Episode 106: Coming Back to Yourself with Mackenzie Belcastro Transformational Coach
Podcast
Episode 106: Coming Back to Yourself with Mackenzie Belcastro Transformational Coach
“Who's to say that, going to get a coffee, isn't also a spiritual act.” — Mackenzie Belcastro
This episode is your permission slip to listen to your own internal seasons of productivity and rest. I’m joined by Mackenzie Belcastro, a transformational coach, Reiki Practitioner, and podcast host.
Mackenzie and I kick this episode off by inviting you to drop into a powerful Creative Spark meditation. This meditation is a practice you can bookmark and return to again and again.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create.
What’s in This Episode:
Mackenzie defines creativity as being in touch with one's soul or higher self. She highlights the importance of regular self-care and meditation for keeping that channel open and shares her journey of aligning her external world with her internal values.
Mackenzie reminds you that it’s okay to experience human moments and shares her own cyclical pattern of stepping back from “productivity” in the fall. She gives herself permission to rest, knowing she’ll return to a season of productivity when she feels inspired.
Mackenzie reminds you that you do not need to force your creative process. And that you are deserving of self-compassion while navigating seasons of creative blocks.
Topics Covered:
Igniting your creative spark with the Creative Spark guided meditation
Honoring your creative seasons and reframing not being productive as essential for maintaining creativity
Trusting your creative process, allowing your intuition and instincts to guide your work
Remembering that everything is ceremony and you have the power to bring intention into every small act of your day
Neutralizing negative energy with love when creative blocks surface
Question:
In what ways have you been in ceremony lately? Leave a comment below or tag us on IG @chefcarlacontreras & @mackbelcastroto share with us.
xo Carla
PS: Are you Substack curious? Listen to this podcast episode about building your new digital home on Substack. Join the Substack Accelerator to share your creative projects and work in the world. Create, Launch, & Grow Your Substack
Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
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About Mackenzie Belcastro
Mackenzie Belcastro is a transformational coach for women and teens. She believes that challenging situations arise only to coax us to come back to our truest, most empowered selves——and this is what she helps her clients first begin to understand, and then go on to embody. Mackenzie has been accredited by the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Achology: The Academy of Modern Applied Psychology, and The Embody Lab.
FIND + WORK WITH MACKENZIE:
Website: https://mackenziebelcastro.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mackbelcastro
Full Transcript:
Carla (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally, and creatively drained, nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras, across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. Mackenzie, welcome to the podcast. I am so grateful to have you here. Can you share with us who you are and how you serve your community?
Mackenzie (00:48):
Thank you, Carla. I'm so excited to be here as well. So yeah, my name is Mackenzie. I'm a coach for women mostly in the creative entrepreneurial space and do some personal work, but for the most part, as of the past year and a half, it's been a lot of work on essentially creating a business that is a reflection, something I say all the time. It's like creating a life that's where your external world's a reflection of your internal world. So really lining things up and yeah, that's the brunt of the stuff that pays my bills, so to speak. And then I also have a podcast that's for the passion and for spreading the whole message as well. Just another one of the wheels, if you will.
Carla (01:28):
What was your last meal?
Mackenzie (01:31):
I was telling this to you before we were recording. I'm like, oh, I wish it was something more, I don't know, that drew up a nicer visual, but it was literally two beef patties, some green beans, and then randomly I have these coconut chunks, coconut meat, just like fresh coconut meat. So I have that in the fridge and I was like, oh, I think I want to eat these after. So that was my little dessert and I had a little glass of wine with that. I'm in France, so I feel got to bring in the de flow with the nice little meal there.
Carla (02:02):
That sounds beautiful.
Mackenzie (02:03):
Yeah,
Carla (02:04):
It was nice. How do you define creativity?
Mackenzie (02:08):
The way that I view it, the process. That's a result of you being in touch with your soul, of you being in touch with your higher self or the divine or whatever it is, God, whatever you feel like the right word is for you in the moment. But yeah, it's this process and it can look like anything. It can look like what we're doing. I think it can be podcasting, especially if you do solo stuff. That's often for a lot of people it's like they're channeling so to speak. Or it could be writing or painting or just dancing, moving your body in the kitchen. And it's usually from the way I see it, it's this result of being in touch with something deeper, that deeper dimension or element. Yeah,
Carla (02:54):
And we talked about this before we hopped on the podcast, and I'd love to people that are tuning in, that are listening to revisit this practice anytime they need a creative spark. Do you want to share with us?
Mackenzie (03:10):
Sure. So let's just get ourselves into a comfortable position, as comfortable as you can. So again, just as Carla said, not while you're driving or probably originally listening to this podcast, but coming back and just taking a moment to sit down or I always like to invite people to lie down as well, because sometimes you're just tired and you want to give your whole body a break. So just taking a moment to come to yourself, connect to your body, and just start by taking a deep breath into your belly as much as you can, filling up your belly with just some fresh nourishing oxygen and letting it go slowly from your mouth, letting the air leave you. And as the air leaves your lungs releasing anything that you don't need to hold on to any energy, any thoughts that aren't serving you, just letting it go. And go on and take two more breaths, just in your own time, filling up your lungs and letting it go.
(04:35)
And whenever you're ready, just drawing up in your mind this glowing orb. You can imagine any color that you like and just imagine it, let's say half a foot in front of your face or a few inches away from your nose, just this beautiful glowing orb. And you can just take a moment to connect with it. This is your creativity, and we're going to just take a moment to invite this beautiful glowing orb into our bodies, inviting it, bringing it, drawing it just in your mind's eye into your chest. And as it comes into your chest, feel the warmth of this beautiful glowing orb. Feel it spread through your body. And as it does, releasing any tension that might be in your chest, that might be in your belly, just allowing its light to spread through your body.
(05:53)
And as it does, you might have some breaths. And again, with that exhale, just letting go of anything that doesn't connect with you that you don't need to hold on to. And just feeling instead in its place, the warmth. And Carla and I spoke about using this as a moment to release any blocks. And so if you feel like you're disconnected from your creativity, from the divine, from God, the universe, essentially yourself, without overthinking it, just allowing on your next breath here to breathe in again, feeling that warmth spreading further through your body. And on that exhale, you can sigh out and allow an audible sigh. I'm not going to do it now. My mic might explode, but just sighing out as much as you can, letting out any sound, allowing it to release audibly through your lungs. And as you do this, go on and do a few more here.
(07:07)
Just breathing in and sighing out loud if you can. If not as loud, as loud as you can. Maybe you need a pillow, you want to breathe out into the pillow. Maybe you want to bring your arms and shake your arms, bring in a little bit of movement just to shake out your body. So often we hold so much in our bodies and it does stop us up. It prevents us from connecting with our truer selves with the divine. So just taking a moment to shake your body out in whichever way, looking a little bit silly if you can, that might even be for the best.
(07:48)
And not putting any pressure in yourself, but just coming back to your breath, connecting again to your heart. You might want to bring your hands to your chest, feeling into that beautiful light that you've spread through your body. Just coming back to yourself and knowing that there isn't any pressure to go on and create right now. But if you do have, let's say, 30 seconds, you might want to take a moment to just jot something down. If something came through for you, draw a little picture and you can use that as your spark of inspiration when you do have time to come back to your process. And if that's right now, then go ahead and create and you can open your eyes when you're ready.
Carla (08:44):
That was gorgeous. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Mackenzie (08:49):
I was like, where are we going to go with this? Let's take this glowing orb and let it do something. Let it move us and connect us in some way. So that's what wanted to come through. Here we are,
Carla (09:00):
And this is an example of your creative process, and I'd love for you to expand what nourishes your creativity? How do you create, and this is a beautiful example of it.
Mackenzie (09:15):
It is, and it's actually really amazing as you and I kept saying prior, we did have, there was rescheduling a little bit with this podcast and it really ended up being divine timing because the number one thing that I honestly just constantly being reminded of is that for me and for everyone, they're going to have their own process. But for me, meditation is the thing that always connects me again with myself and with source. And it's always when I'm making space to meditate in the morning. And it doesn't have to be for too long or anything, but just creating that space for myself. And again, for someone else, maybe it's just journaling or whatnot, but for me specifically, it really is that meditation that seems to just open me up and it totally changes the flow of my day, the connection of my day, again, ultimately to myself, which is what goes on to open up those doors to creativity.
(10:12)
So the reason I say that, it was very much divine time. I had two months there where I was just tired and I was just like, I didn't really want to do anything. I honestly just wanted to watch tv. I really didn't want to do anything. And it was two months and after a while, and I think it's fine, we all have seasons, but after a while I'm like, okay, I'm just tired of this. I feel like it's so disconnected. And I'm always dancing with that of like, okay, but it's okay to just be a human and have human time and all of that. And then come back and just recognizing when you've had your time to play, you've let your inner child doer thing, and now you're parenting yourself to come back and do the cleaning up of your energy if you will. Like that hygiene work to come back and again, yeah, open up those gates to the divine slash the creative process. So that's a massive thing. And honestly for me, I'm sure you can relate, I don't have to force creativity when I'm just connected to myself. And that again, specifically for me does come from meditation, but I don't think, I know that doesn't have to be the portal for everyone for sure.
Carla (11:20):
I'm going to ask a follow up question because I feel like this leads directly to it. What is your current relationship with creativity? Can you expand further on giving yourself permission to human?
Mackenzie (11:35):
Yeah, it's interesting because I think people who are in these sorts of spaces, whether that is personal development or you are, I mean so many artists, creatives, it's all very similar. You can feel almost guilty or something. You're constantly pressuring yourself to do this thing. So I felt that, but I kept coming up against this feeling and was, I really was feeling for a little while, okay, this meditation thing really feels like homework, and I really feel like I'm actually not aligned by forcing myself to do this thing. And I was really just feeling inspired by the fall always does something to me. I always just want to listen to jazz music and be in the leaves and just all these things that are just you in the seventh grade, I just want to go be in society, be in the world Thanksgiving, all of this kind of stuff, and not be in touch with any of the five D.
(12:37)
I just really wasn't feeling hold to it. And it really is cyclical last fall as well. I want to listen to Frank Sinatra, and I don't want to think about anything that has to do with personal development aside from when I'm working. And I think there is, I've talked to so many people and a lot of people do feel like an interesting guilt, let's say. Maybe not a weird guilt, but an interesting guilt around just doing the human style, just being human and not in touch with their quote, spiritual, which is, it's not even true. It's like we put all these labels and boxes and who's to say that going to get a coffee or whatnot isn't also a spiritual act. I think we just encase so many things and we label things. And so there's a lot of, in our working with my mind throughout this time and just trying to honor I guess what's coming up from within myself and also checking in to be like, okay, but is this my ego that's kind of scared of something right now? I scared, am I? So there is a lot of checking in at that time, but most of all, I just want to give myself time to just chill out, watch friends watch Christmas stuff in November, which is always what I do. I watch the most holiday stuff in November and by December I'm kind of over it, sort of. But yeah, I don't know. Do you have that experience as well of just not wanting to do the stuff? Sometimes.
Carla (14:03):
All the time. And I feel like my invitation from my Peruvian Shamanic teacher, Puma, is that everything is ceremony. And when I bring it back to that, everything is connected, and I'm like, is there a space where I'm like, I'm not doing X, Y, and Z that I defined. And I feel like we can label this in all different ways, even me as a parent, but when it comes down to it, what we're doing right now is being connected and isn't that what it's all about?
Mackenzie (14:41):
Yeah, a hundred percent. And that is always my feeling when I'm in that and I'm like, Mackenzie, it's not about, there was truly and truly seasons for that stuff. There are times when you're going to feel naturally magnetically pulled towards these other practices and now is not the time for it because right now you're not feeling that pull and you're feeling pulled to have conversations and it's all as yours. I love that line. Everything is ceremony, I think you said.
Carla (15:10):
Yeah. Everything in ceremony.
Mackenzie (15:11):
Yeah. I think that's so beautiful. And it really was true. It was interesting, me just being very observant of my, again, of my human self, having all these emotions come up with just putting it down and being like, it's okay. There's seasons for it all. And then it really did naturally come back and I was like, I just need to move through this fear of like, oh, I am just going to be disconnected from having anything good in my life if I'm not being a diligent, all these, it's almost like religious fears, but I'm not religious. But it was almost like these, I guess it's can be applied as well to the spiritual world as well. I think there's a lot of superstition and a lot of that, which was healthy for me to be like, see, you're fine. You're totally fine.
Carla (15:57):
And seeing, seeing your stories, seeing you in the cafe with your coffee, isn't that ceremony.
Mackenzie (16:04):
Yeah, I totally agree. Oh, I love that line so much. It's so beautiful.
Carla (16:09):
Yeah, everything is
Mackenzie (16:10):
Ceremony. Yeah, I'll come back to that next fall when it comes up again.
Carla (16:14):
I'm excited to hear. And he reminds me that sometimes when we think about spirituality, we think about certain checking certain boxes, and maybe this is creativity too, checking certain boxes, and maybe this is being in a relationship or a parent checking those boxes, but we don't have to. And we are usually, as I was reminded by someone at coworking, we're usually doing more than enough.
Mackenzie (16:45):
Yeah. It's funny. I think when you mentioned about creativity as it pertains to this podcast, I used to also really have that with creativity in the sense that I would only validate and I was unconscious at this point, so it was just full on just beating myself up and not being aware and just being like, oh, I hate this. But when I was in my earlier twenties especially, and mid twenties, I would just be completely invalidating anything that wasn't actually creating the results. And then creative process, most of it is actually not that part. Most of it is all the thinking and all of the dreaming or researching or however you go about it, but I used to totally invalidate that and almost have anxiety if I spent the whole day in that part of the process, and it was constantly whipping myself or not. And at the time, for me, it was writing, so I was like, oh my God, you haven't written anything. But it was like, you need to do all the other stuff to get to the point of writing something down. And I think that is a bit of a result of hustle culture, which I think is also in that whole spiritual thing as well. It's like, oh, if I'm not, as you've mentioned, it's taking the things off of the box, then I haven't done anything.
Carla (17:58):
I feel like we've talked a lot about creative blocks, but I'm curious if you have anything specific around moving through creative flocks, especially since you coach other people.
Mackenzie (18:10):
Yeah, I really do think what you just spoke of nowadays, I see it all pretty much through an energetic lens. And so it does come back to what you were saying in terms of we're already, most of the time, we're doing more than enough, or that compassion that you shared and having that self-compassion for ourselves, because now in terms of the energy of it all, I'm like, well, we're not going to remove a block by basically layering on the same energy, which is sort of mean or just negative. To put a general term on it, more negative energy and more negative energy and more negative energy by beating ourselves up. The only way to neutralize that sort of negative or just unhelpful energy is to bring in love. To me, when I think of it that way, it's the only thing that actually makes sense to clear the charge.
(19:00)
If in a battery, if it's negative, then we need a positive, then we need to clear it. And so for whatever reason, that vision does help me. And so personally, and then also with other people, it's always clearer in other people. So when I sit across from someone, they're like, oh, I'm just not feeling really connected to whatever it is that they're working on. And there's usually a whole, it's like they're battling two battles, which I totally get. It's like you're battling what I just talked about, the guilt of not feeling connected to your work or whatnot. And then there's the other part of that, you're not doing the work, so it's like you're not doing it, and then you're beating yourself up for not doing it, and whatever's going on, you're not even sure what's going on. You're just caught up in this cycle.
(19:46)
And usually what happens is in sessions, people will kind of just vent it out, and then it's so funny to watch them as they vent it out, like a meditation, the energy comes out of their mouth and then all of a sudden they're laughing at themselves or whatnot. It's so cool because in real time you're seeing the shift in energy and they're like, oh, okay, maybe actually I should just do this. And then they usually come to a very simple, because I always emphasize baby steps. When you're overwhelmed, it's not going to help you whatsoever. Sometimes the homework, so to speak, is to take care of yourself in a nourishing kind of way, whatever that might be. And then if they can handle a little bit more, then it will usually come up within that session. They're like, oh, this would actually be kind of fun.
(20:30)
And usually the actual, what I have seen in terms of very often what the block actually is, is they're scared to trust themselves to do it the way they want to do it. So they kind of feel like they need to go about something. Again, whatever their work is. I do have this one client, and I won't share her details or anything, but in her art, she had this thing with not being professional enough, but she's so talented. I'm like, dude, if you're not professional, I don't know who's professional because I've never seen work as good as yours, so let's just keep going with this way. You want to go about it. And her fear was that it was basically a distrust of self. She couldn't trust herself that the way that her intuition was guiding her to go about her art was okay. And so we just needed to lean into it a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, and just give herself essentially permission. But I guess the answer is going very slow, leaning in a little bit more. And then also when you can't lean in, then just take care of yourself, because again, I think we need to take care of that neutralizing the energy versus definitely not leaning into any more shame or whatnot.
Carla (21:39):
This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom, all of your magic, and especially the creative Spark practice. Can you share with us how we can find you, how we can work with you, how we can support you?
Mackenzie (21:53):
Oh, that's so nice. I mean, this is so fun. It's so nice to connect with you. Carla is always the easiest thing is always just Instagram because everything is pointed to there. So I'm at Mac Bell Castro, and my last name is a little bit hard in Italian, but I'm sure Carla will link everything up. Everything is linked through there. So podcast, website, all the good stuff.
Carla (22:18):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support sending you and yours so much love.