This One Conversation Will Reprogram Your Mind Forever with Cathy Heller

Today, I am joined by the incredible Kathy Heller, a manifestation teacher and the host of one of the top spiritual podcasts, the Kathy Heller show, with more than 45 million downloads. She's also the author of Abundant Ever After. In today's episode, we'll cover how to step into a higher level of confidence and worthiness on your health journey, how to attract abundance and increase your energetic capacity. Kathy, for a woman who is trying to optimize her health and is taking a very, very rigid checklist approach to trying to optimize her nutrition and feel better and achieve these health outcomes, what advice would you have for how she could change that approach?

Well, first of all, I think it's really interesting that we're getting to have this conversation because you typically are talking to people about their physical health and their wellness, and it doesn't always seem related to have a conversation about things that have to do with energy or thoughts or beliefs or intentions. And yet, one of the people that you and I both love, Casey, means she said to me something fascinating, which is that one of the most fundamental ways to update and upgrade our biological health is definitely really based upon everything that we're talking about today. Because apparently, and this is where I'm not an expert, but apparently the mitochondria in our cells and this like bioluminescence and all of that is directly related to whether we are in a state of stress and fight or flight, or whether we are in a state of ease and well being. And what Casey said to me, and some of you might be like, I love Casey. And some of you might be like, who is that? She wrote a book called Good Energy. I'm sure a lot of your listeners know who she is and she's very well known and well loved in the, in the health space. But she was saying that the idea of being in flow state, the idea of being in oneness consciousness, the idea of having some level of equanimity within your own being, right? It repairs your cells. And so thoughts can make us sick and thoughts can make us well. And I'm not saying that that should be the only thing that you consider. I think you should consider what you're eating. I think you should consider whether you're getting your steps in and moving your body, right? But we know that in the blue zones where people are living into their hundreds, one of the things that Dan Buettner said to me is that so much of their, well, their, their health comes from the lack of cortisol, and the cortisol is so Reduced because inflammation comes from chronic stress and chronic stress is coming from the way that we make ourselves crazy. Right. And some of that is really simple straight mindfulness, like not having our own attention, meaning our mind is moving a million times a second and constantly assessing danger and constantly regurgitating stressful things from the past or the future that are just like made up. Right. So just from a purely scientific lens, I think that we need to understand the connection between our well being and our health. And before we even get into anything that even resembles woo, which I think all of this is actually very matter of fact, but before we even get into that, I think just, just the awareness that being in fight or flight, being in a state of urgency, being in a state of being critical of ourselves, being in a state of just the over functioning that we tend to do, it's putting our body into a place that's the opposite of repair. Right. And so I think that that's an important place to even begin the conversation.

Love it. And it's so true. And I think a lot of women don't even realize that they are in fight or flight. So can you unpack that? You know, it's, it's less about doing and checking off all of these items and more about how can women start to focus on becoming. You talk a lot about becoming and having the energetic capacity to be able to hold space for that person that you're becoming. Can you talk about why a person may not be achieving their health goals if they don't have the capacity to really hold this next version of themselves?

Yeah, I think you just asked like three really good questions in one. No, no, but they all, they all are so important. And so first of all, I want to just say that for me personally, my background, what led me to have any of the, you know, awareness that I have, and obviously we're all a work in progress, so I'm continuing to be my own student, right. Every second of every day. But what got me here was a combination of studying spirituality, right? I learned, I was studying kabbalah learning in Jerusalem, Jerusalem for three years. And I've been studying that for the last three decades, which started with a trip to Jerusalem that I was supposed to take for three weeks and I stayed for three years. And I've been on that journey now for three decades since that, that experience. But what also happened is I wound up moving to Los Angeles and I wound up studying mindfulness at ucla. They have a whole research center and I wound up getting really into it and I kind of geeked out on the scientific explanations and understandings of what happens within our own being when we have these. These, let's say, more conscious experiences. Okay? So that has given me a tremendous amount of insight, right? And what I would say is. And one of the things that I teach, and a lot of people teach this, I mean, this is like, straight from Wayne Dyer, you know, for the last many, many years before he passed, he shared this is the power of intention. And so the first thing I would say is, and I talk about this pretty regularly, is we now know scientifically that how we start our day, okay, the first 10 to 20 minutes of the day is going to set the tone for the whole day. So I often say, when you're trying to get a grasp on all of these goals and all of this stuff and all the ways that you want to step into your next level of your identity, how are you spending the first 10 minutes when you wake up? And if you're not having a meeting with your soul, if you're not having a meeting where you actually arrive at your own door, you take 10 whole minutes to actually choose, right? What's your intention for today? Or what is it I want to feel today? Or what is it that I need to remember? What really is my soul reminding me that is that actually matters to me today? Because if that doesn't happen, then within seconds of waking up, you could pick up your phone. There's 15 notifications. Now. There's all these roles that you play, and there's all these ways that the. The world just kind of hijacks you, right? And you go right into fight or flight. But what if we were to carve out a morning practice, which has been proven to have massive impact on someone's life, and we do four minutes of meditation, right? Even if we don't even know how to. How to meditate yet, right? There's so many things that even get us close where the. Where the brain and body actually mirrors the same kind of experience as a meditation, right? So for a lot of you, meditation is really intimidating, right? But what if we did anything that even gets us close to equanimity? Oh, my God. It's like, wait a minute. That exists. It's like there are a lot of different things we could do that would put us into the version of ourself that we mean to be all the time that we keep forgetting to be, right? And so for me, my morning practice is I actually created this checklist for members of our community. First of all, I have Us remember who we really are, okay? Because part of what we're talking about in terms of any goals, whether they're health goals or any kind of goals, the way that life works is our thoughts and beliefs create our actions. And that action, that behavior, decides the probability, which is the results. Okay? So that actually all starts from identity. So the first thing on my checklist every day is to remember the real identity. So I have everyone in my community when we do our morning practice, we do it together, live as a community. But people also do it on their own. The first thing we say to ourselves is, I am someone. I'm some of the one. I'm a masterpiece, a piece of the master. Now why? Because remembering who we really are, which is a soul inside of a body, or remembering who you really are, whether you are woo or not, let's say you don't even believe that. What about the idea that before you were given a story and a name, you were just you, right? Meaning to say that most of the time, people are operating from an identity that they don't even realize they are in fight or flight, just from the identity that they're deciding is who they are. And there's so much more than that. What I mean is, I had Deepak Chopra on my podcast, and he said to me, let's try something. I said, okay. He said, say I am Kathy Heller. I said, okay. I mean, I feel a little bit silly. He's like, say it three times out loud. I'm like, okay, we're doing this silly thing. So I said that. He goes, now say I am Kathy. Say that three times. He said, did that feel different? I'm like, I guess it does feel a little different. My full name versus just my first name. I was trying to figure out where he. Where he's going with this. He goes, now just say I am. He goes, does that feel different? And I said, yeah, it does feel different, right? Because I think that the mind has this way of doing some math around how worthy we are or how it compares itself to other people's egos, right? As Ram Dass says, at some point you realize that someone handed you a somebody suit and said, here, be this. Be this. This version of you is good at math, but doesn't have the best hair. But is this. But it's like all this stuff, right? That it's like a Persona. It's a role you play. But when he said, just say I am, it's like, boom, there you are. Right? Why does my daughter love going to sleepaway camp. Because there's something that happens when you go to sleepaway camp where you just become the I am. Because when you're sleeping in the bunk and people see you day after day, you kind of just become you, right? And when I was growing up, we used to say that camp friends are different than other friends, right? It's like a deep way that you show up as yourself. So what I'm saying is when we're actually. When we walk all the way back to who we are, we stop self abandoning. What's really amazing about that is all possibilities always exist in the quantum field. And what we typically do is from the standpoint of our identity and our limiting beliefs, we collapse all possibility into one outcome. And we say, well, it's Groundhog Day. The life I lived yesterday is the life I'm going to live today. I'm going to think and feel pretty much what I thought and felt yesterday, which means I will do what I did yesterday, which means I'll have the same results. But if your identity is just I am, I am a soul in this quantum field where all things are possible, that's already a huge, massive shift. So we start there with that identity, right? Which means I don't have to think the thoughts I thought yesterday because my mind's on a loop. But I get to choose. Who am I really? And what are the thoughts that actually belong to me. Not some thoughts that got put in there by like whatever I observe. So that we start there. Then I say, now I want you to expect that something will surprise and delight you today. Play a game with the universe, right? And say to yourself, I can't wait to see how the day shows me that I'm always at the right place at the right time. That all day long everything that's happening is a divine conversation. And there's some divine gps because again, that gets you out of the hamster wheel. It's like, no, I'm having a real living conversation with the universe every day. And then the third thing is I tell people. And now I want you to visualize yourself going through this day the way you would intend to visualize yourself. Are you drinking your coffee slowly? Are you actually tasting it? Are you actually making eye contact? And really there present with your kid when you pick them up from school. Like, visualize yourself living your day as you actually want to. And how does it feel? And do you feel rushed and hurried? Or do you feel like, oh, I'm just actually here moment by moment, enjoying it, right? Like any given Tuesday can feel like art. If I actually enjoy the walk I'm. I'm actually on or, you know, take the pressure off when I'm writing the email and just write the email. Like, everything can actually feel better if I'm present. Okay? And then the next thing I have people do is take out a pen and just journal. Because when the thoughts are written down, whatever those thoughts are, you start witnessing the mind. And then you start actually from the place of being of the observer and not in the chaos of the mind, which. The mind is always chaos, right? We recently there was fmris done on monks, and they found no brain activity. How's that possible? They're alive. That's because there's no wisdom in the mind. All wisdom is in the heart. It's actually we have these chakras, right? We have, like, the, you know, we have the third eye chakra. We have the throat chakra, we have the sacral chakra, all these chakras. In Kabbalah, we call those the sphero. And actually, they're all very similar. The word for the. The crown chakra is keter in Hebrew, which actually means crown. So it's amazing that these two ancient pieces of very massive wisdom right around the energy centers of the body, they actually mirror each other. And nobody was on a zoom conference call, Right? But the point is that that's real. That has to do with your real body, Meaning there is energy that you could open up to. And what is it doing? It's downloading energy from the quantum field. Zach Bush, who's a physician, talks about this. But the point is, when we journal, we start having the capacity to witness, right? Because when people meditate, often, they don't enjoy it because they think meditation is about not thinking. Meditation is not. It's not about not thinking. Your heart will always be as long as you're alive. And your mind will always race. Minds race. It's witnessing the mind. It's selecting what thoughts you're thinking. It's having the capacity to be the observer of the mind because that's who you really are. Anyway, long story short, I have people journal. The reason all of that is so important is because if you start your day where you slow down and you breathe and you have these moments to tune the radio, so to speak, within you to who you really want to be, you start hearing a different song in the field around you. If you want to look for the evidence that the world is out to get you, you'll feel that all day long. But if you tune in every single morning to like the feeling of equanimity within yourself. You'll be a better version of yourself. And then actually you'll find the evidence that you can be kind to yourself. And the world is actually a pretty kind, generous place. It's whatever you select and all that's going to help you with whatever it is that you want to create. So I start there because we need to actually have some kind of practice right where we are showing up for ourself. And I think there's so much self abandonment and so much critique and shame and whatever that it makes it almost impossible to set goals and get healthy because it's just yet another thing that people will sort of yell at themselves about, which doesn't actually help you to get to the goal.

You are such a genius. Every time that I am like in your presence, I am so. My mind is always so blown. So I hope that everyone just is like able to absorb all of the beautiful wisdom that you're able to just share. And my mind is going to the place where. When I was on your show, you had talked about the experience that you had with your therapist and the advice that your therapist gave you. Do you remember what I'm talking about where she said, go for a walk? Can you share that story?

Yeah. So you and I were talking about how massive it is to really take care of ourselves in a huge way. There is so much self abandonment. And I was telling you that I just would constantly be so busy that I didn't have the time to work out or go on a walk. And I had a peloton, but I wouldn't use it. I would just kind of walk past it every day and I would, I. I was referred to a therapist and I was, you know, there to talk about all kinds of things. And I didn't think I was there to talk to her about my physical health. I actually thought I was there to get some clarity around relationships and some work things. And then she said to me, do you ever take yourself on a walk? And I was like thinking, how is that relevant? It was interesting because it was such a concrete, specific question that didn't seem like it was so related, but she kept bringing it up. And then she said, the next time we meet, between now and then, can you find 15 minutes a day to go on a walk without your phone? And I kept thinking, God, she doesn't let up. She just wants me to go on a walk. As if there's like some magic in like going on a walk. What's so important about it, and I couldn't do it. And so we would meet week after week, months at a time. And she'd be like, did you get that walk in? And I was like, no, but I have all these other things to ask you about. And you're a psychologist and you're a therapist and like, why are you asking me about this walk? And eventually she asked me enough times that I was embarrassed that I kept saying no. So I was like, you know what? This is ridiculous. Like, I'm just gonna go on this walk. And I went on this walk. And it was amazing how within, like 14 seconds of walking, I felt amazing. Like, I enjoyed the peace. And I noticed that there was like all these flowers that I walked past so quickly all the time when I'm not really on a walk, I'm, let's say, walking to the car or I just noticed there was so much beauty. And then I noticed that when I didn't have something to do, I wasn't on my phone, I wasn't working, I wasn't involved in an activity with my kids. I was just walking for the sake of walking. I realized that I had been avoiding listening to my own inner thoughts. And that's part of why I wasn't walking. Because it's amazing how just going on a walk and not being distracted, sometimes there's an inconvenient thing that you. You know it and you wish you didn't, and you don't know what to do with it, so you just rather not be still enough to hear it. And I also realized that it was so simple, but just taking myself on a walk was so restorative. And now I'm in a place where most days I take two walks a day for 45 minutes without my phone because it feels that good. It feels as good as getting a massage. It feels as good as taking the best bubble bath just walking. And of course, now we know that, like, that sort of bipedal rhythm is so good for our nervous system. And there's something so healthy about it for so many, you know, medical, health reasons. Not medical, but health reasons. And yet for me, it's the simplest way for me to practice. Self love is just like, oh, there's nothing, quote, unquote productive. It's not about my business. It's not about being the PTA mom and volunteering. It's just walking. And I come back home a better person every time I walk.

So beautiful. I also wanna circle back to something that you said about how people wake up and it's like Groundhog's Day, where they're like, oh, it's just another day, and the same outcome is gonna happen. Because that's what happened yesterday. You talk about in your book the difference between probability and possibility and how many people are living in the state of probability. And can you explain the difference and why? Because I see this so much in women that we work with that are tied to outcomes that they've had or lack of outcomes that they've had in the past with different diets and things like that, where there's almost like a limiting belief that's. That's holding them back from really being able to be successful long term. Because they're constantly thinking about, like, well, what if this doesn't work long term? Like the other things that I've tried?

It's really interesting the more that you study the science of this universe, because there is an infinite amount of possibility, and we typically only see based upon the evidence of what seems probable, right? But when JFK said, we're going to put a man on the moon, we had never done that before. So he was thinking from possibility, not from probability. Because if you looked at the probability and looked at the evidence of whether or not it had ever happened, I guess he'd come up with a probability of zero because it didn't seem likely at all. Except that every single day, the people who are changing the world are coming from the question of not what's probable, but what's possible. And then it's like, wow, right? Like my friend Amy Purdy, she lost her legs from the knees down because she had some. She contracted meningitis when she was 19. And when she went through ICU and almost died, and when she opened her eyes, the doctors were like, you lost your legs? And she said, well, I'm a snowboarder. When am I going to snowboard? The doctor said, well, I don't even know that you could snowboard, let alone walk. Like, you have to find your prosthetics and see if you can walk anyway. She wound up not only walking, but running and snowboarding. And then she was on Dancing with the Stars, and she created a possibility where now thousands and thousands of people who have the same sort of situation have seen that that's a possibility. She created that possibility. So we live Groundhog Day because if we're not conscious, if we're not aware of our mind, just because you think it doesn't make it true. Thoughts are not facts. They're just thoughts. And one of the Things you may have heard me say is that my mindfulness teacher used to say that the ocean is a lot like us. If you looked out at the ocean and you were describing the ocean, a lot of people would say, if you're playing the game taboo and you're trying to get someone to guess the word ocean, you might say waves. Right, waves. The ocean. The top level of the ocean is always very choppy. It's very frenetic. Right? But that actually doesn't describe the ocean because the top level of the. Think about how vast the ocean is. There's more water on the earth than earth, Right? So if you go down into the ocean, five, five feet, is it still or choppy? Still. What if you go down 100ft? Are there waves? 100, right. There are places in the ocean you can go down miles. Think about how still that is. It's like glass. So we identify with our mind, which is the most superficial aspect of us, when within us there's a tremendous amount of stillness and peace and equanimity. So most of the time we keep identifying with these thoughts, right? Well, the waves are constantly reacting to the weather. They're constantly reactive. So the mind is constantly reactive. The text that just got sent, the thing that your mother in law said. But the wisdom within you is not reactive. It's responsive. And it comes from the part of you within you that is really lasting and timeless and has the real compass and charts for you to follow. So it's just. Yes, most people live Groundhog Day because they're not even witnessing these thoughts. They're just buying them all as facts. And every thought makes you feel a certain way. So every single thought. Talk about health for a second. Every thought creates a chemical response on a cellular level, so your cells feel what you think. So if you're thinking and feeling and thinking and feeling, and it's constantly coming from these unconscious thoughts, most of those are stressful. So having some capacity to return to the soul within you, to return to the ocean within you, is going to calm down those thoughts, which will now create serotonin instead of dopamine, or, sorry, instead of cortisol. And dopamine is a whole separate thing that we could talk about. People are addicted to dopamine, which is like that little high, right? But the reason people have ever talked about mushrooms, and I've never done mushrooms, but I know that people say that they enjoy the experience, why it increases your serotonin. So what does it mean? It means that you have an expanded view of reality. Well, guess what? Meditation does that. Guess what? Breath work does that. So you could actually be your own drug, right? Without mushrooms. You could increase your serotonin, which means you can forget dopamine. You can have an expanded sense of possibility, an expanded sense of reality. And you can do that without taking psilocybin. You can do that by dropping into that essence of that, that energy within you, that ocean within you, by breathing, by witnessing the mind, by returning to the I am. Everything that we're talking about, having a morning practice, it returns you to the idea that the way you think and feel, which is mostly on a loop, it's like a screensaver that keeps repeating, keeps spitting out one probability. When you move into the depth of what really exists right now, this present moment where all possibilities exist, all of a sudden the serotonin increases. All of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, it is possible, right? And I don't have to keep thinking and feeling and thinking and feeling the exact same hamster wheel that I lived yesterday.

And you're speaking too, to the science of neuroplasticity, right? Like the brain's ability to adapt and use these feel good hormones that you're able to increase in order to have that reinforcement that you're moving in the right direction. So much of it is about leaning into those feelings so that you can continue to rewire how your brain is actually wired, right?

Also, I think part of all of this is to remember that let's say you want to be healthier, you want to get your cholesterol down, you want to lose 10 pounds, you want to have more energy in your body and not be so fatigued at 4:15 in the afternoon. Whatever is the outcome, we have to change the identity in order to get that outcome. Because every single outcome in our life is a result of who we're being, right? People are always saying to me, what do I need to do? And you can do a lot of things, but the, the things you're doing, those habits don't usually stick until you change the identity. So James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, he was on my show and I said to him, what's the most important of the habits? I was like, you know which one? If I had to pick one? And he said, you know, people used to ask me that and I didn't know which one. And he said, but now that I've had this conversation and I've been, you know, really sitting with it, I do know which one. And you know what he actually said? It's related to identity. He said the most important habit is who you spend time with because you become, you become the people you spend the most time with. And the identity of who you believe you are is what will make you stick to a habit or spit it out. So for instance, he says, let's say you want to lose weight, but the five people you spend the most time with watch video games, you know, play video games and eat pizza. The identity of who you're going to keep becoming and who you're going to keep telling yourself you are is. It's going to be really hard for you to take on those habits. However, if you are spending time with people who reflect to you that same similar identity and everybody drinks non alcoholic wine and people have really high conscious conversations and everyone's sort of on a journey to be the most intentional and live the highest version of themselves, you're going to keep reinforcing. This is who I am. I'm a high conscious, healthy person and therefore of course I get my steps in and of course I make time to sit and meditate because it's more important than three extra hours of work. I could get more by just slowing down. Right? Slowing down is my speeding up. It's really interesting. So when we're trying to have specific goal happen, whatever said specific goal is, the most important thing fundamentally is really claiming and choosing the identity. For instance, if I asked you, did you smoke today? Did you smoke a cigarette today?

I have not.

Do you think you'll smoke one tomorrow?

I do not.

Why?

It's not even a part of my consciousness or my subconsciousness. There's, there's no desire because you have.

The identity of a non smoker.

Yes.

And I don't think you hang out with most, most people you hang out with probably are not gathering together and smoking cigarettes.

I don't know. I don't know one that does.

Right. So similarly, like I'm probably not gonna like, oopsie, speak a lot of gossip today or post something nasty about a person on because I don't identify as a, as doing that and I don't hang around with people who do. I wouldn't be comfortable. Right. Like you and I share some mutual friends, you know. That's true. We have way better things to do than sit around and talk crap about other people. It wouldn't be interesting, kind of. It'd be like a boring waste of a night. Right. So it's an identity. It's an identity. So similarly, like I'm probably not gonna eat a bunch of processed food today. Really, I'm not. Right. Why? Because, I don't know, I identify as a mostly healthy person. Like, I wouldn't say I'm perfect, but I just. Like, there are certain things. I'm not gonna drive through McDonald's today. You know what I mean? Like, I just probably won't. Haven't done that in a really long time. Unless we're on some road trip and my kids are dying for a snack and I get them french fries or something or an ice cream cone, but I'm not going to get a happy meal for them, you know what I mean? So. And my friends don't either. How is that? Well, birds of a feather, right? And it's a reinforcement constantly, because every conversation, right, we're all reinforcing the identity. So then it's easier to pick up certain habits because that's the kind of thing that goes with the identity that I. We want to be in congruence with. We want to be congruent with who we tell ourselves that we are. And so some of this is, what's the identity? How do you. How do you think about who you are and who do you. And who do you hang out with? And what I mean is, let's say we want to be healthier, but unconsciously, we're constantly telling ourselves that we don't follow through or we're not worth it, or deep down, we believe that it's not safe to be looked at because maybe we have a belief that if people took notice of us, they'd be unsafe. So we won't let ourself get thin because we don't want the attention, because attention equals fear. And we might have friends who unconsciously think the same thing. Does that make sense?

It makes so much sense. It makes so much sense. I mean, you're speaking to so much of. I have a few things. One is, I joined Masterminds this year for the first time because of just, you know, like, obviously, you know, it's hard as a business owner when you are passionate about what you teach to. Not necessarily. I mean, you teach obviously people how to make more money and things of that nature. But for me, I don't have really any friends that are business owners. And in this Mastermind, what I. I thought that I was joining to, like, get the tools and the hacks and, like, what I've realized is that you could look at, like, the. The actual outcomes where people are looking to, like, lose the 10 pounds or improve their cholesterol or some of the things that you talked about. And what they miss that I have found is that it's not necessarily hacks, but it's about the subtle shifts in what you're talking about, what you believe is possible for you in the way that you're thinking and seeing other people do something that you're like, huh? If she can do it that way, like, maybe I could too. And I feel like people miss the magic of those subtle, like, transformations that are happening in your identity and the way that your brain starts to shift that eventually can lead to the improvements in the 10 pounds or the cholesterol, but it shifts who you are as a person. And I feel like so often, often people miss that, and they. They then give up too soon because they're not able to recognize those shifts that are happening in their mind where they're like, oh, I'm. I've only lost £4, you know, so. Oh, so maybe it's not worth all the effort that I'm putting in to only lose the £4.

So it's. It's really fascinating. One example that I think is interesting that kind of shows what we're talking about. There was a NBA player a lot of people know who follow basketball. I'm not such a basketball fan, but I know a little bit of basketball. His name was Pete Maravich. People call him Pistol Pete. And he died relatively young. I think he was, like, late 40s, early 50s. And he died playing pickup basketball. He had a heart attack on a playground, like, playing, like, regular basketball. When they did the autopsy, they found out that this guy had one of the ventricles in his heart was, like, collapsed. And he shouldn't have lived past the age of, like, 11 without massive heart surgery. But because he didn't know, he didn't identify as a sick kid. So his parents, without knowing that he actually was walking around with, like, a ticking time bomb, they didn't put the consciousness in the identity of, like, wait, it's not safe. You shouldn't play basketball. You should. I know the guy, like, went into basketball fully, like, star of his high school, drafted into the NBA, Unbelievable NBA player, played an amazing, you know, all through his career and died with a smile on his face at a. On a playground. They said that in the time he was born, they didn't even have the science to be able to fix what he had in the. When he was growing up in the, like, 60s and 70s. So they would have probably just said that he should abstain from playing sports. But because he didn't have the awareness he didn't walk around. No one said to him, you're a sick kid. You need to. You know. He just lived fully. He lived longer than they said he ever should have lived and played in the NBA, like, was the biggest athlete he could ever have been. Okay? So the consciousness, the identity of what you tell yourself about who you are and what's possible is 100% responsible for your results, right? And so we don't recognize it. It's so unconscious, right, what the identity is. But so many people sabotage themselves because they don't even believe that. You know, I was talking to a friend the other day, and she said, no matter what, I. You know, if I'm dating someone for a few weeks, somehow or another, you know, she's turning 50 this year. She goes, I'm not in a relationship. And she goes, and somehow or another, when it comes to career, I'm still not making enough money to really support myself. This is the truth, she said. And she goes, when it comes down to it, she said, there's something about having the joy I want. I feel like the shoe's gonna drop. So it's like I sabotage it somehow. Because she said, the fear is. She said, when my parents were doing the best they had ever done, right? Her parents looked as though they were happy, and her father, you know, was making more money than ever. A year later, her father wound up cheating, having an affair, and everything fell apart. And, you know, they. They lost basically everything that they had in so many ways. She lost her relation with her father. Her parents had no money all of a sudden, and her father kind of, like, abandoned the family for this, like, younger woman. And she's like. I think on some level, my mom, like, I watched her go from thinking everything was, like, really good to having the rug pulled out from under her. So she's like, I think happiness seems dangerous. Wow. So she's like, I feel like maybe I'm better off by. And so she's like, I. You know, she's like, I'm a size 12, and I. I'd rather be a size 6. And she's like, but I'm not. And I'm turning 50. And she's like. And I. I'd. Yeah, I'd, of course, be able to love, to be able to own my own condo or home, you know, or have gotten married or had children. But she's like, there's something so scary about happiness because it could all be taken away. So when we don't get to the root of these stories that we Keep reliving. So you could tell her, go on the dating app. You know, wear this thing. You could tell her, we will go back to whatever feels like our identity. Which is why when somebody grows up feeling poor, it's very hard for them, right? If they have the identity of someone who's poor, they're always stressed about money, right? In fact, they say one of the greatest indications that a kid will grow up to be wealthy is just being around wealthy people because they just have a high standard of. It just is. It's like, same thing with women, right? Like, women who grew up seeing a mother treated well. That's their standard. Then. Then we all know a friend who's beautiful and kind. She keeps choosing a guy who treats her like garbage. You're like, how are you even entertaining this as a relationship? It's like the identity she has is, this is normal or this. It's. It's not because she's not as pretty as your other friend who is treated better. It's. It's a unconscious belief in what's possible, what she deserves, right? So, yes, whatever we want to look for, the evidence to find, we'll find it. So if we want to start showing ourselves what is possible, maybe we start to say, like, this friend of mine I was just talking about, I can find evidence of people who are happy and. And everything's okay, right? I actually could, if I wanted to. I could probably think about a few people I know who. They do live really nice lives and everything's okay and no one's cheated and no one's left. And maybe that exists. And maybe I could let myself feel safe enough to let that in. Or, oh, maybe. Maybe it's not so scary to let myself be beautiful. I remember, for me, I'll just tell you this one thing as it relates to weight loss, I wrote about in my book. I had a season in my life where I started making more money than I'd ever made, and I didn't want to not be liked. I felt unrelatable. Like, there was something about it. Like, oh, people might not like you if you have money. I don't know where it came from, but it's a belief that I must have gathered from growing up. By the way, that's not a hard belief because it's in every movie, right? They'll make rich kids nasty, and they'll make whatever. Even though you can think of evidence of plenty of rich people who are kind, and you can think of people who are poor who are doing horrible things and Vice versa. There's wealthy people who do horrible things, and there's poor people who are really kind. I mean, it has nothing to do with money. It has to do with love and integrity and kindness and intention and all of that. But I put on weight that year, and I remember a friend saying to me, do you know that you just said something you don't know that you said? I go, what? She goes, you just said, yeah. I mean, I'm making money, but look at me. I mean, I'm not perfect. And, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm a little bit overweight. And she goes, why'd you just say that? I go, I didn't even know I did. She goes, you. You say that all the time. I go, I do. She goes, yeah, it's kind of like a badge of honor for you that, like, I don't know. She goes, it's neutral for me. I don't care what you weigh. She goes, but you. You mention it all the time, like it's. It makes you relatable or something. Why do you say that? Do you need to justify that you're not perfect so I won't hate you? I go, oh, my God. That's exactly what it is. I go, I think of it like, I was always the nice girl in high school. I was vulnerable, I was sweet. I. I'm genuine, right? And I used to think about, like, the mean girls, and some of the mean girls, they looked perfect, like plastics, right? Like, you know, they just look like Barbie dolls. And they didn't seem as nice and genuine, right? And I thought to myself, I think maybe now that I have this fancy lifestyle, I needed to kind of, like, compensate by putting on some weight so that. Okay, so I have a fancy lifestyle, but I don't look sexy, too, because that would make me really not relatable. And she's like, kathy, people don't relate to you from how much money you have or not. It has to do with, like, your energy. Like, you're either a loving, nice person and you're not. You either have RBF or you don't. Like, if I'm sitting in a room with someone at a dinner party, I don't evaluate how sexy they are or how much money they have. It's like, is this person a nice person to sit next to? And she's like, you're nice. Like, people will get that. You're nice. It doesn't matter. You could have a zillion dollars or no dollars. Like, you're just a good person. And she goes, and you could be a size 2 or a size 12. Everyone likes you. I was like, she goes, so maybe stop saying that. And literally, as soon as she said that, within three months, I had lost, like, 20 pounds because I was like, I'm holding on to weight because I. I want to be relatable. I want people to like me. I'm like, that's ridiculous. Like, my weight is completely irrespective of whether or not I have good values or whether or not I deserve to be someone's friend. Has nothing to do with what my scale says about my body. So I could let that go. And you know what? Now, I mean, for those of you who you know, some of you know me, some of you don't know me. Like, I've been dressing, like, extra sexy now.

I've noticed. I love it.

That's the thing. It's like, people are like, oh, my God, keep going with that. Like, do more of that. And I realize, oh, my God, it's true. Like, when I see JLO or Kim Kardashian, like, in her skin, just, like, giving herself that. Like, hell, yes. Like, yes, I want to let myself fully thrive. It makes me feel more alive. And I realized I was denying other people that feeling that by shutting. Shutting that valve off in myself, thinking somehow I'm doing a favor to somebody by not living fully, right? And nobody has said, you know, you're. You're just not as nice anymore. It's like, I think I'm even more nice because I'm happier, you know? So it's all really interesting. It really is. But once we get into a place where we feel safe to thrive, we feel safe to be healthy, we feel safe to have all the. All the possibilities, we will then follow through on the behaviors that need to happen because we won't sabotage them. But if we don't feel safe to be healthy and thin and wealthy and all those things, it doesn't matter that our nutritionist gives us four simple steps. We just won't do them. Because at the end of the day, it would mean having this outcome that doesn't feel safe to have, right? And it's like, if you don't feel that that's safe, you're not going to allow yourself to have it. So it goes back to the identity, and it goes back to what? What is the identity story you're telling yourself? What is it keeping you safe from? Right? And the truth of the matter is, no one gets out of this alive, right? That's the real thing is like, you may as well live fully because you have this dot of a time on this planet. And what if a lot is possible? And what if you really can feel good and you don't have to justify it? And what if certain actions are simple and they will work only if you let them work because you're allowing yourself to thrive and you're done living in the loop of Groundhog's Day and you're ready to say, there is an infinite amount of possibility in this incredible, mesmerizing world, and I'm going to allow myself to change the identity and to step into a higher dimension of myself. And then what's going to happen? Everything. Everything.

Kathy, I am so incredibly grateful for you coming on the Being Bridget show today and dropping all of this genius. I would highly recommend that for women who are like, I got so much out of this time to read your book because I feel like your book goes through. I mean, so many incredible insights. You just released the soft. What is it called?

Not the paperback.

The paperback version of it as well, so everyone can read your book Abundant Ever after, and then can you tell them where they can find you?

So I have a membership which sends you like a daily meditation. And also I do like live zoom classes, and it's really, really affordable and fun. I also have. If you do buy the book, there's some free resources@kathy heller.com book my podcast is free and comes out once or twice a week, the Kathy Heller Podcast. And I am on Instagram usually every day posting things that I think could be helpful. Athy Heller, Yeahathy Heller.

And we'll include all the links, obviously, in the show notes on YouTube and in the podcast.

Amazing.

Kathy, thank you so much for being on the Being Bridget show. And we will see you soon.

Thank you.