Evolving Journeys: On Moving, Reiki, Food Pop-Ups and Activism with Makenzie Flynn

Hello, Welcome back to my conversation with McKenzie, Flynn, Reiki, master and owner of plant food for the soul. and welcome to the multitudes podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Carter. And part one of this conversation, we talked all about Reiki And if you're interested in Reiki, I highly encourage you to check out that part of the conversation. And today we are expanding the conversation. With Mackenzie as her work has also expanded as throughout her experience in the healing industry, mcKenzie discovered that her deepest passion lies in cooking ethical and sustainable food. And McKenzie also now lives in Australia and operates a fully vegan pop-up food business with the goal of showing people that they have the power to change the world through their food choices. So in today's episode, we talk about those aspects of Mackenzie's life. And we also talk about challenging aspects of working in the spirituality and healing industry. And I found this conversation to be so interesting. Thank you so much for listening to the multitudes podcast and for your support of the show What did you learn from your clients, from your sessions? I think the main thing is that every client's process is going to unfold very differently, and that healing is not linear or predictable. So, There can actually be a lot of backtracking to reaffirm lessons that have been learned in the past already, but I think it's really important not to let that discourage you from continuing on your way because yeah, these, these things just take time and they're mysterious and we have to, we have to just go with that. this whole idea of like spiraling forward or spiraling upward, and that cyclical nature of returning to things that you're working with and healing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And. do you have any advice or thoughts for people who want to, maybe doing some type of spiritual work or healing work where they're taking clients? Yes, so I think that everyone has something you need to offer. So if you feel really passionate about wanting to help people, then absolutely start pursuing it. If you feel you feel the call, then move towards it. Why not? And you know this, this state of the world, these days, like we do really need more like people who genuinely want to be there to help and support. So I would say, yeah, advice wise, if you're not sure where to begin with that, I'd say try lots of different healing modalities and just see which ones resonate for you and, and take it from there. It's, it's a journey, you know, that's why they, they say that it's, it takes time to figure out what, your. Role is, but if you're committed to discovering it, then you will. that's a really powerful idea and. I'm curious about if there is anything given your time working in the spirituality industry that you would have liked to see differently or anything that you would change about the spirituality industry? Yeah, I mean, I don't really know how to put this, but I guess I would, it sounds rude, but I would eliminate some of the phoniness of it, like of some of it. I think mm-hmm. There are a lot of people out there, especially these days who are not coming from a place of integrity and it kind of tarnishes the reputation of the whole industry. So that's why I say like, if you are genuinely interested in doing this, then please do it. But if, if it's for some other reason, like you think it's cool or. Trendy or you think you can make a lot of money doing it, then those reasons are not the reasons I know that in every industry you're gonna get a little bit of that, but I think, you know, if you were, if you were someone who doesn't know how to tell the difference between someone who's the real deal and someone who is a bit of a, I don't wanna say con artist, that's a bit. It's a bit far, but mm-hmm. I think in that realm of there are those people, yeah. I'd say check for qualifications, you know, if someone has qualifications backing them, then that's, that's great. You've gotta really trust your gut feeling about the person. Beware of overcharging. Just because they charge more doesn't necessarily mean they're better at what they do. Mm. Mm-hmm. And, you know, especially, especially be aware of people who say something like, you've got a curse on you, and, you know, I can remove it for you for$500, or something crazy like that. Like, that's ridiculous. Don't spend your money on, you know, I'm, I'm gonna, you can spend it on whatever you want, but I'm gonna say that's probably not a good idea. There's some manipulative people out there. it's like people taking advantage of you at a very vulnerable moment. Exactly. Yeah. And they know that. They know that, and especially if you're not like familiar with like the spiritual realm or the occults like hearing for the first time that you have a curse on, you can feel like really jarring. And yeah, I also love that point about like, just go with your gut or just like maybe someone is great for someone else, but they may not be great for you. And it's also about like, how do you feel about the person. Healing you and Yeah, that's so true. That's really good. Yeah, because I feel like, I've gone to healers where it's like, maybe they're, they're great, they have amazing reviews online, but when you are with them, it's just, it's not your. Energy. It's not your vibe switching gears here, I'd love to talk a little bit about your move to Australia. Can you talk a little bit about how your move has been going and how has your life changed since you moved? And you moved from Philadelphia, right? Yeah, that's right. my husband Mitch, is from Australia. He was living with me in Philly for four and a half years after we got married. And he just got to the point where he was really missing home and I was ready to. Make a change and start something new anyway, cuz I really always lived on the east coast. I, I was born in Maryland and then when I was 18 I moved up to Philly to go to Temple University. So, and I ended up staying there for 12 years after that. So I just thought why not? So we went for it. I really love that I've had a chance to start fresh in a new place in my thirties now that I know myself better than ever. I'm just constantly in awe of the beauty of nature around me over here. There's just so many amazing views all the time. I'm like getting distracted by them yeah, just loving my surroundings. And then also I feel like I've met such an amazing community of people over here. That's something I'm, I'm really grateful for because yeah, it can be really hard to start over as an adult and try to make new friends in a new place, but I think I've been really lucky over here There's been, yeah, there's been a lot of changes. One thing is just the healthcare system over here, it's like eliminated a huge stress for me not having to. Worry about not having health insurance. I, I mostly didn't have any health insurance in the us which was always mm-hmm. This fear in the back of my mind, like, what if I get hurt or, you know, something serious happens and I can't afford it. And, you know, you hear horror stories about people. Having an accident, and then next thing you know, they've got a 20,$30,000 debt to pay off because they had to go in an ambulance and then they had to go to a hospital and blah, blah, blah. It's horrible. Yeah. So, yeah, over here it's a, it's a public system, so it's, it's basically if you need to go to the doctor, you, um, everyone has a Medicare card and they, you can just go, um, without having any insurance and you pay like, It depends on where you're going, but you pay something like a hundred dollars and then they give you an immediate refund of$70. So let's say generally you are only paying like$30 to see a doctor, and you don't have to worry about, you know, what, what will happen to me if, if I get hurt or if I'm sick? So I really wish that the US and I'm obviously everyone does well, most people. Mm-hmm. I'll say most people mm-hmm. Wish that the US could adopt something like that. Cause I, I didn't, I think I knew that it was a big stress, but it, I didn't realize exactly how much it was weighing on me until I didn't have to worry about it anymore. it's a pretty big perk. Hmm. A really interesting idea too, of like not knowing how much something is affecting you until it's gone and, yeah. can you speak to the idea of anything that's been challenging about your move and if you've felt at all in between two worlds with your move? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's been. I'd say mostly a positive change coming over here, but there's definitely been challenges as well. So mainly just keeping in contact with my friends and family. In America, it's such a challenge. I mean, the time difference is around 14 hours depending on daylight savings. And you know, just having that huge space in between me and the people that I love over there, I don't really like to think about it too much because it's hard. I really don't think that I can make it to America more than maybe once a year just. Because of how expensive it is. So, yeah, that's really, those things have been really hard, but it's my life now. I have to find ways to deal with it and I will. Hmm. But yeah, other than that, like little things, I guess driving on the left side was really hard for me to figure out. it's like, It's, you kind of go into autopilot when you're driving and you just know, okay, this is, you know, I'm, I'm doing my thing, but I had to undo all of these automatic instincts and do them opposite. So that was, that took me a while. Another opposite is the seasons over here. The seasons being different compared to what month it is has been really disorienting for me. Hmm. So like in December, it's hot. It's so hot, and it's like, okay, Christmas is coming, but it doesn't feel like it because I haven't had the lead up. I haven't had like, you know, the cooling of the temperatures. And then you've got Halloween and you've got Thanksgiving. They don't celebrate either of those over here. And then, just all of a sudden it's Christmas time and people are outside. Like going to the beach and yeah. It's super different in that sense. I'm, I'm trying to get used to it. I don't, I don't see the changing of the leaves and the, the, the same like floral changes that I'm used to, but I'm noticing different things that are changing with the, the longer, time I spend here, but it's, it's a lot more subtle, I'd say. another big one is the flooding. We've, like, where I'm living, it tends to flood quite a bit, so I'd never experienced a flood before I moved here. And, They can be super devastating, but I've definitely learned a lot about how to prepare for them and how to clean up afterwards and try to get things somewhat back to normal. So yeah, huge learning experience there, but that's something that's extremely disrupting to normal life. this area has, has a history of flooding, but it's definitely global warming because every time we have a big flood, it's worse than the last one. So, you know, it's, it's not looking too, too good, how do you prepare for a flood and, yeah. yeah. You, well, it depends if you're in, like, if you're in a business or a house that you know the water will, will enter the building. Like, a lot of houses over here are lifted. My house is lifted really, really high, so I'm lucky we are in a floodplain, but like the, the height of where the house is, we won't really have to worry about it coming into the house. But if you do know that water will be coming in, you have to lift everything. Or move it somewhere else. Otherwise, all your stuff could get damaged by water. So that's a huge process. Mm-hmm. Depending on how much stuff you've got and your. Particular situation, but that's kinda all you can do is get stuff up outta the way and then, you know, you just wait and see where the water comes in. And it's, it's a really humbling experience actually, because you have no control over what the weather is gonna do. And you just sit and you have to wait and usually, you might be waiting with no power or just nervously trying to, hope for the best and trying to get some sleep, but also not knowing what's gonna occur. So it can be pretty intense. How often would you say like you have to think about floods? so last year we had one really bad one. It was like the worst one. Ever recorded in the area Last February, it was like end of February. And then there were some other like smaller scale floods that were easy enough to deal with. I think there were like two or three others. So it's usually between, I believe like January through. March or April. I could be wrong on that. I'm still learning a lot of this stuff, but there's like a certain time of year, beginning of the year pretty much where you tend to get flooding more than other times of the year. So at least you kind of know to expect when it might happen, when to pay closer attention to the weather. But yeah, it, it just, it just depends. And then sometimes the area might go into drought. As well. So you've got like the whole opposite end of that spectrum. That's also a potential. There's definitely a lot of extreme weather possibilities over here. You're listening to the multitudes podcast with Nicole Carter. And today we are in conversation with McKenzie, Flynn, Reiki, master, and owner of plant food for the soul. I really loved your healing mist and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that I basically wanted to make a product for energy clearing that you could use on the go. it all started with my smudge mist which was a combination of essential oils Reiki charged crystals Moon water and a bit of sea salt So, traditional energy clearing usually involves some form of smoke, which isn't practical for every space, obviously. This is something that you can use, in the office or in a public setting. And, yeah, so people really seem to love it. I ended up expanding the line to include five other myths. And those were, love, create, prosper, relax, and sense. So the idea is that the mists can be used as tools to help you achieve your healing intentions. Really great to be used in conjunction with practices like meditation or intention setting or body work. Curious about how you managed having a service based business and also product based offerings. I love creating things in the physical form. I, I went to art school, so creating a physical product felt like a natural thing for me to get into. plus, they worked really well alongside my service based offerings, I think that having both was, was really nice because I could, spend my time with clients. And then I also had some time that I could just, be on my own and in my own little world, creating these myths and, um, having, having a completely different, kind of experience under the same, business really. And where did you get the materials for these myths? I sourced things from different, lots of different places, but, the essential oil, I mean, I pretty much ordered everything online, but, you know, it took me some time to find the good stuff, there's a lot of crystals online that are, fake and, you know, not really what they say they are, it took me a little while to, to find genuine, quality stuff and actually Etsy was like a really good source for, crystals as far as like essential oils, I ended up ordering wholesale from, a website, yeah, just think about a research because. all of that stuff You can it's kind of hard to tell what you're getting when you're when you're looking at online You're not able to be present to smell and you know experience those things in person yeah, so you would like open up a box with crystals and you could tell like how it looks. It's like, oh, this isn't really the real thing. Yeah, and that only happened, a couple of times. I knew what to look for because I, um, was working in a shop for a number of years where we sold crystal jewelry and crystals I just sort of knew what to look for and what, what things were red flags as far as like they can make crystals in labs and the coloring will be a bit different yeah, when you like hold it up to light, it might have a different quality to it. When you moved to Australia, did you stop selling the mist I actually ended up selling that part of the business, to another woman who, is also based in Philly. She also is an energy healer. I just felt that she was going to be a really great fit for taking over the production of The Mist. I had considered Operating from Australia, but, with all the people like the stockists and buyers that I had based in the U. S., the shipping wouldn't have made sense, if I was producing in Australia. It's so expensive to ship anything from here to there. So I just decided that my best bet was to hand it over to someone else. The myths are still available. They're the same. She has added an additional one or two additional myths to the line. The name of that business is Flux Energy Healing. And, you can order the myths from her website. So they're still available., that's great. That's awesome. I will put those in the show notes, flux, energy, healing. My last question about Reiki, can you talk a little bit about how you can practice Reiki at a distance? Reiki energy exists on a totally different plane than our 3D reality. It's able to transcend space and time as we understand it. You can effectively send Reiki to anyone in the world. This is something that you learn in your Level 2 class. there is a special distance Reiki symbol that is used. And that symbol allows the energy to, be directed to someone anywhere. So, typically you just need to get that person's full name, date of birth, location. Um, exact location as possible and then, um, you can use either yourself as a dummy, for lack of a better word, or you can use, um, like part of, part of your leg, or you can actually use like a stuffed animal or something to, to kind of represent like the person. Um, and And direct the energy there. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing what's possible. I've received distance sessions, and I've given them, and some people actually even prefer the distance Reiki, because they can receive it from the comfort of their own home, um, and their, their most, most comfortable environment. They still feel the effects of the healing so it's great to be able to do that. I think that's fascinating I love the idea of the energy being on a totally different plane and Tapping into that And the idea that you can use like a stuffed animal to be the dummy conduit vessel. shifting gears a little bit,, you are the owner of Plant Food for the Soul, and I'd love, uh, to hear a little bit about how you came about the idea of your new business. Yeah, so my husband Mitch, and I just started. This business, it's a vegan pop-up food business. So we are mobile, not tied to any particular location. So we're planning to do markets and events and basically the idea came to me because, I've had a really strong desire to move towards a career based on sustainability and animal rights for quite a while. but I didn't know exactly how I would go about it until a couple of years ago. I just realized that I don't really have the personality or a constitution to be an activist in the traditional sense and more power to the people who do. But I do know my way around the kitchen, so this is essentially my form of activism. I really wanna show people how delicious vegan food can be, and my hope is that it opens their minds a bit to the idea of going vegan or at least incorporating more plant-based foods into their diet. Activism takes many forms and we need activists in all parts of life doing all types of different work. how has it been setting up so far? Like if you needed to get, like what was the process of setting it up? So it's been. We've only had three popups so far. Mm-hmm. The first two, we were working out of someone else's food truck, so that was cool because everything was already kind of in there and ready to go. As far as like equipment was concerned, it's a lot of food prep. I mean, it's basically like a whole entire day of me prepping everything in order to be ready for the next morning. The, the third popup that we just had a couple weeks ago, we weren't working out of a food truck. We kind of created our own little, like, market stall. So we just took like a couple of tables and a tent and then brought our own portable, uh, like toaster oven and a little deep fryer and toaster and Bay Marie. So kind of created our own little mini kitchen to be set up outdoors and. Yeah, that's sort of the, that's the setup of, of doing it that way. It's a lot of like preparing and then breakdown at the end of it. But I've, um, found that it's been really rewarding and enjoyable for me because I've had a, great response so far to the food and people seem to be really loving it. So that just feels really good to me and it makes me wanna keep going. Yeah, for sure. Well, I would love for people to check you out on all the socials to support you on your new endeavor and, And I'm curious about like, if you're still doing rega now, and or if you're doing just reiki on yourself or virtually, or where are you at with reiki now? Yeah, I'm currently in a phase of just self practice, I knew that I needed to take a little bit of a break from offering sessions to clients, so that's where I'm at right now. I, that could always change. I've kept my old. Instagram page, conjure Wellness. It's just sort of sitting there parked right now. Cause I don't know, I haven't like, made any official decisions like, is this over or is it, might it continue in the future? So, so that remains to be seen. But the great thing about Reiki is that it's always there. Like I can always revisit it if I want to, and I'm gonna keep that an open possibility. Thank you so much again, Mackenzie. It was really great speaking with you and learning all about Reiki. Like really appreciate you thank you. It's been really lovely talking.

Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with

mcKenzie Flynn. You can follow Mackenzie. On Instagram at Chondra wellness and also on Instagram at plant food for the soul. Thank you so much for listening to the multitudes podcast and for your support of the show If you are enjoying the show, please share this with a friend as it helps multitudes grow.