Thank you again for listening to Confidence by the STARS.

It would mean the world to me if you would follow the podcast by clicking the follow button right now.

When you do, the moment we publish a new episode, it will come right to the top of your feed so you don't miss a thing.

And if you like the show, please leave a review to help spread the good vibes.

Now, back to the show.

Welcome to the Confidence by the STARS podcast.

I'm your host, Dorrissa, astrologer, and your horoscope hype woman.

And I'm here today with Dr.

Kathy Zhang.

She is a certified integrative life coach and hypnotist, as well as a hospice and palliative care doctor, and host of the Purpose Filter podcast, the show that shares deathbed wisdom and actionable shortcuts for more fulfilled life.

Her mission is to share the lessons of dying to help us focus on what's truly important.

So we can create happier, healthier, and more meaningful lives while we still have time to enjoy them.

Welcome Kathy!

Hi Dorrissa, thank you so much for having me on the show.

I'm excited to be here.

Yes, I'm thrilled to have you on Kathy.

I love starting the show at letting people know how we got connected and I'm kind of talking about that a little bit.

So just to give the listeners a little bit of insight, I had the pleasure of meeting Kathy on a LinkedIn master class that I took a few weeks back and it was such a wealth of information, and that was through Hala.

And she was just such a masterful teacher, helped us really understand the ins and outs of LinkedIn and.

It was just, I, I, I'm still combing through a lot of that information but that's how we got a chance to get connected.

And you were telling me a little bit about what you do, and I would love for you to tell more insights.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's so great that we got connected that way, and then it evolved into this opportunity.

So I am a hospice and palliative care doctor by training, which means that I take care of sick and dying people.

And at some point, I realized that they were sharing such great life lessons and wisdom with me and regrets.

And I couldn't really do much to help them kind of, in a sense, right those wrongs, or to help them feel like they didn't have to have regrets at the end of life.

And so, in a way, I decided to share that through my podcast, I became a life coach, and then I became a hypnotist to really help people have the tools to help themselves.

And that's kind of where I am now.

And it's been an amazing ride.

And I love sharing this information, this knowledge, this wisdom with as many people as possible.

Oh my gosh, that is just so incredible.

I think so much of what you do is so integral in how we need to understand life.

We, we understand life from a perspective of things and status and like how we want to be perceived and reputation and all those kinds of things.

But when you look at it from the perspective of someone who is close to the end of their journey here and they have this wealth of knowledge and wisdom.

But as they look back, they, they don't have necessarily a way of just instantly passing that on with the way that we do now with social media and everything to have you be that liaison between them and us to pass those lessons on, it's just so powerful.

Yeah, and I love that word you used, Dorrissa.

Liaison is the perfect way that I want to describe myself.

It's, I'm a a conduit, in a sense, right?

To be able to share that and to be able to be at the bedsides of these people and to give that knowledge to other people when they don't have as many exposures to it.

Because if we're lucky, most of us will have only a handful of experiences with death.

And even that is awful and it's enough, right?

And yet people die every day, every minute.

And it's one of those things where it seems so scary, but the more that we normalize it, the more that we realize we can actually learn a ton from the end of life, from people who are dying, and from near death experiences, or getting ill ourselves, or facing anything that might make us think, oh, maybe the security that I thought I had wasn't as Secure, as I initially realized.

Wow.

Yes, that is absolutely true.

I feel like so many people don't realize how important these lessons are until they go through these types of experiences or someone that they're close to does.

So it's just incredible to have you as a conduit, as a liaison, as someone who can help us get these these lessons and really do a better job of living our lives while we still have them, as you say.

You're also an author.

I would love to know more about your book as well.

You have this amazing amount of resources that you provide.

So let's dive into some of those as well.

So I don't have a book just yet, but It's on the vision board and it's it's being put out into the universe.

So I have written some research articles for palliative care and I've also published an article here and there about the end of life.

I wrote one about my experiences during COVID because I was in New York City at Bellevue Hospital, which is the nation's oldest public hospital.

So it was just, so overwhelming at that point.

And writing has always been a way for me to process and release emotions.

And I think everyone should have some sort of outlet, whether it's writing or whether it's something else, to express that for themselves.

And it's like coming back home.

I did it a lot when I was younger.

Kind of forgot about it because, as you said, life, kind of life's us sometimes.

And then coming back to it really feels in a way of coming home to myself.

Well, I'm just putting positive vibes out there so you can get that book deal someday.

I love it.

I love it.

Bring the energy.

I'm ready for it.

But yeah, I mean, I feel like this These lessons would be amazing for a book.

And when we originally connected we had kind of had this joke about loving all the woo woo stuff.

And that was something that I think I thought was so funny, but yes, it's absolutely true.

A lot of people don't necessarily give a lot of credence to these types of things, but when they show up sometimes it's like, oh, wow, if I had known this, before.

I'd have been paying attention before it would have helped out a lot.

And that's why I really would love to know about your personal journey with the woo woo stuff like astrology.

What has been kind of like some of the things that you've learned about it?

How has it helped you in your life and any lessons that you've gleaned from that?

It's such a good question and because also when we're coming from more quote unquote traditional career backgrounds, right, like medicine, law, etc.

It seems really weird for us to embrace something that doesn't seem to have as much evidence behind it or by the book and there's research articles and there's textbooks, etc.

And I will say that doing the work in hospice and palliative care and being around people who are dying or close to it really opened up that extra, that area for me because there were so many things that happened that I just could not explain.

Right?

I would have patients who, I had one patient who, she had pancreatic cancer, it was, the tumor was eating through her skin, through her belly button, and she was pouring out ascites, which is abdominal fluid, out through her belly button.

A liter, two liters, like a two liter bottle of soda, a day, and she was 70, 80 pounds max.

And her daughter was on the other side of the country and was not gonna fly in for another 4 or 5 days.

And we were like, there's no way this woman is gonna make it.

And we told her, hey, you know, I don't know, just hang on if you can.

She was unconscious at this point.

Hang on if you can, your daughter's gonna be here Friday.

And this woman made it.

And her daughter came.

Said her goodbyes, and that patient passed a couple hours later.

There are so many stories like that, where people hold on for family members, or there's a family member who's there all the time, 24/7, and the moment that they decide to step out to get a snack, the patient passes.

There, I, I just can't explain it.

And I think there's always been this kind of intrigue within me.

And to be honest, it's really helped me process a lot of things.

It's helped me transcend where I am in life now to be able to embrace the vision of me in the future so that I can develop more and be better for the people around me and inspire others.

So it has been just amazing.

to put it lightly.

That's beautiful.

I love that you mentioned the word transcendence.

I think that's a beautiful way to describe the process in life, of life in general.

And I think that moment where we literally transition and transcend to the next stage of whatever life is, which includes our death it's just really a powerful moment and to know some of these examples of people who you've given care to that have these circumstances that you just can't explain, but you can see the power of that human connection.

You can see the power of even kind of like that destiny that's pulling them, like that's really powerful.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

And things that people are like, oh, they go into the light or they see, people will literally say, oh, and they're unconscious, they're not aware, they're dying, they're transitioning, and they'll say things like, oh, I see grandpa, I see, and they'll say the name of someone who's already passed over, and they'll kind of say like, oh, I'm going to join them, or some people are so aware that they know their time is coming, that they know that they're dying, and it's, One of these things where the more you see it, the more you realize that there's so much more than what we experience in this reality, this physical manifestation of our bodies in time and space, and just things like astrology and other modalities have gone back centuries and eons, right?

It's not something new.

This is what people used back in the day when they didn't have access to the internet and Google and all these other things.

And so it makes you think that if so many different cultures across the world have some sort of wisdom with ancestral stuff and divination, astrology, shamanism, that sort of thing, then why should we not You know, in a sense, open up our brains and our hearts to it and see what comes from it.

Yes, it's important to have that open mindedness and to allow the wisdom.

I mean, like you mentioned, these folks didn't have a lot of the technologies and advancements in terms of the way we communicate in such instantaneous manners that we do now.

And a lot of that wisdom was stored in oral history.

It was stored in the stories that got passed down, the art and the music that got passed down from generations of old and just really people observing and having the time to really take a good look at what's happening around them and to see connections and to see patterns.

And then having the forethought to somehow write that down or continue to pass those stories on from generations to generations until somebody wrote it down and passed that wisdom on.

It's like, you can't ignore that.

You have to pay attention to it and allow it to inform you and to guide you.

And that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to have you on because one of the things that, or two of the things that I wanted to discuss were the topic of the 8th and the 12th houses.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, Kathy would be perfect to talk about these things because I want to help illuminate that for people.

And on the episode that I did, the first episode that I did of Confidence by the STARS, I really dug deep into helping people to understand what the houses are.

And essentially, the houses are synonymous with the areas of life in astrology.

And there are 12 houses as outlined by the ancient astrology guides, experts or however you want to call them, they originated this information from their observations and the eighth house is particularly interesting to our conversation because it's the house most closely associated with death, with transitioning, with the end of life and the reason that that is, is because of the first house being kind of like our origin, who we are, what gifts and talents we come into the world with, the thing that makes us us, that thing that makes us unique.

It is on the opposite side of the circle of astrology and a little bit out of view of the first house, they call it an aversion.

It is where the sun sets, it's where the sun begins to go down in astrology, and in the the first house beginning at the place of the eastern horizon.

And so that's how you're able to denote that.

And so when you look across from that, that's where the sun sets.

And so that's how we get some of these significations um, with astrology.

But when it comes to the eighth house, it's considered to be where we go into the underworld, where we start to take that journey to the unconscious, to the place where we're not as familiar with and some of those lessons, like, Like what you mentioned, they don't get passed on, but if you can get a little bit of that before somebody does, it's really powerful.

And I'm going to read a little bit from the Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice by Demetra George a little bit about the Eighth House to kind of give us some context.

And I would love for you to go a little bit deeper into kind of what you do as a result of that and how that can help people understand why this is so powerful and why this information could, could be useful to them.

So the Eighth House is a portal to the landscape of the Underworld in which all life forms die and they descend.

It's closely associated with the following occupations mortician, undertaker, coroners, hospice workers as well as people who kind of deal with circumstances that some folks will have a harder time with folks who have the gift of being a deaf doula.

Like these are kind of where the eighth house things kind of show up.

And some of the things that the eighth house touches on our inheritances that we get as a result of someone passing on.

It deals with wills.

It deals with assets that come from outside of who we are like I mentioned, inheritance, things that are bequeathed to you.

Other types of things that maybe people get buried with.

So jewels and things that people get buried with or passed on with.

And also in more modern astrology, it deals with the psychological subconscious and kind of like mental health and things that people kind of have a hard time with getting a grasp, but the eighth house is a really, really intense house.

If you have any planets that's going through the eighth house, like you really need to take some time and focus on your mental health and well being.

And I know as a hypnotist, as well as someone who does palliative care in hospice work, those are all things that, you know, apply to you.

So I just kind of want to dive deeper into, into those topics and like how you found your way into those spaces cause it's so interesting.

This is so good.

And thank you so much for reading that description.

I was taking notes furiously while you were reading.

So two things that popped up for me.

The first is which, when you said inheritances, wills, assets, things buried that people are buried with or passed on with.

And Also, with the psychological aspect, obviously those are physical things, jewelry maybe land or assets, money, inheritances, but it also brought up something which for me is I've been working through as well, which is the generational trauma that people pass on or don't resolve through years and generations of families and that sort of thing.

There are so many patients and people who, because of life and things get busy, etc., or they just wish at the end of life that they had healed some of the relationships during their lifetime.

Or they die with certain aspects that weren't addressed when they were alive.

Things like how they think about money or relationships with other people.

And so that kind of generational trauma really makes me think about how we relate to each other and how we connect with ourselves and each other, especially since I work with populations who are undocumented immigrants.

They may be homeless and that sort of thing and that takes an even deeper level for the work that I do.

And then the second thing you mentioned, which was the subconscious and mental health.

I had no idea that the eighth house was related to that.

And so thank you so much for bringing that up because it makes so much sense that In a way, my journey has brought me to the unconscious and the subconscious.

So for people who are listening, if you want to think about your mind, your nervous system as an iceberg, right, maybe five, Maybe 7 percent of what you see above the surface is our conscious mind.

That is us being aware, talking, relating, etc.

to each other.

Everything underneath the surface, 95 97%, those are the estimates, of our mind, our nervous system, our sub or unconscious.

And so these are the patterns that we wake up and we do, to look.

unconsciously.

You just grab your phone and you scroll even though you don't want to, right?

Or when we just get anxious or afraid because something that is in our present or potential future reminds us of a past experience that maybe we haven't dealt with or is it a past trauma that is now coming up in our bodies and we're not aware that it's happening.

And so what hypnosis does and what I work on with clients is one, to be able to give them the tools in the moment to address whatever emotions they might be feeling.

So if they're amped up, if they're really anxious to give them the tools to calm themselves in the moment, and then what we'd work on is then to help them rewire their brains, rewire their kind of program their nervous system and their bodies so that the default isn't overwhelmed.

The default is not fear.

The default isn't self doubt, but the default is, I don't know, whatever you want, peace tranquility, confidence, whatever it is.

And so by reprogramming the brain, then we don't, Eventually, we don't have to use those tools in the moment anymore because we're not going to feel that.

And when people realize that a lot of it is just, it's all just neural programming, it's wiring in our brains, then it doesn't feel like, oh, it's something personally wrong with me.

I think so many people feel that, oh my god, there's something wrong with me.

I've always been like this.

I'm just a lost cause.

Why bother?

And that's not true at all.

And that's what I love telling people is that, look, you don't have to wait until you get sick or someone you love dies to be able to change your life.

It's not like, oh, you got into a car accident and you automatically downloaded the information necessary to quit smoking, or to start that business you've always wanted, right?

And so it doesn't have to be that way.

And I think that that's really refreshing for people to know that that possibility exists.

Thank you for listening to Confidence by the STARS.

If you like the show, Please leave a review to help us spread the good vibes.

Oh, and if you haven't already, follow the podcast by clicking the follow button right now.

When you do, the moment we publish a new episode, it will come right to the top of your feed so you don't miss a thing.

One last thing, listen to the end of the show.

I have an amazing freebie for you.

Now, back to the show.

I was blown away about what you said about only seven, roughly 7 percent is the conscious part and the rest of that, that 93 something percent is subconscious.

And we're not even cognizant of what we're feeling, what we're dealing with, how our nervous system is responding to things.

That is really, really powerful.

And I think that, or for me, the topic of hypnosis and the topic of kind of exploring that part of, of who we don't realize we are is really quite incredible.

And it's something that I personally, I've had an experience with hypnosis in the past and it was really powerful.

I was like in my teens and we were at like a graduation party or something that the school was putting on for us and they had brought in a hypnotist and we were doing all kinds of stuff.

I actually had been hypnotized and I didn't realize I was looking like, There's no way I'm going to, there's no way I'm going to fall under hypnosis.

And it's just so powerful.

And you actually do.

And so many people who volunteered did.

But I think the experience of using it in a medical sense and using it in the sense of having a way of overcoming those.

thoughts or those limitations that we perceive about ourselves is really powerful and really helpful.

And I know as a doctor, you have a certain standard of confidentiality that you have to uphold, but I would love if there were some anecdotal kind of examples or ways that you can help people explore that a little bit more.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you mentioned a phrase which I wrote down again because it's so good, the limitations we perceive about ourselves.

So hypnosis really, people get kind of scared because they see stage hypnosis, which is when a hypnotist calls a bunch of people up on stage and kind of makes, right, kind of makes fools out of them, right?

They're like, I don't want to quack like a duck or they feel like they're going to lose control.

That's not what clinical hypnotists or hypnotherapists do.

Basically, what we do is to help the client or the patient have more control over their subconscious.

If you've ever watched a movie and you've been so engrossed in it where something happens on screen and you get scared or there's a really moving scene and you start crying, you've been hypnotized, right?

It's basically just suspending your own disbelief for a little bit where you're so wrapped up in something else outside of you that you are in it.

And so if that's happened to you, then you've been hypnotized.

It just sounds really scary because you're like, I've never quacked like a duck before, but that's not what it is at all.

And so I just want to clear that for the record.

All right.

And so A lot of times what happens with clients who come to me is that they've tried everything else.

They've tried therapy, they've tried other things, they've tried talking to their friends, they've tried whatever it is.

And they just feel like, mm, it's helping, but there's something else there.

And I've had clients who Again, I love therapy.

It saved my life.

And at a certain point, I just knew that I'd gotten what I needed out of it.

Because therapy is conscious.

It's in the top of the iceberg.

You're aware, you are you know, saying certain things, and sometimes you know that you might be telling someone something that maybe they want to hear, or that you, feel that you believe, even though that may not be necessarily true.

Sometimes we lie to ourselves, even in therapy, right?

And so hypnosis really helps to blur the boundary between conscious and unconscious, and it gives us access to our own inner wisdom.

So I've had clients, who some people are entrepreneurs, and they're like, you know what, I'm having a really hard time writing my marketing materials and I know it's in there, but every time I try to write it just feels forced and I don't like it.

No one's going to buy this.

It just feels fake.

Well, for this particular client, we did like 10 15 minutes, got them really relaxed, and got them seeing a vision of their future, tapping into why they started the business in the first place, and it just flowed out of them.

And basically, I just kind of hit record with a voice memo on my phone and sent it to them after the session, and that became their copy for their website.

And they're marketing materials.

And it's not just entrepreneurs, it's regular people who are like, I can't stop overeating because my anxiety is really triggered.

And we work on that.

We do different hypnoses to help them with anxiety, to see themselves as a calmer, more peaceful version of themselves.

And then that you know, kind of just Fades away, or it gets to a point where they feel like, Oh, this is manageable.

I can think again instead of being chained to it.

So those are just a few examples without giving too much detail of how hypnosis can help.

And it can help with so many things.

Pain, anxiety, overwhelm um, you know, habit cessation, smoking issues, procrastination, really sleep.

Really anything you can think of and there's studies.

There's really really good research backing hypnosis as well.

Wow, that is really powerful.

I love that you said that hypnosis is a way for us to blur the line between the conscious and the subconscious so that we can access our own wisdom.

I thought that was really powerful and just giving the examples of how you've helped people and guided them through the process using clinical hypnosis so that they can essentially get out of their own way and really tap into something that they, there's deep within them.

They know that that's something that they want and they're attempting to access it, but for whatever reason they, they can't.

So having this as an option to really be able to tap into that.

And.

access those resources is really quite amazing.

And I think that's, what's powerful also to bring in that subject back to the eighth house and this whole concept of mental health and also this concept of accessing resources that we have available to us that are there to support us, but for whatever reason we're not capable or we're not in a place where we can guide ourselves through that.

We need external help and knowing that that's a possibility is really powerful.

I would love to know if there's any other things that you would like people to know about hypnosis or really just the whole concept of tapping into their subconscious Um, and using that as a way to access their own wisdom or to tap into other modalities um, of, of help for themselves.

Thanks.

It's a great question.

I always like to say that my clients already have the answers.

I'm not here to give people the answers.

I'm here to really just tease it out of them because, like you said, there is so much noise outside of us, right?

On any given day, there's social media, there's texts and notifications and all these things that come externally and it makes it hard for us to hear our own inner Voices or to tap into our own inner wisdom, feeling sensation, things like that.

And so hypnosis is a way to get people just relaxed.

There are some people who on the spectrum of how hypnotizable they are, there are some people of very, a small portion of the population who could like get hypnotized and have surgery without anesthesia, just from hypnosis, but for there are some people who are just like, you know what, it felt really relaxing and other people have some experience in the middle.

And so Why not tap into your own inner wisdom?

Because we already know, right?

Again, it's the same as if something devastating and a big life event happens to you and you just wake up one day and you're like, Oh my God.

I need to change my life.

You already know what you need to do.

It's just that the external environment finally shifted to a point where you, it generated enough emotion and enough pain within you for you to say, Oh, okay.

I know what I need to do, and now I'm actually going to do it.

And so, again, it's not as if anything outside of you changed, or that you got extra information from the outside world.

It's just that your priorities shifted, and you were finally able to quiet the noise of the external world, and know that, okay, This is what I need to do, and I'm going to do it.

And when people know that, and when people have access to that.

They feel unstoppable, Dorrissa.

Like, they just, they were like, there's nothing wrong with the, in the world.

Like, I understand that there's problems and I'm in control of me.

I'm in control of my own circumstances.

And that is such a powerful experience and I want everyone to have that.

Wow, I think that would be amazing for everyone to have access to those types of experiences.

And to be able to do so hopefully in not as traumatic ways, but sometimes I love this quote from a Wrinkle in Time movie.

It says the wound is where the light enters.

And sometimes it takes that for us to get to that place where we're accepting of our own personal gifts, where we're accepting of our own talent that we get to bring into the world and really nurture that and grow it.

And so I'm going to now shift us into the topic of the 12th house, which is a little bit deeper dive into the subconscious as well.

The 12th house is probably that 93 percent that you mentioned that we don't understand about the iceberg.

Yeah, the 12th house is really, really deep.

And so I'm going to quote from another astrologer that I follow in his newest book, his new book is called Mastering Traditional Astrology: a Depth of Beginning in the Celestial Arts by Michael A.

Bryan.

He's a really powerful astrologer.

And because he's so powerful, I want to make sure I get the 12th house right.

So I'm going to quote from his book.

He says, The 12th house is the house of self undoing, hidden enemies, and silent suffering.

As a house of self undoing, it represents the negative habits that prevent us from living a life of complete happiness and joy.

It can signify a feeling of being stuck.

Isolated and unable to tap into the fullness of our personal power.

At the same time, it can symbolize habit patterns of self-sabotage, and negative reactivity.

Wow.

That seems like something you could help people with, Kathy.

What do you think about that?

Okay, this is so good.

So good.

I, again, wrote a lot of notes.

So, I don't know if you've ever read this book.

I highly, highly recommend it for everyone.

It's called The Big Leap, L E A P, by Gay Hendrix.

And on the cover is, I think, a goldfish in a bowl and, like, the goldfish is leaping, I think, out of the bowl or something like that.

It is one, I've read so Countless, countless personal development books.

It is like top, it's probably number one for me, I would say, but definitely top two or top three.

Basically, the premise of the book is that we all have kind of an internal thermostat of where we think we should be or who we think we should be in life.

And if life gets too good, then we self sabotage unconsciously, unknowingly, to bring ourselves back down to where we think we should be.

And so some of the examples that he uses are Um, you know, this one guy got a great promotion at work and something that he always wanted and it was really great.

He goes home and unconsciously starts to pick a fight with his wife because he's not used to accepting more love, success, wealth, abundance in their lives.

And it's that Marianne Williamson quote where our greatest fear is not that we're not enough or something.

Our greatest fear is that we are more powerful beyond we could ever imagine.

Something like that.

I'm butchering it.

And so again, we're not doing it on purpose.

This is all lower iceberg stuff.

This is all beneath the surface.

This is years of programming from when we were kids from societal messages.

Or even things like discrimination and racism which tells us we're not enough, right?

Especially if you are a woman or a person of color, like these are all messages that we take in and We get conditioned from a young age, and when our nervous systems and our brains are really forming the circuitry and the wiring, and then over time, as we repeat those things, it just seems like second nature.

It seems normal for us to doubt our own power.

It seems normal for us to to self sabotage, like a relationship, right?

Oh my God, this person is so wonderful.

This partner is treating me really well.

What's wrong with them?

Right?

Why are they doing this?

And then we, we are like, Oh no, there's something wrong with them.

And we self sabotage the relationship, which could otherwise be amazing and wonderful because we are not used to being treated well.

We're not used to having good positive relationships in our lives as an example of that.

And so one, I highly, highly recommend everyone read that book.

And two, that's something that hypnosis can help with because it accesses that deeper level, which we're not aware of.

We're like, why am I doing this to myself?

Where, you know, Sometimes, I'll get on an exercise regimen.

I'm doing really great and I'm seeing results, and then I'll just binge eat for no reason at all, right?

I'm just like, oh, I want donuts, and I don't even eat donuts.

There's an element of self sabotage in there for me, too, because I'll just give an example.

For me, if deep down, if I think that um, there's an association, a negative association with being seen as a sexual being, then I'm not going to allow myself to feel healthy, or vita like, or vivacious, or sexual, right?

And so, there's a lot of stuff underneath.

And so, when we can get down to what's really there, it, it just blows everything wide open, and you don't feel like there's a plateau.

You don't feel like I'm getting stuck when you don't want to be stuck.

Yeah, that is just really, really incredible.

I think those kind of self sabotaging ways that we have that hidden self that we don't really even, even know is kind of creeping up and, uh and taking us like off the track that we intended for ourselves.

It's just really amazing.

And I'm just, So shocked that the ancient wisdom of the world recognized that about who we are.

And now we have tools like hypnosis and things that that help us really understand that and uncover that.

So that we can be more aware and more cognizant of how we kind of go about those things.

What might be some suggestions that you would give people to help them to not self sabotage?

I know definitely having a session would be helpful, but what might be some other ways that people can work on those aspects of who they are?

So, one of the best things that I recommend for people is, one, to be aware of what you might be doing.

If something good happens to you, we're always conditioned to be like, when is the other going to, when is the other shoe going to drop?

Right?

Like, oh, this is great, but when is it going to, when is it going to start just unraveling?

But what you're doing is you're priming your nervous system to have that.

And so when you prime your nervous system and the energy that you give out of, Oh my God, oh my God, when is it going to happen?

If you keep asking that question, the answer is going to arrive, right?

When the other shoe drops and then it's a confirmation bias.

Oh, see, I knew it couldn't last.

And so a question that you can start to ask yourself, start to train yourself to get into the habit of asking is, okay, how could this get better?

How long can I allow myself to enjoy this?

How can life be even more abundant?

How can I allow myself to have even more love?

And it sounds really weird and uncomfortable because it's foreign.

It's not something we're used to.

The more that you can do this and practice this, the more that you can start to change the thermostat of what you're comfortable with because if you all you've ever known is pain and suffering and when good things happen to you, then you're not going to be equipped to hold space and have capacity for all that goodness.

So you need to slowly expand your capacity to have good things happen to you.

We gotta have more practice with good things.

We gotta have, we gotta you know, figure out a way to hold that space and enjoy it and savor it and cherish that time.

It sounds like a lot of what people wish when they get to the end of their life.

They're wishing, I wish I would have spent more time with my family.

I wish I would have gotten that pet that I wanted for so long.

I wish I would have taken that trip or, or done this or that um, or started that business or acted on that dream that I've held in my, in you know, in my mind for so long.

So it's just sounds like we need to take time to really savor life and to savor those moments to help us not sabotage ourselves.

Is that right?

Absolutely, and if anyone listening out there has just has a sense that, hey, you know what, maybe I will take the next smallest step towards that thing I've always wanted to do, but I've been too scared to do, then I feel like I've done my job, right?

That's the goal, is to really help people to embrace the now, is to Live the life that you want now, rather than decades later when you're on your deathbed wishing that you should have done something different.

That's not the time.

The time is now.

And there's so many tools, and there's so many resources, this podcast you, yourself, and how you can help people.

It's all within you.

And so just believe that, trust yourself, and just take the next smallest step.

It doesn't have to be something wild.

Just the next smallest.

And that's progress.

Yes, just take the next step and Be in the sense of understanding that that's all you need.

You don't have to have everything laid out.

You just have to take the next step.

And it can be a small one.

It doesn't have to be some huge leap.

It could just be the next logical thing or the next thing that you feel drawn to that can really make the difference.

Oh, I love that.

I've had such a great time talking with you, Kathy.

And I want to begin to close the podcast by asking one of my wonderful questions that I love to ask my guests called the "Three Wise".

And it's like the gifts of the Magi they gave three gifts to this new soul that entered the world.

And We're all kind of like that in a sense.

We all come into this world, hopefully in a loving kind of environment, but we're all, in a sense, a gift to the world.

And it's a beautiful thing when people reciprocate that.

And so I would love to know what have been your three wise?

What have been things that have blessed you on your journey?

And I call it three sayings, three sages, or three sounds.

So that's three, either people that have kind of helped you understand or that you've really connected with, three sayings or affirmations or principles that you follow, or three sounds, three music pieces that you listen to, or films that have really inspired you on your cosmic journey.

Wow, okay, so Hmm, so I have to pick either people saying or a combination of all of them.

Oh Okay So the first one that comes to mind is this saying it may or may not be attributed to Confucius which is "Every man, human, has two lives.

The second starts the moment you realize you only have one." And that is something that I love, obviously, because of the implications of life and death and hospice and everything like that.

Gosh, what else?

People wise, My, my family, my, my mom, my dad, my husband, they have just been so supportive in everything that I've done in my life.

And they, in their own ways, are quite woo as well.

And helping to nurture my own spirituality in that sense has been really transformative and again, transcendent in my life.

And then, another.

One is the Bobby McFerrin song, Don't Worry, Be Happy.

I know it sounds really silly, but there's this, there's this kind of a image or a matrix.

It's like a decision tree, right?

And which I love, which is, do you have a problem?

Yes or no?

Okay.

If yes, can you do anything about it?

Yes or no?

So if yes, Then the answer is why worry?

And if no, then the answer is also why worry?

Right?

And that is a constant reminder that there's so much out there beyond our control, and why worry about it?

If it's within our control, why worry about it?

We can do something about it.

If it's not, why worry about it?

And so I leave people with that.

That's fantastic.

Thank you so much, Kathy, for joining us.

I would love to know how we can stay connected to you and how we could support you in any way.

Yeah, so my Instagram is @dr.luyikathyzhang and my website is luyikathyzhang.com as well.

L U Y I, Kathy with a K, Z H A N G.

Right.

Well, Kathy, it's been an immense pleasure.

Thank you so much for coming on to the Confidence by the STARS podcast and sharing your wisdom with us, for helping us to understand how precious life truly is and how we have to savor her.

Every moment.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Dorrissa.

It's been a great time.

Alrighty.

Thanks again for listening.

If you like the show, please leave a review.

And if you would like to stay connected on social media, follow us on Instagram @cosmusicapp.

That's C O S M U S I C A P P.

@cosmusicapp.

Until next time