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Cathy Heller on Helping Others Live Their Best Lives

Through her workshops and retreats, she’s been a catalyst to help thousands of souls step into the most expansive versions of themselves.
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August 17, 2022
Cathy Heller Stephanie Day Photography.

Cathy Heller, host of the “Don’t Keep Your Day Job” podcast and spiritual business coach, puts love behind every thought, conversation and endeavor. 

Over the last two decades, she’s been on the search for God and figuring out how to live the most meaningful life possible. Through her workshops and retreats, she’s been a catalyst to help thousands of souls step into the most expansive versions of themselves.

“To me, it’s very much about tikkun olam (repairing the world) and being what God put us in the world to be,” Heller told the Journal.

Heller believes that feeling connected to the soul and stepping away from ego is what makes the difference. People need to stop waiting to know everything and start being who they are meant to be.

“People think humility is humility, and it’s actually egocentric,” she said. “It’s thinking about ego rather than being connected to service.”

To put it in perspective, Heller shared an example from her friend, author Seth Godin. Imagine if you were a lifeguard and on your third day, while the senior lifeguard is at lunch, someone starts to drown. You wouldn’t say, “I’m new” and sit by. You would show up as your best self and dive right in.

Heller, who grew up in a secular home, fell in love with traditional Judaism in her early 20s. She studied mysticism in Israel with Rabbi David Aaron and Rav Binny Freedman. She got her undergraduate degree in comparative religion, studied at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and was mentored by mindfulness expert Susan Kaiser Greenland. She began leading mindfulness classes in 2009. 

Heller met her husband, Lowell Reinstein, at Rabbi Shlomo Seidenfeld’s weekly Torah class. While they don’t belong to any particular synagogue, she loves listening to David Sacks speak at the Happy Minyan. Her kids go to school at Stephen S. Wise.

Since taking a winding road to discover her own path, Heller has encouraged others to follow their dreams.

When Heller came to Los Angeles in 2003 as an aspiring singer, she hoped to score a record deal. When two deals didn’t work out, she tried several day jobs over the next two years, which made her miserable. 

After her own “aha” moment of feeling like she didn’t belong, she said she asked herself a new question: “If I’m not going to be a rock star, is there any other way? Is there any other possibility of how I could do what I love every single day and get paid?”

Heller embarked on a successful career, independently licensing her music to film, TV and commercials. And, after some encouragement, she began teaching others to do the same. 

“In the fourth month of that first year, one of my songwriting students said ‘85% of what you’re saying has nothing to do with music, it’s about any dream,’” Heller said. 

That epiphany led to launching her “Don’t Keep Your Day Job” podcast, which she started in 2016. Heller had a 2-week-old baby, as well as a 3 and 5-year-old, and started recording in a closet in her home.  

“The podcast went out in the world, and it really spoke to people,” Heller said. “I think people can feel when energy is genuine, like how the Talmud says that words from the heart speak to the heart.”

On her show, which has surpassed 35 million downloads, she has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and Starbucks’s Howard Schultz. 

On her show, which has surpassed 35 million downloads, she has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and Starbucks’s Howard Schultz. “I’ve literally interviewed any person whose book I’ve read and any person I’ve looked up to in arts, sports, etc.,” she said. 

Heller considers her vocal presence as a Jewish woman on her podcast a badge of honor. 

“People are so thirsty to learn about mysticism and what the Talmud says, and so that’s a thread that’s very, very much woven into everything,” she said.

The podcast had been so transformational that two years ago, Heller had a Queen Esther moment.  

 “When Mordechai says to Esther, ‘Maybe you have this place in the palace for such a time as this,’ I started to think, ‘I have so much more in me that’s really the reason that all of this has happened, which is actually totally spiritual.'”

As Heller would interview people, she discovered what they all had in common was the way in which they plugged into reality and how they saw everything through a wider lens. 

 As Heller would interview people, she discovered what they all had in common was the way in which they plugged into reality and how they saw everything through a wider lens. 

She began teaching people how to find abundance in every area of their life. 

Early on, Heller’s rabbi spoke with her about the book, “The Secret.” Rather than the law of attraction, Jews would call it “the law of reception” he told her. 

“It’s not about moving yourself through time and space in order to get the things that you want,” Heller said. ”It’s about moving into a resonance where you tune your radio, your vibration, to the same station.”

Heller wants people to realize, “You are needed.” Whatever your natural gift is, whether it’s designing clothing, arranging flowers, making cheesecake or writing, it matters. 

“So often people have these two lies: ‘I’m not enough’ or ‘it’s not possible,’” Heller said. “What if you were more than enough and what if it was completely possible? And what if you could spend every day doing things you love, getting paid to do them? What would happen? Anyone who’s become successful has that tendency to dive in and figure things out along the way.”

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