Influencer & Content Creator Isabelle Robledo Of Making Mindfulness Fun Shares Her Top Selfcare, Wellness, and Beauty Tips

An Interview With Maria Angelova

Taking care of my physical body is probably the hardest part of my job. You see, I love my job so much that I constantly let myself sit at my computer all day. Taking care of my physical body requires a lot of discipline. For starters, I make an effort to do yoga twice a day for 15 minutes or I attend a yoga class.

At times it feels like wellness or elevating one’s well being, is diametrically opposed to high achievement and high performance in one’s career. The stress, mental energy, long hours, lack of restful sleep and preoccupation that result from a high-achievement life seem to directly inhibit wellness. And yet, in order to sustain the creativity, flexibility, mental acuity and resilience that are necessary for high performance, wellness and wellbeing of the mind, body and soul are also mandatory. So how do we achieve both? This is the question I’m hoping to answer through conversations with high-achieving leaders and influencers who are practicing their own philosophies about how to maintain their wellbeing.

As a part of our series about “Social Media Influencers Share Their Top Self Care, Wellness, and Beauty Tips, I had the pleasure of interviewing Isabelle Robledo.

Isabelle Robledo is the 18-year-old Co-founder of Making Mindfulness Fun, a mindfulness, spirituality, and psychology brand that helps people understand what makes them who they are so that they can be the creator of their reality instead of a victim. Isabelle is a full-time entrepreneur and is passionate about maintaining her mind, body, and emotional well-being in the process of growing her business.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory of how you came upon this career path and to where you are today?

I grew up homeschooled my entire life. Well, I say homeschooled but it was more like unschooled. When I turned 11, my whole family (of 7) moved into an RV to travel the world full-time. So from middle school through high school, I had no textbooks to study for or tests to prepare for. I was spending every day hiking, rock climbing, doing yoga, etc.

But I was given 1 rule and that rule was to pursue something every day. My mom didn’t care what I spend my time learning as long as it was something I loved.

So one day, I was scrolling through Instagram and I came across something called the MBTI, a personality typing system. I immediately fell in love with it because it explained who I was so well. I struggled a bit with self-understanding and identity, coming across a personality typing system that explained it was music to my ears.

Starting with the Myers-Briggs, I started learning more about personality typing systems. I read about love languages, Enneagram, and even dived into astrology and numerology because they explain so much of why we are the way we are.

I pursued these things mainly because they interested me. Then 2020 hit and I saw how many people were struggling and decided to start sharing my knowledge of self-understanding and mindfulness to help people find peace with themselves while they were in isolation.

Now, Making Mindfulness Fun, is my full-time job where I write blogs and create YouTube videos on mindfulness, psychology, and astrology so that people can live a life empowered instead of struggling through it all. I also run a group coaching platform, Be The Hero where we guide people on the journey to living a life they love. And I do 1-on-1 coaching for understanding your personality, heal your wounds, and become a creator of your reality.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My mom and sister. If it weren’t for them, I would’ve never considered entrepreneurship nor would I have built my knowledge of psychology to the point it is now. They’ve always been trailblazers and visionaries. I knew nothing about starting a business and they guided me every step of the way. I am grateful to call them my business partners (as they run Making Mindfulness Fun and Be The Hero alongside me).

As I said, my mom didn’t educate me growing up. And I say that without a single ounce of bitterness. From day one, she saw that I was not wired to learn at a desk. She knew that I had talents elsewhere and let me pursue them with curiosity. She never doubted that I could do something great.

Before I started Making Mindfulness Fun, back in early 2020, my mom saw how much kids were struggling. So she turned to me and said “you should run a kids’ mindfulness course.” I did not see myself as a good teacher, let alone able to teach kids about something that most adults have trouble comprehending.

6 months later, I found myself sitting in front of a zoom screen with 20+ kids, teaching them how to be aware. If she hadn’t pushed me to do that course, I probably wouldn’t have considered working in the self-growth/self-awareness industry at all. Because she pushed me to share my gifts, I realized that I had them in the first place.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

The dumbest and funniest mistake I made when starting my business is being someone I wasn’t. I am naturally a bit of an outspoken person. I’ve been labeled “aggressive,” “sarcastic,” and “savage.” I thought these parts of myself would make my unsuccessful or unprofessional so I hid them.

I eventually became friends with all the moms on Instagram and, as an 18 year old who could care less about how 7 year old Jacob did at his baseball tournament, I was getting frustrated. I was going around giving kudos to these people in hopes that they would give me money in return but I still found myself sale-less.

Once I started going around being fully and unapologetically who I was, I found myself enjoying my job more and making way more sales.

This taught me how important it is to remember that your business is a piece of you and people only buy from you if they like you and your vibe.

As an influencer, you have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. In fact, perhaps most people who tried to follow a career path like yours did not succeed. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?

I’m going to answer this by giving the answer I’ve found to life itself. No matter what, suffering is inevitable so choose to suffer for what you love the most. This leads me to my second point, I believe that a lot of people fail in the influencer/entrepreneurship industry because they don’t love what they do enough. Maybe they are doing it for the recognition, or maybe they think it’ll make life easier, a lot of people fail because it doesn’t set their soul on fire.

And on a spiritual note that I believe is completely valid, the people who fail simply don’t believe they deserve success. Our unconscious mind creates our reality and so if your unconscious mind is constantly saying “I deserve to suffer” then suffering is what you’ll get. Not abundance, wealth, recognition, and a career you love.

And everyone has to overcome this programming so you’re not a freak for struggling to make your business or influencer platform work. We all have these limiting beliefs, they are what has created our personality. This is why I teach people how to overcome their programming so they can have everything they desire.

Can you share with our readers some of the strategies you’ve used to build an engaged, loyal, and large online community?

Don’t be like everyone else. Your vibe attracts your tribe. By showing up as the most authentic version of yourself, the right people will want to follow you and stick around. Simple as that.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. In my work, I focus on how one can thrive and care for oneself in three areas: body, mind, and heart. You are a busy person with a demanding schedule, can you share with our readers two self-care routines, practices or treatments that help your body thrive? (Kindly share a story or an example for each.)

Taking care of my physical body is probably the hardest part of my job. You see, I love my job so much that I constantly let myself sit at my computer all day. Taking care of my physical body requires a lot of discipline. For starters, I make an effort to do yoga twice a day for 15 minutes or I attend a yoga class.

One thing I have to keep in mind with running my own business and is something that I think others’ should keep in mind too is that work is supposed to enable you to live the lifestyle you want. And everyone has a preferred form of physical movement in their ideal lifestyle.

For example, I love to rock climb, swing dance and hike. So my work must allow me to create my own schedule to make time for those things.

My business helps you recognize the fact that everyone is different. And this makes it hard to recommend physical self-care practices because it depends on what you need.

But the system I use to find my self-care practice is to do one thing that nurtures your physical body every day and do one thing that allows you to play every day.

The Enneagram helps us find what form of physical self-care will best nurture us. The enneagram indicates our stress response and what we gravitate towards.

As an example, my mom is an enneagram 8, she naturally wants to challenge herself because of this. And she should challenge herself since it is her core value but she also needs to make time to decompress since she naturally has so much yang energy, so to say.

And I know for myself, as an Enneagram 9, I need peaceful, zen movement like slow yoga for physical health. But I also need to push myself a little because I naturally want to keep my heart rate lower due to my personality type.

Can you share with us two routines that you use to help your mind or heart to thrive? (Kindly share a story or example for each.)

I use my astrology and enneagram to find what makes my mind and heart thrive. My enneagram tells me my core desire. As a quick summary, the core desires of each enneagram type are the following.

Enneagram 1’s want perfection

Enneagram 2’s want to serve

Enneagram 3’s want achievement

Enneagram 4’s want to be important

Enneagram 5’s want resources

Enneagram 6’s want loyalty

Enneagram 7’s want fun

Enneagram 8’s want challenge

Enneagram 9’s want harmony

Knowing that I am a 9, I know that I need harmony to feel fulfilled. So every day I ask myself “how will I make time for healthy harmony today?”

My enneagram also tells me that I need to set goals for my highest growth. So to make my heart and mind fully thrive, I make time to set goals and that brings me further fulfillment.

Then I use astrology. My astrological birth chart also tells me what I need to thrive emotionally, physically, and mentally.

For example, I know that I have a Moon in Cancer, which means I need a lot more time than most to process my emotions. And I have a Venus in Taurus which means that self-care for me means surrounding myself with luxury, beautiful scents, and good food.

Can you help articulate why self-care is so important for your mental wellness?

I believe that we aren’t here to just survive, we’re here to thrive, and that requires taking care of ourselves. Self-care is just a label for living a life that nurtures your spirit and that’s why self-care is so important to me. And we’ve become a society where we think someone else is supposed to provide us the love we are looking for. Self-care reminds us that we hold all the love we need within us.

Can you share five ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Learn about your Venus sign in your birth chart. Your Venus is your love language and quite literally, what makes you feel beautiful. By embracing the sign your Venus is in, you’ll feel wealthy and abundant.

As I said earlier, my Venus is in Taurus. This means that I feel most beautiful when I am surrounded by luxury. So I make myself feel beautiful by wearing luxurious clothes, lighting a candle, and listening to music. But it will differ for you based on what sign your Venus is in.

Overcome your Enneagram childhood wound. Your enneagram type indicated what hurtful belief or “wound” you were taught in childhood. By healing this wound, you’ll feel worthy of love, love yourself, and heal from the pain of the past. When I healed my type 9 wound, I felt such an immense sense of love for myself that was incomparable.

Dance, alone or with someone. Dancing is a free-flowing form of expression that improves our health immensely and makes us feel beautiful. I recommend everyone I meet to dance more. I love to swing dance and I feel so vibrant every time afterward.

Talk about something you are passionate about. Nothing is quite as beautiful as someone’s face lighting up when they talk about something they are passionate about. You don’t even have to talk about it, just think about something you are passionate about.

Here’s a little exercise I do to embody this and it never fails to make me feel beautiful. Write a list of all of your favorite “Little things” you love in this world. It could be sunshine after a rainy day, the color yellow, a cozy hoodie, whatever these things are, write them down and how they are so simple yet so incredible. And after you wrote them down, reflect on the fact that anything you see within something/someone else is also within you too. Everything in this world is a reflection of you. By seeing the beauty in the world around you you see the beauty within yourself.

My final tip for making yourself feel beautiful is by realizing that you are the person you’ve always wanted to be. It’s a bit complicated to explain why this is so but just try for a day, repeat to yourself “I am who I’ve always wanted to be” and see how much more beautiful you feel.

Is there a particular resource, a practitioner, expert, book, or podcast that made a significant impact on you and helped you to thrive? Can you share a story about that with us?

The wisdom that I’ve gained is a culmination of 100’s of small resources and bits that have now become a coherent truth. But there is one that comes to mind, Adam Roa’s poem/speech “You Are Who You’ve Been Looking For.” I’ve been a poet for many years because poetry has always spoken to me but I had never heard someone speak it before. I heard Roa’s speech for the first time in 2021 and I was floored… and by floored I mean literally on the floor crying because of how much it resonated.

To me, Adam Roa’s speech reminds me of the simple truth that is at the root of all the self-discovery we do. No matter what, we are enough and we have everything we need within us. I continue to listen to this speech to this day whenever I feel down.

I hope to share my poetry one day in the way Adam Roa has done.

As an influencer, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would like to start a movement around breaking free from our trauma. Everyone in this world is very hurt and I think that if I could leave any impact on this world, it would be to help people overcome the story they’ve been taught to believe.

After all, there is a quote by Steven Ravnstang that goes “You were born to be more than you were raised to be” and I believe that is true. Everyone deserves to live the life of their dreams and if life will have struggle no matter what, you might as well struggle for the right things. That’s why I started Be The Hero, in hopes that we can Brin everyone together to break free of their wounds, trauma, and limitations so that they can be the creator of their reality instead of a victim.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)

This is a hard question. I don’t look up to “celebrities” very much. But if I had to pick one person, I would probably pick Dr. Jordan B Peterson. I love his views on the world and the human psyche. I think we could have a great conversation discussing this weird world’s ways.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

Follow me on YouTube at Making Mindfulness Fun

See my blog, makingmindfulnessfun.com

Join Be The Hero by going to Bethehero.academy

And instagram @makingmindfulnessfun

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher, and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness, and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.