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Kathy Heller
What if the next level of money
in your life is not about doing more, but about allowing more? This Friday, April 10th, I'm going live with Kate Norther for a really honest conversation about money, ease and the kind of support most of us were never taught how to receive. Because so many people are successful on paper, but behind the scenes, it feels like they're carrying everything on their own. And the truth is, more money doesn't automatically create more ease, but learning how to receive and sustain that changes everything.
If you're ready for money to feel
lighter and more supportive and more aligned with the life you actually want, I'd
love for you to join us.
You can save your spot@kathy heller.com katecall it's going to be a beautiful conversation and it's free. I can't wait to see you there.
Hey guys, it's Kathy Heller. Welcome back to Everything Is Energy. So I wanted to just say to you that money blocks aren't really about money. They're about whether you feel safe being powerful. Because the version of you who has money isn't just wealthier. She's more expressed. She's more visible. She's more decisive. She has standards. She says no. She takes up space. And if your system is still associating that with risk or with being judged or being rejected or being too much, you're going to unconsciously hold yourself back and call it a money problem.
But it's not.
It's an invitation into a new identity. And the shift is this. You start letting it be safe to be fully you. You start trusting your own decisions. You stop shrinking to make others comfortable. And from there, money doesn't feel like something you have to chase. It becomes something that you become available for. So today I want to share a piece of a conversation that I had with my friend Kate Northrup about what it really takes to feel abundant and to let yourself have it and how to be more aware of where you're unknowingly blocking yourself and from the flow of money. We're also going to talk about the actual strategy of hitting bigger money or business goals, which is wiring your nervous system for safety and ease around receiving. I think you're going to get so much out of this. And if you want more, Kate and I are going to go live today on Zoom at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern. It's free. You can join us if you want to be there. You can also get the replay. Just sign up@kathyheller.com Kate Call okay, let's get into this Episode. Here we go.
So we are going to have a juicy conversation about what it means to fully be in abundance and fully allow ourselves to have. And before we go into like, what are the mechanisms that allow us to do that, I just think you are one of the really expert genius souls at helping us first just like identify what we might not even notice is happening. Like first help us identify where we might actually be blocking it, or we might actually be unconsciously like stuck in Groundhog Day and we just think this is everybody's normal. Like help us identify what sometimes happens. And you and I have both, I think, taken ourselves out of that pit and brought ourselves out. So it's not like we're any stranger to it. But what, what do you know about what can happen when we get sort of the needle off the record? What does it feel like? What does it look like? How do we know when that's happening? And how do we get the needle back on the record?
Kate Northrup
Such a great question. So what's very tricky is that when the needle gets off the record, it's hard to identify sometimes because it actually feels very normal and it feels like home. So for most of us, we grew up in an environment like where we come from, wherever we come from as souls, the needle is in the groove. Like we are in the pocket. The music is playing, it's like super beautiful and bliss. Anybody who's read near death experiences accounts, like, knows that the consistent truth that people tell us who have gone to the other side and come back is that the feeling of unbelievable love and abundance is the common ingredient. And these, you know, near death experiences, people haven't like compared notes, right? Like they all report this independently. So that is true of who we are. That is true of who we are. The minute we come in as a newborn and then we get soaked in the soup of our childhood environments and our bodies develop in response to the way that soup feels. And that soup is just informing our bodies, our brains, our nervous system, all of our wiring about what it means to be alive and how to survive in that environment. And, and so that's super great when you're a child and you don't have a lot of agency and like you have to create these adaptive strategies to keep yourself safe. And they're wonderful. Whether that was going into a freeze response, whether that was fawning, whether that was hiding, whether that was going into a full on fight, there's all these adaptive responses that are required to survive the environment. And then we leave the environment and the world opens up to us, and we actually have infinite possibilities, but we're wired for the way to respond to the environment we grew up in. And so even though having our needle on the record and, like, being in full resonance is completely available to us, what feels like home is having our needle off the record. And it doesn't feel good, but it feels normal and certainly familiar. And there's a level at which familiar. Again, it doesn't feel good, but it feels like home. So I just want to start off there, and then we can go further.
Kathy Heller
I just need to say I'm so grateful to know you. I'm so grateful you're in the world. And that is such a. A juicy response to that question. And you've come into my life and really helped me name and identify that. Right. The addiction to the struggle, the addiction to the pressure, because it feels familiar. That feels like a safe, familiar, cozy blanket.
Kate Northrup
Totally.
Kathy Heller
And I love that you geek out on science and understand and love understanding more about our nervous systems and how you've developed your own program, relaxed money, and how you really help people pair together what is happening on a level of safety. What feels physically okay and what's happening in our bank account. And how those two things go together because you go so deep. I feel like when I talk to Kate, it's like the difference between, like, going and getting a massage, which can be great depending on the masseuse, and, like, having deep fascia work in physical therapy. And, like, getting to the root of, like, oh, this is where I'm out of alignment. I remember once I had a horrible. I was sitting in the back of a Jeep in college, and I'm going to date myself. It was 1998. Only reason I remember this night so well is since we were on our way to watch a fight. The Mike Tyson, he bit some guy's ear. I don't know. That was the night. Like I cared. I just wanted.
Kate Northrup
I remember that.
Kathy Heller
Yeah, there was, like, a hot guy at the party I wanted to meet. Anyways, I was sitting in the backseat. We flipped over in a Jeep Cherokee on a freeway. Such a miracle that I'm, like, sitting here. Just broke my jaw, which now you're going to, like, never be able to not look at my jaw the same way.
I know.
Anyway. And I remember, like, my neck, everything. Like, I had a whole bunch of disc issues and everything. And it was later on that I finally found a chiropractor who put me back in alignment and then showed me a mirror. And I felt like I was Doing this. It felt so out of alignment.
Kate Northrup
Yes, yes.
Kathy Heller
I was like, what is this? And he had positioned my back and positioned my hips and positioned my jaw and said, now look in the mirror. And I was like, oh, I'm straight. But I felt so out of alignment. It was so weird. And he's like, no, this is home base. This is normal. And you're like, picasso, like, what are you doing over here? Let's move you back. And so I had to go through all these exercises. I had to go through all these things to sort of relearn, right. How to be in actual alignment, which felt so off and so weird. And I feel like the work that you help us to do on a somatic level, on a brain, heart connecting level, it's the same work. It's like chiropractic.
Kate Northrup
So financial chiropractic?
Kathy Heller
Yes. It's like you're the financial chiropractor, so say more and help us. Like, you're the only one, by the way, that I know. I mean, I know a lot of really cool. You're the one who, like, says this, like, gas the needle off the record is actually going to disguise itself as this feels good. This feels familiar, and it feels okay, even though it's. The feeling okay is like static. It's like in the movie the Blues Brothers when he goes, the train comes by so often I don't even notice it. 100% L train. It's like your version of chaos. Your nervous system is like, great, this is perfect. And then if I move you into something that feels like ease, you're like, this is so terrifying. What are you doing to me to put me in a quiet ranch in BlackBerry Mountain, Tennessee, when I could be in New York City with the whistling and the howling, thinking, that's a good night's sleep does everyone get.
Kate Northrup
You're articulating this so perfectly, Kathy, and I'm so glad you brought up that chiropractor example. I got full body chills because I used to go to this amazing, like, healer, Pilates lady, and I would lie down on the table and she would put me straight and same. I would feel like.
Kathy Heller
Like this.
Kate Northrup
And she would be like, no, this is spinal alignment. And I'd be like, what? How is that possible? So anyway, the thing is, our nervous system and our brain are part of the same system. They're talking to each other constantly. And they really are responsible for what's happening subconsciously and what's happening unconsciously. And so we want to have them supporting our dreams as opposed to what they do by default, which is not supporting our dreams. Because everything we want around money, around abundance, around our businesses, around everything, is something that largely we've never had before. And many times our ancestors have never had it. And most of our friends and family have not had it either. And so, according to our nervous system and our brain, everything we want is a complete and total threat. Which is why when I was talking to somebody unbelievably successful the other day who has a business who does, like, six times the revenue, mine does or something, maybe not that much, but, like, so much bigger we were discussing. And I want to bring this example up because I. What I'm highlighting is that making more money does not solve this problem that I'm about to say. But I am going to tell you what does, because the illusion that we have out there is just banging this drum of if you just make enough money, all your stress will go away. Kathy, you and I can both attest that that ain't the truth, but what can solve it is something else. I'm going to get there. And it's related to money. So I was talking to this person and they were describing how if their revenue were to go down to a certain amount, they would actually feel awful. And there would be. There was, like. When they imagined that, there was like, a deep PA and almost like a feeling of, I'm gonna die. So what happens is we hit these big goals, we go after them, and maybe on the external, we actually hit them. And then we bring ourselves back to what feels like home. Through all sorts of ways, we might be able to keep the revenue there, but, like, maybe we spend just as much so that it never feels like there's more. Or maybe we just keep working, working, working, working, because we can't stand to be in the stillness, because the stillness feels like a threat to our survival, literally. So we have to really get it that our brains and nervous systems are wired to keep us in the narrow band of what we have experienced before. And that's tricky when what you desire in your life, you've not experienced before. But what do we do about it? Well, Kathy, you actually put this piece in your book, which it was actually hilarious. I don't know if I shared this with you, but when I was reading the advanced copy of your book, I was, like, spinning out about something having to do with money, because, just so you know, like, the work is never done, but you can get back a lot faster. So I'm reading your book and I'm like, in my little thing. And then I turn to the next page and it's like my friend Kate Northrup suggests, da, da, da, da. And I was like, wonderful. What was this advice?
Kathy Heller
Yes, it's me.
Kate Northrup
So the steps are, if we want to expand our capacity to go beyond the narrow band of familiar that feels like home, but doesn't necessarily feel good, what we need to do is instead of what most of us have been programmed to do, which is just go into solving mode. Like, how can I fix it? We go right into, well, how can I fix it? How can I put out a new Instagram strategy? How can I get a more high paying job? How can I make more sales? How can I get that house? Like, we go right into the how, which is very, like, ego 3D plane. And that's not where the magic happens, and that's not where abundance comes from.
Kathy Heller
It's so powerful. I mean, when I was studying mindfulness, we were talking about for years, like, mindfulness is awareness. So the awareness itself is the medicine, like, just becoming aware. Because as soon as you're aware of something you're doing that let's say you don't want to do, you'll stop. Like, the awareness is so powerful, right? It's most of the time, we're just like walking zombies. So the awareness here is so powerful because I just want to say a few things. You just said. If what we are desiring to experience, we haven't yet. Our friends haven't, our ancestors haven't. How on earth do you think that your nervous system registers it as safe? It is literally, I use this. Kate and I both have daughters, so I go back to the Disney princesses all the time. Because, you guys, please understand. I've been trapped inside of Moana for 12 years. Okay? It just keeps getting fast. Yeah. Anyway, no, it's beautiful.
Kate Northrup
It's beautiful.
Kathy Heller
It's great. But she wants to go beyond the reef. And all of her well meaning friends and family go, why on earth would you be so ludicrous and insane? A, you'll die. Death. Death awaits you. And B, aren't we good enough? Like, aren't we enough in a bag of chips? What do you what you need out there? It's good enough for us, right? And so she then has to face, can I go beyond the reef? And of course she does. But we all have this reef of what our ancestors, what our community, what our siblings didn't yet allow themselves to traverse. And the part of you that's really
loving and trying to protect you is
going to say, please don't do that. You'll die or you'll lose all your family and friends. And either way, this is just terrible news. Right? So stay on the island and don't move. Now, if that was a good answer, you'd be okay with that, but you're not okay with it because you were put here to go beyond the reef. Right? We're each hoping that on behalf of our ancestors, we're their answered prayer. And on behalf of our daughters and our kids and our friends, there is an ocean to cross and people wanting to cross behind where you shall now say there is a possibility. Okay, so you're way showing this, but I love that Kate is so anchored in really taking away the shame you feel because it is normal and it's very well scienced why you feel that way. Yeah, that doesn't make you weird. It actually makes your system mean it's working as it was intended to work. And then also you have a soul that's answering to a much higher authority. Right. And has a really big calling and is sitting here today because you do want to overcome. So Kate, keep going because I do think that it's so powerful and I want to hear you talk about, maybe even give us a little bit of your own story and how you went from what felt like the perfect familiar dance with money to what actually feels safe, even though it's unfamiliar to the past versions of yourself.
Kate Northrup
Totally. So good. I'm so glad you brought Moana in because that just makes it so. It's like so true. Right? The edge of the reef is our edge of our capacity. And so if you are feeling shame, guilt, limiting thoughts, limiting beliefs, fear, resistance of any kind as you come up against the edge. And it could include like being like, oh, easy for her to say, right? Like, judgment is actually a low grade fight response. So all of those are just. Yeah. Whoa. All of those are signs that your brain and nervous system is just like, I'm scared. Like all of your resistance is just a part of you that feels fear. And that wreath is exactly that. Like that's the edge. So I'm so glad you said that. And what I want to say, and I'll share my story in a minute, is that the solution does not come from just the mind. If it came from just like thinking about it. I mean, yes, awareness and bringing mindfulness is something different, but this is not just like you're going to sit down and come up with a strategy and like fix it all with your mind. That is not where transformation happens. The transformation in our subconscious happens when we include the body. So when we include the body, that's how we actually signal safety up at the edge of our range of capacity for what our system can actually tolerate as, like, oh, I'm safe here now. Like, even though I'm out here beyond the reef, look at me, I'm sailing. I've got my pig, I've got my chicken, or whoever is there, right? Like, we're okay here. We have to actually bring our body on the journey with us and inform our body, like, hey, actually, we are safe here. Look around, let's update you to know that. And that comes with metabolizing stress hormones and all these other things which we can talk about. But I'm going to tell my story because it kind of illustrates how it's done.
Kathy Heller
Perfect.
Kate Northrup
So 2021 is actually the year I met Ms. Kathy Heller. And also it is the year I moved to Miami under duress. So we were all experiencing a lot of things in 2021. It was like a really intense time. And it was the end of January and my husband had become incredibly ill for the second time. And he has dealt with something called Red man syndrome or tropical steroid withdrawal. That at that time, what was happening is he lost 40 pounds in one month and his skin was raw and peeling off over and over again. And I won't get any more into the details because it was awful and disgusting and like, beyond horrific. However, the people who he was working with for his healing said, if you would go to somewhere warm and humid, you'll heal faster. So we came to Miami because I had some community here. And suddenly overnight, not only did we have our whole life in Maine that we were paying for, now we had a full second life that we were paying for in Miami. And our Miami life was quite a bit more expensive. And we were fully one man down parenting fully one man down from an earning perspective. My husband's my business partner and I was in full on tremendous stress response. But here's what's really important, actually. My needle was off my record and it felt very familiar. It felt awful, but like home. And so I was in the loop of stress and pressure and I was in this sort of like, really shadowy, semi satisfying, in a really negative way loop. I was like, deep in resentment and I was like, if my husband could just make a bunch of money and get well, then I could finally exhale. But until he does xyz, I just have to, like, grip and work and power through and I'm gonna be really Marty while I do it. And so our therapist, God bless David, sat down with us on Zoom and he said, okay, Kate, I need you to close your eyes and imagine something for me. And what's powerful is visualization is the truth. Because what we receive in visualization is the truth. Because our bodies have zero sense of time. This is why Olympic athletes, NBA players, you know, all of these high performers use visualization for high performance, because they are literally training their pattern for their intended desired result. Because our body doesn't know the difference. If something happened in the past is happening currently, or we are imagining it happening in the future. It is a very powerful tool. So he had me go inside and he said, now I want you to imagine that Mike has just come home. And he says, okay, babe, I've just made $10 million. So now you don't need to work. You really don't need to do anything. And David said, how does your body feel? What's going on inside you? Not what do you think, how does your body feel? And I was so shocked by the response that I received, because the response that I received was a feeling of being dead inside and like flatlined. And I knew at that point that I was addicted to stress and pressure. And I was using stress and pressure and had been four years as my primary fuel source to feel alive. And the tricky thing was, at the same time I got some blood work back from my doctor and my functional medicine guy was like, okay, so here's the thing, your gas is broken and also your brakes, metabolically speaking, hormonally speaking, adrenal speaking, thyroid speaking, all of that. And so if you continue to operate in life the way you're operating, you will get very sick. And we had a two and a half year old and a five year old, and we were living far from family. And I was like, my girls aren't going to have anyone to take care of them if I get really sick. Like, I'm the only one available right now, so I better figure this out fast. And so I did a 90 day experiment which was designed by the coach therapist that and I share. And she was like, okay, for 90 days you're just going to practice something different. And I had a little menu that I made for myself. I said, okay, I'll either go into a certain amount into my savings, like we'll go a certain amount into the hole, or 90 days will have passed. So I have a stop gap, but this is good what I'm going to do. And for 90 days, every time I feel that stress and pressure, energy, that's like, okay, I'm going to launch this, this campaign. I'm going to sell this. I'm going to build this funnel. I'm going to do this thing on social media. I'm going to, like, do something to perform to make a result happen. Because it was all about, like, let me do a giant song and dance and write an inverse musical so that I can prove that it's okay that I've made this money and said let me do it while feeling a certain amount of stress. And so during that 90 days, my choices were when I felt that ramp up energy, I could choose to go scream into a pillow in the closet or call a friend and cry, or watch daytime television or go for a walk or go sit by the ocean and ask it what messages it had for me. So those were my choices on my menu. And after 90 days, I will say it was pretty darn painful. Like, it felt like I was dying every time I made that choice. Because our identities are wired into our neural patterning in our brain and body. When we do choose a different response to a stimulus, a part of us is dying. It's our old identity. So it felt like I was dying. It did not feel good. But at the end of 90 days, we had hit all of our financial goals, even though I thought that we were, like, going to end up on the street. So we had hit all of our financial goals and I now had a lived experience that stress and pressure were not required in order to be financially thriving.
Kathy Heller
So I hope you enjoyed that. Remember, you can join me and Kate live today at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern for a whole other discussion around receiving money with ease. And it's going to be so fun. And if you can't join us live, we'll send you the replay. So either way, go check it out. Go to kathyheller.com katecall all right, thanks for listening. Follow Everything is Energy wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's something you heard that really resonated, then please leave a rating and a review because it's the best way to support us and it helps other people find this show. We'll be back on Monday with another great episode. And in the meantime, I hope you have a beautiful weekend and I'll talk to you soon.
Podcast Summary: Everything Is Energy with Cathy Heller
Episode: How to Unblock Your Nervous System from Financial Abundance with Kate Northrup
Date: April 10, 2026
Guest: Kate Northrup
Host: Cathy Heller
This episode of Everything Is Energy explores the deep connection between our nervous system, subconscious beliefs, and our ability to receive and sustain financial abundance. Host Cathy Heller and guest Kate Northrup delve into how our early wiring for survival can unconsciously block the flow of abundance in our lives, and they share practical strategies for “rewiring” ourselves to create safety around receiving more. The conversation uniquely blends spiritual wisdom, neuroscience, personal storytelling, and humor to illustrate why so many people—themselves included—end up stuck in cycles of financial struggle, even when outwardly successful.
[00:50 - 01:21] Cathy Heller:
"The version of you who has money isn’t just wealthier. She’s more expressed. She’s more visible. She’s more decisive... And if your system is still associating that with risk or with being judged or being rejected or being too much, you’re going to unconsciously hold yourself back and call it a money problem."
[03:24 - 05:45] Kate Northrup:
"What feels like home is having our needle off the record. And it doesn’t feel good, but it feels normal and certainly familiar."
[06:29 - 08:54] Cathy Heller:
[10:04 - 13:28] Kate Northrup:
"Making more money does not solve this problem... The illusion that we have out there is just banging this drum of if you just make enough money, all your stress will go away. Kathy, you and I can both attest that that ain’t the truth."
[14:12 - 15:09] Cathy Heller:
"The awareness is so powerful because I just want to say a few things you just said. If what we are desiring to experience, we haven’t yet. Our friends haven’t, our ancestors haven’t... how on earth do you think that your nervous system registers it as safe?"
[15:13 - 17:34] Cathy Heller & Kate Northrup:
[17:35 - 19:30] Kate Northrup:
"The solution does not come from just the mind... The transformation in our subconscious happens when we include the body. So when we include the body, that’s how we actually signal safety up at the edge of our range of capacity."
"You’re the financial chiropractor."
- Cathy Heller (08:56)
“Making more money does not solve this problem... what can solve it is something else.”
- Kate Northrup (12:03)
“The awareness itself is the medicine, like just becoming aware... most of the time, we’re just like walking zombies.”
- Cathy Heller (14:12)
“If you are feeling shame, guilt, limiting thoughts, limiting beliefs, fear, resistance... those are all just signs that your brain and nervous system is just like, I’m scared.”
- Kate Northrup (17:35)
“Our identities are wired into our neural patterning. When we choose a different response... a part of us is dying. It’s our old identity.”
- Kate Northrup (25:32)
[19:30 - 26:17]
“I was addicted to stress and pressure and I was using stress and pressure... as my primary fuel source to feel alive.”
“It felt like I was dying every time I made that choice... But at the end of 90 days, we had hit all of our financial goals... I now had a lived experience that stress and pressure were not required in order to be financially thriving.”
“When the vessel expands, the Light can enter. And when the Light enters, what once felt impossible can unfold with the grace of a miracle.”
- Cathy Heller