Everyday Magic with Catherine Andrews

Catherine A. Wood  00:02

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to connect him to talk today. It’s so fun to Catherine’s who are both used to be based in DC, who are coaches for highly sensitive. Actually don’t know if your audience who your audiences we can hear more about that in a moment, but for highly sensitive folks.

Catherine Andrews  00:27

I know so many similarities, so many similarities.

Catherine A. Wood  00:29

So I, I’d love to invite you to share your pronouns and share a little bit with my audience about who you are.

Catherine Andrews  00:39

Yes, well, I’m Katherine Andrews, my pronouns are she her, and I live about 75 minutes west of Washington, DC, just right on the edge of Western Virginia, almost into West Virginia. And like you mentioned, I am a life coach for highly sensitive people, primarily women, but anybody who wants to come and learn from me, I welcome and I teach on almost everything and coach on almost everything. I am a life coach for people who are interested in overcoming fear, people pleasing perfectionism, I teach and coach on spirituality and magic, which I know we might talk about a little bit today. I do some business coaching here and there. And yeah, just another human in trying to navigate this imperfect but beautiful life, doing the best I can, sharing my wisdom along the way.

Catherine A. Wood  01:27

I love you know, one thing I’ve appreciated we’ve so we’ve known each other. I know, we’ve talked about this, but I think I think we connected when you were just starting your coaching journey. Is that the best? Correct, right?

Catherine Andrews  01:41

We knew each other a little bit. I think we had some friends in common in Washington, DC. And you know, it’s one of those things where like you said, there’s two Katherine’s with the see you you started your coaching and your business? Well, before I did, so I looked up to you like, across the pages of Instagram as a role model for me because I was in the corporate world for almost 20 years and terrified to make that leap. And you know, you were in the government in Washington, DC. I was in sort of a corporate communications role for many years in Washington, DC and had a lot of fear about becoming an entrepreneur, I had no models for entrepreneurship, I had no experience in starting a business. I had been an English and journalism major. And the idea of finances and running my own business is very scary to me. But I saw you who claimed it you know yourself as a highly sensitive person and Empath starting a business being successful at it. And I was like, Okay, this is the this is the expander that I need. So I had known about you a little bit in DC, but I don’t think we really connected more and more one on one till recently.

Catherine A. Wood  02:44

Yeah. Well, I you know, I mean, I think I don’t you’ve showed up in my feed, maybe because we have similar markets. And I think something I’ve appreciated, even just watching your journey from the sidelines is how much you’ve manifested what you want it, you know, like you’ve really declared and fulfilled on so much of what you set out to do from attracting a romantic partner into your life. Like I remember seeing about that seeing about that several years ago, to moving outside of the city to just so many aspects of it. So I guess I’m, I guess, like, I would love to hear you how maybe to just to start there, like what your relationship to manifesting and and maybe we can, yeah, maybe we’ll start with manifesting. And then we can weave into magic because I know that’s something that you really love incorporating into business. And I’m so curious to hear more.

Catherine Andrews  03:42

Yes, and I hope it’s so of service to your audience, the prosperous empaths out there, because I think it’s such a beautiful way of being in our business, to use magical tools and CO create with the universe. It’s something that comes very naturally to us. But for me, manifestation is something I didn’t even know existed until three or four years ago. And it’s what’s funny is I just wasn’t that spiritual of a person until about four years ago or so. And as can often happen with people, you know, you’re going through some sort of personal awakening in life. You know, I was unfulfilled in my corporate career, I was struggling in dating, and you know, had been in years of therapy, but it all kind of really came to a head in my late 30s. And I had started doing more practices of journaling. I picked up a tarot deck for fun and before I knew it, I was like, I think a spiritual person I think I’m having a spiritual awakening is that a thing? And then sort of found the practice of manifestation which over the past few years, I really for me and I think manifestation if people decide to practice it, believe in it, it’s such a unique and individual practice. And for me how I describe it as simply co creation with the universe for my soul’s highest evolvement so manifestation for me, you know, I I think when we learn about manifestation or start to see about it on social media, we think of it as a very material thing. So I’m gonna go manifest that Ferrari or that trip to Spain. And that’s super fun and definitely can be a part of it. But for me manifestation has really been powerful when I think about it as a co creative process with whatever the energies are around me, that want me to step into the, you know, the path of my soul. So I think my business was a manifestation. For sure. I think my romantic partner totally, absolutely feel like it manifested the heck out of that. And the house that I now live in, which is a 250 year old log cabin, in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. And these things were all things that I knew my my deepest soul’s purpose at heart I really wanted, but logically didn’t feel like I deserved them or that they would make sense for me on the path I was on. But as I stepped more and more into the spiritual awakening into discovering my magical abilities, which we all have, and deciding that there were benevolent forces in the universe that wanted me to move towards certain goals and desires, you know, I started to more consciously manifest I guess we would call it, but I’d love to hear what do you think? Do you have a manifestation practice? Or how do you define it?

Catherine A. Wood  06:23

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I love the idea of like, relating to it as a co creative practice, I think I do similarly. But I think I really relate to it as a spiritual practice, like a willingness to allow my desires to lead a willingness to speak what I desire into existence. I, I can’t remember if I recommended this book on your podcast when we chatted a couple of weeks ago, but one of the books we read in my mastermind most regularly is called worthy. It’s, I can’t remember the sub title, I think it’s boost your self worth to grow your net worth by Nancy Levin, who she used to be the Events Producer at Hay House, and she became a coach. So she has lots of coaching practices in her book, it’s a very practice heavy book. But one of the practices in her book is to there’s an ambulance going by. It’s called the 50 desires list. And this is this is a manifestation practice that I use now consistently. So I think it’s worth exploring, but it she, she, she asks you to write down 50 desires that you have, right, they can be small, they can be materialistic, non materialistic, experiential, motional they’re really like, no cap, she limits that you can only desire 10 things for other people, the rest of the rest have to be for you. And then she also breaks it up into writing the first 25 And then she separates the second 25 And, and I love how she explains this exercise, because for most of us, it is highly, radically uncomfortable to write down 50 Things that you desire. And in in my very first cohort of our of my mastermind, we we had we used to do evening book clubs, where we talk about the books, it was like separate from our group calls and with Bring a glass of wine, we don’t we don’t do it in evenings anymore. But during that first book club call, we read that book, we all did, our designers lists together. And we spent half the call doing this exercise together in a group. And it was deeply, like deeply spiritual and sacred to take this time with, you know, eight women all at once, and share and write down these 50 desires we had and I pulled out my list last week, I was looking for a quote from another book that I love and I found my 50 desires list from that very first cohort and I counted up how many I had fulfilled on and I fulfilled on 33 Oh my god. 50. And I think that that’s what manifestation is, like, it’s being willing to trust the universe with what you want, and to lean into the vulnerability of allowing yourself to feel into the experience of having it and then surrendering the timeline. You know,

Catherine Andrews  09:45

absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better and I love that you named such too because I think you know, H A highly sensitive people and empaths we can have a complicated relationship with the idea of manifesting because it can sound selfish or self centered. or two material. But what I hear you saying and what I actually believe to its manifestation is simply following like the compass of your heart’s desires, and allowing it to unfold through life and being, I guess, being bold enough to claim it, you know, we but we have our desires for a reason. You know, your vision of what whatever you wrote on that list, however many however long ago it was, if I had written the list at the same time, maybe there’d been a couple, you know, we’re both life coaches, entrepreneurs, there may have been some overlap, but would have been totally different. And that’s because we’re unique individuals who have our desires for a reason. And then it’s not a mistake, it’s just not a mistake to want the things that we want. Where I do find it can be tricky for empaths and HSPs. To do manifestation is, like deconditioning, from like, ego manifestations versus like sole purpose manifestations. And ego manifestations can be like, oh, I want to make, you know, I need to make six figures, or I want this promotion, or I want this car, though. I mean, those can be somebody’s soul manifestations. But I find the ego ones are more often related to status, or familial conditioning, or what you think you should want. And the soul manifestations are the things you kind of daydream about. And tell yourself, well, it’s not really practical to want those things. Like, I did a whole podcast episode on manifesting this house. And it was just, it was just like, the craziest dream like I wanted in an old house full of character in a small village, but that was still walkable to coffee shops. And I just was like, well, this doesn’t really exist. So I’m not going to let really let myself think about it. Boom, is September of 2022, I guess we found this place that that had all of those criteria. And that was really a huge teacher, for me, and my manifestation practice was that your desires don’t have to be logical, you know, they don’t have to be realistic. And, and you’re right, that there is a lot of surrender involved in the process. You know, for example, I was thinking about a house like this for over three years. So it was not any, by any means, like a super fast manifestation. But there was divine timing in it. And it really gave me the lesson that like, I get to want the things that I want. Not only is this house, old, full of character in nature, in a village of 100 people, there are two coffee shops within walking distance, it has like clawfoot tub, which was like a big thing for me, it has a yard for space for a garden. It’s on a creek, you know, a water feature. And I was like, Oh, this is how it works. I give myself permission to desire exactly what I want. And, you know, take the action steps towards it, and then let the let the timeline unfold and, and do the surrender part, which sucks. But definitely a big part of the manifestation process is the surrender.

Catherine A. Wood  12:59

I mean, I love what you said, like we get to want what we want. And I think that that is such a radical practice for so many of us because we, you know, we, we judge ourselves for wanting what we want, or we think we don’t deserve it, or we think we’re not worthy of it, or we think we haven’t earned it, which is, you know, I think so much of what this podcast is about, for me, it’s really about giving ourselves permission to thrive and prosper in all the different ways. And, you know, wanting what we want is a is a practice I think it’s something that we gain facility with as we allow ourselves to lean into it and so you know, I love I love how you distinguish ego based manifestations versus soul aligned manifestations like something I’m always encouraging clients is just start wherever you can if you get if you start with the egoic manifestations, great start there, but allow it to be a place that you linger and look gain facility with and gain access to and, you know, gain more joy with, I think, you know, for me, like I love Well, let’s, let’s, I’d love to link in the show notes to your episode on manifesting your home because I’m sure my audience would love that. But, you know, for me, like I just moved up to Boston last year, and I can safely say that moving home to Massachusetts is something that I never allowed myself to, to manifest because I didn’t think it was possible. You know, my husband is a Midwestern er at heart and as a person of color. Quite honestly, he doesn’t feel super welcome in Boston. You know, Boston is historically a very white part of the country and and it’s something that I was I felt too, too vulnerable to allow myself to dream or manifest. But what I did what I did manifest was living near the ocean. That’s something I gave myself access to manifest and, and it’s just funny, you know, like we I have it we all do that, like, we allow ourselves to have a certain percentage of wanting what we want. And I think we all in different ways, like put a cap on what we allow ourselves to, to dream or manifest or envision and I think that hearing other people’s manifestation experiences or stories give us permission to lean into it more.

Catherine Andrews  15:43

Can I tell you like a tiny magic thing that happened in the manifestation of this house because I so relate to what you’re saying. But this is why I think magic is so important to bring into your life, whether you’re a spiritual person or not just synchronicities and allowing delight. But the funny thing was, we came to look at this house and I had, no, I’d never heard of this town. It was just still like, I was like, well, let’s go look at it like and I was moving with my boyfriend and he had found the listing. And I was like, Yeah, well, we would never move out there. But you know, why not? Go look at it sounds like a fun Saturday afternoon. And we’re in the house and in my head. I’m like, ticking off. I’m like, it’s exact square footage. It’s the exact like, it’s three bedrooms, two bathrooms, oh my god, there’s a clawfoot tub. Oh my god, there’s a creek. But at the end of the visit, I was still like, oh, well email for somebody else. But not for me. There was still that like, not permission giving or thinking this is something I deserve, or I could do. And we are finishing kind of the tour out on the back deck and we’re talking to the realtor. And all of a sudden my boyfriend grabs me by the shoulders and spins me around and has me look out at the cricket Nico’s look. And there is a great blue heron majestically flying down the creek right in front of our faces. And the thing is, the Great Blue Heron is like mine and my boyfriend sign more obsessed. And actually, that’s a that’s a print of a great blue heron behind me if anybody sees this video, and I was just like, Oh, crap, this is happening, like, but it took that sign from the universe because I relate very much to nature. And I’m always looking into nature almost as a divination deck. It took that sign from the universe to allow me to see the possibility that I could put an offer in on this house because it just hadn’t my my belief, my ability, my deservingness my mindset hadn’t snapped into the possibility of that, even though it was literally everything I wanted on my list. And yes, I did buy this house because I saw a great blue hair. My boyfriend was like, okay, realtors are gonna think that’s the strangest thing ever. But, you know, that’s part of magic. And that’s part of manifestation is also, you know, allowing yourselves the synchronicities and the signs that point to yes, this this is for you. Yes, you can help this. Mm.

Catherine A. Wood  18:03

Oh, my gosh, I love that you shared that example. Because we do. It’s like, we put a cap on our possibility. We put a cap on how much we allow ourselves to dream how much we allow ourselves to, even when it can be right in front of us, right? Like, I love that it took seeing the black, the Blue Heron for you to trust what you wanted, you could have and you deserve to have and like, Okay, I want to just add my, my, like, additional version of that. So, last last spring, we were living in Maryland still. And my husband had applied for grad schools. And he, he applied to Harvard. And I was the one so I was the one who was like, I don’t apply to Harvard, like, you know, like, maybe you don’t need another another degree. Like, what if it? You know, I don’t want you to get disappointed, right? Harvard is in Massachusetts, like Harvard is an hour from my childhood home. And like, here I am trying to put a cap on my husband, or then fiance’s like, opportunities. And I think at the core of it, I was just scared that he wouldn’t get in and then I’d get my, my dreams crushed, you know, and even the whole application process like I didn’t allow myself, maybe like an iota of of hope or like, excitement about that possibility because I really just didn’t want to be crushed. And I remember when he got the news that he got accepted. He thought that I was on a call in my office and we share walls. And I heard him I heard him calling my parents to tell them that he had gotten in and our you know, our wall was like very thin so I heard him and I screamed like at the top of my lungs because it felt like this dream that I’d wanted. I mean, probably for almost the whole decade I lived in DC was coming true. And I just like collapsed into tears, because because I think that, you know, I didn’t allow myself to want what I wanted, because it felt too perfect to be possible.

Catherine Andrews  20:27

Yeah. I’m like tearing up listening to you, because I can feel the emotion and the vulnerability that is involved in that. And I think it’s so it’s so hard for empaths and HSPs, to be vulnerable in our desires. And that is, it’s totally scary, I get it, like, we are so sensitive, and we feel so deeply and we’ve been hurt before, you know, and then we really can carry those wounds with us. And so then I think sometimes we turn into very, like practical people. And we’re like, Well, let’s not, you know, get our hopes up, let’s make the practical decision. Because we might have been just such sensitive dreamers as kids who did want those big things. And when you have those experiences where you get your desires quashed, it can be so painful that I think it’s such a beautiful growth opportunity to allow yourself to be vulnerable, you know, because I do believe with manifestations always this or something better. And you know, a lot along the course of a life, when you’re manifesting specific things, you will get disappointed. But there’s always something better coming in, it’s either, you know, what’s the saying it’s like, not, you know, not right now, or not this, but something better. And yeah, allowing yourself to lean into that vulnerability, which is why stating your desires out loud, even if it’s just to yourself in your journal, is the very first step in whether you call it intentional living, manifesting goal setting, being bold enough to whisper the, you know, that secret desire to yourself, and, and just put it down on paper, right, which is scary for most of us. But that’s where I think all desires start is just that quiet, admitting to yourself, and it’s a very vulnerable app, it’s a very beautiful and powerful one.

Catherine A. Wood  22:07

I mean, I couldn’t agree more, as you were saying that I’m thinking about like, all the manifestations or dreams that I have kind of hidden in different parts of my apartment, you know, like, pages stuffed into little books that I want to remember, or my vision board, or, you know, I have like a little dream jar that I have my like current top three biggest dreams inside of I love that. So I’d love to hear yours. Like, what are what are your favorite manifestation practices?

Catherine Andrews  22:38

Well, you know, I don’t know that I have very, like strict practice, but I think non negotiable for me is is stream of consciousness journaling, because I actually find what can block empaths and HSPs. And a lot of humans generally from manifesting is actually just knowing what we want, like on this soul level. So it’s necessary to do that self exploration and spend that alone time with yourself, whether it’s in meditation or journaling, because then that’s where you start to get the spark, you know, say you are a person, like you and I have just talked about these moves, you wanted to talk to move to Massachusetts, I wanted to move to a cottage in the woods, you know, but we probably we didn’t know that for a while that those desires were on our heart because we were thinking practically or egoic ly or, you know, quote unquote, realistically, but journaling is where I allow myself to dream a little bit. So just general journaling, you know, I practice the morning pages journaling practice, as taught by Julia Cameron in the artists way, classic, best book in the world as far as I’m concerned. And that’s just three pages of journaling, stream of consciousness journaling, so it may start out like, I’m sleepy, I didn’t make my coffee strong enough this morning, or whatever. And then you kind of just see where your thoughts lead you for those three pages, and you try to do it first thing in the morning. But I would say other techniques are I’m a, I have a writing background. My degrees are in English and journalism. And so writing has always been a very powerful manifestation tool for me. And I think one thing I do like to do is every year, I will say to say so in December 2022, I wrote a letter as if I was writing it back to my past self from December 2023. And it was like, Hey, Catherine, in December 2022. Wow, it’s cat. It’s Catherine from a year later, and you will not believe the year we had and I kind of just let myself dream on that page. And I live into the feeling as much as possible. You know, things I’m talking about this year were business goals that I had, I started a membership. And so I talked about that in the letter and I just launched that. I want to go to Italy. So I talked about that too. It talked about you know, small things like starting to come kindergarten at the home or running a 5k. And bigger things like big goals and dreams that I have for travel and business too. So it’s that kind of future self journaling can be really powerful. And then I use Fung Shui, home energy for manifesting a lot, you can make your home into a vision board. And that might be a whole other episode to talk specifically about how highly sensitive people can use home energy and the principles of Fung Shui. Although for entrepreneurs, we definitely have some tips. So if you want to jump into that, at any point, we can do that. But there are certain energies in your home that you can take advantage of. And certain ways you can adjust your home, you know, our home is our is our incubator for ourselves. And if you’re intentional about the way you create your home, decorate your home, envision your home, that can be a really powerful manifesting tool, like an example I can use is that someone, somebody who dreams of being an entrepreneur, maybe they have, you know, a tiny little storage room that could technically be converted into an office or working space of some sort. But they’re like, Well, my business isn’t real yet. So all I’ll turn that into a workspace when my business is real. And my manifestation advice would be like turn that space into the working space right now before your business is here. Because it signals in so many levels to the university or subconscious, that you’re taking your business seriously. And so that’s an example of how you can use your home kind of as a manifestation tool. But those are just some off the top of my head that I really enjoy using. And mostly I would just say like, fun. To me, manifestation magic, it’s just like when you let in the delight, and this such creative practice, when and I know it just gives an impasse are the most creative people, when you kind of just tune into, like what would be like hilarious and fun to do, then you can really get going with a lot of it too. So just discovering your own flavors of these things.

Catherine A. Wood  26:57

I mean, I’m appreciating as you and I are talking about this, like our faces are just totally lit up. You know, like, this is such a fun topic to talk about. And it’s such, I think that it’s intended to be a fun practice. Because I think when we get outside of our logical brain, and we allow ourselves to connect with the emotionality of our manifestations, we gain more facility, we gain more access to our being to our desires to our essential self. And I want to add a couple because so let’s see, so, so you and I both manifested our partner, yes, I also manifested my partner I also love the the artist state from from Julia Cameron’s work, but I, I adapted it when I was trying to manifest love by taking myself on a weekly self love date, to practice treating myself the way I wanted to be treated in a relationship. So I used to take myself out on weekly dates. That was a really powerful practice for me like just learning how I wanted to be treated, and then taking the first step and treating myself in that way, whether it was taking myself to the Botanical Gardens. I mean, the orchid room at the National Botanical Gardens is my favorite room in all of DC. Or the there’s some exhibits in the West Gallery in the National Gallery of Art that I just absolutely love. So that was a really powerful practice for me when I just started out and then Have you have you heard of the book calling in the one buy cast?

Catherine Andrews  28:38

That is what I used to know, me too. It really frickin works. anybody listening out there? Like, watch out? Because if you do that book, I absolutely I don’t even think I finished the book, to be honest. But like, I remember finding an old journal and I was like a year into dating my partner and I found a journal. And one of the practices is like lists all the ways your relationship will make you feel or something like that. And I was like, check, check, check. You know, that’s the book of faith, though.

Catherine A. Wood  29:08

Wow, there’s a practice. So that so that book for our listeners, it’s six weeks of daily practices to call in your partner. And so there’s a practice from every day and then an exercise attached to every practice. So a couple of those practices were particularly potent for me. So one is to prepare your home for your partner coming into it. So I lived on Capitol Hill at that point in my life and I bought a second nightstand so I could have a nightstand on both sides of my very tiny studio in Capitol Hill. And I moved all of my clothes to half of the closet so that there was space in my tiny closet for a partner and I emptied everything from a drawer in one of my dress in my dresser my Only dressers so that I literally was creating space for my partner to take. That was super powerful for me. Another exercise from that book is to write a journal entry to your future partner as if you’ve already met him. And I saved this it’s in another one of my books in my bookcase. But I remember writing like dear love of my life like I can feel us getting closer coming together and I don’t know when we’re going to meet or when we’re going to start dating but I am excited and waiting for you and ready and that was like three months before I started dating my now husband and and I really felt it like when I wrote that journal entry to him like I could feel that enter get energetic shift because you know, I love was already right in front of me like I had already been friends with this. This dude for four years, it was just how I was not allowing myself to see what was right in front of me, you know.

Catherine Andrews  31:08

So funny because I was friends with my boyfriend for three years before we started taping. Add some more similarities to our list. But that book is literal magic. I mean, that’s the thing about metal first off the home stuff that’s classic function way to functionally is just in for anybody who hasn’t heard of it is just in ancient Chinese Chinese practice from about 4000 years ago about working with energy seen and unseen to get desired outcomes and to live more in harmony with life. And but the classic example is often just what you said cat which is to nightstands, making sure you know your bed and your bedroom is welcoming making sure there’s literal space. Space clearing is magic. I mean, when you so when you create space or create, you know, a corner of your home, you know, say you wanted to cook more, and you bought a you know, some new pants because that’s something you wanted to do to nourish yourself, those sorts of things are really truly powerful. And that book is is an excellent book because it does allow you to tap in again to the vulnerability I think I mean, when when I’m reflecting back on our conversation so far, I think underlying a lot of what we’re talking about is the vulnerability inherent in manifestation because it’s about these unapologetic desires that we might be scared to name. But when you claim that you wanted love, I mean, believe me when I bought that book, I was like, am I gonna do this book like I can’t I just find somebody on Tinder. And like, make this happen. And I felt cheesy and silly. And but now I know looking back anytime I feel cheesy or silly, it’s it’s just a sign that I’m actually stepping into vulnerability because I’ve had some cynical defenses around my desires. But um, and yeah, you tap into the practices in that book, and claim claim what you want and feel into it via journaling or visualization. Those are powerful and magical shifts. I absolutely agree. That’s wonderful to hear.

Catherine A. Wood  33:12

I mean, you’re using this word vulnerability and I, I mean, I couldn’t agree more. I think another word that comes to mind is like the idea of being open hearted versus defended. Like I think manifestation is such an open hearted practice it requires allowing others to see into us and allowing ourselves to share more parts of us to connect with more parts of our core wants and preferences and desires and urges and pleasures. And you know, for so many of us, like I think we learned to be defended, we learned to be guarded against our dreams.

Catherine Andrews  33:55

Yes. And out of out of necessity and safety. I mean, when you’re a kid who’s an empath, oh my god, your heart is so tender. You know, I was I was the most sensitive, tender hearted loving little girl and then, you know, you’ve experienced wounds as you grew up, whether they happen via you know, even stuff that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Like I had a pretty good childhood but I had some bullying in elementary school. I had some disappointments in high school in college, and, you know, you kind of learn to close that heart center down. But that actually reminds me that I do think if you’re if you identify as an empath, or an HSP your heart center is your number one manifesting tool. And so whatever you can do to open your heart again, again to be vulnerable. You know, there’s there’s a mix of heart opening tactics. So we were just before we started recording and talking about yoga, you know, there’s even yoga postures that are meant to open the chest and the heart chakra. There’s energy titled healing, you know, that can be very healing for the heart center. There’s feeling into the body, I really think of our body as our manifestation, magnet and a lot of ways to and feeling that warm glow in your heart when you think about the things that you’re visualizing or dreaming about. Your Heart Center is so, so powerful. I mean, that’s whenever I’m coaching or working with empaths and HSPs. We are very strong up here. I know we both tend to work with high achievers. So very strong intellectually, we can be pretty smart, pretty practical, pretty logical. And that’s great. That’s a great acid. But I want folks to start thinking about the mind as the executor of the hearts desires. The mind isn’t meant to tap us into our souls desires, it’s meant to help us take the steps to get towards what our what our heart, actually once. So whatever you can do to connect back into your heart, whether it’s yoga, or dancing, or journaling, or inner child healing, or being in nature, you know, whatever, whatever there is, that’s where your pure, pure and potent manifestation powers will come from.

Catherine A. Wood  36:07

I think that that’s such an incredible, incredibly important reminder for our listeners to really take with them from this episode is that for those of us who identify as empaths, and HSPs, which is likely you if you’re listening, you know, we’re incredibly heart centered right? In childhood, we were likely the most loving ones in the room. And we did we learned to, to guard our hearts and to close them and protect them to keep ourselves safe. And there’s some real unlearning we have to do in order to be willing to open our hearts, again, to trust our hearts to lead and to speak for us. And I think that that’s some of the most important work that we can do in order to really gain facility to our manifesting muscles. You and I were talking about Kundalini before we started recording. And that’s one of the reasons I love Kundalini because it incorporates so many different elements of healing into the practice. You know, for many of us, we think of yoga as just the asanas, just the physical postures. But Kundalini encompasses meditation, chanting, breathwork, mantras, the asanas and breathwork in particular, I think is a really potent practice for empaths and HSPs. To reconnect with because we can gain facility to we can gain access to so many trapped emotions, through doing breathwork. And through through allowing ourselves to really kind of like reconnect with our voice. I think we become we can become one of the ways I think we become disconnected from our heart is by that giver mentality, that giver archetype, and always focusing on the other person and always being of service, which is wonderful, but not when it’s at the expense of ourselves and our care and our preferences. So I think, yeah, I just I just add breathwork and, and Kundalini shout out to complete the list. But yeah, I love I love this conversation, like, and I really appreciate to start shared journeys and how how allowing ourselves to manifest to being willing to open our hearts and trust our desires has, has led us to sit down in such aligned paths for each of us. So I’m mindful of the time and I want to be sure we we touch on magic. So yes, what I’d love to hear like, how do you incorporate magic into your work and and what does it even mean to you? I mean, I’m, I’m just appreciating after we connected last, you pulled a card for me, and you sent me the significance of the card and I was like, this is this is so cool. I’m just no one’s ever done this for me in entrepreneurial capacity.

Catherine Andrews  39:09

Well, so I love that and I definitely have my tarot deck right here. So if we want to pull another card at the end of the episode for your listeners, I would be more than happy to do that. But for me, magic and manifestation I mean, to me, it’s all inextricably linked. There’s not necessarily like a pillar over here. That’s manifestation a pillar over here. That’s Taro, a pillar over here, this magic that said for me, and I think everybody should reflect on if they believe in magic, their own individual definition because again, it will be super unique and filtered through your own soul and perspective and lived experience. But for me, I really just see magic as working with the energies that are already inherent and available in the universe towards the towards the desired outcome. You know, I think of like, again, I’m an English major. So when I’m talking about physics, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. But like we all understand that there are certain laws that govern material matter in this universe. So There’s gravity or an object in motion stays in motion or whatever, you know. But I find magic is the study and application of the, the laws that apply to energy to intent to belief to desire to emotions. And so when I’m talking about like, Okay, I’m gonna go do some magic. For me, it’s usually about naming an intent, an outcome that I would like keeping in mind that I hope it’s for the highest good of everybody involved, and then making shifts in my observable physical material life. Ways that I practice magic are again, I’ve mentioned functionally before, so I love there’s different if anybody ever like Google’s witches or witchcraft, there’s tons of different kinds of witches and I discovered a couple of years ago, the term cottage which, which is somebody who creates magic with her home. And so that can look like cooking near home or creating an altar in your home or doing intentional and magic cleaning in your home. Imagine creating a simmer pot of basil and oranges and then using that to wipe down your kitchen to bring in abundance are sweeping your front door and calling in new opportunities or feeding the birds around your property so that you’re increasing the Chi the lifeforce energy around your home property. So there’s sometimes I’m doing magic with my home using the principles of Fung Shui. Sometimes I’m doing magic in ritual, you know, lighting a candle every morning and visualizing a desire that I have or an outcome. I love using the new moon for manifesting and for magic and community. I love nature based magic rituals. And sometimes a nature based magic ritual is just simply walking along a path and delighting in the honeysuckle bush that that has such a fragrance, see no and giving gratitude for that. Sometimes magic for me is pulling tarot cards and asking, you know, Taro, when I’m using tarot, I think of it like a telephone to the universe. And the universe is being like, Have you considered these angles? So sometimes my magic practice is pulling tarot cards or oracle cards and seeing, you know, what perspectives do I need to consider in a decision? What energies are at play for me? So it’s clearly this ever evolving, ever changing practice? I mean, overall, for me, it is about using again, these energies inherent in the in the universe, and CO creating with them again, it kind of comes back to the co creation. For me, I hope that makes a little bit of sense.

Catherine A. Wood  42:29

No, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think a couple aspects of what you shared that I appreciate is that when we allow, like the magical realm into what we’re creating what we’re bringing to life, what we’re manifesting, declaring, like, to some degree, where we’re allowing a third dimension, to come into play, like we’re allowing ourselves to not solely control the outcome or to solely be responsible for getting us where we want to be. And I think that that is, is super important. Like, you know, we both work with high achievers, and I think of a typical trait of high achievers is that we are typically very driven and ambitious, but also controlling, yes, and when we try to control the outcome, we’re typically basing what we want on past experience, right, we can only control what something that we know, it’s how it’s going to look, whether we’ve seen it or experienced it before or someone else we know has achieved it like we can only control what we can perceive. And when we allow magic or manifesting or even surrendering our dreams to a higher power or having our manifesting be a spiritual practice, like we actually allow ourselves to get outside of our logical brain we allow ourselves to be in a future based conversation rather than a past based one. And we allow ourselves to co conspire with the universe or the magical realm or higher power or God or, or nature you know, for me like I’ve always found I’ve always found God in nature. So whatever that looks like for you, I and I think that that however, we as ambitious empaths can get outside of our logical mind and connect with our heart centers in order to trust and CO create like I’m I think that that is a much more aligned and powerful way to create beyond what we know to create outside of our comfort zone to co conspire and CO create with the universe and to elevate to grow to evolve.

Catherine Andrews  44:52

Yeah, and it’s, there’s, I find, so anybody who’s like newer to magic or manifestation I know when I found out and heard about I’m like, great tools to get exactly what I want. So I would like I was manifesting and using magic from at first, when I started first started playing around it from a very controlling perspective, a very controlling mindset. And then I would be disappointed when I would try out a magic spell or manifest something, and it didn’t come to fruition or looked completely different than I thought that it quote unquote, should look. And now I know that it’s, you know, I used to be like, I’m not in control, this is so horrible. And now I’m like, I’m not in control. This is wonderful. You know, that knowing that there’s this co creative Partner in the driver’s seat, there’s sometimes you’re in the driver’s seat, they’re in the driver’s seat, you know, you’re you’re doing this journey together. But that is taking care of some of the details behind the scenes for you. And when you’re playing around with magic or manifestation, always leaving space for something you can’t expect to come in to. And so making sure that, you know, I can’t say don’t be controlling when you practice magic or manifestation, because I think a lot of us go through that phase where we decide to consciously manifest or consciously do magic with a specific goal in mind. And I think you’ll learn your lessons along the way that you’re meant to. But if you can just leave space, that magic and manifesting is like a play date with the universe. And you’re kind of just daydreaming out loud with each other with what you want. And then doing like rituals and connection and self care to support in that unfolding. That’s that’s how I practice it. Now. I rarely sit down and manifest I actually almost never, there’s, there’s things I want their schools I want, but I don’t say like, okay, in 2023, I have to accomplish these 15 things, I set the intentions for how I want to feel a couple things that do you feel important. But I know that as long as I’m, you know, doing my practices, taking good care of myself in trusting what’s meant to be will kind of come my way and letting the unfolding happen in that manner, too.

Catherine A. Wood  47:03

So I’m mindful of the time and we’re getting near the end of our time. But I think one thing I’m just appreciating in this moment is how similar our worldviews are on these topics. You know, we’re coming from a similar vantage point, we’ve both had certain levels of success with manifestation. And, and I guess I’m claiming magic because they sound so similar. And for, you know, our audience who’s listening who hasn’t experienced success with manifestation and magic, who, you know, perhaps even even more challenging, like, perhaps they’ve they’ve achieved, like, strong experiences of perceived failures. I’m curious, and I’m listening for my own, you know, what I would add, but like, where would you encourage those who’ve perhaps had more negative experiences than positive to begin and reinventing their relationship or their felt sense of it?

Catherine Andrews  48:12

I? Well, one, I completely understand. I mean, I had an entire decade in my 30s of miserable dating, I was getting dumped left and right, and just dating, pattern patterns of men that were not serving me. And I was in an unfulfilling corporate career and didn’t see a way out. I had a ton of privilege and a ton of good times and lots of love in my life. But, you know, I felt the sting of bitterness a lot in in my life. And so I completely understand that. And so, for me, what has been most helpful for me and shifting and I think it’ll be different for everybody was simply deciding I was going to invite more play in a little bit of lightness back into my life, I was taking everything so seriously. And I was making my relationship status. I mean, I was a failure. I was I was, you know, struggling in my work. And that meant I was a failure. And I know we talked about our astrological signs here, a Taurus and I’m a Capricorn Capricorns can be like, very serious and like very intense. And I have a Scorpio moon, which is like a whole nother level of intensity. And I just, I needed a little more lightness. And so the way that I found my way into lightness that then did help with manifestation was taking my doing inner child work and doing what I call inner child play dates. So it’s kind of like the artist date concept from the artists way and you went on like self love dates. I started doing like inner child date. So I’d go take her to a matinee in the middle of the day when I could do that or make Kraft mac and cheese. Watch a Disney movie. And so I took the striving out of my desire to manifest and I just actually focus on like, what would feel good, but had been so Long since I’d focused on what it felt good that I had to go all the way back to childhood to be like, what did I like to do? You know. So it turns out it was the simple stuff long walks in nature. Saturday afternoon spent reading a romance or fantasy novel, comfort foods like mac and cheese, you know, movies in the middle of the day, buying a new sheet of stickers at Target. So that’s something I would offer because, you know, just to circle back to where we started, which is this concept of like our vulnerability being so tough for us to access, you know, that started when we were kids. And when we can bring back a little tiny bit of joy and delight for our inner children, then things can kind of start to soften a little bit, and you get back in touch with your vulnerability with your authenticity and with your child self who, who know is still very much in there and very much, you know, has dreams and desires too. So, yeah, a little bit of lightness, a little bit of inner child play, and just allowing yourself to have a little more sparkle, take away the striving, the self flagellation where you can, it’s hard, it took me like 10 years to do. So I’m with you all. But little by little like working you find tiny amounts of joy and play and things that feel good to you.

Catherine A. Wood  51:17

I adore that I hear like a healthy dose of not taking yourself so seriously. And I love like really disconnecting from the striving part of you to engage with your essential self. I was thinking and it also it also doesn’t escape me that you and I both had some of our first powerful experiences of manifestation in the romantic arena, which I think is is is probably not coincidental because I think when you allow yourself to open your heart to another partner, it allows you to open your heart in so many other areas of manifestation. For for me like you mentioned the self flagellation wound for me it was the self abandonment wound I had such a loud case of putting others needs and priorities and preferences above my own that for me, morning ritual a morning routine was a such a powerful practice for me in reconnecting with my needs, and being able to answer the question like what do I need in this moment? It was it was probably like, the most important practice for me in in dropping the caretaking and self abandonment wounds and being able to connect with my myself on a on a somatic level on an emotional level in order to show up as a whole self in relationship with you know, the world. Mm hmm.

Catherine Andrews  52:56

Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s why self care and self discovery so important. You can’t manifest if you don’t know what you don’t want. You know, and if you’re a recovering people, pleaser, a control freak, like I certainly my awareness was around what everybody else around me needed and wanted. And I was very controlling and being like, I will give it to them. So they like me. And when Yeah, I have I started having a morning ritual too. I delved into the morning pages in the artists way in my mid to late 30s. And that was a real turning point for me. And that’s where I started to discover what was on my heart to want and I named it as vulnerable and singing out loud even if was only to my journal and and things kind of began to unfold from there.

Catherine A. Wood  53:36

So beautiful, love it. So for our listeners, like do the work, right, like be willing to trust the universe to trust your your peers, your friends, your loved ones, your mentors, partners with your desires, preferences, dreams, be willing to be vulnerable and open your heart. Catherine, this has been a magical conversation like absolutely, absolutely loved it. And in closing, I’ll ask you what I ask all my guests which is what is supported you in becoming a prosperous empath?

Catherine Andrews  54:15

Oh my gosh, so many things. But I think first and foremost, my biggest teacher in being a prosperous Empath will always be nature. It is one of my priorities to go walking in nature. I’m blessed and privileged enough to have space in my day to spend at least 30 to 60 minutes walking in nature. And it reminds me of the the inevitable cycles of life and also that abundance is all around me. I walk past a neighbor’s farm they have 20 chickens and they hand out free eggs. And they walk past the honeysuckle bush and I see the birds and the rabbits in the wild turkeys, especially now in spring. I mean it’s a particularly abundant time. But it reminds me that abundance and prosperity is my birthright and that I have a divine connection to nature, you know empaths and highly sensitive people. We are absolutely in tune with me Sure, so wherever you can allow nature to be your teacher, your reminder, your supporter, you know, the nature wants to nurture you and hold your pain and, and give you blessings too. And so however in whatever small way you can connect with nature with some of us, it will be growing, administer part of rosemary in our apartment, you know, because we don’t have access to a park. For some of us that may be hiking in the Rockies and everywhere in between. So for me, my path to being a prosperous empath is is led by nature for sure.

Catherine A. Wood  55:32

No one has shared that answer yet. I love that answer. I think that’s one of the reasons I am so grateful for having moved back to New England is because there’s for like, strong seasons. Yeah. And and I think, you know, we were talking about being willing to give up control. And I think that physical reminder of the seasonality of life gives us so much modeling of trusting the seasonality and the ebbs and flows in in business and the seasons of our own lives and the life cycles. So that’s an awesome reminder. Catherine, thank you so much. This has been like an absolute honor and pleasure,

Catherine Andrews  56:13

a total delight on my side. I’m so glad we finally connected and thank you so much for allowing me to be on your podcast and having this magical conversation today.

Catherine A. Wood  56:22

My pleasure.