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Welcome to the Goop Podcast. I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and today's episode is a little different. I'm taking you with me for a drive with Polestar. As I reflect on rituals, the small things we come back to again and again that help ground us. The ones we inherit, the ones we create, the ones that shape how we move through our lives. From cooking and connection to sleep and self care to in the midst of everything, these small moments can become a kind of anchor. Thank you for tuning in to the Goop Podcast. Today's episode is made possible by Polestar. Those who know me know my car is my mobile sanctuary. It's one of the few places in the day that can feel really calm and restorative. So the space matters. And that's why I love Polestar 3. It's an all electric SUV, the kind of thoughtful innovation that I'm always drawn to. Things like massage seats, immersive 3D surround sound and Google Gemini, which can answer questions, set reminders and just make life feel a little more streamlined when I'm on the go. The technology is seamlessly integrated and complements the minimalist design. Everything feels intentional, clean and beautifully considered. Whether I'm heading to a meeting or just taking a moment for myself in the car, Polestar 3 makes the drive feel like a sanctuary. Learn more and book your test drive@polestar.com
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I feel so lucky that I have pioneering anything or introducing that we live in California where there's this incredible. You do? Yeah.
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Did you vegetables all year round.
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I love to come down here. I found someone I respected trying to get inspired for dinner and definitely when I'm about breakfast. I just get such a deep satisfaction out of walking down to the garden. There's an emptiness in that person Ready for the sauce. I now know nobody changes until they change their energy. And when you change your energy, you change your life. I'm on my way to the grocery store because I forgot eggs. Normally I like bring together thought leaders,
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culture changers, creatives, founders and CEOs, scientists, doctors, healers and seekers here to start conversations.
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Let's go to my favorite market and
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take scenic route list has the power to change the let's go to the nearest farmer's market.
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So a lot of people ask me
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about welcome to the Goop podcast thing which started and today's episode is a little different. I'm taking you with me for a drive Polestar As I reflect on rituals, the small things we come back to again and again that help ground us. The Ones we inherit, people cooking for
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him, the ones that she had always been cooked through our lives, his house,
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from cooking and connection.
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And I had always been self care
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in the midst of everything.
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I kind of had this theory of small moments can become a kind of anchor, like picking a moment, a weekly moment to do something for him 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 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 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 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 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 drumbeat. There are 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 things that we kind of as a culture orient around and then we fill in with our own traditions. 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. There are 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 savasana 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.
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Thanks for tuning in to the GOOP podcast. Today's episode is made possible by Polestar. My daily rituals keep me at my best. That's why I compose my surroundings so thoughtfully. Polestar 3 reimagines what an SUV can be. Every moment spent in the driver's seat feels intentional. The minimalist interior creates a calming environment designed to appeal to your senses without overwhelming them. Like the bowers and Wilkins 3D surround sound system, which brings rich depth and detail to every note. And with Google Gemini built in, I can ask for whatever I need in the moment. Like helping me find the most beautiful sourdough loaf within a three mile radius. It's not just about all that Polestar does for me, but what Polestar is doing for the planet too. They prioritize transparency when it comes to carbon emissions, something rarely done in the automotive industry. So if you catch me in the Polestar 3, taking a few extra minutes before the next thing, just know I'm recharging. Discover Polestar 3 for yourself. Book a test drive at your local Polestar space or visit polestar.com.
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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 of the energy coming towards me and people writing articles about me and gossiping and all of that, it's like, you know, 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 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. 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 like that that's where my self care came from. Like trying to correct this over index into, you know, a life that kind of was very unknown and a life that I couldn't really prepare for. So. And then I just, I feel like I got so much out of those rituals and I still do to this day. You know, 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 a. 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, I've noticed in my life like the, 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, 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 make fun of me that I want to eat dinner at 5:30 30. 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, if I have a, a drink once a week or whatever, if I'm like it, I'm gonna 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 5:30 and then use up the blood glucose. Like clean up the kitchen, take the dog for a walk, take out the garbage, you know, 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, 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, I try not to. Definitely no social media in the bath. And then I get into bed. We get into bed pretty early. I know 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. Gosh, it's sometimes hard for me to remember specifics of my life before him. I think we've been together for, you know, well over a decade. But also we've been together so much. Like we got married and then it was Covid and then I don't know, we just. Life changed so much and we're, we're together all the time. Definitely meditation and the, and sauna and cold plunge. Those are all kind of. And boyfriend breakfast obviously. These were all like rituals that 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 something that we do. That's kind of a new ritual that we've kind of folded in in just the last couple of months. I would say everybody's really getting their shopping done at 1:43pm 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 think a ritual, you know, when I was little, my brother and I, 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 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 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, the Buddhists like around that sort of self awareness and acceptance. I think those spiritual practices 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 can sort of help you traverse through these periods, maintaining the understanding that it's just part of life, you know? And for me, what I try to do is really feel 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 reveal, you heal. So this idea of not suppressing and sublimating feelings, I think is, you know, if there's a ritual around that I have a close friend that really has, like, 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, 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 freeform, 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.
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Like,
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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 for giving me the opportunity to ruminate on them. And I think I'm gonna 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.
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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,
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Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Goop Podcast — “The Power of Ritual”
Host: Gwyneth Paltrow
Release Date: March 31, 2026
In this uniquely intimate, solo-driven episode, Gwyneth Paltrow welcomes listeners to join her for a drive through California as she meditates on the concept of ritual—how small, repeated acts ground us, foster connection, and help us navigate life’s complexity. Weaving personal anecdotes with reflections on tradition, self-care, healing, and even driving, Gwyneth offers a rich, vulnerable look at the ways rituals shape her daily existence.
In this reflective episode of the Goop podcast, Gwyneth Paltrow transports listeners—literally and metaphorically—through the terrain of ritual, exploring how consistent, intentional practices can sustain wellbeing, foster connection, and help us navigate both the joyous and difficult seasons of life. Through candid shares from her own routines and encouragement for listeners to invent their own, she highlights ritual as a universal, deeply personal tool for resilience, meaning-making, and self-care.