Rachel Platten on the mental health crisis that inspired her first album in seven years

During one of the hardest nights of Rachel Platten’s life—amidst postpartum depression, debilitating chronic pain, and mental health challenges—she glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel. 

“I was in my studio and reached the apex of I can’t take it anymore,” she says. “The bottom wasn’t there. I just kept falling. In that moment, this wail came out of me that turned into a song. I was crying, mercy to anyone who would hear me, to whatever God that was out there.” 

“Something was writing through me,” she continues. “I realized: Is there a purpose or meaning in all of this suffering? Am I being dragged down, like I was with ‘Fight Song,’ letting my roots go deep so that my rise can be tall again? I was in just as much pain the next morning. But that little seed of hope was planted that maybe there’s a future ahead of me that I’m living right now.” 

Today, that seed has flourished into Platten’s first album in seven years, I Am Rachel Platten, as well as an inspired mission of mental health advocacy. An award-winning singer-songwriter, Platten and her music is celebrated as a beacon of resilience, most notably with “Fight Song,” which has been streamed over a billion times.

Her latest album captures her experience of parenthood, mental health, depression, and the strength discovered in the rising. She continues to bravely share her story through her North American “Set Me Free” tour, which began on March 17. 

Here, Platten shares how she alchemized pain into purpose, developed tools to gain agency over mindset, and discovered the question that transformed her creative process. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

It was illuminating to listen to Set Me Free and discover that it’s about self-liberation. What did you free yourself from and how do you keep doing so in your art and life? 

First, what is funny to me, is that I wrote that way before I could ever know what it felt like. My songs are often glimpses of what will be. It’s almost like I prescribe myself the medicine that I’ll need in the future or the feeling that I’ll feel. So, I didn’t know what that felt like at the time. I felt a little bit like an imposter. It’s almost like the song, when I wrote it in 2020, should have been: I don’t really care what you say or think about me — She says, caring deeply. Now I actually feel that, and that took an insane mental breakdown to get to. 

Freedom to me feels like exactly that: Knowing who I am and being in a place where I can speak my truth. I don’t feel like I have to hold back. I know how to have boundaries, protect my inner child, and carry myself in the world where I’m not apologizing for my existence. It’s not going along with what you say I should care about or what makes a happy life. That was a major wake-up for me. 

Think about how you feel when you get an award, approval, or recognition. For me, that feeling is buzzy, excited, and a little unstable. Think about how you feel when you are deeply proud of yourself. When you can recognize, put a hand on your heart and say, “I approve of you and I’m proud of you just for being you.” That feeling is calm and steady, solid, and stable. Why are we taught that we should chase the first one, when the second one is so much better? That’s my goal now: How do I get more and more of that second feeling? 

In discussing this album, you said: “I don’t need my beautiful body of work to be anything other than what it is.” How do you create from an intuitive space and silence the internal and external voices? 

My second record on Columbia Records was very much the latter and informed by how I wanted to change people’s minds about who they thought the “Fight Song” girl was. I was trying to prove something in the art. Other than a couple of songs on that record, I didn’t get to write from that freedom. 

I slowly stopped writing from a place of: What does anyone need from the “Fight Song” girl? I changed from that to: I’m hurting so much. How can my music serve me, the way it serves so many other people? When I wrote from that place, it removed any kind of outside expectation, because I was like a starving soul in there, desperate for some soothing. The music and creativity became like filling a dry well. It changed from a laborious process of overanalyzing the words or rhymes and became an intuitive songwriting where it flowed more. That hadn’t always been the case; “Fight Song” took me two years to write. I labored over that second verse so much. I wrote 10 different verses until I got the one that you hear on the radio. Now, I do create from a place of joy and freedom. Asking yourself—What do I need from my art?—and not—What does the world need from my art?—is the question that really shifts it. 

Robert Henri said, “The object isn’t to make art. It’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” What is that state for you? Do you do anything differently now that enhances your creative inspiration? 

Music is funny, because it goes from a deeply inward, private place to a very outward, extroverted place. We phase in between them. That’s what I do. Right now, I’m in the outward place and the creativity isn’t flowing like it was. But, I am also not asking it to. I know where I’m at in my cycle. I feel like I’m a volcano in a way. I erupt with creativity. Then, I’m dormant. I used to judge the dormancy and feel like there was something wrong with me if songs weren’t flowing. I have taken all the pressure off my creativity and songwriting. 

I know that I am privileged to do that because I had success that supports me and my family. I understand that when I was in my twenties, and struggling to come up as an artist, it might not have felt like that. But, I wish that I could go back to that girl who was suffering and trying so hard and say to her: Enjoy it a little more. Try to trust the wave and ocean of creativity and how it’s going to come and go. Don’t push it when it’s not. I’d certainly be disciplined. But, I’m a lot more patient with it. I trust now that if the muse wants to come, then I’ll start writing. 

You shared that “to actually change something has to start with radical acceptance of what is. Real change only happens once you say ‘yes’ to what is actually here.” What helps you choose the path of acceptance?  

First, I want to attribute that quote to Tara Brach, who is an amazing psychiatrist. She has a practice called RAIN, which is an acronym that helped me so much: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture. 

I don’t know if it’s a choice. It’s more of a shrug and dropping in, like: Yes, I’m suffering. Yes, I’m depressed. Yes, this hurts. This is a witness seat. Rather than the human seat, it’s choosing the seat behind you, who’s watching you, and saying: I’m watching a play. That’s what’s happening with this actor right now. It’s less of a choice and more changing your point of view. So much power and relief can come from that, because then you’re not having the second arrow of shame, grief, or guilt about what you’re experiencing. The first arrow is the pain that you’re feeling. The second arrow is the judgment of the experience that you’re having. It’s removing the second arrow and removing half the pain in a way.  

There is a lyric in “Bad Thoughts” that says: “Just because I think something doesn’t make it true.” How do you distinguish between the voices in your head? What has been most impactful in changing the dialogue and relationship that you have with yourself? 

I am a little ninja now when it comes to trying to get into my mind. I imagine myself with goggles and a headlamp, like: Who’s running the show today? There’s all these different competing voices, that’s inside all of us—all of these different selves. Here’s the most beautiful part: I don’t need to understand what all the mess is in there. It’s like changing the seat again into the witness. Sometimes, I just need to witness it to remember: If I’m watching it, then I’m not it. 

I imagine this visual idea of me getting on a bus and in the driver’s seat is whichever version of me that shouldn’t be driving. I imagine myself as the bus driver, being like: I’m going to take the wheel. You can still be on this bus, but you have to sit down and get your seatbelt on. You’re too young to drive. I’m calm and resourced. It helps me navigate my mind and remember that those are just waves. I’m the ocean.  

Mental health has become a driving part of your mission. What role do you want it to play in your life’s work?  

It feels like a narrowing, but it’s actually an expansion. It feels clear to me that this is where I’m going. Music feels like the vehicle. But, I feel like my life’s work is going to transcend music. Chasing the music industry, Grammys, and approval from tastemaker magazines is a fleeting thing. I’m not writing about how a guy hurt me. I’m writing about my mind and how I’m understanding it, the dark night of the soul, and the hero’s journey. It feels simple to me that I’m not supposed to try to fit in or be approved of by that anymore. I’m going to go in this direction and be of service. 

A theme of our conversation is the surprises on your journey these last six years, some from pain and others from joy. How do you feel about the surprises? 

Looking back, I feel a little bit of wonder that the thing that hurt so much—that I cursed, sobbed, and had panic attacks about—was the gift that led to my songs “Mercy” or “Bad Thoughts” or being able to speak about mental health in such an informed way. That’s the place I’m in now. If you catch me next week, I might be back in: This Earth school sucks. It really hurts. But right now, for whatever reason, we’re meant to talk on this day when I’m looking back with a sense of gratitude and deep awe at how all of those things that seemed so unfair were actually gifts—not happening to me, but for me.