Episode 131: Mind, Body, Spirit Food: Creativity, Ritual, and Learning to Slow Down with Nicki Sizemore
Podcast
Episode 131: Mind, Body, Spirit Food: Creativity, Ritual, and Learning to Slow Down with Nicki Sizemore
“If I can remember to carve out moments of self-connection, that’s where creativity starts to flow.” — Nicki Sizemore
This episode is your invitation to rethink creativity through nourishment, ritual, and presence. I’m joined by cookbook author, recipe developer, and creator of Mind, Body, Spirit Food, Nicki Sizemore for a conversation about creativity, burnout, entrepreneurship, and the small practices that help us reconnect to ourselves.
Nicki shares how years of overworking, blogging, recipe development, and entrepreneurship eventually led to a major burnout that changed the way she approached creativity and her business. What once felt controlled, scheduled, and productivity-driven slowly transformed into a more intuitive, nourishing, and surrendered creative process.
We talk about how creativity often emerges through necessity, whether that’s cooking from what’s already in your kitchen, writing through difficult moments, or allowing ideas to arrive instead of forcing them. Nicki reflects on writing her book, Mind, Body, Spirit Food and how the process felt less like “writing” and more like allowing a creative force to co-create with her.
Nicki also shares the BEST practice, a simple ritual she created to bring more intention and presence into cooking and daily life: Breathe, Engage Your Senses, Set an Intention, Thank Your Food, and Thank Your Body. What started as a way to survive burnout in the kitchen became a deeper practice of nervous system regulation, mindfulness, and creative connection.
We also explore entrepreneurship, overdoing, creative blocks, and the difficult but transformative process of saying no. Nicki opens up about walking away from successful sponsorship work that no longer felt aligned and learning how to build a business rooted in nourishment instead of constant hustle.
This episode is a reminder that creativity sometimes begins with a deep breath, connecting to your senses, and allowing yourself to slow down enough to listen. The answers you are looking for are right inside you, if you take a beat to tune in and allow creativity to co-create with you.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform while you cook, clean, or create. Get the full show notes & transcript below.
Questions to Reflect On:
Sit with these questions: Journal, take them on a walk, create a voice note, chat with a friend, or sit with a cup of tea and reflect on them.
Leave a comment on Substack or connect with us on Instagram @chefcarlacontreras & @nickisizemore to share your takeaways from the episode.
What rituals help me reconnect to myself creatively?
What does nourishment look like beyond food?
Where am I overdoing instead of allowing space for creativity to emerge?
How can I bring more intention into everyday moments?
How does my nervous system respond when I slow down?
xo Carla
PS: Substack curious? Listen to the podcast episode about building your new digital home on Substack here.
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. If you are driving or doing an activity that needs your attention, save the energy practice for later. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only. Note: Some of these are affiliate links. I receive a small percentage of the sales. I appreciate your support of my small Latina & women owned business.
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Nicki Sizemore
Nicki Sizemore is a leading voice at the intersection of mindfulness and cooking. A trained chef, she has spent more than two decades in the food industry as a recipe developer, educator, and cookbook author.
Her fourth book, Mind, Body, Spirit, Food: Adaptable Recipes and Grounding Meditations for Preparing Meals with Joy and Intention, was released in January 2026. Nicki publishes the Mind, Body, Spirit, FOOD newsletter and podcast, where she shares recipes, rituals, and mindfulness practices designed to bring more intention, ease, and joy into cooking and eating.
On the podcast, she interviews acclaimed chefs, food writers, scientists, spiritual leaders, anthropologists, and other thinkers exploring the intersections of food, culture, identity, health, and spirituality.
She also speaks and teaches nationwide about mindful cooking and is an instructor at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Parents, Better Homes & Gardens, Goop, Real Simple, EatingWell, Fine Cooking, and other publications.
Find + Work With Nicki Sizemore
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. Nicki, welcome to the podcast. I am so grateful to have you here. Can you introduce yourself and how you serve your community?
Nicki (00:48):
Yes. Thank you so much for having me, Carla. My name is Nicki Sizemore. I write a newsletter and I produce a podcast called Mind, Body, Spirit Food, where we explore the rituals and traditions around food, recipes, of course, but also kind of the deeper ways in which we nourish ourselves. I have a book with the same name Mind, Body, Spirit Food that just launched this year. I also have a blog that was kind of my primary business years and years ago, but that still lives on and that still does create income as part of my work. That's ultimately what I do. I also do one-on-one sessions with people, teach classes. I really think of myself as an educator in many ways. That word feels heavy, more of like I want to be with people and engage and interact and learn from each other. Hold space for that.
Carla (01:40):
What was the last experience that sparked creativity for you?
Nicki (01:44):
There's two. I recently taught a retreat at Cripollo and it was profoundly inspiring because what this book launch has forced me to do is to get out into the world after having been behind a screen really since COVID and well before that. When I first moved to the community I live in, I taught in- person cooking classes and then my kids were young. As a freelancer, I had like 17 jobs and that had to go away. Since COVID, I have been teaching online here and there, but this book has forced me to get in person and that retreat, especially spending three days with people, inspired me so much just from hearing the stories of other people and being in community and knowing that we are all walking the same path ultimately and sharing so many of kind of similar challenges but also pleasures. Another thing that has really inspired creativity lately is I would say reality necessity often sparks creativity for me.
(02:56)
And my medium is food and my husband has been out of town. My oldest daughter has been sick. She's going on five days. I haven't been to the grocery store and sometimes that's where I create the recipes I love the most. When I'm forced into necessity, like what do I have? All projects and plans are off the table. Let's just cook. What do I feel like cooking? What does she want? Can I just create from here?
Carla (03:25):
That is beautiful. How do you define creativity when it comes to your work?
Nicki (03:32):
I've never defined creativity. Creativity has always just been this kind of enigma. When it comes to my work, there are two ways I define creativity. One is a bit of a practical element to creativity. I'm a recipe developer in part of the work I do. And so that is often driven by, like I just explained, like necessity, that creative flood that comes when you're just creating something through your intuition and through what your body is craving. And then after that, I have to get on my thinking camp and test recipes and it becomes very practical because I do want my recipes to be very accessible and very, very functional. The other side to creativity feels much more esoteric and hard to pin down. It feels a lot like it's not me. I know this kind of sounds like Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, but it does feel like this oh creation.
(04:33)
The book, My Body, Spirit, Food, I never felt like I was writing it. I felt like it was coming through me, but it was written in such collaboration with some sort of creative force that was teaching me as I was writing it. I was writing that book in real time as it was changing my life and it was over a six year period and it could not have launched earlier because by the time it has come out to the world, it is cellularly in my body, those practices and even those recipes are such a part of me. But when I first started writing them, not knowing it would be a book and but writing these practices and living these practices, it just was something beyond my mind. And maybe that's what creativity feels like. And of course we could call that our inner self. Sometimes it is that inner voice when I'm in the kitchen that feels like intuition, but sometimes it really does feel like it's just something coming from beyond.
(05:28)
And I know that can sound pretty woo-woo, but when I can tap into that, not having to define it and not having to control it and just letting it come, that's when I experience the most joy and that's when I think my work is at its best.
Carla (05:45):
What is your current relationship with creativity?
Nicki (05:49):
Creativity in me. That should be like the name of a love song. My relationship with creativity has changed drastically over the past six, 10 years I would say. In the past, I was a food stylist, a recipe developer, a blogger, I wrote cookbooks and creativity was really ... I don't want to diminish my creative process at that time because it was true to who I was, but it was a very controlled process. It was very kind of like top down like mind. "Okay, we're going to write this book. Here are the recipes we're going to do. We're going to create this blog recipe. Here's what we're going to do. "And I was scheduled and I had to force it and eventually I burned out. I mean, eventually that resulted in a massive burnout for me, which then led to my podcast and newsletter. So today when I launched Mind, Body, Spirit Food in 2023, January of 2023, I made the commitment that this work would be a source of true creativity.
(06:53)
I didn't know how I was going to make it happen as an entrepreneur because it is still my business, but that was my intention for the entire project to allow it to feel nourishing. And yes, there are still admin days. There are still days where all the things feel like they have to get done 100%, but I cannot write the newsletter essay from a place of control or even too much planning. I do plan the recipes and I do have to test the recipes. When it comes to the essay, it has to be sparked from what I am living, from the real journey that I'm on as a human discovering and exploring and getting curious as to what makes us tick as humans and how we can rediscover our sovereignty and our joy and our pleasure and our sensuality. So even this morning, like this week has been a week and I was up with my daughter had 104 degree fever last night.
(07:53)
I did not think I would be getting any work done this morning and I've really was up since three, hobbled down to my computer, sitting at my computer and the essay poured forth and it was a healing process for me in the writing of the essay. And often those words surprise me. I don't think it's ... There'll be weeks where I'm like, " Nothing. Nothing's going to come. "And then sure enough, I read one sentence in a passage somewhere and it just sparks this thing that is a teaching for me and therefore I hope that when people read it, it also sparks something for them, perhaps not the same thing it sparked for me, but something special for them or something that helps them connect back home to themselves. So creativity is a real surrender for me right now. I don't know if this will always be the case.
(08:44)
I mean, with my book, I still had deadlines, I still had things to do, but I really had to surrender to trust that the creative spark was going to arrive and that yes, there would be periods where things kind of dried up, but always it would come back. And I believe that now and I slip back into my old pattern of overdoing. That's like my number one creative block is my pattern of overdoing. But if I can remember to really, really, really carve out moments of self-connection, that's where creativity starts to flow and that's when it feels really good. And like I just mentioned, that's when my best work comes forth.
Carla (09:29):
Can you tell us about your creative process? Can you go through the best practice with us?
Nicki (09:37):
You unlocked something major for me. I have relegated that best practice to the kitchen and to the table. I have not brought that practice in that way. I do it kind of intuitively elements of that to my computer and to my office up here nestled in the attic of my house. I haven't brought it here and I think this is going to be a major shift for me. So the practice is, there's an acronym, it's called best breathe, engage your senses, set an intention, thank your food and thank your body. Breathe. I had to start there. When I was burnt out in the kitchen as a blogger but also as a working mom trying to get dinner on the table, teaching people how to get dinner on the table, but failing at home and struggling I started simply by breathing, by using the breath as a tool.
(10:32)
I didn't know this at the time, but I was using that breath as a tool to regulate my nervous system and to create this pause, this moment of transition in my day between what was before and where I was now in the kitchen. Now I'm going to leave behind what was there, what's yet to come and I'm just going to be here. Engage my senses, same idea. Let's be fully present. Oh my gosh. In cooking, there's so much joy available when we become fully present, like beauty and the smells and just the idea of being in a human body and experiencing all of this joy of cooking that I think is available to it if we can crack the door open a little bit and then setting an intention. This is where things really started to shift for me, where I realized I had the power to change how I wanted to feel, that I couldn't just rely on external circumstances.
(11:26)
I couldn't rely on my kids being calm and not racing around the kitchen asking me a million questions. I was the one so setting an intention can be anything. I think of them as guideposts, words or phrases that guide how we want to be, how we want to feel. So it can be anything from I will slow down, I will invite comfort. I just cooked a dinner meal last week and my intention that bubbled up was I will feel rested as I was cooking. And it was so interesting because as I was cooking, as you come back to that intention, as I'm watching the meal, even like stripping kale or chopping, I will feel rested and then it's like this snowball effect. You start to feel rested in this process of doing something and then gratitude, right? Thank your food even before you start cooking and it changes your relationship to food when you're cooking from that place of real reciprocity and gratitude and then thank your body.
(12:26)
But I'm realizing I could do that same thing that entire same practice here at my desk. Why don't I do that? So thank you for opening that because I know I will start doing that now.
Carla (12:38):
Oh, I'm curious of how this goes for you at your desk because I'm also considering of like, okay, where can I bring this into other aspects of my own life?
Nicki (12:52):
Well, I do it before I go to the grocery store and that changed my ... So it's like if I could do it before grocery shopping, grocery shopping used to be this thing I had to check off my to- do list like you. And being in the food world and testing recipes, I have a massive list and it was always this thing I had to get done and check off. And now I love going to the grocery store and I'm not saying that happened overnight, but that practice of bringing intention to the grocery store doesn't always make it a blissful experience, but it certainly neutralizes it and often it invites connection. So that's actually one of my favorite intentions to set before going into the grocery store. I will invite connection and then I start connecting with the foods I'm picking out, connecting with the clerks who are working there, connecting with other people online and it kind of becomes this joyful experience, but why not do that anywhere, any errand you're running.
(13:44)
There's the potential, right?
Carla (13:46):
And there's also that potential when you're sitting down. I mean, we started the podcast and people don't hear this part of the podcast that every time I start a podcast, we set intention and we move forward and re-record. So there's definitely an element of that in there.
Nicki (14:04):
Yeah, exactly. And how much that shifted when you set that intention and we took a deep breath, we were so present with one another that brought us, we both were talking about our crazy days and there's so much going on and it's like, oh, that dropped us both in. And it took what, 30 seconds to do.
Carla (14:21):
Exactly. Let's talk about creative blocks and I want to specifically ask you around entrepreneurship
Nicki (14:31):
The pattern that I have been undoing that I still brush up against is a pattern of overdoing. That was the model I had my parents growing up was do, do, do, do, do. And I really for most of my life equated my sense of worth with how much I do and I have had to go deep to unwire that because I have found that's my biggest block to creativity. I get on go, go, go mode and I stop tapping in and that go, go, go mow just leads me to exhaustion. So for me, I think everyone has different blocks, but for me it's really catching myself because it's still easy for me to slip into that like, "Oh, I'm just going to do this one more thing and oh, I've got to test this recipe. Oh and I've got to make this to do this.
(15:19)
" It kind of feels good because it's so ingrained in me and like, "Oh yeah, I'll just do all the things." And I really have to reel myself back and be like, "Let's pause. Let's pause and let's see, do I really need to do this? Is this really something that has to get done or am I doing this just to do it? " Because sometimes the doing feels good. It's like slipping back into that old habit that I don't want to slip back into. So I would say that's my number one block is overfilling my schedule myself as an entrepreneur who even for me to embrace that word, it's taken me years to embrace that word. I'd be like, "Oh, I'm just a writer. I just do these things." And it's only recently in the past couple of years that I'm like, "No, I'm an entrepreneur.
(16:06)
This is my business and what a joy it is that I therefore get to be in charge, but I've got to take agency for that fact that I am in charge. Gosh, this is so vulnerable for me right now because it's just within the past couple of months that I'm like, how do I be the boss?" It still feels uncomfortable for me to even say that even though I have people who work with me, I don't like to say, "I'm the boss." And I'm having to confront that shadow and say, "Why? Why can't you own that, own this company?" So it's a journey and it's one that I'm still navigating
Carla (16:45):
And what have you had to say no to or pause on when it comes to entrepreneurship?
Nicki (16:54):
One of the scariest things is when I burnt out, when I had that burnout that I was describing, which happened in like 2022, I had built this blog and it was successful and it was doing all the things that I built it to do and it was thriving and I knew I had to stop and I physically got sick. My body was real, the universe was like, "Okay, if you're not going to listen, we're going to make you listen." But I for the first time in my life took a full summer off. I still had the income coming in from the blog, but really took time off and I had to say no to a lot of clients because at the time I did a lot of sponsored work for companies, big time companies and I had to start saying no and turning work down.
(17:42)
And as somebody who's always been a freelancer, that was so scary because as a freelancer, it's like, you never know where your next paycheck is going to come from. You say yes, right? You say yes. And again, that's kind of like this switch that I'm like maybe completing but never completing is a switch from you don't need to hustle. What can you build? You don't need to hustle, what can you build? And so turning down most of the work that has scared me to turn down but has just not felt aligning anymore is the paid sponsorship work. And I still get asked and those paychecks seem really easy, but it feels like acid in my throat and I have to trust that for whatever reason in this season of life it's not the right bath.
Carla (18:33):
Wow, that is awesome. Nicki, how can we find you? How can we support you? How can we work with you?
Nicki (18:39):
You can find me on Substack. My podcast is also there. It's at Mind, Body, Spirit Food. I'm also on Instagram at Nicki Sizemore and you can find me at nickisizemore.com . Check out the book if you want to check out the book that has links to all of the spots. It's been such a joy. Thank you so much for inviting me on.
Carla (19:00):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me chef Carla Contreras acros 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.