Reimagining Our Lives

0:00Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more. Botox on a botulinum toxin A prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average 8 to 9 headache days a month versus 6 to 7 for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition.

0:30Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

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2:09Don't hold anything too tightly. Just wish for it, want it, let it come from the intention of real truth for you and then let it go. For me, our soul is like, it's unbound. It's limitless, but we will use words to limit ourselves. When people stop believing that somebody's got your back or Superman's coming, we turn to ourselves and that's where you become empowered. Courageous participation attracts positive things. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and this is the Goop Podcast, where we bring together visionaries, scientists, healers, artists, and seekers. I'm so grateful that I get to interview these extraordinary thought leaders and share their wisdom with you.

2:58And I love listening to the conversations that are led by my co-host and dear friend, Cleo Wade. Cleo is a beautiful poet and author. I deeply admire her and the way she keeps her heart open to the world. Together, we believe that engaging in open-minded, honest, and sometimes difficult conversations has the power to change our lives. All right, over to Cleo. Today's guest is Rachel Cargill. Rachel is an activist, entrepreneur, and author of the new book, A Renaissance of Our Own, a memoir and manifesto on reimagining. I've admired Rachel's work as a public thinker for a really long time, and I was so thrilled to finally get a chance to speak with her.

3:44In her book, Rachel explores the ways in which we're capable of profound transformation on a personal level in our communities and beyond. Today, Rachel shares her personal story of self-discovery and how it changed the course of her life. We talked about the power of rest, what it means to be in alignment with our values and how to embrace and deepen the relationship to our bodies. I loved the way Rachel contextualized self-care and how being our best self is our highest service. Okay, let's cut to my chat with Rachel Cargill.

4:23I just want to say that we're so excited about this book. It's so special and it's so unique, the book, also because there's so much generosity in how you write and tell stories and these kind of moments of pause in between. It reminds me of Preacher where they're like, do you hear me now? You actually create that space with a page of being like, okay, now are you picking up what I'm throwing down? But you're doing that with like three pages in between saying like, let me teach you how to heal and move in ways that have helped me. it's so beautiful thank you for writing it thank you so much something I've talked about a lot this idea of continuing the dream work of those who came before us and there's this part of your book where you say well my mother had done her best to rescue me from the world she'd grown up then she didn't know how to launch me beyond our home and I find that that is kind of a an activist origin story a lot of the time, which is that there is this admirable, beautiful person and this ability for us to recognize that they did the best they can, but our dreams are often limited to our experiences.

5:33Our elders were able to offer us an experience beyond their lives. Then we're also offered this ability to dream beyond their lives or their home, as you put it. Can you talk to me a little bit about your childhood and kind of where that comes from in the book? Yeah, I grew up in a very specific or I should say particular situation. And it was the fact that my mother had found government housing in the middle of a very rich neighborhood. And I think she was very specific with that one because it put us in a quote unquote better school system, which what my mom understood as a better school system was a wider school system.

6:15I don't know if she had any more critical thinking besides, okay, I'm placing my child in proximity to whiteness, which might give her more opportunity, which I understand how that would have been a truth for her. But also it really, for me and from my perspective, it offered me a daily opportunity to be in relationship with what wasn't known to me in my own household. So everything from how my friends who were in much better socioeconomic positions, who were in families that had a lot more space to be perhaps a particular softness that my mother couldn't because she was raising so many children and trying to survive from day to day.

7:03And growing up, being able to witness these things gave me permission to start being curious about what else was possible outside of what I saw, whether it was just within my household or within my family's understanding of what success was. and I ended up being a very curious child. In the book, I talk about a memory of being at a party with my soccer team and being amazed at the house that they lived in. Like our house could fit into their house probably twice. And instead of being outside and playing with my teammates, I was sitting at the kitchen counter asking the wife of the soccer coach and saying, what do people have to do to get houses like this?

7:48Because that was never a conversation in my house. My house was always, here's how we get through day to day, paycheck to paycheck, survival. And in these other spaces, there seemed to be a thriving that my family didn't seem to have access to. But what I did know is that my mom and my family was just as kind, just as smart, just as capable. So I knew there was something that I needed to understand that would get me from one place to another. And so my childhood ended up being this really intriguing space of being curious about what was possible in the world. Because it felt possible for me because I was in such proximity.

8:26But for some reason, my mother wasn't able to tap into what other people seemed to be able to tap into. And I was very intrigued and very moved to be curious about what it meant for me as a little Black girl in the world and how I knew I would prefer to exist. Well, it's really interesting because you're kind of saying that there was a part of you that even as a child, without even probably knowing these words to call it this, you're recognizing a systemic problem, that there's a problem or a difference in system. Something I often talk about is that we can be really honest with kids because they really feel already the rightness and the wrongness or the thing that's like funky in the room.

9:10And so it's really interesting that you've kind of written this book about reimagining different systems and it kind of begins with reimagining your life. Yeah. In writing this book and being who I am now with having done so much study about different systems and having so much experience in those systems, I see how that younger version of myself was like, wait, this isn't adding up. There are many things that aren't adding up here. And I'm grateful that I might've had the space to ask questions or even had other people outside of my own mother, who was my primary caregiver, to be asking the soccer coach, be asking my teachers these questions that my mother might not have had answers to, but I could bring back to the home and be like, guess what I found out?

9:52Here are some connections. I remember I didn't even know what the different levels of college were until I was pretty much a senior in high school. I had a friend's parent explain to me what freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, PhD, master's. I didn't even understand any of that. And I remember coming home and being like, mom, I have some information that is giving me access to something new. And I'm grateful that she often tended to that curiosity because it both told me that I was worthy of new things and things that were giving me information, but I never felt shame about who I actually was and where I came from either.

10:33I want to offer my condolences because I know that your mother passed late last year. Could you talk to me a little bit about her? I feel like this has been the mother podcast. I feel like I only have had one person on so far who has not talked about their mother, but can you talk to me a little bit about how she was able to foster that curiosity? Is it just by giving you space or did she kind of add questions to your questions for you to further question. Could you talk to me a little bit about her? Yeah. My mother, she contracted polio when she was five years old. So she walked on crutches her entire life.

11:11And I only knew a mother with a disability. I was born to a mother with a disability. She grew up fairly poor, Black in the Midwest here in Ohio. And I think that my mom had a lot of limitations that she knew she wouldn't necessarily be able to surmount in this lifetime for whatever reason, whether it was because she had already started having children and she wouldn't really have the room to do things or what her actual physical disability wouldn't allow her to surmount. And so my mom would often say, particularly, I played soccer a lot as a child. And so, you know, soccer is a lot of running.

11:47And right before a game, my mom would be like, Rachel, you know, I can't run, so go run for me. And that is certainly a metaphor for the way that my mom encouraged me to run throughout various aspects of life, knowing what she hadn't been able to do. And so I think that she was also, you know, a fire in her was also stoked with my curiosity because she was just kind of sitting there with this hope that I might take these leaps and bounds that she wasn't able to for multiple reasons. My mom was very artistic. She has, even now with her passing, as I go through her thing, she had many sketchbooks.

12:24She would often talk about how she did get accepted into art school, but she just never got the chance to attend. My mom loved children more than anything. As soon as you pass 10 years old, she was like done with you. She taught many, many people how to read. There's many people walking around the world now who my mom certainly seeded their love for reading. Also, you know, I'm 34 years old and with her passing and the things that I'm realizing about her or learning about her, my mom was very complex and complicated in what she had to deal with in the world and what she decided to just sit with as true and truck through, you know, this life that wasn't always easy for her.

13:03My mom often says she loved to talk about how she was a flower child and how she often had a space of free thinking that her mother didn't always approve of. And as much as my mom might have been frustrated by my choices or my decisions, I think ultimately she was most proud that I was able to sit with the freedom that she both loved within herself and that she had intentionally seated in me. And she got to see grow in many ways within me before she passed. Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start.

13:44It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average 8 to 9 headache days a month versus 6 to 7 for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness.

14:15Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. I remember once I was giving a talk and it was a talk about self-care and this person stood up and she was like, you know, it's really hard for me to consider self-care because I never saw my mom sit down.

14:48She was like, I never saw her do a single thing for herself. You know, she'd go to work all day and then she'd get home and she'd start cooking and ironing and cleaning and doing. and when that is not a part of how you grew up and it's really hard to claim those things as necessity. And I feel that you touch on this and talk about this so much in the book and this idea that, you know, not making the entirety of your life a selfless gesture is actually a way that we are able to be deeply impactful with this, you know, kind of short, beautiful presence we have while we're preciously here on earth.

15:29Could you talk to me a little bit about your journey and kind of figuring out how to claim that when it's not role modeled? I'd love to hear kind of how you moved into claiming that, holding it, harnessing it, creating space for others to do the same. Yeah. I often use the language that our best self is our highest service. I think that particularly Black women, women in general, particularly people of color, I'm thinking of immigrants, we've come to understand that self-sacrifice or like this deep martyrdom is the kindest thing we can do for our community. and I in my own work have found that when we actually take the time to nourish ourselves when we take the time to find rest that is where we have the strength to hold even more in our homes in our circles in our spaces and thinking back to my mom in particular I have so many memories of my mom like there were two things that come to mind one I definitely have days where my mom would say, Rachel, go outside.

16:39And she would literally lock the door and come back inside until like whatever she was done doing, she was done doing. And sometimes I know that thing she was doing was like meditating or yoga. My mom was like very into that, which wasn't really talked about when we were younger. She would tell me about how she would go to yoga classes. And that makes me think of my mom's relationship with her body and having a disability. And yoga was probably one of the ways that she really felt connected to her body in the midst of it. But also we would have these days where my mom would close all of the blinds in the house and she would just like be naked and walk around the house.

17:17And she would just be like, I don't know what y 'all are going to do, but like, I just need to feel free right now. And we would do a very, it would be a very normal day. Like we'd cook the meals and we'd watch TV and like nothing special would happen, but it would just be a day of like her wanting liberation, her freedom and feeling liberation. And so I'm thinking about those two examples, whether it was the harshness of her locking the door and telling me like, I'll see you in an hour or the space where she invited us to be comfortable with our bodies and comfortable in seeing other bodies in a way that felt safe and normal.

17:54It did give me the clue that we are worth whatever we might need in one moment or another. But as I got older, as I got into my own grind, whatever it was that I was doing in my own space of survival, it just was like the plain truth that if I was too tired or if I was too depleted to show up in a way that actually showcased how much I really do care or how much I really am invested, It really wasn't worth what we were doing because we just weren't our best selves. And this idea of our best selves, our highest service, is a reminder that if we say we really want to serve, then the first place we have to do is serve within ourselves.

18:38And it behooves everyone else in our community to give us the space to do that. And so I hope we start considering ourselves as something that deserves being tended to, something that deserves being nourished, and not just this thing that we have to push out of the way to get other things done. Ourselves and our body are part of the equation as well. This holiday season, choose gifts that feel thoughtful and practical with Omaha Steaks. Whether you're hosting or gifting, they deliver the world's best steak experience, and it makes you look like you planned way ahead. They've got USDA-certified tender steaks, juicy burgers, comfort meals, and tons more.

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19:53Terms apply. See site for details. That's OmahaSteaks.com, code T-Bone. Do you feel like that's kind of easier said than done? Because I know it must be a practice. You know, are there the kind of signs you look for in yourself? And so how do you kind of put that into your practice or notice those values around rest, restoration and our best selves being able to serve? It's definitely easier said than done. I agree with that sentiment that it's easy to insist. And it's even easy to know with our rational mind what needs to be done, even if we do the exact opposite when we get into the emotional needs of demand.

20:35or people depending on us. Some of the tools that have been really helpful for me, one is really paying attention to my cycles. I think a lot of our lives are reactive. You know, something happens and then our nervous system kicks into gear and we show up and then that's kind of, we show up to a default and then that's when we're burnt out. And so one of the things that have been helpful and that I use is really paying attention to my cycle. Like I know that in the winter time, I live in New York City. I know in the wintertime, once the weather shifts, my energy is going to be low. I'm not going to be as efficient as I would have been.

21:13So I kind of shift my work schedule around that, or I shift my sleep schedule around that, or I shift my social schedule around that. I don't expect myself to be the same in every season. And it is helpful for me to be thinking, you know, maybe two seasons ahead so I can say, you know what, let me get all my friends together for a few gatherings in the summer because I'm probably going to be a bit closed up in the winter. I know that. Because I'm hibernating. Because I'm hibernating. So really working with my own rhythms and paying attention to it allows me to be more proactive instead of doing the reactive thing, which can often be draining.

21:52The other thing, and the thing that I specifically talk about in the book, is finding my highest values. Deciding what I understand to be important to me and acting through that instead of exhausting myself and acting through what I'm told should be important. So my highest values are ease, abundance, and opportunity. And so if something is asked of me and it doesn't necessarily fit into my highest values, then that's an easy no for me because I'm probably not going to have the motivation to do it. And there's no reason to put my energy and all of my effort into something that doesn't even serve what's most important to me.

22:33And I can tell someone, oh, that sounds like it's really important to you, but it actually doesn't fit into what my idea of success is or what my idea of necessity is. And that has been really helpful because we are often on what I'm calling this life escalator, where we're just going up and up and up through these steps, what we're quote unquote supposed to be doing. And we really burn ourselves out from feeling like we have to keep up with something that isn't even taking us to where we want to go. And so what I have decided and what I'd rather do is step off of that escalator and start building this staircase of the things that I actually value, the things that I actually care about.

23:13That's taking me towards what my idea of success is. Really taking time to discover what our idea of good and success and wellness is will allow us to put our energy towards the things that align with our values instead of using our energy to fit a mold that we can't even necessarily relate to. Do you think everyone should write a manifesto? I think everyone should, and I encourage people to. And I think it's because clarity is kindness, particularly to ourselves. When we have clarity towards what we want to do and how we want to do it, it gets some of the static out of our mind that depletes us.

23:52It can be exhausting to be sitting there every day and say, am I doing the right thing? Am I making everybody happy? Am I not becoming a failure? When you have the clarity of actually, this is what I want to do. And I can be kind to myself on the way to there. And I can know that I'm surrounded by people with my solid yeses and my solid noes that are in alignment with my highest values, creating a manifesto and coming up with this language that we can use with ourselves and with other people is such a soft and kind way to move through the world instead of the the hectic hustle grinding culture I mean I the thing about this current cultural phenomenon around the the grind which isn't current it's gone on for a long time but is there's not a lot of respect for your body in that and in a world where we're trying to make our bodies respected so they can be safe and loved so that we can have beloved community in the midst of that safeness.

24:56This idea that we are like grinding ourselves down is in fact, the very harm we're asking people not to do just in a different way to black bodies in this country. Yeah. The conversation of rest overall is something that's so needed. And I love that you put it directly to like our physical bodies. and not just our mental health, which is absolutely important and a huge part of it, but also our physical bodies. We are taught that our bodies are something that are like in the way, something that we have to figure out. It's something that needs to be fixed or changed. It's never something that's just part of the living.

25:40And that's something that I want to change, like this relationship to our bodies, not being something we have to push out of the way or fixed, but it's actually something that we can like tend to and maintain and nurture and, and appreciate and thank for all the ways that it's carried us through this life. Thank for the ways that the way that it heals over time. I'm always shocked after I get over a cold or the flu or something. And I'm like, wow, I really was down and out and I'm back. Like my body really had the ability to care for itself and tend to itself and come back into itself. And I hope that as we continue to move away from grind culture, which I do feel that we're, even the language that we use and with the help certainly of Trisha's work at the Knapp ministry, we're getting more language and more material to start having conversations with ourselves to what rest means and why it's not something that is kind of offered later on, but it's part of the ingredients for us to be able to not just be well, but to enjoy life.

26:49When we feel better seated in our bodies, we feel better in relationship to each other, even nature. I'm thinking like the ways that when I feel better in my body, walking through the streets and being able to be in nature feels more true, feels more vibrant to me. So yeah, I certainly am working on it personally in the way that I'm building strength in my body. I think about the way we always think that working out equals trying to look better, but working out really is building strength, building endurance, building flexibility, building just a relationship of knowing what your body can do. I'm really enjoying this process of being in new relationship with my own body.

27:32It's interesting in it. And it makes me so happy that you're wanting to talk about that more because I think, especially in this culture of, I think we're harder and harsher on our bodies than we've ever been. And I don't know if it's, I have a lot of friends who've had kids over the past couple of years. And I'm like, even just how hard people are on their bodies as they're just healing after childbirth, it's so difficult. And it's definitely a side effect of how we're discussing the body in public. And I think the real cornerstone of this is that we often believe that our body is the holder of our worth.