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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.
I go into a deeper dialogue with my body and with my psyche because my paradigm is that my body is always loving me. My body is always showing up for me. My body is not an adversary. My body is an ally and she's here guiding me to what I most need to put my attention on, guiding me to the my wisdom and my truth. So I keep that dialogue open.
Kate Northrup:That may not be true for everyone but it is true for me. 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:So somebody on my Instagram asked me about self care rituals that are do less or, like, self care in the realm of doing less. And I think so often, we can hear about all these different self care practices, all these different wellness rituals that it can feel like, oh my gosh. I could literally spend my entire day doing all these rituals of self care, all these with the supplements and the red light and the sauna and the meditation and the breath work and the nervous system healing and the, like, grounding and earthing and, you know, preparation of all the food and the moving my body and the getting sunshine, the vitamin d. I mean, it's, like, a lot. Right?
Kate Northrup:So today, I wanna share what I'm focusing on right now in terms of my wellness and self care practices, why I'm focusing on those things, how, like, kind of the do lessness of that of those rituals works, and also what's underneath some of the health issues that I was experiencing over the last year because it all kind of ties together. So during the spring of like, in the big context, this is very related, I think, to the you know, from the period of 2018 to spring of 2023, I really can't even believe this. So, like, 30 seconds ago, we were experiencing, as a family, a really intense time of Mike being sick and then a couple of times where he broke his knee, one time falling off a bike and one time getting hit by a car. And so it all happened in that period of time, and then there was also, like, a lot of moves in there and having small children, also a pandemic. So it was really an intense period of time, and I think that for me what happened is last spring, I started getting really sick, and it would I would have these periods of time where for days at a time, I would have a low grade fever.
Kate Northrup:So it wouldn't ever go above a 100, but it would be at, like, 99 point 4. For days at a time, I would have this low grade fever, I would get really low energy, I would off and on be sweating, and then I would get this really intense respiratory thing. It happened for the first time in the spring of 2023, right smack dab in the middle of our second relax money launch, which was our first seven figure launch. So it was a really interesting juxtaposition of, like, writing email and sales copy from my bathroom floor on my biomat and then showing up to do live things and then going back underground. And then I got sick again in the fall during our 3rd relax money launch, and then again after we closed doors for that during the delivery of that program in November December, and then again in the end of February 2024 this year.
Kate Northrup:For someone who takes as good as good care of themselves as I do, it was bizarre. It was, like, bizarre to get sick that many times. And I come from a school of thought or a paradigm in which the body is always talking to us. So I personally don't believe for me that my body gets sick randomly. I, for me, always know it is related to I mean, obviously, you know, maybe there's a virus involved, maybe there's depletion involved, but I also know that our bodies are deeply impacted by stress.
Kate Northrup:And they are deeply and and stress is essentially our emotional reality, and what is going on in our lives is what causes our emotional reality and stress. Stress is the leading cause of illness. When we are replete, when we are energized, when we are well nourished, when things are going really well in our lives, when we are able to empty our stress and threat bucket on a regular basis, our immune system performs optimally. There are the same number of bacteria and viruses around us when we are sick as when we are well. And so to me, whether or not my body is going down, whether or not I'm getting ill, is not as much of an indication of what's happening outside of me.
Kate Northrup:It's more of an indication of what's happening side of me. It's more of an indication of what's happening inside me, and whether or not I'm susceptible to all of the potential pathogens outside my body, like, really literally, when you begin to dive into the reality of the micro microbial world, the bacterial world, and the world of viruses, you would be amazed by how many of them already are living inside your body at all times, and it's whether or not an imbalance happens that determines whether or not we get sick. So to me, the fact that I was getting sick so many times in a short period of time with the level of wellness practices that I have on board, to me, I was like, I gotta really look at emotionally what is going on. Like, what is my body trying to tell me? And when I got sick kind of this is, like, the 3rd major time, and I couldn't get out of it.
Kate Northrup:It was it was November, December 2023. I also, all of a sudden, couldn't hear out of my right ear, and that felt pretty dramatic. So I got a severe ear infection, which I hadn't had since I was 3 years old, and I was in excruciating pain. I woke up with it one day at 4 AM. I was in excruciating pain, and then eventually, I did I did I'm not much of an antibiotics person.
Kate Northrup:I'm not much of a traditional medicine person at all, but I was in so much pain that I was like, f this. I'm taking antibiotics. Get me a prescription. I drove myself to urgent care, and I that the so the pain went away, but then I still couldn't hear. And so I asked myself, what is it that I am like, what is it that I am needing to hear right now?
Kate Northrup:Because to me, losing the hearing in my ear is random. Like, why would I, at the age of 41 or 40 at the time, get an ear infection? What the fuck? And so, like, what 40 year olds do you know walking around getting an ear infection? And so I really asked, like, okay.
Kate Northrup:I went inside, and I just said intuitively, it really felt like I am being prevented from hearing what's going on outside because I am being asked to listen more deeply to what is going on inside. So as I do, I was spending a lot of time lying on my bathroom floor with my red light and my Biomat just asking, like, what is it soul? What is it, inner voice? What is it, inner guide or god or whatever that you wanna tell me? And I kept hearing basically the phrase stop fucking around.
Kate Northrup:While I was in the thick of the spring 2023 launch of relax money, I was having the first round of this low grade fever thing, this congestion thing. We also found black mold in our condo. And so that seemed like a pretty clear, like, I am sick because we have mold where we're living, and we did the whole mold mitigation process. And I did a whole mold detox protocol, and that was the whole thing. And I had a friend say something to me that rung as true for me.
Kate Northrup:And what it was is that when we have mold in our environment, it is asking us or it is giving this us an opportunity to decide if we are going to allow it to keep us playing small. Now that may not be true for everyone who's impacted by mold. I understand that there's, like, so much nuance to that, but for me, my body was just like, I know this is true for me. And so when it came to the whole mold situation, I also knew that I was being asked to step up and expand and play a bigger game. And so I decided to not push through, not, like, ignore the fact that I wasn't feeling well, but to show up in the fullest self that I possibly could during that relax money launch.
Kate Northrup:And we got the mold handled, and I got it out of my body, and that was beautiful. I for me, that really rang true. If it rings true for you, wonderful. So that was related to the message stop fucking around that I got from the ear thing. And later on with the ear thing, what I the message I fully received was I am being distracted by a bunch of things that are not my main priority, that are not my highest and best most purposeful work because, ultimately, I know what I am needing to focus on next is finishing a book proposal for my next book.
Kate Northrup:It is time. It's been time. And all of a sudden, my body was like, hey, I'm gonna get you to start paying actual attention and make it so uncomfortable for you and make it so that you have to cancel everything that is on your calendar that is not absolutely essential. And then maybe you will start paying attention and stop freaking scheduling so many things that aren't necessary so you can actually have the time to get this book proposal done and to get that book sold and written and published. So I'm telling you this because when I am sick like that, I go into first of all, it's super annoying.
Kate Northrup:But second of all, I go into a deeper dialogue with my body and with my psyche because my paradigm is that my body is always loving me. My body is always showing up for me. My body is not an adversary. My body is an ally, and she's here guiding me to what I most need to put my attention on, guiding me to the my wisdom and my truth. So I keep that dialogue open.
Kate Northrup:That may not be true for everyone, but it is true for me. So my journey this last year of getting sick a 1000000 times, I think, had to do with Mike having been been sick and injured and just having been through a really stressful time and finally him being really solid and really well, I think my body was like, finally, I can just go down and let go, and I think that's part of why I got sick so many times this year. And then the second piece or the yeah. The second piece was interrelated was this piece around playing a bigger game and then a call to devote myself to even more meaningful work, a call to stop saying yes to so many things and devote myself to the thing, right, the one thing that would make everything else easier or unnecessary for me is writing, is doubling down, documenting that sort of more legacy work of what is the mark I wanna leave on the world. So that was kind of, like, my whole sickness journey.
Kate Northrup:And as a result, I've been digging into my wellness practices on a different level, less from the perspective of, oh, what would be optimal and more from the perspective of doing some repair. I love optimal and everything I'm doing also contributes to optimal, but I've had some repair work to do. So I don't think we need to do every single wellness practice in the world, certainly not all at the same time. I don't think that we need to be doing self care 24 hours a day. I mean, layering is wonderful, but, like, I've got 2 little kids.
Kate Northrup:I run this business, and so I don't have time all day long to be sitting around doing all kinds of self care practices. In perfect honesty, like, I would love to book a period of time of my life where I sit around and do wellness and and self care all day. That's not what I do. So I'm gonna give you, like, the quick and dirty of the things I'm focused on right now that I think are the 20% that are moving the needle for me for the getting 80% of the results. Number 1, I have focused on getting a lot more natural sunlight.
Kate Northrup:I've been learning from an amazing woman named Sarah Kleiner. She was actually on the podcast earlier this week, so you can go back and do a deep dive on the data on this with Sarah Kleiner because we talked all about it. But I've been learning about the importance of light, specifically for our mitochondria and for our metabolic function, and really understanding the degree to which we have been conditioned to be completely afraid of the sun because of the obvious risks. Right? However, there are really safe ways to be in the sun, and what I've been understanding is that, obviously, having high vitamin d levels is really important.
Kate Northrup:Mine were getting a little low, but also that getting vitamin d from sunshine is a much better pathway than through supplementation. And because I live in Miami and because there is vitamin d available, every single day of the year, I've been actively getting sunshine on my body in safe ways. And, again, we talked about how to do that with Sarah Kleiner. And, also, I have been reducing blue light in my life and making sure that I'm getting as much natural light as possible during my workday, not necessarily directly on my skin, but by working outside more in the shade, by opening the slider door a little bit to make sure that I'm getting a little UV rays, a little of that natural light goes a long way to mitigate the effects of all the blue light toxicity. So that's thing number 1, but connected to that is I've started being much more regimented about wearing my blue light blockers during the day and then wearing my blue light blockers during the night.
Kate Northrup:I have 2 different pairs. 1 is for the daytime, 1 is for the nighttime, and in the link below this in in the link below this video or in the show notes, we will tell you which ones I like. So that's been a game changer. I sit, and when Mike and I watch our show sometimes at night, I sit there like a weirdo with my full on red glasses on. Sometimes I pull a blanket all the way up to my chin because, actually, we have blue light and UV sensors all on all of our skin.
Kate Northrup:So when you get blue light, like, if I'm sitting watching a movie in a tank top and shorts, I'm actually absorbing blue light not only through my eyeballs, but also through my skin, so I will try to cover up as much of my skin as possible. Next thing you know, I'll be, like, wearing a full face mask with my blue light blockers, so it can't even get on my on my face, but I'm I'm not at that place yet. So that's number 1. Number 2 is sleep, and these are, by the way, in no particular order. I think sleep is actually the most important, so I always prioritize my sleep.
Kate Northrup:My sleep is my spiritual practice. My sleep is my top self care practice. It is incredibly rare that I will sacrifice my sleep. I get usually 8, 8 and a half, sometimes 9 and a half hours of sleep. I have zero guilt if I've slept 9 and a half hours.
Kate Northrup:I celebrate myself. It is like such a huge win. That time is so productive for consolidating memory, for making me smarter, for repairing my body, for all sorts of regenerative processes, metabolic processes in my body. I know it is essential to my vitality and and all of my productivity and my work and my ability to be present. And so being tired is, like, literally makes everything else in my life hard, and there's no need for that.
Kate Northrup:So as much as I can prioritize sleep, I do. I usually am I'm in bed most nights by 9:15, and I turn out the lights most nights by 9:30. And I don't I don't set an alarm. I just wake up when when I wake up, which is, you know, between 6 and 7. So sleep is number 2.
Kate Northrup:So it's number 1, more light. Number 2, sleep, and then number 3 is moving my body. So body movement, physical movement, exercise is the one of the single best, most effective tools for regulating our nervous system and our mood regulation and processing emotional stress. So when I stop moving, when I haven't moved for a few days, I can feel it. I start to feel cranky pants.
Kate Northrup:I do not process emotional stress as well. I can start buying into the illusion that there's some sort of an emergency around my to do list. I feel way more pressured, all of that. So moving my body is critical. It might be taking a walk.
Kate Northrup:It might be just doing a 30 minute HIIT workout. It might be lifting some weights. I really like to switch it up. I do a whole variety of things. I'm not regimented about it in any way other than, like, moving my body as essential, and I try to do that a minimum of 5 times a week for 30 minutes.
Kate Northrup:So that's what I do. Number 1, light. Number 2, sleep. Number 3, movement. They don't take that much time.
Kate Northrup:Right? They don't take that much time, and they are the 20% that get me 80% of the results. There's certainly plenty of of other things that I do a supplement here and there. You know, some I've started a meditation practice. My nervous system healing tools fit in there as well, but those 3 are the biggest ones, and they contribute to all the rest, certainly, nervous system healing for sure because the more you nourish your body, the safer your nervous system feels.
Kate Northrup:Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of Plenti. 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 kate northrup.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 kate northrup.comforward/breakthroughs. See you next time.