(bright music) - Will you consider this?

Life has all kinds of things that are coming at you from every which direction, every which direction.

And this young lady, MacKenzie Nelson, has fielded a couple of those things flying at her over the years, but landed with feathers.

And this is called "My Father's Feathers."

She is an international bestselling author.

How about that?

From little old Central Illinois.

- Right here in Peoria, born and raised.

- Yeah.

Well, welcome.

- Thank you.

- You are born and raised here.

- Yes.

- And you went to school all through Central, or all through Peoria area.

- That's right.

I actually was born in Washington, Illinois.

So, I went to Central Grade School locally, and then I went to Limestone.

We moved in eighth grade, and I had my high school career there where I was an Allstate basketball player.

- She's 6'1.

- Shooting hoops.

- I should have worn my 18-inch heels or something to try to catch up with her.

- I'm like Michael Jordan's height today.

Like, 6'6.

- You are.

- So, I could give him a run for his money.

- Yeah, so, basketball, that was fun for you.

That was a savior for you.

- Yes.

- But let's back up to, you were born in Washington, Illinois, and you lived there for years, and when you were six years old, your mom pulled the rug out from under you.

- That's right.

When I was six years old, my mom sat me down with my dad, who, I call him my dad because he has been there since I was born.

His name is on my birth certificate, although he did not technically biologically help to create me.

And so I had no idea leading up to this that he was not my biological father.

No inclination, no reason to wonder about that.

And she sat me down and told me that, actually, my biological father was in the mafia and he had killed people and I could never find him, I could never go after him, or I would endanger myself and her and our whole family.

- That is pretty crazy because what does a six-year-old really even know about the mafia?

- I had no idea what she was talking about, quite frankly.

But I did know my mother liked to have separate conversations with family members.

There was never any cohesive group conversation with us as a family.

She just utilized those conversations one-on-one to take control of the narrative however she wanted.

And so it was a definitive moment in my journey because from then onward, I remember being treated very differently by my siblings, by her.

And that's really when a lot of the abuse started in my childhood.

- So, and it was emotional abuse mostly?

- Emotional abuse mostly, a little physical abuse, but mostly just emotional.

Like, you know, "You wouldn't be here, you owe your life to me.

You know, you should be grateful I didn't abort you.

You wouldn't be here without me."

So, I felt like I owed my mother a life of, you know, undying loyalty and servitude.

And so from then on, it was as if I couldn't question anything she said.

- Well, and that kind of guilt for a young child is difficult to deal with.

And you always tried to measure up.

Everything you did, you tried to get positive vibes from her.

- Yes.

Everything.

I felt like, you know, when you see the horse and they have the carrot and they're like, "Oh, just a little higher, just a little higher."

It was like that.

Like, I always thought, "I'm gonna get the carrot," and then right, you know, I was such a high achiever.

I got straight As.

I was amazing in school and I was creative and a talented writer.

I remember writing a book when I was little.

Even in third grade, I was writing.

- What was that book?

- Oh, man.

It was almost like a journey of climbing trees.

- Okay.

Interesting.

- And exploring.

And so I've always had this essence, I think, deep within me of this exploratory, adventurous spirit.

And that did not bode well for me in my family where the rhetoric was more around you behave a certain way and we expect a certain type of behavior.

But I like to color outside the lines, Christine.

Like, I was a free- - Don't we all?

- Yes.

And you know, you're in media.

You know, we like to explore things.

We like to learn things.

- And question.

- And question things.

But my mother was repeating a pattern that had been indoctrinated by her mother.

So, you see, this was more of a generational passing down of this is how we treat, this is how we treat our children.

They are not to question, you know, children are to be seen and not heard.

- [Christine] Right, that was a big old one, right?

- It was.

And I do feel like in our modern times, as we're having these types of discussions, that we're learning more and that people are considering a new mindset in regards to raising their children, being a little more open.

- Mm-hm.

So, you were curious.

You needed to know who your real dad was, and a lot of people, you know, people who are adopted, feel that very same way.

The go looking for their biological parents, that kind of thing.

- Yes.

- So, what did you end up finding out?

- So, you know, at the time my mother told me he was in the mafia, I don't think she had considered the new technology that would come into existence.

- [Christine] Yeah, what year might that have been?

- When she told me, it was about 1987.

So, '87 or '88.

So, we didn't have the accessibility to things like Ancestry, so- - Or 23andMe or any of that.

- Right.

So, there was really no way to validate her claims.

And I think it gave her an escape route to where she could cut my biological father out and not have to worry about contact from him or me contacting him.

It was a very convenient approach.

And she came from a very strict Mennonite background where she wasn't married when she conceived me, so, she felt, I think, a lot of pressure to not take accountability for her actions.

And that just kind of seemed like it would solve everything until I got on Ancestry.

(chuckles) - [Christine] Okay.

- And I discovered that I'm not Italian.

And she would tell me specific stories about hearing him on phone calls speaking in Italian.

- Wow.

- And tell me it's why I like spaghetti and meatballs, why I like pasta, why my eyes are brown, so.

- My eyes are brown and I like pasta, and I'm not Italian.

- Are you Italian?

- I am not.

I'm right across the Adriatic Sea from there.

My relatives were from Slovenia, but go on.

I just butt in.

- Nice.

- Okay.

So, you had to believe it.

It was your mother.

It was her story to tell.

- And I mean, my mother is gorgeous.

I mean, she was a model for a while.

I mean, she just- - [Christine] You're kind of pretty too, you know.

- Oh.

- And beautiful hair.

Beautiful, yeah.

- Thank you so much.

I really appreciate that.

- You're quite welcome.

So, continue.

I just interrupted you again.

- I like your interruptions though.

Interrupt me anytime.

So, no, she just had this great personality, but it was almost like, you know, two different people.

Like there was a public persona and then there was one at home.

And so it actually, I see this as a gift.

I really thrived in a public setting and I wasn't intimidated by strangers because they kind of became my extended family.

I was getting a better response from the public being an Allstate athlete, all of these other things I had going for me, versus I would come home and I would just dread it because I knew I would get different feedback than what I was receiving.

- Right, well, and because of your height, and generally women are not 6'1- - Right.

- You were imposing in your own way.

- Yes, I was.

And so there was, you know, just a perfect mashup of circumstances happening around the same time, figuring out that you're this tall and accepting that.

That's one thing I do credit, my mother is actually very tall as well.

And for all of the things I felt that I suffered at her hands, one thing she did empower me was to always stand tall.

And so, I mean, I look for these saving graces to this day in every situation.

It's not so black and white, you know, when you think about trauma or abuse.

There are those memories that you make that- - Emotional memory - Yes.

That you connect with.

And I have had those moments with my mother where I treasure those moments and choose to think on those instead of the more negative experiences.

- Hang on to those.

So, this is part of your transformational journey.

- Yes.

- So, you went on to play basketball and then you were waiting tables and you were doing a lot of things that kids your age did.

- Yep.

- And then you found your husband and he paid attention to what was going on in your relationship with your mom and your siblings.

- That's right.

100%, my husband, we've been together now for 20 years, married for 15.

He's been this steady, stable rock.

A supportive soft place.

This is why the feathers as well.

He's one of my feathers.

He's provided that safe space for me to heal, to thrive, to grow, to learn, and to become a stronger, better version of myself.

And I give him so much credit for uncovering.

And sometimes it takes that fresh set of eyes in our journey to come in and go, "Hey, something's not okay here."

So, if you're watching this and you have a friend, family member, or someone who is near and dear to your heart and they are trying to tell you something that they're seeing that's happening that maybe you've been embedded in and have gotten used to, I like to give the example of, you know, if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he's gonna jump right out because he knows that's too hot.

That's not safe for me.

But if you put him in cold water, he's just gonna let it heat up and he's gonna boil to death.

And in a way, I was boiling to death with the relationship, struggling with that, with my mother, and my husband, boyfriend at the time came in and spotted this very early on.

- [Christine] The outside looking in.

- Yes.

And in a lot of ways, he was my saving grace for a lot of this.

And it took him a long time.

And he stood by my side, even though I would defend her and she would share these stories about the mafia and things that happened very openly and publicly in front of my friends, in front of family, in front of him.

And so there became a pattern of information that she was relaying that wasn't adding up.

And it took me a long time to finally admit and face that, look, this is not right and there's something amiss and wrong.

So, when I did get on Ancestry and find out I was not Italian...

But I still like pasta.

I really still love pasta.

- Not a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all.

Well, it's interesting that you named your book about feathers and you called your husband a feather.

So, explain to me, I always get a kick out of the titles of books.

- Good.

Yeah.

- You know, because it's like, well, how'd we get to that?

But your explanation for "My Father's Feathers."

- Yes.

- Well, let us all know.

Let us in on that one.

- Ooh, okay, well, feathers have always been in my life a little special messenger.

They'll kind of just pop in and show up at specific times along my journey- - Crazy.

- And in varied places.

And it just makes me giggle.

But more than that, they're symbolic of, I believe, us giving up that control and surrendering, in my example, it's a higher power, in my instance.

I surrendered my life to a higher power.

So, whether that's God or the universe, I believe that there is a higher power that is in control.

And when we do that, we're able like a feather just to go kind of move like the wind, light and airy.

But feathers are also stronger together, right?

When you have a bunch of feathers together, you can make a wing, and with more feathers, two wings, and then you can fly.

- Take flight.

Right?

- Yes.

And I believe perspective is everything, Christine.

It's like your circumstances, you might not be able to do anything about them.

You can't control the family you're born into.

- Nope.

- You have no control over that.

But what you can control is how you view them and how you decide to respond.

- And that's with everything.

That's not only family.

That's friendships as well.

- 100%.

And you can build your own family like I have.

I am grateful for the support of people like you having me on the show today.

I'm grateful for a smile from a stranger, you know, at the grocery store, and the friends that I have met through this book, as well as those who have encouraged me to write this book.

So, I believe that family is more than what you're born into.

- I think so.

So, when did you write this book?

Two years ago?

- Yes.

It was published in 2022.

So, it's been a couple of years.

And I've gotten a job at the symphony where I'm working right by you.

I'm so honored.

- Right.

Just on the other side of this studio.

Yeah, exactly.

- Yes.

Trying to help them get their subscription sales up for the season and doing some marketing and some PR work, so.

- So, your feather's floating.

- My feather is floating and I feel like I'm finally in just a beautiful place of acceptance and understanding that I am not in control and surrender.

And that just opened so many doors for me in my life once I understood that, fully grasped it and lived it.

I started to really understand, you know, who was for me and who wasn't.

But I also have learned to be my biggest cheerleader.

(chuckles) - Well, that's good, because in the book, you were not your biggest cheerleader.

You were looking in the mirror and just saying, repeating the words that you had heard describing you from your mother and your siblings.

- That's right.

So, I had to understand the tape that was playing in my mind was never really mine.

I never thought those things about myself.

But since I heard them so frequently, they became just this automated response to- - A reel.

- Yeah, a reel.

And I learned, wait a minute, I don't have to listen to that reel.

I don't like that reel.

That reel is awful.

- Get your own playlist.

- (chuckles) Yes.

I was like, "I wanna put on a new record.

I wanna," and so it took some time, but, you know, now I've just learned to go easy on myself.

And when you do that, it really does come out to other people.

When you're kinder to yourself, you're kinder to others.

And when I was hard on myself- - Happens to us all.

- Yeah, I was hard on other people.

So, really what you're embodying, embracing, and manifesting inside of yourself is actually what you're putting out there.

- Mm-hm, so, did you discover that on your own?

You've been going through some therapy, for how many years have you gone to therapy, and that started to turn everything around and make sense, and then your husband's support as well.

- Yes, definitely.

I am a big advocate for therapy, for just going and I think just, again, those fresh set of eyes and perspective and speaking and talking and utilizing the resources that you have available.

Writing is very therapeutic, and I like to tell people, you don't have to be a talented writer to write, but what it does do, like I wrote my book three pages a day, is it helps you to uncode, you know, some patterns in your life maybe that you're not seeing otherwise.

- So, and that's how you started.

You promised yourself you were going to do three pages a day.

- That's right.

- And then were there days where you just couldn't stop?

- Yes.

- Or did you limit yourself?

- Yes, there were some days where I was like, "Wow, I've been writing for like an hour."

And then there were some days where I was like, "Oh, man, I don't wanna write today."

And those were the harder days to stay committed and I'd have barely three pages.

I'd be like, "But you stayed committed."

- But it was like opening another can of worms because whatever you were writing in those three pages, it's like, "Oh," and it was flipping you back to situations.

- Yes, and I was surprised how vividly I could recollect through the writing the situations from when I was younger because one sure sign of trauma as a child is that you really- - You block.

- Yes, you block and you have a lot of memory issues when you recall things.

And that was something that was a red flag to me was my siblings would say, "Remember that Christmas when we opened, we both got matching dolls," for example, and I would say, "No, what?

No, what did that doll," like, I could not remember.

And so through therapy and understanding some of these red flags and triggers and things, I was starting to pull the pieces together and understand, you know, what had happened in my life and why I was thinking the way I was about myself.

- Mm, well, so you found out that your dad wasn't Italian, but you never got to meet him?

- No, unfortunately I found out he had passed of lung cancer before I was able to meet him, but I have gotten to connect with my aunt who is still alive and we stay in touch.

And I have a biological sister as well, who's a lawyer out in California, and she's only like a year older than me.

We've had some communication, but I'm hoping that that blossoms and I get to know her more as well and through her, hear more stories about who my biological father actually was.

So, this is still a to be continued.

I'm still very much in process.

And I think that that's important to note too, because so many times with these stories, we wanna tie things up with a beautiful bow and be like, "And then I lived happily ever after."

- [Christine] Mm-hm, well, you're doing okay.

- Yes, but I'm doing great now.

Just understanding your past, not marinating on it and living there, that's a difference, but understanding your past can give you some key indicators of how to move forward more powerfully in your present.

- Mm-hm.

What did your aunt tell you about your dad?

And so it was his sister?

- Yes.

- So, she was his, okay, yeah.

- So, really what I found out about his story is much more heartbreaking than being in the mafia.

Him and his siblings were raised in an orphanage.

- Hmm.

- So, he was an orphan.

They were all surrendered because, it was a long time ago, it was during, like, the Great Depression when they were surrendered and they didn't have the resources to keep their children.

And my great-grandfather was somewhat of a, he was a photographer for Olan Mills.

- [Christine] Olan Mills, yeah, okay.

Mm-hm.

- Yes.

And there are newspaper articles about him.

He would travel from town to town taking pictures of the prettiest lady in town, but then he would have children with her and then leave town and then go do it again in another town.

And so- - Okay, he was one of those.

- Yes.

So, he was arrested multiple times for, like, bigamy.

- Oh my.

- And that was your great-grandfather?

- No, just my grandfather.

- Your grandfather.

Oh, my goodness.

Okay.

- Yes, my grandfather.

So, I've gotten kind of a kick out of reading about him, but really what you can see there is, again, generational trauma.

What happened with my biological father is the same thing.

He had a family, he left them and moved and started a new family.

You can see that pattern reemerging.

So, it's trauma, right?

And it's a loss of identity, not knowing who you are and probably wanting that connection with his own father that he really didn't have because he was on the lamb, right, for bigamy.

- [Christine] Exactly.

Gosh.

- So, you can only imagine what kind of a childhood and what kind of issues were going on.

Really, it wasn't so much of a mafia story as it was a damaged person who had suffered a lot of trauma.

- A broken family.

- Yes.

And really not gotten healing.

- All right, but from your aunt, you've learned some of your medical history because that's also frightening.

- Yes, I've spent years going to the doctor where they ask you, you know, the intro question, like, "Tell us about your biological father."

And I'm just like, "I really don't know."

But to be able to fill in the gaps, he died of lung cancer.

So, being armed with that information is everything I think in this day and age.

To be able to convey that to a doctor and feel empowered that I know half of my biology is something that has been a tremendous gift for me.

- Mm-hm.

How is your relationship with your mother today?

Do you have one?

- We do not have one, but I will say, she always sends me a card on my birthday.

I get- - Well, that's nice.

- Yeah.

I get a birthday card and it's, you know, just like- - She gave you a beautiful name.

- Yeah, thank you.

- And a nice head of hair.

- Thank you.

Actually, I'm named after Mackenzie Phillips from "One Day at a Time," and it was that soap opera and that's kind of become my mantra in real life.

So, take it one day at a time.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So, and so you're married and you have some children.

- Yes.

- And they're God's gift to you.

- They are.

I find so much joy in my daughter Nevada.

She's seven.

She just made the third grade travel team as a second grader.

So, she's a little- - Is she a basketball player?

- She loves it.

She's always playing, always throwing a ball around, and it's just this vivacious spirit.

She has my hair, she has just, she's incredible.

She's just- - [Christine] She's focused.

- Focused and driven.

And then my son is 13.

He is thriving.

He runs cross country.

He's almost as tall as me now.

- Uh-oh.

- And he's in all honors classes.

Very smart, very just huge friend group.

And my family is really thriving and I feel so much power knowing that I get to flip the script.

I get to be the mom that I wanna be, and that's empowering to me.

I get to nurture.

I get to give them things that I didn't get as a child.

And so for me to see my children grow, thrive, and feel loved and know they're loved, I tell them I love you every day, and that gives me just this feeling of rebellion deep inside that like- - Well, I can understand that, but, you know, there's times when my sister and I are talking, and we're like, "Oh my gosh, we just sounded like Mom."

But, you know, and it wasn't necessarily in a bad way, but it's, "Oh."

But you don't say that very often then.

- No, and if I do catch myself, you know, spouting some of her rhetoric, I really try to distance myself, check myself, and go, "No, that is not me.

That is not how I choose."

- So, what are you gonna do next?

You've written this, you've written your guide.

- Yes.

- Will you write some more or what do you think you'll do?

I know you're busy at the symphony, but are you gonna find time to do any more writing?

- Yes, most definitely.

I've done a YouTube show called "Meet Me Where You Are," which I haven't been able to get back to recording it.

So, I hope to get back to that show where I have guests on and talk about their journeys and try to meet people and love just whatever they're doing, just learn about their lives, their stories, because I think that's what inspires us most as people.

I'm also writing another book, three pages a day, so for anyone who wants any updates on the journey.

And I don't believe this is over yet.

I feel like this is going, it already has gone somewhere amazing.

I've gotten to be an international bestselling published author.

- Yeah, how did that happen?

Because of this book.

- Yes.

- So, people have just found you.

So, you have a website?

- Yes, mackenziekaynelson.com.

If you wanna learn anything else about me or are interested in connecting, I'm very open with meeting with people and empowering them in their journeys as well.

- And yeah, I found the book on Amazon and really, well, we look forward to hearing more from you because you are transitioning even as we sit here.

- [MacKenzie] Definitely.

I feel the same about you.

- Well, thank you so much.

You're the one- - It's such an honor to be here.

- You're the one who watched me when you were growing up.

Okay, thank you.

- I did.

I watched you on the news all of the time.

- Oh, thank you.

- And you are just fantastic.

And the things you're doing for our community, - I'm blushing.

Thank you.

- Honestly, it's so impressive and needed.

So, thank you for having this platform for people like me to come on.

- Well, this is fun.

Like your YouTube.

It sounds like what I'm doing here, but you're gonna do better.

So, thanks so much for being with me, and again, her book, "My Father's Feathers," and a lot of fun talking to you.

- You too, thank you.

- Thank you.

And thank you for joining us and hope to see you next time.

Be well.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)