The Seasons That Shape Us

00:06Hi, everyone. Welcome to Baby Steps Nutrition, a podcast that focuses on nutrition, health, and wellness for families of children of all ages and stages. I'm your host, Argavan N., a pediatric dietitian and mom of two young children. My goal is to bring you impactful information that you can apply every day in a simplified, practical form to make life easier.

00:35On today's episode of the Baby Steps Nutrition Podcast, I have a dear friend. She is a, well, she was a director of design at Ralph Lauren. She lived in India for a year. She is a certified yoga teacher and a level three Reiki master. She teaches corporate yoga, runs healing workshops and retreats in the Bay Area.

01:02She is the author of Chemo Yogi on Substack, a breast cancer driver, and a mom of two beautiful teen girls. Rachel, thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be here today. And of course, as I told you, this conversation is so special and sacred for me because of our friendship, the trajectory of our lives, how we came together, how we have continued to become closer.

01:34So this means a lot to me. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I want to first start with a quote that I know resonates with both of us, which is maybe growth isn't about becoming someone new, but returning to who we were before the world told us who to be. And I want to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, I really love this question and I or this quote and being midlife, which is so weird to be saying that and having just gone through a year of breast cancer and then getting back up on my feet to teach yoga and kind of writing a lot about it as a healing modality.

02:20I don't know that I don't know that I don't know that I'm returning to who I was. I think that I'm forging forward on a path and a lot of who I was is still who I am. It's still fundamental to me. And I think there's a little bit of a dance that happens between who I was and who I am now.

02:47And I'm loving this challenge of figuring out who I am now. And I think that there's a lot of vulnerability that is necessary and that I've experienced and I'm constantly vulnerable in order to just be able to introspect and grow and sort of suss out. Like, what is it about me that makes me, me?

03:13And it's a really deep process, I think. So I don't know if that takes us in a more abstract direction, but I definitely feel like growth is happening at massive speed and in massive depth for me in this midlife period. And it's a lot of newness, actually.

03:39It's a lot of transformative newness, but it's also this settling into myself and sort of recognizing that there is already existing strength and courage and beauty in who I am. And so I don't have to reach outward for that. And you said cancer, and I remember the first time I heard that you were diagnosed, it literally took my breath away.

04:07And I have watched your whole journey in that chapter of your life, and it's just been beautifully profound in unexpected ways. And so I wanted to ask you, it is obviously a chapter in life that we never choose, but if you were to go back to that time, and what happened in you emotionally, and of course there's the physical changes, but emotionally, spiritually, that you felt like life is going to be different from here on?

04:39Yeah, it was, it was my greatest fear. I had a grandmother who passed from breast cancer, my mom's mom, and that was the first death that I experienced as a nine-year-old girl, and it rocked me. And then when I got my own diagnosis, I literally was like, thought that it was going to take me out, that I couldn't, couldn't survive it.

05:05But it was such a shock, but it was also kind of not a shock, because we all know that there's a lot of women go through this. But when you're diagnosed, when I was diagnosed, it felt like my whole world just was going to collapse. So I really leaned into my spiritual, like 25 years of spiritual practices and meditation, yogic trainings, retreats, somatic work.

05:38And that stuff really has always been a place for me to heal and create space and safety. And no joke, I mean, I had to use that training and those experiences. And I actually, before I had my surgery, I went back to India, to Varanasi, to the banks of the Ganges River to just pray and to find strength and to go and greet the city of Shiva, the city of life, the city of death.

06:13I mean, it was so important to me, just spiritually, to have a spiritual practice through my cancer treatment and going to India before the surgery and then coming back. I walked into that surgery room and I looked my surgeon in the eye and we just smiled and we knew, like she said, I've got you. And I said, yes. And I said, I've got me too.

06:38And I just kind of really did the work that I needed to do for myself, even though maybe in others' minds it was a little crazy to take a trip to India before having surgery. I think it was what I needed to do. And I really felt like I did those things to get myself spiritually, mentally, physically ready. And then throughout the whole process of healing and then chemotherapy, I continued to really try to carve out sort of meditational time, self-reiki, things that would really, I mean, very simple things, but integrating them very intentionally into my cancer journey.

07:23And, you know, as you were telling that my eyes are getting teary, but of course you can't see that, you know, we hear the word resilience all the time. It is easy to look from the outside in and look at someone who looks like they have it together. They've overcome life's challenges with grace. We hear that word a lot. But what does resilience actually look like from the inside? I mean, it's a really, sometimes with these words, resilience, resiliency, it sounds so simple, but it's really a messy kind of process, right?

07:58To kind of have to lean on something that feels invisible and to get stronger. Like, how do we do that? How do we get stronger? How do we come back from something that knocks us down or that hurts us or that scares us, that makes us face our own very mortality, like the impermanence of who we are as humans?

08:24Like, that's something, how are we resilient when we have a cancer diagnosis and a cancer surgery and then a treatment that completely shifts your physicality and your chemistry? I mean, I think it's one step, one day, one kind of small thing at a time. And sometimes it doesn't feel like any healing or growth is happening.

08:55It feels very slow and kind of just still and painful. And then other times when, and that's how I feel like resilience for me looks is that when now today I get to show up and teach a yoga class or I get to lead a retreat or I get to sit in a circle of women and sing devotional kirtan songs.

09:20Like, I mean, that to me, I've moved from being knocked on my ass to standing on my feet here in this room and feeling powerful. So it's sort of a mystery, you know, to me still. And I think we all are resilient. I think we need each other. I think we heal in community.

09:46I think we can't possibly do it alone. I had so many people helping me. Complete strangers would show up with blankets and bread and soup and flowers. And people that I thought would show up didn't show up. So it's really interesting how you forge your way through resilience with an unexpected community and an unexpected group of people that really, really do more for you than you could ever imagine.

10:23And then it breaks you open and you want to be that kind of person when you can be that kind of person for someone to show up for someone, a stranger, and bring them bagels. Yeah, and it's true. Like, no act is too small. And I've heard that from countless people where they said if that person knew the effect that that gesture had on me that day, that moment.

10:48Oh, I mean, people gave me books, which I say are sacred. I still have all the cards. I have everything that and I just I was absolutely the kindness of others really helped my own resilience and helped me want to get back out into the world to be a part of this humanity and this love and this just unexpected grace that people offered to me.

11:18And helping with my daughters and giving rides and, you know, I'm not the kind of person to really want to ask for help. I don't think that we're we're really trained that way. Yeah, we really are not. And we're very private people, too. So I think when I realized this was going to be a more public experience, that was a really big aha for me because I and then when I found when they got back to me with the oncology results from my mastectomy and said, you have to have chemotherapy.

11:55I was in the shower and that's when the download came for writing chemo yogi. And I just got this complete like you need to write. You need to write chemo yogi. You need to tell them about your experience. You need to explain what you're doing here because what you're doing here is massive and it's not just about you. It's about it's about spirituality and cancer and the intersection of community and motherhood and midlife.

12:26And there's so much to be unpacked and and spoken about. And, you know, I said, oh, God, I can't I can't possibly expose myself and my own life in this way. But then I just knew writing for me was the way to share this journey. And it's been really, really cathartic and really healing.

12:52And I just have fallen in love again with writing. Wow. And Rachel, you took us to a time when you were nine years old and you found out about your grandmother and you have two daughters now yourself. What have been some surprising moments, light bulb moments, humbling moments that you've learned being a mother to two girls? Well, the teenage years, nothing has prepared me for this.

13:19So I have two teenage daughters who are really like embarrassed and kind of appalled by their mother's irreverent, silly, spiritual ways. And I think that they're also inspired by me. So I persevere. I will persevere. I have to persevere.

13:44I am a little woo. I'm a little wild. And I'm also like a bear if someone, you know, does something that I think, you know, I'm a mama bear. I want my kids to be protected, but I also don't want them to be entitled. And I mean, one time my daughter went to a party and she called me and said, Mom, I have to get out of here. You got to come get me. And so I said, no questions asked.

14:10I'm there. And I pull up to the party and I see like underage kids are like kind of under the influence. Doesn't look good. She gets in the car and she just is really upset. And she said to me, Mommy, please, can you just practice some Reiki on me and say some prayers because I'm really upset. And I was like, wow, that if that's not a validation of all the things that that I've been.

14:39That's the ultimate influence, too, because that means they've been listening intently. And that she felt like she could ask for it and she did ask for it. And she normally kind of turns her back to it and says, Mom, you're so weird. And I I hope that there will be some kind of time in their life when they have a spiritual practice or, you know, practice that they can also from within themselves.

15:13And I hope that that they'll see that their mom is really trying to live and embody a practice of her own and that they can live and embody. And I see them doing it. And I think part of the challenge is to to let them have their wings, you know, from 14 to 18. The brain is rejecting the parents and really wanting to go and be with their friends.

15:37And, you know, then they have all of this chemistry happening. And I'm aware of some of the science behind it, but it still means to sort of surrender and step back and let them make their own mistakes. And you can't I can't you know, I can't really shelter them. Another funny thing that one of them recently said to me was I hate it when adults don't act like adults.

16:02When adults don't figure don't have their lives figured out. And I looked at them and I was like, wow, well, you must hate you must hate living in this household because I don't have my life figured out. I'm not sure it ever really happens. But we can certainly try, right? A for effort. Of course. Yes. And giving them a sense that if there's certain uncertainties or certain I mean, I'm still worried about what they felt and how they experienced my cancer and how scary that must have been for them.

16:38But I hope that, you know, of course, like I can't shelter them from being scared or sad or hurt. But I hope that we can find ways to talk about these things and to lean in and have small conversations, even if it's just in the ride to school or when I'm picking them up from somewhere like the car rides are really nice. Yeah.

17:02Yeah. And something, you know, our teenagers can certainly teach us is boundaries. And so I think especially in midlife and onwards, we really either have to tap into it or we we want to because of life lessons. But what are you learning to say yes to comfortable saying no to? I'm really much more comfortable saying no than I ever have been in my life.

17:31I think if it isn't a full body, yes, it's a hell no. I'm really like tuned in and tuning in. And if I find myself wavering, if I find myself like, I don't know, I usually really deeply kind of understand that's probably a no. Right. Um, and, and, and it's, um, boundaries.

17:56Yeah. They're, they're, they're always shifting. Um, and I never want to have a, you know, something blocking me from a new experience. I always want to have an open heart and an open mind. And I am a voracious learner and traveler and I want to be exposed to everything, but certain things, you know, I need to protect myself from.

18:21And certain things I no longer can tolerate and I no longer will tolerate. So with kindness and with compassion and with a great sense of sort of curiosity, I'm finding boundaries, um, to really feel good in this phase in my life. And, um, yeah, sometimes really it's about taking myself from the bottom of the list to the top of the list and saying like, today I'm going to go get a massage today.

18:54I'm going to eat something that I really feel good about eating today. I'm going to really nurture myself and my life and my, you know, body and heart and soul in a way that maybe before now I wouldn't do. Um, yeah, I love that. And Rachel, you were mentioning when you were going through your cancer treatment that you started to recognize who genuinely showed up for you and some were surprises in a good way and some were surprises in a not so good way.

19:25With all of that experience, what would you say that you value in friendships today that maybe weren't so clear when you were younger? I think there are those few people that just know how to show up for you and they just, they don't ask you to pick something off the menu. They just go and get it for you.

19:51Um, and I love that. And I, and then, you know, there are people who are there who are like amazing soul sisters, deep, deep, deep friends. I have a group of friends from high school and there's four of them and me as five and they're, we're called the Siempre Cinco. Oh, I love it. And those soul sisters are all over the U.S. and they would send care packages.

20:17So the old friends and then the, also the new friends, the people that I've met in California since I've been here who come, you know, into my life and support me and come to my yoga classes and on my retreats. And it's just incredible. And it's not just women. It's a lot of men too. It's a whole community of people from all ages, from all walks of life. And, you know, some of them, one woman was in New York City.

20:42I had met her when I was in college and I was selling my art. I was a painter and I don't even remember who she was. She, she said, I have your painting in my, in my living room and I'm sending you this book called Uplift and I'm sending you this other book that you need to read. That's called The Book of Alchemy by, what's her name, Suica Jukhardt or something.

21:11I don't know how to pronounce her name, but she just randomly sent me books that I loved and devoured. And I, it's like people that are friends, the unconditional friendships, the ones who don't need you to say thank you or let me Venmo you. Or it's just because they are genuinely there showing up, praying for you, loving you. And it's unconditional, those unconditional friendships.

21:36And yeah, I feel like at this time in my life, I don't want to have to be directive. I don't want to have to say or spell out everything that I need. I just need people that understand and show up. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I love that, Rachel. You've been all over the world. You've been in various communities and you've also spent a lot of time alone, meaning in solitude, not alone in isolation.

22:02Looking back on all of those moments, what would you say are those ordinary things that feel extraordinary to you now? I love being alone. I love, I love being by myself. I love listening to music. I love being in silence. I love walking at the beach. I always say like a trip to the, I will never, ever, ever regret a trip to the beach or I will never, ever regret a walk in the woods.

22:34And that really does take me back a little to my nine-year-old self because I'm from Maine and I would play in the woods alone like all day when I was a kid. And I would just be so happy, like digging in the dirt and touching the trees and making little forests and fairy houses. And I am still that little girl. I'm still, and I'm still working with that little girl and I want to give her everything.

22:58And I want her to be so happy and alive and creative and joyful. And so I would say just the preciousness of time and the preciousness of being able to travel, being able, having the privilege to go to these sacred places around the world and meet people. Like it's never lost on me to sit and have a meal with friends or to sit and have a meal by myself or to walk down a new street or to enter a new country or a new town or a new space.

23:38So I just, I feel like sometimes my, even the ordinary, the very most ordinary is the very most extraordinary to me because I'm just so happy and so aware of how precious and fragile our lives are. Yeah. And as women in midlife, I think we spend a lot of time reflecting and analyzing and feeling.

24:06If you were to sit across from your younger self, whatever age you want to choose for a few minutes, what would you tell her? I would tell her that she's beautiful and she's powerful and she's wise and that these obstacles that arrive in our lives are not going to break us.

24:31They're going to shape us and they're going to deepen our experience of this precious life and that, that you've got it. You've got this. I tell her you've got this and I've got you and you've got me and we are, um, we are strong and we are going to have a really wild adventure in this, in this life.

24:57And it's, things are going to come, you know, there's going to be dark times and sad, hard, hard, hard times. Um, and we're going to make it through. Yeah. Oh my goodness. And I was thinking about this question for my own self. And as a child, I've always been very observant, a really deep feeler. And I remember even from a young age, people would say, you know, you're kind hearted, you have a soft heart, but you live in a very cruel world and life is going to teach you.

25:29Yeah. And it's, I think it's, and I've been having this conversation with so many women, female friends lately about just this uncertainty, like our culture kind of wants us to have this certainty, this sense of, um, achievement and arrival and, um, certainty of who we are, what we have, um, our identity.

25:55And, and I'm just starting to really believe that it's so much more fluid, um, than I expected it to be. And that, that, that's okay. Yeah. It's okay. Like to live in uncertainty, to have these health, ongoing health concerns, ongoing physical challenges. Like everyone is going through so much right now. Um, it is such a hard time in history and I think that is okay.

26:26And I'm not willing to sugarcoat or candy coat the fact that it's really a difficult time to be alive. Yeah. No matter where you are, no matter who you are. I mean, it's, there, there are troubles no matter how much money you have, right? Like no matter how much technology you have, we're all seeking meaning. We're all seeking resilience. We're all seeking some form of peace and clarity.

26:52And really, I think what we all are seeking is community and people that could love us unconditionally and see us unconditionally and be our true friends. Yeah. And I think because life can take you in so many unexpected directions and yes, there are very, very tough moments in life where it is cruel or it is unkind and what we see in the news, what we see around us, things that we're going through.

27:21But I really, truly feel that when you have a soft heart, you got to really tap into that more than ever because the world will try to change that. And I think those are the moments where I remind myself on a daily basis, like you got to believe in the good because there is so much good in every day. You just have to really look for it and hold on to that. So one of those things for me is the friendships and the conversations we get to have and the healing moments and gratitude and seeing our kids being joyful and just the little simple moments that we talked about that feel so extraordinary because we lived and learned in this lifetime.

28:01So thank you for being a part of the good in my day. I truly appreciate our friendship and our sisterhood. Oh, yes, absolutely. And that sisterhood is so important and it's so necessary for us to have these conversations. And I really appreciate what you're doing. And thank you for this work. And thank you for this time and for having that soft heart in a hard world.

28:27It is my pleasure to, it's all about conversation, community. I know those are the things, connection, that also means so much to you. In ending our conversation, Rachel, I'd love if you can share with us, what does a life well-lived mean to you? Well, I think that a well-lived life is a life where I've been able to be present and I've been able to feel and learn and love with my whole heart.

29:01And I often think that my life has required a lot of healing and a lot of learning and change and flexibility. And I think it's in the relationships to me, having beautiful relationships, loving relationships, loving my children, loving my friends, loving my family, having that very simple, very humble life where you can actually reflect and be a part of it at the same time.

29:39I think being present and being, I'm less about how much achievement, how much success externally, just more about the day-to-day and each day and the next day, it all kind of adds up, right? Like it's just, I'm really, I'm really grateful and I'm really amazed by life every day.

30:03And I wake up and I'm just so happy to be alive. So I think a life well-lived is having that sense of joy, that sense of gratitude, that sense of community, that sense of kind of when things are hard, they're not going to stay hard forever. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I have goosebumps. And Rachel, how can our listeners get in touch with you or connect with you or be able to access your work?

30:33Well, my website is rachelrossyoga.com and my sub stack is chemo yogi and you can find me on either one of those places and I'm on also Instagram at rachelrossyoga. So you can find me in a variety of platforms and I would love to hear from fellow cancer survivors or anyone out there who might need help with their spiritual kind of experience going through cancer because it's really an important part of the process.

31:10And as we're talking, I'm staring at a card that was given to me a couple of years ago. And you certainly embody this word diva, which is a female who boldly displays the five virtues of dignity, inspiration, vision, achievement, and sisterhood. So thank you so much Rachel for being my diva friend and I'm truly grateful for you and I look forward to more conversations together.

31:40Oh, and you are my diva. Well, Argavan, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I've loved talking. Thank you so much. And thank you to everyone for tuning in. Until next time. Thank you for listening to the Baby Steps Nutrition Podcast with your host, Argavan N. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into all the tips and tricks you and your family can use to make daily life a little easier.

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32:37See you next time. Tune in. Feel great.