The Power of Ritual

when you are pioneering anything or introducing new ideas to the culture you get criticized you do yeah did you hear about that i didn't find the one i found someone i respected and we made it the one in the sort of longing kind of view of love people understand each other as if by magic nothing itself is addictive on the one hand and on the other hand everything could be addictive if there's an emptiness in that person that needs to be filled i now know that nobody changes until they change their energy and when you change your energy you change your life i'm gwyneth paltrow this is the goop podcast bringing together thought leaders culture changers creatives founders and ceos scientists doctors healers and seekers here to start conversations because simply asking questions and listening has the power to change the way we see the world here we go this episode is brought to you by amazon i love this time of year there's a certain magic to the season the music the traditions the gathering over incredible food but when it comes to gift giving i am very intentional it's never about excess or extravagance it's about thoughtfulness i want to give things that carry genuine meaning and feel personal and because of that i have to start planning early like right now early thankfully amazon is here for the early shoppers with a huge range of gifts for every passion and price point get a head start on holiday gifting with amazon's low prices shop now at amazon.com holiday i feel so lucky that i have this beautiful vegetable garden and that we live in california where there's this incredible abundance of vegetables all year round i love to come down here when i'm trying to get inspired for dinner and definitely when i'm about to make brad breakfast i just get such a deep satisfaction out of walking down to the garden and seeing what's ready for the saucepan upstairs in the kitchen oh shoot i don't think i have any eggs so i'm on my way to the grocery store because i forgot eggs normally i like to get my eggs at the farmer's market but i ran out so we're gonna make a quick trip and i can complete my breakfast hey google let's go to my favorite market and take the scenic route okay let's go to the nearest farmer's market so a lot of people ask me about this boyfriend breakfast thing which started actually started in the morning and i'm like oh my god i'm so hungry i'm so hungry i'm so hungry started when brad and i were dating he was not accustomed to people cooking for him and he had always been the cook in his house so and i had always been the cook in my house and i kind of had this theory around like picking a moment a weekly moment to do something for him and and to cook for him since it wasn't something that he was used to and he was used to giving more and not receiving so much and so i thought it would be kind of romantic if i were able to do something like this every week for him so when we were dating on a saturday morning i would go to his house and make him a special breakfast and it kind of became a ritual around you know planning it out was a ritual it still is thinking about okay what am i going to make this week and he's generally paleo so he sticks to a paleo diet which is essentially just protein and vegetables not no grains no breads no dairy so it's actually pretty tricky to think of fresh ideas for a boyfriend breakfast every every week but it's a challenge that i like and it's also i find it very grounding as a ritual because i'm so in my head all week and on a screen and um working like theoretically and there's something about being in the kitchen and going to the garden first and getting your hands dirty in the soil and chopping and sauteing like i can never think about anything else when i'm cooking and so i think i ultimately started to realize that i was getting as much out of the ritual as i think he was and it's something that you know we've just kind of embedded into our lives i'm a i'm a traditions person i would say i think i i really love tradition and the idea that you create these moments that are repeatable and they're kind of like these tentpole moments in your life that you continuously circle back to with your friends your families your spouse your partner your kids and that with each time you come back to it there's this deepening that happens where meaning gets imbued into the tradition and it starts to be something i really notice with my kids you know they they really love traditions because i think there's this there are these kind of pillars in their lives that we all you know it's like a drum beat there's certain things that they always know that we're gonna do you know whether it's a bonfire on the beach in the summer or thanksgiving or christmas dinner or you know these these things that we kind of as a culture orient around and then we we fill in with our own traditions and and then for me kind of ritual is born from that that idea of tradition that idea that there are important things that we can galvanize and center around and they become levers to create consistency grounding their moments where gratitude comes into play and i think that's why i'm i've become such a ritual person i mean i was always a person who was drawn to that i think you know when i think back to my 20s and i think about me doing yoga six times a week and how the ritual of getting up and preparing for yoga and the breathing and the stretching and the movement and the meditation and the shavasana at the end how it brought so much perspective to my life i think i also started doing yoga right around the time i was becoming famous which is its own crazy thing to contend with you this episode is brought to you by amazon i love this time of year there's a certain magic to the season the music the traditions the gathering over incredible food but when it comes to gift giving i am very intentional it's never about excess or extravagance it's about thoughtfulness i want to give things that carry genuine meaning and feel personal and because of that i have to start planning early like right now early thankfully amazon is here to help me and i'm going to be there for you here for the early shoppers with a huge range of gifts for every passion and price point get a head start on holiday gifting with amazon's low prices shop now at amazon.com holiday ulcerative colitis and crohn's disease symptoms don't pause for the moments that matter that's why understanding your treatment options matters discover what's possible with trimphia guselka map trimphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment get checked for infections and tuberculosis tell your doctor if you have an infection flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine talk to your doctor and explore what's possible or call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more about trimphia and visit trimphiaradio.com you know people used to say i remember my dad saying to me my gosh you're so disciplined you get up every morning and you do this and it's such discipline but i wasn't really reading it as discipline as much as i was reading it as this ritual of doing something to ground myself and take care of myself and that was really where my self-care started because i was counteracting the insanity of my life you know in my 20s of being this like hyper public person and contending with all of that you know even though i'm not a very extroverted person and dealing with all the energy coming towards me and people writing articles about me and gossiping and all of that it's like you know how what do you do in life to counterbalance that and you don't have to be famous i mean you know people energy is what you need to be famous you know you need to be famous is real and even in the office you know when you feel like you've been centered for one reason or another or you feel the energy is strange like i don't know know. For me, I've always been very sensitive to people's energies and to projection. And I've always been somebody that people project quite a lot onto. So I needed to find ways to take care of myself and to remember that I'm a mammal in a body and I'm just a girl like everybody else. And really, that's where my self-care came from, trying to correct this over index into a life that kind of was very unknown and a life that I couldn't really prepare for. And then I just, I feel like I got so much out of those rituals. And I still do to this day. I still have my rituals around exercise and around sleep and around sauna and those things that make me feel that there's a kind of center in my life and or to my life, you know, that there's like, there's a keel underneath my boat kind of keeping me upright. I've always been a great sleeper, I would say. And I think partially it's because I have largely a pretty clean conscience. And when I have had periods of time in my life where I've felt that I've been misperceived or that I've done something wrong or made a mistake, like it really impacts my sleep. So like, I'll lie in bed at night and worry about, oh, God, you know, I shouldn't have done that. Or I shouldn't have said that. Or that was this, I think this person misunderstood what I meant. So I try to, I think, you know, having a clean conscience is kind of the first step to sleep and making repairs if you feel like, you know, you repairs are needed. Because I've noticed in my life, like the cleaner the conscience, the better you are going to go into it. Of course, during perimenopause, that's been a whole other wrench that's been thrown into my sleep. But I like to eat dinner early so that my food is relatively digested before I go to sleep. I've noticed that that helps a lot. My friends are like, I'm going to eat dinner at 530. But I can really tell if I have a late dinner, like my sleep score on my Oura Ring, it's like I can see it every time. And if I have a drink once a week or whatever, if I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to have a drink, then I can forget it. Like my sleep will definitely be impacted, though sometimes it's worth it. If I have a great sleep hygiene night, that would mean eat dinner really early, like 5 or 530. And then use up the blood in the kitchen, take the dog for a walk, take out their garbage, you know, move around a bit, walk around the garden or down the street around the block. Then I love to take a very hot bath with magnesium, sea salt, and any kind of essential oil. I kind of sometimes pick them up and I have a bunch of different ones and I'll smell them and see like, what does my body think it wants tonight? And then I get in the bath and I try to not have a phone in the bath. Although sometimes if I'm a little behind on emails or correspondence, I will bring the phone into the bath. But I try not to. Definitely no social media in the bath. And then I get into bed. We get into bed pretty early. One thing I do that people say is not good sleep hygiene is watch TV in bed. But for me, it's very relaxing and I sleep better, I think, when I've watched a little TV. I don't have red light glasses or anything like too wellnessy in that regard. But I usually sleep, you know, a good eight hours a night, which is pretty, pretty, pretty good, I think. Plus, you can feed them from anywhere. Take the mystery out of mealtime. Visit Petivity.com, P-E-T-I-V-I-T-Y.com slash cat feeder to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game, really. Any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. 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Those are all kind of, and boyfriend breakfast, obviously. These were all like rituals that I started with. And then, you know, I think I started doing after Brad and I got together. Yeah, I would say one ritual that I had before Brad, I used to have like a big glass of red wine every night when I lived in London. That was a very nice ritual at the time, but then my body sort of rebelled and I had to stop drinking alcohol pretty much, except for the fun once in a while. So yeah, that's definitely a ritual that I don't do anymore. I've always been a tea person. I've always had a tea ritual, so that's kind of a before and after too. Yeah, I think also making sure that we move after dinner is a, is something that we do. We, that's kind of a new ritual that we've kind of folded in, just the last couple of months, I would say. Everybody's really getting their shopping done at 1 43 PM. Hey Google, please can you text Brad and tell him I'm on the way home and to please, turn on the coffee in five minutes? Sure. Message to Brad F saying, I'm on the way home. Please turn on the coffee in five minutes. Ready to send it? Ready to send it. Sending it now. I think a ritual that I have from growing up and that I still, that's still really important to me is like communication with my friends and my family. Growing up, I would have long phone calls with my best friend. I moved from Los Angeles to New York when I was 11, and we managed to stay really in touch with each other and have long phone calls. And I think just that thing of, you know, I still call my friends on the phone. I still keep those going like a long weekly phone call with my brother. Another thing that I, I think a ritual, you know, when I was little, my brother and I, we were, when we were really little, we were in Southern California and we spent a lot of time outside and in the sun and in the water. And that's something that, that is very healing to me still to this day. And now that Andrew Huberman has said sun is okay, it's back in my ritual. I think ritual is critical for getting through tough times. I mean, if you think about, you know, even in the Jewish religion, the rituals around death, when somebody dies and the rituals that people do in order to start the healing, process, they're really profound. I think certain religions have kind of a course through difficult things. Like for example, you know, the Buddhists like around that sort of self-awareness and acceptance. I think those, those spiritual practices, when, when things are really difficult are very helpful for bringing perspective and for reminding us all that we're on a journey that, you know, life is, unfortunately, you know, that to live is to suffer. There's just an element of being human that's very painful. And we go through things that are often much more difficult than other times. But this idea that whatever, whatever can sort of help you traverse through these periods, maintaining the understanding that it's, it's just part of life, you know, and for me, what I try to do is really feel that all the feelings that come up. I think I was sort of raised in a sense to not express feelings that were unpleasant or hard, which was very typical in my generation. And I heard from one of the doctors that I work with, you know, what you, what was the phrase? It's what you was the phrase? It's what you reveal, you heal. So this idea of not suppressing and sublimating I think if there's a ritual around that, I have a close friend that really has a practice around feeling their feelings when they come up and really just sitting with them as burning and painful as they are and just sitting there in the observation of the feeling and kind of letting it wash through and letting the waves of the feeling come back and back and get curious about the feeling and let it run all the way through you. That was a, I think a really interesting ritual that I learned about the other day. So I think there are many ways to ritualize getting through the more difficult parts of life. I would say I'm very grateful for my rituals and I also love the idea that we can create rituals for ourselves at any time, whether that's, you know, deciding to free form right every morning in the morning to process through. Our feelings or, you know, meeting a friend for tea at a special time once a month, like rituals are always available to us to create and they bring such a sweetness and a sense of what's really important in life. So it's been kind of fun to contemplate this idea of rituals and why they're important to me. So thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to ruminate on them. And I think I'm going to think about a new ritual that I would like to begin. Hey, Google, turn on some nice music for driving alongside the coast of California. Sure, I can help with that. Thanks for tuning in. This has been a presentation of Cadence 13 Studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Goop Holiday Gift Guides are our calling card. We scour the earth for the best options in every category to make it easy for you to find the right gifts for everyone on your list. 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