like, what happened?
Kate Northrup:Can you kind of, like, share a little bit from your perspective what you helped me to uncover
Cathy Heller:there? Yeah. It's so good. I mean, it's so good. When I first start talking to people about this, we've been so programmed and conditioned that at first it feels like nails on a chalkboard because you don't yet perceive how much false shame you're carrying around and then when you chip away at it, it starts to become so obvious that that was false and then you can really hear me.
Cathy Heller:So just like a I don't know what it's the general surgeon's adviser warning. Yeah. Because it feels that way when you first hear it.
Kate Northrup:Because when we receive information that is contrary to our current belief system, the survival brain literally experiences it as a threat to our survival. Right. It's experienced as stressful.
Cathy Heller:I like that you bring the
Kate Northrup:sign in just so sense. That's what's happening when we get new information Yeah. And that's why we have cognitive dissonance. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And I'll just say on that point, so many interesting things about Judaism, as I'm sure if we sat down and looked at any tradition, we'd like, that's so interesting too. When Moses went up to the mountain, right, we know that happened and what's cool also is, like, that's also just historical, like, that did happen, but the mystical Yeah. Aspect is that, first, God spoke right to the Jewish people. There were 600,000 people at Sinai who had left Egypt. That's, like, history, and when, apparently, the the tradition says when God spoke to these people, they, passed out because they couldn't handle the the truth.
Cathy Heller:Exactly. So that's the point.
Kate Northrup:Exactly. We pass out in our
Cathy Heller:own way. Right. So Moses, who had been, by the way Usually,
Kate Northrup:we get on our phone
Cathy Heller:and start scrolling. Exactly. Because you can't it's so much to process Yeah. That what you thought was north, south, east, and west is not. They literally, like, left their bodies and they all fainted.
Cathy Heller:They couldn't handle the light. It was too much. Right. Right. Their light bulb was too big.
Cathy Heller:So he went up apparently for 40 days 40 nights and by the way, he was in his eighties. He had been a shepherd, you know, he left he was a prince, left the palace, went into the wilderness, which is the same thing that happened with Siddhartha by the way. He was a prince. Anyway, but the point is, he had the capacity because he was like a a master meditator and he sat and downloaded and then came back and spoke to the people. So that's there's so many reference points for what you just said that we it is hard to handle the truth.
Cathy Heller:It takes a minute to process. Okay. Which says a lot about what's happening in the world in so many different ways. Okay. So what I've learned to be true about the way that abundance is and the way that the world, the universe is, is oneness is literally the name of the game.
Cathy Heller:It's 1. Right? As Marianne Williamson said very well, I I like how she said this. She was came on my podcast a few times and she said, you can't look at the ocean and say, well, here's where this wave ends and this wave begins. They're connected.
Cathy Heller:They're the same, and they are the ocean itself. Okay. So when we close our eyes, we perceive that we are the energy that actually extends, like, 7 meters in all directions like a beach ball, and we're not really these meat suits. There's something else going on. Okay?
Cathy Heller:It's all this one field of in in infinite intelligence. So if there's something thriving in a garden, it actually gives life to everything in the garden. But if there's something rotting in a garden and you don't take care of it, it will eventually create something that pollutes and diseases every you know, if you put bad apples next up, it literally starts to mold all of itself. So too, if I paint my house and my house then goes up in value, my neighbor's house just went up in value.
Kate Northrup:Without them doing anything. Without them doing anything.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. If I open a store on Main Street Yeah. I just created value for my entire community and then actually created the opportunity for someone else to create a store on Main Street. And now because there's 2 stores, even if they're the exact same type of stores, they'll both do better. Better.
Cathy Heller:Two gas stations will go next to you. Like, 2 coffee shops will go because they will both do better. The Maharal, who's a 17th century rabbi said that if you take a candle, you can light an unlimited amount of candles with that one candle and that one candle won't lose any of its own flame because abundance literally is designed to create abundance. If I plant a cherry tree, I just gave birth to the possibility of thousands of other cherry trees. So we have to really get what abundance really is.
Cathy Heller:What we've been conditioned to believe is that there's a scarcity to the world. So when someone has something, they're taking from someone else's pile. It's actually so not correct. Deepak Chopra wrote a book on abundance, many books actually, but one of his most recent books about abundance and he grew up in abject poverty in India and then moved to the States. But he was taught this same concept and he said, the universe itself is so abundant that you don't even have an equation that can that can answer what's happening to you on the trillions of cells that you have that repair themselves.
Cathy Heller:All the, like, we are so abundant. The world is so abundant and we've been taught to look at it through a lens of scarcity, which is the lens of separation. So when you really step back and think about it, each of us has a job to be a receiver. And we each become then a lightning rod which becomes a conduit to whatever the capacity is that we have to receive. So the more love that comes through us, the more joy, the more money, the more oxygen, the more WiFi.
Cathy Heller:We spread that into the world in in immediately because we are 1. So when you really understand that, you ask yourself, so why would I wanna offer less to the world if I'm part of this garden? No redwood tree says, oh, I should have less water. It's like, no, in order for me to be in order and allow myself to admit the most I can to all that is. I need to thrive to the best of my ability.
Cathy Heller:That's my job. That's my job, right? Each of us, our job is to be the most abundant in every possible way. And it's interesting because when I say to women, do you want to be healthy AF? They're like, yeah.
Cathy Heller:I'm like, would you post that on Instagram? Like, of course, it's inspirational. Like, would you want to post that you want to be wealthy AF? It's like, all the shame comes in. Where is that coming from?
Cathy Heller:It's coming from your belief that you're taking from somebody else, which is it's not a thing. It's the opposite. Right? So each of us has been assigned to be the most abundant. You know, it's interesting because I'll say to people, could you make a list of 5 people who have no money who are incredible?
Cathy Heller:Yeah. I'm like, yeah. I certainly can. Can you make a list of 5 people who have lots of money who are incredible? Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Yep. Can you make a list of people in the world who have no money who do terrible things? Yeah. There's jails filled with those people. Can you make a list of people who have lots of money who do terrible things?
Cathy Heller:Yeah. There's jails filled with those people. Yeah. There's there's bad people, there's white collar presence, there's other kind of there there's bad people and good people. The Talmud says that money is like rain that falls in a garden.
Cathy Heller:Money is an activator. So it says, if if if a person with integrity is blessed, they'll do good with their blessings. Right? If a person with who has integrity has money, they're the reason why there's names on the sides of hospitals. They're the reason why there's names on the sides of theaters.
Cathy Heller:And and if a person who has other blessings has integrity, like they're blessed with a child, they'll they'll do good things with it. If a person who doesn't have integrity has been given a blessing, whether it's love in their life, a relationship, or it's money, they're just gonna do more things out of integrity with it. So it's not the money, it's who's in control, who's the custodian, who's in stewardship of that and it's very important to understand that. And so then, I'll have women at my retreats, I'll say, write yourself a check and I'll say any amount, you know, they'll write, like, 40 grand, a 100 grand, 4,000,000,000. I'm, like, you can this is a game.
Cathy Heller:You can write whatever you want. And then I say, why did you write that? And it's amazing how there's this criticism right away, like, who am I to have that much or Mother Teresa said it takes a checkbook to change the world. So you don't trust yourself in stewardship. The word currency comes from the word current.
Cathy Heller:It literally means it's gotta keep moving like blood in the body, it can't stay stuck. So why would you wanna be less of a steward of any resource?
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:It's a resource. And so I think the more that you get that and, also, it's a test. You know, it says in the bible, it's a it's a greater test to have money than to not because you you you are responsible for all that you have. Right? But one thing I do love about Jewish culture, Jewish wisdom, like King David who wrote all the Psalms.
Cathy Heller:Right? That's why that gorgeous Leonard Cohen song, Hallelujah, is written about him. He wrote all the Psalms, pretty much all of them. He was both a deeply spiritual person and one of the richest people in history. K?
Cathy Heller:He that was his kingdom in Judea. Right? Like, he was a king of an empire, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive. You can be deeply spiritual and that it would make sense that you would be deeply humble enough to just be in reception and raise your hand to be a steward of as much as you can be.
Kate Northrup:It be a conduit. Let yourself be a conduit.
Kate Northrup:It's just like the mycelial network. Right? Like, the communication that is happening underground at all times between all the fungi species and the sharing of resources is unbelievable. There is no such thing as one mushroom. One mushroom is every mushroom.
Cathy Heller:Collaboration. Sense.
Kate Northrup:Like, it's wild.
Cathy Heller:Like, we were all together this week, and a few times we all were saying not only how much fun it was, but how we talked about, like, in the days of Laurel Canyon with Joni Mitchell and Carole King. Their each of their successes, when they would come together, it would help each other. So, you know, when they would all go to the Troubadour and perform, their audiences would get to meet each other. So James Taylor introduced his audience to Carole King and vice versa. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:That's how it's supposed to go. Right. That is the opposite of separation.
Kate Northrup:Yes. It is.
Cathy Heller:It's connection and collaboration, which is why I said at the beginning of this, when you first hear it, you're so wired into thinking what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours, and we are separate. When you really get that we deeply are not and it's our job to keep sharing with each other, sharing information with each other, sharing ideas, sharing our resources with each other, then why would you want less? Instead, you'd say the amount of podcast downloads I have now become your podcast downloads and I wanna put you on my show and I wanna help you and and then it's just how much could we build together? Yeah. It's endless.
Cathy Heller:It's infinite. And I think what's also interesting is I'll have women at my retreats close their eyes and I'll say, when you connect to the part of you that's really you and your soul, how much love can you possibly generate for the world? And I'll say is there an amount? Is there a limit to it? You know, is there any place inside of you that says no, I think I'm filled up.
Cathy Heller:I don't think I could have more compassion in me. I don't think I can have more love in me. No. It just it keeps multiplying. In fact, the more you use that muscle, the more it goes and goes it goes.
Cathy Heller:So I said, but so too, how much could you receive? And it's really interesting because that's harder. And I say, so that's ego. That's egocentric because your soul has the capacity to receive an endless amount. Absolutely.
Cathy Heller:It's your brain. It's your who am I self, not my big self, but my small self that says, what am I worth receiving? It's just an emotional When you set that down, you should be able to be the vessel to give and receive, and then you think of blood going through the heart. The heart is a muscle that receives a totality and gives a totality. That is literally we need to think of ourselves as a walking heart that receives as much as possible
Kate Northrup:Oxygen.
Cathy Heller:With grace and humility and gives it right back to the body of the collective. That is our job.
Kate Northrup:I love that.
Cathy Heller:And from that standpoint, it would only be your ego that would talk you out of any kind of receiving.
Kate Northrup:A 100%. So beautiful. I love you, Kathy Heller. I just it's like that last sermon was just I can't hear it enough times. And even today, something opened in me, you know, like, 2 years after hearing some version of that the first time.
Kate Northrup:So thank you. And I know you've helped me many times along the way when I get, like, caught back in my little, like,
Cathy Heller:Well, it's amazing. These thoughts in our head that don't actually have masks, they don't weigh anything, they really weigh us down
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Because they limit us from seeing clearly and then what that does is it deletes possibilities Right. Versus when you can see as far as possible. Now all of this feels available to you, and now you know what your job is is to keep showing other people how much is possible for them. And it's never it's like going back to Idina Menzel and Rent Yes. And she says, there's only us.
Cathy Heller:Right? Yeah. It's not you and me. It's it's us. It's a we.
Cathy Heller:No day but day. And on behalf of the collective, our job is to keep moving all of us forward and to keep thinking about all of us, which is why when Reese Witherspoon sells her company for a $1,000,000,000, she just opened a pathway for other women, and we should tip our hats to that and salute
Kate Northrup:that. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:And when when any person has figured out how to have enough empathy to do something in the marketplace that solves a problem or does something that moves us forward, it's creating so much opportunity.
Kate Northrup:Oh my god. You know, I have a very specific story about this to end because we're I you have to have the legal, but I could be here all day. But but so I'm gonna tell this last story, and then I want people to know where to find you. It was wild because, you know, like, we all get caught on our things, and we get caught on them repeatedly. And then over time, they sort of, like, dissolve.
Kate Northrup:Right? And that's literally how it works with belief systems in the brain. Over time, when you practice new thought patterns, new beliefs, new behaviors, you actually change the neural patterning. But for a while, it you we get caught. So my thing, as you know, has been a repetitive thing around privilege, guilt, and, feeling like it's too you know, like, who am I to whatever?
Kate Northrup:So you just talked about that. It's so beautiful. And by the way, after that original conversation with you, we, like, completely busted through that revenue ceiling and, you know, 50% increased our business, and we've That's so awesome. Like, 2 and a half times since that. So I just wanna say thank you.
Kate Northrup:Oh, yeah. Thanks for the rearing. But I was in before before I met you, I was, you know, like, circling that particular drain for years. And doing great. And and doing great.
Kate Northrup:Like, it wasn't a massive problem, but I could tell.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I was holding back. And, like, if I'm holding back, I'm holding back for others. Right? So I was in Maine in this small town. Mike and I were going to dinner on a Monday night.
Kate Northrup:It was, like, really random in December, like, the worst possible time. And it was rainy. It was cold. It was dark. We, like, go to dinner at 5 o'clock at this random ass hotel.
Kate Northrup:This is the only thing open. We go in, and, we walk to our table, and we sit down, and I'm like, Mike, I swear to God, Oprah is in the bar.
Cathy Heller:Oh my
Kate Northrup:god. I was like, I swear to God. I mean, we are talking That's the ultimate
Cathy Heller:celebrity sighting. That, like, that is the ultimate one. And you saw it. In a small
Kate Northrup:town in New York. Are you kidding me? That's so So I go to and I was right in the middle. Maine is nice.
Cathy Heller:But that's
Kate Northrup:She was there interviewing Elizabeth Stroud, you know, for her Olive Kittredge or whatever. Right? So in that moment, though, I was really in this thing around, like, do I get because of my privilege to have exuded all these different things. Right? So then, I get to go up to Oprah personally and thank her because, you know, my mom's career was massively helped by the fact that she was on Oprah 10 times.
Kate Northrup:Like, Oprah was the hugest, you know, amplifier for her work. So many people. And, like, I get to hold her hands and just say thank you, not only for what you do for the world, but for my family specifically. Like, because of Oprah, I don't have student loans. And and and in that moment, I got to look in her eyes Right.
Kate Northrup:And say thank you, and realize that all my bullshit and I needed to hear you say it a few years later as well. But, like, that all my bullshit That's a perfect example. About, like, my abundance in so many ways, so many opportunities. Literally. I've had literally came from Oprah Winfrey, a woman who made infinite choices for abundance for her herself and Yep.
Kate Northrup:Humanity. And I was like a living, breathing example of someone that that had been possible for. And so it was really cool. So I wanted to end with that, like Incredible.
Cathy Heller:And our life story many of the people that we talked about, Deepak Chopra Same. She she gave him. Platform.
Kate Northrup:Right? Like, she's such an example of, like, the wider she has opened, the more lives have been done. Carrie, you've
Cathy Heller:got Rayna. Nicole Rae, you've got so many people. Been healed. And and that is what we all
Kate Northrup:are meant to be doing
Cathy Heller:in our own way.
Kate Northrup:We are all Oprah. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Oh, my god. I love that. That's it. You've heard it here. That's a bumper sticker.
Kate Northrup:Alright. So obviously, everyone needs to get a copy of your brand new book.
Cathy Heller:We do.
Kate Northrup:It is really beautiful.
Cathy Heller:It's beautiful.
Kate Northrup:It's called abundant ever after I'm proud
Cathy Heller:of it.
Kate Northrup:Tools for creating light a life of prosperity and ease. Your stories are incredible. Thank you. The the spiritual bedrock upon which this is, like, written and and lives is really all so powerful, like, it's not pretend. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I mean, it's also okay if it is, but it's not. Yeah. So anyway and so get yourself a copy of abundant ever after, and then where else should people come find you?
Cathy Heller:If you go to Instagram, I'm there, and I do all of that posting just right from my heart every day. Like, what do I wanna say to the world? But if you go to kathyhaylor.com/book, it'll take you to wherever you wanna buy a book and then it will give you bonuses Great. Which is kind of fun, but it's such a gift to have somebody who I've admired for such a long time be in my life and then to have this really sweet sisterly connection with you. And you're such a gift of a generous soul.
Cathy Heller:Like, you live out everything that you want to to to aspire to. You you walk it. You live it, which is just so beautiful and I I just so appreciate and receive that you would have read any of this book. And, it's so fun to talk to you. And thank you for seeing me and celebrating me and coming out to be at my event.
Cathy Heller:This was such a fun week.
Kate Northrup:Oh, good.
Cathy Heller:And I love your audience because I know that if they love you, then I love them because you're just like And they're also gonna love you. As good as it could be. We are cut. I know. From the same What a huge compliment.
Kate Northrup:In very different ways. Yeah.
Cathy Heller:Yeah. Right?
Kate Northrup:I love you so much, Kathy.
Cathy Heller:I love
Kate Northrup:you too.
Cathy Heller:Thank you for Thank you, Raya.
Kate Northrup:I'm getting at least 1 DM a week that says, when do the doors open for relax money again? I'm ready. Now, relax money is our signature neuroscience backed methodology to help you get financially healthier. And we only open the doors one time a year for our live cohort. However, we are growing the wait list early.
Kate Northrup:So when you get on the wait list, there are special bonuses, goodies, surprises, freebies, and you can get on there over at relax money.comforward/plenty. Thanks for listening to this episode of Plenty. If you enjoyed it, make sure you subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in.
Kate Northrup:And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrup.comforward/ breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance. Again, that's over at katenorthrup.comforward/breakthroughs. See you next time.