What if the law of attraction actually keeps us from abundance?
That’s the question I asked Cathy Heller at the start of our conversation, and her answer shifted how I think about everything I thought I knew about manifestation.
For years, I watched myself receive money and then push it away as fast as possible. Whether it was a good job at a startup or my first really good launch, the pattern was always the same. The money would come, and I’d immediately get rid of it. Not because I was generous or abundant, but because on some level, I didn’t believe I deserved to have it.
I wasn’t lacking abundance. I was rejecting it in real time.
Cathy spent three years in Jerusalem studying Kabbalah, and what she learned there completely reframes how we think about getting what we want. The law of attraction, she says, keeps us stuck in the energy of lack—always reaching for something outside ourselves. The law of reception? That’s about tuning into what’s already here.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Cathy breaks down why the law of attraction doesn’t work and why the law of reception does. This isn’t surface-level manifestation advice. This is Kabbalistic teaching about oneness, and it explains why your inability to receive isn’t about worthiness. It’s about believing you’re separate from everything else.
You’ll understand why reception is immediate while attraction keeps you in a constant state of chasing. Why money circulation actually proves we’re all connected. And how the “almost list” you’ve been carrying is actually a form of self-betrayal that’s keeping you from the life you say you want.
Why the Law of Reception Matters Right Now
We’re living in a time where everyone’s obsessed with manifesting, attracting, calling things in. But most of us are tuned to static while the music plays all around us.
Cathy uses this radio metaphor to explain reception, and it landed so hard for me. A radio doesn’t attract music. It receives frequencies that are already broadcasting. Right now, in the room you’re sitting in, there are hundreds of songs playing. You just can’t hear them because you’re not tuned in.
The law of attraction makes you feel like you need to do something, be something, fix something before abundance can find you. The law of reception says it’s already here. You just need to change the station.
About Cathy Heller
Cathy Heller is the host of the Kathy Heller podcast and author of Abundant Ever After. After college, she went to Jerusalem for what was supposed to be three weeks and stayed for three years, studying Kabbalah with rabbis who taught her that the word “Kabbalah” literally means “to receive.”
Her work focuses on helping people—especially women—understand why they struggle to receive and how to shift from the energy of lack into the energy of abundance. Her podcast has over 50 million downloads, and her teaching on reception versus attraction has changed how thousands of people approach their relationship with money, success, and their own worthiness.
Key Insights from Cathy Heller
You’re a Radio, Not a Magnet
Cathy’s rabbi explained it like this: a radio is also called a receiver. If you turned on a radio right now, you’d suddenly hear music. Where was the music before? It was here the whole time, hidden in plain sight.
The law of reception works the same way. Everything you want is already here. You’re not attracting it from somewhere else. You’re tuning into a frequency that’s been broadcasting this whole time. The question isn’t “how do I get abundance?” The question is “what station am I tuned to?”
If your life feels like a love song, you’re tuned into the divine. If it feels like anything else, you’re listening to static.
Reception Requires Knowing You’re One
Here’s what hit me hardest in this conversation. Cathy said people usually have a hard time receiving when they don’t know they’re one.
When you understand oneness—that every wave is connected to every other wave, that you’re not separate from anything else—you stop receiving for yourself alone. You receive on behalf of the collective.
If you paint your house, your neighbor’s house just went up in value. If you plant a cherry tree, you just created the possibility of 10,000 other cherry trees because of all those seeds. Oneness is oneness.
I’ve carried guilt around money for years. The more I had, the less I thought someone else could have. But Cathy flipped that completely. The more you receive, the more the whole world gets. Because we’re one.
Money Is Circulation, Not Accumulation
This is where it gets practical. Cathy explains that the word “currency” comes from “current”—like a circuit, like blood in the body. Money is meant to move.
Even if you’re not writing checks to charity, if you put money in the bank, it’s being circulated. It’s paying someone’s college tuition. It’s funding mortgages. People are buying cars because your money is in the system, moving.
Money is like blood in the body. If blood gets stuck, we’ve got a problem. Money’s got to move.
For me to not receive, the world receives less. That sentence rewired something in my brain. Every time I pushed money away because I felt guilty or unworthy, I wasn’t being humble. I was blocking circulation.
The Almost List Is Self-Betrayal
At the end of our conversation, I asked Cathy for a weekly challenge, and what she said stopped me cold.
Make a list of everything on your almost list.
Did you almost set boundaries last year, but didn’t? Did you almost keep your word about your health, but stopped going to the gym? Did you almost decide you mattered enough to take your mornings back, but just gave up on it?
Your almost list isn’t procrastination. It’s self-betrayal.
I had to sit with that for a while. Because I’ve been calling it “not the right time” or “I’ll get to it eventually.” But Cathy named it for what it actually is. Every time I almost do the thing I know I need to do and then don’t, I’m betraying myself.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Reception
Here’s what most people don’t want to hear: you can’t receive what you think you don’t deserve.
I spent years wondering why abundance wasn’t coming to me. But when I finally looked at my patterns, I realized it was coming. I was just rejecting it the second it arrived. Compliments, help, money—I had this deep story that I wasn’t worthy of any of it.
Technically, I received that money. But I immediately pushed it away.
Reception isn’t about getting more. It’s about allowing yourself to have what’s already here. And most of us have spent our entire lives practicing rejection instead.
Cathy talks about how women especially struggle with this. We watched our mothers not receive. We watched our grandmothers not receive. And we learned that receiving means you’re selfish, greedy, too much.
But what if receiving is actually how you serve? What if the more you allow yourself to have, the more everyone else gets to have too?
Quotes That Hit Different
“Many people think they need a miracle and they think a miracle is something changing outside of them. It’s something changing within you because when your reception changes, all of a sudden you perceive a new possibility that was waiting for you to perceive it.” — 02:00
This is the shift. You’re not waiting for circumstances to change. You’re changing your ability to perceive what’s already available.
“People usually have a hard time receiving when they don’t know they’re one. Because if you understand that you’re one, you don’t receive for the self alone. You receive on behalf of the collective to rise to thrive.” — 03:45
Every story I told Cathy about my relationship with money was a story about not being one. The guilt I felt about having more was actually me not understanding that my abundance contributes to everyone else’s.
“The word currency comes from the word current. It means to be constantly moving like a current, like a circuit.” — 06:07
Money isn’t meant to be held. It’s meant to flow. And when you receive it, you’re putting it back into circulation whether you realize it or not.
“What is on the almost list that you know is self betrayal? I would immediately make a commitment to myself that I’m going to practice not betraying myself anymore.” — 46:40
This is the challenge that will change everything if you actually do it.
How to Apply This in Your Life
Start by checking what station you’re tuned to. If your life feels like static—stress, scarcity, struggle—you’re not on the wrong path. You’re just tuned to the wrong frequency.
Cathy recommends taking the first 10 minutes of your morning to prime your mind. Don’t look at your phone. Don’t dive into stress. Sit with tea, look at nature, and tune yourself to the frequency you actually want to live on.
Then make your almost list. Write down everything you almost did but didn’t. Everything you know you should do but keep putting off. Look at that list and ask yourself: where am I betraying myself?
Finally, practice receiving. Not just money. Everything. Compliments, help, rest, abundance in all forms. Notice when you deflect, minimize, or push away. That’s the moment you’re rejecting what’s already here.
Resources from This Episode
- Cathy Heller’s podcast: The Kathy Heller Podcast
- Cathy’s book: Abundant Ever After
- Cathy on Instagram: @cathy.heller
- Related Mind Love episode: [Episode on Oneness and Collective Consciousness]
- Related Mind Love episode: [Episode on Money Mindset and Worthiness]
Take This Work Deeper
If you’re ready to stop living on your almost list and start practicing reception instead of rejection, join us in the Mind Love Collective. We meet monthly for themed calls where you get coached through whatever you’re navigating. It’s the kind of intimate community where breakthroughs actually happen. All the details at mindlove.com/join.
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