Special Guest: Mackenzie Abercrombie
Greetings, Magnificent Souls to the Attract Health Build Wealth blog where we have open and honest discussions about ourselves.
This is a place where we break down, break away and breakthrough codependency, allowing ourselves to attract health, build wealth, and live a peaceful life.
We are tired of being sick and tired.
We are tired, but we're not giving up.
We know that there is something magnificent inside of us and because we are fighting daily, hourly, and by the minute fighting ourselves, our kids, our spouses, we have to do things differently.
We have to break the cycle.
We don't have a million chances.
We have to be happy now.
We have to find a way.
So how do we do that?
How is that possible?
If you look around at what society is telling you, they'll tell you that what we're doing is impossible.
Yet it's happening every single day and it's happening through the practice and love that we call Awakening the Magnificent Soul.
We are all Magnificent Souls and these are stories of healing.
And today, I am so excited to introduce you to my very first guest, Kenzie Abercrombie.
I'm so happy and honored to have you here.
But before we get into the discussion, don't forget to let me know out there your thoughts about this episode, any feedback you have or anything you'd like me to cover at the Epiphany Vault.
And don't forget you can share anonymously and it is a safe place and I would welcome the discussion.
So we have Kenzie, Kenzie and I met when we were both wearing different hats, but we instantly connected.
You know, when you meet someone you can instantly feel that aura and that love?
That's Mackenzie and me.
Since then we just connected and stayed in touch.
We live in different cities now, but I'm so enamored with her and her journey through life and I'm so happy she's here to have a conversation.
The idea about her talking about this kind of sprouted when we were texting back and forth about the podcast and about how we both feel that this is so important to talk about.
And I was like, hey, why don't you just come on the podcast and we'll talk about some of this stuff.
And she agreed. Awesome.
So she's here.
Note to reader: This is a transcription of our conversation.
MA: Hello. I know I'm super excited. I found it so interesting that after spending a day talking to a girlfriend of mine about this, you and I had the same conversation so I couldn't just come on and talk to you about it and just talk about my journey and just how it's affected me because I've been listening to your podcasts. I started listening like a week ago and there were so many things, I've never taken so many notes listening to somebody. So many things completely resonated and things that I think are important to talk about as well. So I'm really glad. Yeah.
LB: Oh awesome. Yeah. Like I said, this is the first time, so it's super cool and this is kind of, you know, just like we're having coffee, we really haven't planned this out and we just want to talk about things and thank you for saying that because that's super inspiring for me. Just to hear that, you know that open up, opening up the lines of communication and talking about this. So, and for all the listeners out there, just a heads up, I do plan on having more guests on the podcast but Kenzie's the first one, so she's breaking ground. But the first question that I'm going to ask everyone, no matter who it, it'd be a, have a whole list of like celebrities and stuff I'm going to try to get on. But that first question is always going to be how has codependency touched your life?
MA: Yeah. So it's kind of always been there, which is weird to think about when you look, kind of look back at it and nobody ever wants to be codependent and you always think of it in the sense of like a relationship. Nobody wants to be dependent on anyone, but looking back on it in my own life, I have a relationship with severe codependency issues that's kind of been there my whole life. , it was involved. It involves a family member of mine. It involves me really being a support to this particular family member for the majority of my life. And you don't ever think about it because it's family, I guess. And that's just kind of the mentality that we have in our family is just kind of its family. So it's not an issue. And then you look back at it 20 years and you're like, oh, there it is.
MA: That's what it was. For me, it was a lot of self-giving. I from a very young age was put in a position where I was constantly giving where it was constantly the adult in a situation. And for me, that was my normal. And you look back at it and I'm going to be 27 in October and you're like, that's 15 years of my life where I thought that was normal. And you get the opportunity to kind of really look into yourself and go, can you maybe that's not as normal or maybe that's a new normal. That shouldn't be normal. So for me, this codependent relationship was built on a series of milestones. It was moments where I shouldn't have had to be an adult where I had to be the adult when somebody couldn't be the adult where I thought I had to give up hanging out with friends, with moving out of my parents' house with moving out and moving out of the city.
MA: A lot of that had to do with this particular relationship. And you struggle between, well, this is my family member. This is somebody I love. This is somebody who would not do this to me intentionally. And taking the past six months to really explore like my own self and my own issues. Just kind of learning that they're not doing it on purpose. And there are other issues as to why you get kind of sucked into this cycle of codependency. , I think with this particular family member, I don't think they ever would have, wanted to create this type of codependent relationship with me. I don't think anybody ever wants that. And I'm such a giving person that I don't think about it until two years later. And what struck a chord with me was listening to I think your second podcast where you're talking about your relationship with your dad.
MA: And it's so interesting to me because I'm a very driven person. I like excelling. I liked the feel goods. I like it. But where your story was you pushed and pushed and pushed and achieved. Mine was like I pushed and pushed and pushed and rebelled. I did not like if you wanted me to go for the gold, I settled for bronze because you wanted it that bad. And it was so intriguing to me to see how two very different stories and if at the same place because I feel you and I are very similar people and yet the path to get there, it was very different. But the pressure, the intense pressure to be a certain way is remarkable to me. Like you and you don't even know where it comes from until you're looking back and you're like, well, why did I make this decision?
MA: Why did I date this person? Why did I not go after the dream? Why? Small example: I have an older sister. She's six years older than me and she and I look identical. We both like basketball. We both liked a lot of the same things and when you come up and your sister is the all-star athlete and academic and you go to a small school where they're expecting you to be the same thing, how is a 13 year old? You explain that pressure to somebody without someone saying, well, you're just making it or even tapping into like knowing that that maybe isn't you. Yeah. And, and that's where I could see because it was from that point on, like I remember I was the star athlete when I was in middle school and I got to high school and before I could even walk through the front doors, her varsity coaches were like, well, we're gonna.
MA: See you on the JV team this year. Right? We're going to see you do this, we've heard amazing things and you're like, I mean sure, but all you're looking for like version two point. Oh, of my sister and I know and you know it, but how and as a 13-year-old you try and tell someone. They're like, well, you just don't want to do it and that's fine. Just say you don't want to do it. And it's like, it's not that I don't, I had ever desired to go play basketball, but I walked into a campus where all they see is my elder sister and you're like, what? Why would I want to? And then why would I want to tell anybody? This is how I feel when you're just telling me I'm making excuses and then why would I want to dedicate my time when I have a relationship that in my mind at 13 was far more important than going out with friends than doing things.
MA: Then dating, then you know, Xyz, the other. And it's just, it's so. It's. So, what's the word I want more intertwined, I guess? And for me, kind of like in thinking about how I wanted to present my codependency story on your podcast for my whole life in that if there's not one moment but my whole life and I'm, I'm a self-proclaimed, a very independent human being, my whole life is braided with this sense of codependency that I didn't even know existed that I didn't recognize until I look at things like to get really personal. Like when I lost my virginity and looking back at that two years after I did it, going, to be honest, I slept with a random dude and I was fine for two years and I look back at and go, well, that's not, that's not healthy. And that's not normal.
LB: Can I just, I'm going to jp in. I'm going to do a podcast about this because this is what I'm learning. And I think, you know, what you touched on is that codependency is such like, it's like a broad umbrella that it manifests in different ways for different people. And you know, the only place that I'm coming from really is my experience. And what you just said, and I've read about this and I'm going to do a podcast about this: is being like being a sexual being is, is basically a call out in a search for love, right? You know, and I am so on that level, you know, and I haven't done a whole lot of research on it, but I definitely know that that's like another facet of, of what happened to my experience, you know,
MA: No 100% And I, I'm very comfortable with my sexuality. I'm very comfortable talking about that. I'm very open with my sexuality. I feel like my relationship with codependency probably manifested that way. I'm not upset at it. But I look at things like, and this is part of the candid conversation I'd had with my girlfriend prior to talking to you, is if I'm upset, I don't go for a chocolate bar or food anymore. I mean sometimes they do, but when I'm upset I look for a partner because I want to forget and I want to feel. Yup. Do that.
LB: You want to feel and you want to fill, right? Exactly. Feel. And feel that like that “hole.”
MA: Yeah. And part of at least my journey, because this was I, I call this my year of No Fucks.
LB: Hashtag that please, no fucks.
MA: I have talked to multiple, I've had multiple girlfriends tell me that I've grown so much in the past six months because I literally stopped not caring, but just stopped, like caring about pointless things, caring about things that codependency makes you care about. Like what people think or what people will say. Well, people will say when you're not around or how your brain thinks other people have perceived the situation because I'm an overthinker. , but I, you know, it's one of those where I have settled for a lot less. Not that in. I settled for a lot less telling myself I'm not worthy of more. And it's a stupid kind under him to be in because you settle for way less than you deserve and you're okay with it because your brain is telling you that that's all you can get. And you're like, Ooh, see? But I know I'm worth more. And it was so eyeopening to me to see that that's what I would do if I have to be really honest. My uncle passed away a couple of months ago.
MA: I was talking to a guy fairly new. I met him online, you know, whatever. We had gone out a couple of times, you know, nothing crazy and we have to be talking one day. The day that I found out my uncle died and it was very sudden, you know, it was a very, like we all got a phone call and we all rushed my aunt and uncle's house. And while I wasn't close to my uncle and my uncle was definitely a personality. So it was just a very tough week. I am very, I suppressed a lot of my emotions to take care of people because I'm a very giving person.
MA: And then that Friday I went out to a barbecue with this very nice gentleman who I'd only been talking to for like a week and a half. And I stayed at his house all weekend and it was a great weekend. Don't get me wrong, that's probably one of the best weekends I've had in a really long time and it wasn't until two months ago I realized that that weekend was 1000 percent coping for a very stressful situation because, I mean we were like rabbits all weekend to throw some hor in there, but it's just, it's one of those like I will tell people to this day like, oh, I didn't really cope with it. Like I was fine. And then I looked back and I was like, I did. And it's a very strange way. And so I find it interesting that you say there's research to look into, but at 100 percent, like key moments in my life, the way I handled it was I was fine, I was fine to everybody else. And then I went and I went on like a sexual vendor and you know, went about it and it's, it's so intriguing to me because I took that as me being a very independent that I was perfectly okay.
LB: You were in charge. Like you're dictating your life. Yeah. This is what I do and this is my life. Yeah, totally. I've been there. Go ahead. And what?
MA: Yeah, what’s so misguiding about codependency is codependency lets you think you're in charge you unless you think you're in charge 100 percent of the time until a year later you're looking back and you're like, well that was a dumb decision. Like why did I do that? This is a dumb decision and why did I do that?
LB: In hindsight like that did not feel very good. Right?
MA: It's the weirdest sense of instant gratification, but you, you do, you have the sense of like I'm 100% in control and codependency lets you think that way it lets you think that you have got it all, that this is what you want to do and don't get me wrong. There's a lot of decisions, but I'd probably do again, but for very different reasons and with a much healthier like mindset and that I think is probably what my biggest struggle is now because I'm going through this dating role where I was talking to four or five guys and I'm still kind of am, but I know they only want one thing and I'm trying to make that into something else and it's not going and yet this need to hold onto that because if I just give them this then I'll be satisfied and there'll be satisfied and that's where it is. It's that justification. Almost codependency tells you like you're fine because you're still in control and recognizing that I'm not was probably the biggest thing I could've done and I did that last Monday and it was the funniest thing when I have to tell you because I was sitting. I was watching Jurassic park of all random movies. I was sitting there kind of talking to a guy and I know I love attention so I wasn't getting the attention that I wanted and I'm sitting there fresh out of a workout first out of the shower, so I'm like my best self, I'm clean, I'm like ready to go to bed and I'm sitting there and go, why the hell can't I just be he? And in the middle of my own brain was like, stop right there. I'm gonna need you to stop. I'm going to use you to realize that that thought is not what you need it to be. And I took the next 30 minutes and I wish I brought the posted note with me because I completely forgot. I was like, no, it is not enough. It is not worthy. It is not anything. It is a simple state of being as this is what they want and this is what you're giving them and until you can figure out that you have, you have the power in the situation to say no, like that's it.
MA: And I went like, I brainstorm, like I brain dumped all over a piece of paper and what came out with was I will find a man who is worthy of me, not in the sense of jumping through hoops but in the sense of matching my own worth. And it was such a powerful thing for me. And it was like I talked about it for five days. I told everybody I could about the story like half my girlfriend's laughed at me, but it was such a powerful thing. I took two of those five guys and I and I and I set up dates that they have asked, kind of sorta didn't want to go on. So I said, fine, I'm done with it. And I left to go and I talked to him one day and I was like, Hey, you want to figure your life out? Fine, but I'm not waiting around anymore. And I talked to my very steady hookup on. I was like, Hey, we got to figure this out and this can be great. Or I gotta let you go because this is, this is. I'm done kind of chasing around. But it was that moment of my own brain has had enough.
LB: So back up a little bit. First of all chills, you sharing your story. That's awesome. Amazing. Just thank you so much for letting us in on all that stuff. Because I know it's hard for me like I'm just now getting to the point obviously where I can be vocal about this and be clear about where I am in my mind because I think you're right. Like, you know, codependency has a tendency to pull you in different directions, right? Because you've been trained that way forever. You know, in my case, I've been trained for 37 years in your case, A little less than that, but, so amazing. So you've been working on this like self-growth, you know, what I like to call awakening the magnificent soul for a while.
LB: I really haven't talked about this, but you've probably heard on the podcast that I had a very low time in October. It was actually around the time you came to visit.
MA: Yeah, I know.
LB: So I reached a very, very low point in my life and that for me that was a turning point for me. This is something that I need to either grab hold of, this is, you know, it's a life or death thing for me and it really was what kind of got me to the point where I knew I had to work towards health. Taking that time to be introspective and to questioning those innate….this has been big for me, is questioning those, those innate feelings of what my, what my mind or my feelings are telling me to do because now I know that they're clouded or they're filtered through this codependency lens. This codependency muscle for years and this is the way that I need to break it. How did you get to that point?
MA: I have also had a lot of very depressive moments in life and his youngest, 14, 15, maybe 13. I hit a lot of lows when I was like low lows. I mean, there were attempts made very similar to yours, talked about that a lot in your, in your first podcast and what I, when I was younger, there were events that just kind of took me to a very dark place and there, hold on, there's a random voice. No worries. I was like, I don't know what that was. We don't ever use that phone and of course somebody calls, and for whatever reason, and I would like to say it's my, my innate inner self-confidence where I just did, I told myself I didn't have a choice. I pulled out of it and I was fine. Up until, ironically last October, the magnitude of pressure to succeed kind of kicked in. So where I lost my job roughly around the time I saw you and going back home from that trip, which was such a much-needed trip. I came home from that trip in the reality of being fired for the first time in my life, so kicked in and the reality of what the fuck do I do now? Kicked in. I had no job. I was filing unemployment. I was being told by everybody that it was perfectly fine that I got screwed over, that you know, I have every right to be angry and I just kind of sat there and I attempted to self-motivate. There were a lot of other things I wanted to do besides that job. And I remember after two weeks of just sitting in my apartment, I arrived at the week before my birthday and I was yelling at people on the phone because I was so bored out of my mind.
MA: I remember my dad had called on our daily phone calls and I was like, don't ask me how my day was going because I haven't done shit. Like I was angry and I remember that Monday or Tuesday, a couple of girlfriends runner like, well, what do we want to do for your birthday? And I was like, we're not doing anything for my birthday like we're not. And they were like, no, we're going to do something. Like we're not doing anything for my birthday. Like I go, I have no money to do anything for my birthday. Like we're not doing anything for my birthday. Hindsight, I ended up having people over here and up to like 20 or so people that I either invited or said they were coming, only two showed up, which doesn't mean says a lot about the other team relationships. And we like ate pizza and sat around a bonfire and drink some beers and it's probably one of the best sites I have in my life until the next day when I didn't move from my bed all day. I have a Fitbit. It tracks maybe a thousand steps that day. And those thousand steps for me walking to the bathroom or to the kitchen, I didn't move. And then I had two or three more days like that and I didn't move. And a girlfriend of mine, she was like, I'm going to take you out for a drink because we haven't gone out just like it's on me for your birthday. And she looked me dead in the eye. She goes, are you depressed because it's okay if you are. Oh, God. They gave me Jill and I looked at her and I was like, I see I didn't answer it because I couldn't answer. And I was like, there is a dark place that I don't want to go and I don't know how to stop myself from going there. And she said, okay, like we'll just hang out like you can come over. And how she is bunnies. She's the cutest thing. Just like you can come over and help me with the bunnies. We can go for walks, we can do this. And I was just like, I don't know if I can.
MA: And she goes, okay. Then we'll just talk on the phone. And it became this moment of like I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't tell anybody. I was tired all the time. But to have her sit there and be like, it's okay if you're not okay. And for me, it was life-changing. It was absolutely life-changing. Did you feel like you could open up and just tap into those things maybe that you hadn't wanted to before? It became a moment of really looking at myself at really looking at my behaviors because I grew up in the family, have no therapy mentality. You don't need a therapist. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing you can't push through. And having her sit there and be like, it's okay if you're not. And that's literally all it was. It wasn't, I'm here for you. It wasn't let me help you.
MA: It was literally just simply it's okay if you were not okay, sitting there and going, okay, well I'm gonna get through the holidays and kind of start. For me, fitness has always been like a safety blanket. I've always, I'm super competent and how I am, but I always wanted to be fitter, leaner, healthier, Xyz. So I kind of started rolling on this health kick and then I kinda sorta did it and kind of sort of did it and then I got a job at the end of November back at an, at one of my old companies that used to work for and for Christmas I told myself because I had this Fitbit, I was like, I'm going to get a smart scale because I'm tired of looking at just the number of pounds. I wanted to break it down to like how much of its muscle, how much of it's fat, how much does this.
MA: So I bought a smart scale. I bought that smart scale. I use my Fitbit every day and my goal is just to hit 8,000 steps every day, just move enough to get a thousand steps every day. And then Christmas came around and I was like, I'm going to start this before the New Year because 2018, I just, I need it to be a better year. 20 17 started, a friend of mine was killed New Year's Day. So 2017 was just like not in the books for me. And I ended with this job loss and meet grappling with literally trying to crawl away from this very dark place that I didn't, that I know is there, it's there. I can go there anytime I want, but it was just one of those I needed something different. So I started. My parents have an elliptical on their back room, so I'd run every day for 30 minutes, 20, 30 minutes, as long as they get 20 or 30 minutes in.
MA: I lost 10 pounds, I think a total of 10 pounds within like the first week of January. And that was kind of coming off Christmas and then I just rolled with it and then I decided that I was going to start being honest with myself and the fact that I'm lazy and that's why I don't do it. And I was like, it's not, it's not mean, it's not cold-hearted, but I'm lazy. And that came from a conversation with my mom where she was like, what do you need me to do to help you? Because I would, I'd sit there and be like, I can't do it. And she's like, well, what do you need to go? If I could tell you what I needed to get my butt to move, I, I would, I would love to be able to tell you what that is. It was like, well, just tell me how I can help them. And I was like, I just need to find it inside of me somewhere to do it. And from that conversation, every day was just like, mom, I ran for 20 minutes and she'd be like, okay mom, I ate better today. Okay. And that's all it was. It was just simple okays here and there. And then right before my uncle passed, I went on a hike with a girlfriend of mine and I told her, I go, I have anxiety, I have an anxiety disorder. I know it's there. And I, I am socially anxious. I have relationship anxiety, which is probably why I can't keep a relationship for longer than three months, uh, for. I have this fear of being left, which stems from codependency, have this fear of not being enough for somebody because I gave my all to my codependent and it still wasn't enough to fix the situation. I learned that I can't fix every situation and it was, it just came and the more I started to vocalize, not just keep it inside, but the more I started to just tell people like I have anxiety, it gives me anxiety. Sorry, go ahead, keep going. It was like, you know, telling people like I'm going to go, but I'm going to tell you right now when I start saying I want to leave, it's because it's like I just became more honest with telling people and it was uncomfortable and my girlfriend who I told is one of my best friends.
MA: She’s that person, you call it at 2:00 AM. And for her, for me, like she is, she and I had the most honest conversations I've had with anybody. So to tell her and have her be like, well that makes sense, you know? And be like, okay. She's like, I get it. She's like, it makes sense. Like everything you're saying like how you act, that is, she goes, I'm not going to let you make that an excuse. She was like, but at 100% makes sense. She's like, can you let me know what I can do to help?
LB: That’s amazing. Let me jump in, this is a good segway, I think at this point because that was something I wanted to ask you. Something I've talked about on the podcast is what I call my soul maintenance plan and what it is for me, it's really, it's what it's titled, his soul, like soul maintenance with what I do to keep myself aligned. These, you know, this routine that I've adopted and adapted to fit my life and really to keep me, you know, open, peaceful, levelheaded and things like that. It sounds like we were kind of getting into that, but with exercising and maybe writing as well, what do you do to keep your soul aligned?
MA: Lately has been just focusing on my health and wellness. I see a huge correlation between my mental and physical health. So as I work on my mental health, physical aspect starts to become a lot easier because I'm no longer pushing myself with the motivation to make myself feel better, but pushing myself with the motivation to make myself be better, which is a very small change but huge all the time now. No longer, it's, there's no internal pressure to be approved by other people and I've never felt fell to the direct need to be approved for people. And I know you touched on this in one of your other podcasts, the generation of likes and comments and followers, like subconsciously, somewhere in my brain, there's that. If I post this will make fun of it. If I post this will people like it and if I post this, will anyone even care, you know? For me, a lot of it just came down to I'm not being crazy about my food, so I try to live as closely to 80/20 as possible. , I acknowledged about two months ago that I had have had and probably still have a food addiction which manifested in a very interesting way, so if you ever want to talk about that, I would love to come back and talk to you.
MA: No cheat days know this because they don't work for me, but I bought them back and you're a deli, dark chocolate squares and I have one every night. And so whether now whether I eat fast food all day in a salad and I like, there's always kind of some small tree I think I hesitate to call them rewards because that's just really bad terminology. There's always this balance of life. Same with working out. I love my workout plans, but if I can get to go on a hike or go swim in a lake or go to the beach and walk on the beach, I will gladly take that. That's free exercise without having to do anything. And just really embracing life-saving, you know, they'll say, I think it's Shonda Rhimes book, the Year of Yes, which I really want to read, but this literally been my mentality, giving no fucks and saying yes to every opportunity.
LB: We should close on that. #nofucks This has been amazing. And maybe we'll have you back on for episodes two through 10, but, if people want to follow you and follow your journey, where do people find you?
MA: Instagram is probably the best. I tend to do most of my posting there. , I've been playing around with Instagram TV so I'm going to start doing similar episodes like this and then I do have a youtube channel but it's not up yet so I don't have a link.
LB: Cool. That's cool. I'll link to your Instagram page in the show notes, but like I said, thank you so much. It's been amazing.
MA: I know. I'm so glad. I'm glad I was your first guest and we can just rant.
LB: Yeah. Love it. Well, thank you all and thank you, Magnificent Souls, out there. Don't forget if you have any feedback about the episodes or anything else you'd like to add at the Epiphany Vault.
Livin’ & Lovin’ 💗