Rachel Platten

Yeah, exactly. Yes. You don't want to do it.

So what does that look like then?

Let them do whatever they want. Let them eat whatever they want.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

They won't change. They might on their own.

Right.

Yeah.

Accept them, yeah.

Stop complaining.

She can't even see what she has because there's so much stuff in it.

It's not that bad.

And let him do it.

Yeah.

Like, you don't love me. Correct. You don't respect me. You don't care about me. Correct. You don't appreciate me.

Interesting.

No.

Right.

I mean, I get up early and go to the gym. I'm not sneaking out.

Sure.

Oh, man.

Period.

$350,000 is a lot.

Gone.

It's true.

Really?

So what's the second part then?

Wow.

Well, it was one of the things that I thought would, I thought that they would be opposites. Before I became a mom, I thought that if I had children, it would steal my creativity, that my creativity would suffer. And what I have learned is that it could not be more It could not be less true.

Really?

It is the opposite. My creativity has expanded so much. I mean, think of the act of creating a child. It is the most creative you will ever be in your life, right? You are literally creating a human. You are so tapped in to divine, to creation. To magic. To magic. Once you create a human, you can create anything.

Like my songs flowed so easy as if God turned on a faucet that just never got shut off. And creating for me is so, much more easy and natural and flows. I mean, first of all, the range of what I feel from becoming a mom, as we said earlier, is so much more wide and wild.

Life experience. So I have so much to pull from. I mean, I can harness and transmute all that terror and grief and rage I told you I went down and witnessed, and I can turn them into this beautiful art that's still actually sounds joyful somehow. There's joy in the pain that I'm singing about.

Well, first of all, my husband has since started working for me and now is a partner. And so it's amazing. He's bringing more income in from having come in and transformed my business. So it's not all on me anymore. And that has been a gigantic relief.

Yeah, it's amazing.

I have two things. I have two thoughts on this. One is I want you to think about the busiest time in your life.

how productive were you when you only had a 30 minutes to be very productive verse when you had nothing going on and you had all day very productive but there's a time you're gonna crash at some point yeah yeah okay you're doing that every day i crashed this morning but um taylor taught me taylor swift taught me when i fight song was exploding and we were like and i met her and i was like i don't know what i'm doing i have to be in paris and then japan and then i don't i don't know how to do this and she said you aren't gonna have days off you are gonna have moments off you're gonna you're gonna

Draw all your energy back in in moments at a time. So that's one thing. Like I can't look right now at my calendar. My calendar is insane. I cannot look at it for the next three months. It is packed every day. It's insane.

It's a season. It's three months. Exactly. Exactly.

I'm all in. My husband and I are all in. We have everyone around us supporting us. saying yes to everything. Yep. So that's where I'm at right now. It's just a season. I've been doing this long enough to know now this isn't forever. This is right now. I also have incredible moments off and days off and weeks off because of the career I chose.

So there will be a lull and I will get to be around my babies all day long and it will be delicious. Okay, that's my one thought. And then the other thought I have is that my spiritual practice has been absolutely essential in keeping my energy up. I didn't have this tool before. I didn't have this deep connection to God before. And now that I do, I literally give it to God.

I literally say, you do it. I write. I want to show you what I write.

I make a checkmark for God. And before a show, I do it. Before something I'm scared of, before a day, before an intense performance, I literally write a list of what I'm scared of. I made this up. I don't know if this is like, people are going to listen and be like, what the hell is she talking about? But I want you to imagine three columns. The first column...

I write down all my fears and all my worries and all my stress. The second column, I write down my job. And I write like, okay, I'll tell you, I'll give you an example. Let's say I was doing one about the Lewis podcast. I'm nervous. I love Lewis. This podcast is huge. I want to do a good job. I want people to, I want to come off well. I want people to go listen to my music.

I want to be successful, right? What is my job? My job, what God tells me my job is, is to breathe, be in the moment, give it to him and have fun. That's it. That's my job. And then I write the third column, what's God's job? And on God's column is everything.

Everything.

Make it go so well. Make me adorable, hilarious, funny, charming. You do it. And then, like, make it the most successful pod. Make Lewis love it. And, like, whatever. God has all this to do. And then I make a checkbox for him. And I crack up. And I write on it. Go, God, go. Yay, God. Don't worry. You can do it, God. And I cheer him on. It's, like, ridiculous. It's, like, so ridiculous.

And then I crack up because I look at my job versus God's job and I'm like, oh bro, you have a lot of work to do. I'm gonna go chill, but good luck to you. And then I come back and I remember to check him off and I give him A pluses and I'm like, very good job. And I like give him stickers and he has not failed me ever. And that's what I do for energy.

I don't have to do anything. I have to show up. I have to show up and I have to be the clearest vase that I can. God is the flowers. My job is literally just to be the clearest vase for people to see them. And that's hard work. It takes hard work to be a clear vase, but I can do that. I can't shine and shimmer. I can't guarantee people will love me.

I can't be delightful and perfect and pleasing, right? But I can do my work to be a clear vase. I can meditate. I can do my breath work. I can have therapy. I can work out. I can keep my body healthy. I can keep my mind healthy. That's my job in being a clear vase, right? And the pressure's off other than that. My job is not what people are going to think of me.

My job is not how am I going to come off? What is the success going to be? What is the result going to be? It is literally just to be the best version I can.

In the middle of the darkest depression. when I had no other choice.

Yeah, a couple years ago when I was completely at a loss on my knees in the studio that you came to a couple times on my knees in the middle of the night at 2 a.m. My baby had had 105 degree temperature that night. She was two months old. My husband had a passing a kidney stone. I wasn't sleeping. I was absolutely at the lowest. My uncle just died. I was at the lowest I've ever been in my life.

I was terrified. I didn't know how to keep going. And I screamed on the floor of my studio, mercy, mercy, I'm done, mercy. And this song came out of me. This song, Mercy, came out of me at two in the morning, like all at once, this rush.

this answer of of music I Felt a presence that I never felt in my life and I've always written With something but I didn't know what it was that was flowing through me and that night I knew without a doubt that that beautiful piece of art came through that pain there had to be something bigger than me in this world that was listening and And from then, I just was so hungry for it.

And I sought it out and I asked and I searched and I implored God, keep showing yourself to me. Please, please, please keep delighting me, keep helping me, keep healing me. And he did over and over. And music came, music came, music came, like so much music.

I think I did, but I didn't know him and I didn't know. I didn't understand that he was actually like listening to me and right there and right here in my heart. And that it was someone that I didn't have to go through someone else to get to.

that was the other thing about la and that this world that we're kind of entrenched in that i think messed me up i kept thinking there needed to be this intermediary to get me to god like okay i'd go to like a medical intuitive or an intuitive or a psychic or a reiki person they connect me and i was so desperate for it that i'd go all the time like i want that i want to understand how to reach

you know, my Creator, and you know how to do it for me, so you do it. And I'd ask people to pray for me for things and like, because I had so much fear. And that's where the aloneness felt like.

Being alone, like being that no one would be there when I went to ask that no one would hear me like, do you feel loved by God? Do you feel a connection?

Yeah, me too.

Yeah.

It needs to be in service is fundamental now in anything I do. I am exactly the same Lewis. Same. We are so similar in our journeys. I needed to achieve more and more and more. And we are both very driven people and we have achieved a lot and we have both

been through the school of greatness, and we have achieved great things and all of your guests have and probably most of your listeners do like, but what we've found is that there is an emptiness in it. Right? Unless it is of service, unless you're being asked to be used, unless like you are striving is for a bigger purpose.

You're like, did neighbors call?

I did.

Yeah, crying thinking about it because it was so powerful. I mean, it was so powerful and it shifted me so much and just, I mean, for me, God talks to me through songs and songwriting. So this song that came out of me, it's one of my favorite songs I've ever written. And the fact that I wrote it in 20 minutes was very obvious that it wasn't me writing it. Wow. So it came through you quickly.

It came through me very quickly. It was almost like I was chasing it and I was like, slow down, slow down, slow down. I'm trying, I'm slow down. I kept saying, slow down.

Like the words were coming. Like I was like, stop, stop, stop. And my hands couldn't write fast enough. And I was like, please, please slow down. I kept saying out loud to anyone, slow down. And it just was coming and coming. And I was like, oh my God, here's the verse. Okay, get back to the piano. Oh my God. And it felt like...

It was just wild. And I had been in so much pain and so much suffering. You created peace.

It felt like a taste of freedom. Now it did not last.

It's too heavy. I'm exhausted. The song happened. It was incredible. I woke my husband up. I shook him. I was like, come downstairs. I think he had just got back from the hospital. He was exhausted. He was like, Oh, no, like exhausted. Like, please don't make me wake up to hear a song of yours. Because if I don't like this song right now, I am so screwed.

Like he's like, I better like this song because you are so not okay right now. And I was like, No, no, Kevin, it's it's good. And I played it for him with tears in my eyes.

No, no, no. I just, come on. I did not.

No, I did. But like I had, I did. I captured it. I actually have the recording of me. The original? Yeah. Me crying through it. And I'm like, I go in one part, I go, oh, that's good. And I'm like, wow. No way. And then I go, oh, that's good. Yeah, you hear me. And then I throw the pen down. You can hear it all.

But I wake him up and I bring him down and I sing it for him and his jaw is on the floor and he's like, what? What? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think God's using me. I think that there's a reason that I'm... I think there's a reason I'm suffering so much right now. Wow. But I still had to suffer for two more years. So, like, it wasn't all great.

Oh, my God, this sucks because I used to, like, vehemently argue that no. I was so... But Fight Song, you weren't suffering. Yes, I was. Really? Yes, you think Fight Song was born from, like, a chill experience?

And who are they? I'm so annoyed with them.

They sure did. Didn't they? They seem to be having a great time. Yeah, right. I know other people do. I don't know what it is with me and God and the muse and like what happens. But apparently, for me to really reach the depths of things that reach other people, I have to for some reason.

i mean it's a transmutation it's alchemy for me it isn't for everybody but it is for me i alchemize my deep pain and i turn it into art and that's what my vibe is and now i've just come to accept it like cool cool we're gonna work again and we're gonna create again that means i'm probably gonna be crying and but i mean it's not all that i have songs on the record that are also joyful and silly and fun like i'm exaggerating

Better Place was written with me delicately looking out at like a beautiful ray of sun on the trees. So like, they're not all like that. It's just that.

Yeah, usually the ones that move people the most for some reason for me are those. I'm not the artist that people turn to, I don't think, for like the party song. I think they come to me to feel.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's really intimate and great. Really? I love him.

No, I would never think to go to someone else. That idea seems so wild to me now. Why would anyone else have my answers? That doesn't make any sense to me now. I write every day these dear love letters that Elizabeth Gilbert is doing. Have you seen this?

Lewis!

I've been traveling. I'm so annoyed with you for turning it down.

Immediately, you have to do it.

I didn't write it.

So she writes these letters.

I was in the Olympics. Please do it. I want to hear what love says to you. And she calls it love. Maybe that's a more palatable word for everyone listening. Inexchangeable for me. She calls it universal love. God, it triggers people, that word. But what I'm saying when I say that is the one, the creator, the divine, that force of love in the world.

and so we write every week dear love what would you have me know today wow and when you think that you're gonna be like you think it's not gonna be the answer right you think you're not gonna hear anything oh my god literally oh my god answers pour out of you and these are just

women men normal women and men living their life these aren't spiritual necessarily like holy people these are just people just like us who are hungry for answers who put the request out there and they get met with a flood of love and answers and support and now there's a community on her sub stack of over a hundred thousand people that are sharing these letters every day with each other and it is unbelievably beautiful i think it's the most beautiful place on the internet

You'll feel anxious.

It's easy for them.

Yeah.

It's still easy to come by.