MOVE FORWARD, EMBRACE JOY
Issue Six of The New New Magazine ft. Chrissy Rutherford
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to go to a talk hosted by writer, former fashion editor, and mental health advocate Chrissy Rutherford, who I interviewed for January’s issue of the magazine. It reminded me of why I reached out to her when I was reimagining this space as a haven for cosmic girls doing the delicate dance of going after their dreams and maintaining their sanity — it takes a lot of boldness and grace to open up about your shit while doing the hardest thing in the world (living an unapologetic life that is authentically you.)
The format of this publication’s changed since then, and we’ve also grown a lot, so in honor of Mental Health Awareness month and Chrissy’s enduring coolness, I’m resurfacing the interview for anyone who may have missed it. I’m back with Issue Seven and a new interview I’m very excited about next month, but for now, enjoy!
Chrissy Rutherford is as cool as her impressive resume and curated social media profiles suggest. When we meet in Nomad to talk all things cosmic girl, she’s in head-to-toe black and an ankle-length fur, just to give you a sense of the vibe. Some quick professional highlights: covering Fashion Week in New York and London as a fashion editor; combining beauty and mental health advocacy as the host of Maybelline’s podcast, “I’m Fine, You?;” and professionally serving looks for brands like J.Crew, Reformation, and Quince. Now, she’s doing her own thing — and fabulously well — as the founder of the popular newsletter FWD JOY and her recently launched podcast of the same name (Apple, Spotify) — sharing her insights on life and interviewing other influential women to help the rest of us get it TF together.
Read on to get some of Chrissy’s insights on spiritual surrender, letting go of the late bloomer label, and refusing to settle.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Lola (LK): First of all, thanks so much for taking the time to meet with me. I really appreciate it. To start, can you tell me a little bit about your upbringing and what messages you got about faith and spirituality when you were growing up?
Chrissy Rutherford (CR): I grew up in Westchester, New York, which everyone calls upstate, but it's a New York city suburb and it was a very predominantly white area. I'm born to Jamaican immigrant parents, I’m first-generation, and Jamaica is a pretty religious country. So my mother was raised Catholic and my dad was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, but was not interested in religion whatsoever. I jokingly call him a heathen. But yeah, my mom is quite religious and so I was brought up going to church and I went through the CCD [Confraternity of Christian Doctrine] system and getting confirmed and all of that. But even with that, I think spirituality is not something that was ever talked about or acknowledged.
Obviously spirituality can be very broad, but the messaging I got was definitely more religious – messaging around God and being good and being blessed and that kind of stuff. I really rebelled against my Catholicism by the time I got to college. I actually went to a Jesuit college in Connecticut, Fairfield University, and you have to take religion classes. The first year I took Intro to Christianity and Judaism, and I remember I wrote an essay about why I feel that going to church doesn't mean you're a better person, or going to be more favored or whatever people like to believe. I just think that everyone is capable of having their own relationship to God that suits them, and it’s not an issue just because you don't like going to church.
Because I hated going to church. I absolutely hated it. Although I will say it was more like, who wants to get up early on a Sunday morning to go to church? You know? But I did always feel that when I was there, and I heard the stories, I did find that there was a lot to take away from it. But not enough to make me religious whatsoever. I think by the time that I was an adult and I felt like, okay, I get to make my own decisions, I really started pushing against my mom and being like, I'm not going to church with you. So now she doesn't even ask me.
LK: You kind of touched on this a little bit, but as a follow up: how has your sense of a spiritual practice evolved and developed over time? Where are you now after that initial rebellion in college?
CR: I feel like everything is so intertwined because when I was growing up, I was really interested in astrology, without even understanding that that can be a connection to spirituality as well. I knew that there were these other systems that I was very interested in, like tarot – I got my first tarot deck when I was in high school and I had no idea what to do with it, but there was just something about it that really resonated with me. And I wore crystal bracelets, with the amethyst and the rose quartz and all of those things. So there was some connection there for me, even though I didn't have a deeper understanding of it. I would say that it was really in my late twenties, going through my Saturn return into my 30th year of life that I think I really started to develop a deeper understanding of what spirituality means to me and what that really looks like.
Things really changed when I met this tarot reader in the Lower East Side very randomly one day and I got a reading from him. I was going through this horrible situationship and all of these things, and he made some book suggestions. I'm a book nerd, so of course, I went home and ordered them right away. That just really opened up such a whole different world to me and an understanding of my place in the world and being connected to myself and trusting that the universe is looking out for me, something that I think I'd always felt but didn't know how to really verbalize.
So now I'm in this place – I mean, the last eight years, I've just gone through such a massive transformation in my relationship to myself and my place in the world and spirituality. I feel really proud of where I am right now, especially this [past] year and the last couple of months. I'm just in a complete place of surrender to the universe. I mean, I know what I want for myself, but I'm also gonna trust that the universe knows what's best and is gonna make it happen. [It’ll] just put all those things in place for me that I want out of life. And of course, it requires me showing up every day and putting in the work. And I am, I'm not just waiting for things to fall into my lap. But I really trust that I'm on a journey and I don't necessarily know what's best for me at all times.
LK: It’s like you're pulling the words out of my brain. That’s exactly where I am right now. You touched a little bit on what I wanted to talk about next, which is that, in other interviews, you've mentioned that this tarot reading played a role in you starting your newsletter, Forward Joy. Could you talk a little bit more about how your spirituality has impacted your career decisions?
CR: Something that was really interesting in my very first tarot reading was that my tarot reader told me that I was going to be a teacher. And I didn't understand that at all, because I was like, sure, I'm interested in going back to school and learning and being a student, but I can't understand any world in which I would be a teacher. I was a fashion editor and still in the throes of enjoying my job, [so] it just didn't make sense to me.
And he also said something about me putting together a guide for people. I just kind of put a pin in that until I came to understand it much later in life.Then I had my birth chart read for the first time around 27, 28. And again, that really gave me such a deeper understanding of myself and my motivations. I think that really gave me permission to own the parts of myself that I felt good about and that I knew were my strengths, and also helped to reframe my perceived weaknesses as the challenges that I am here to work through if I'm willing to do the work.
But it wasn't until I left my job at the top of 2020, and I was in this state of complete limbo because I left my job wanting to work for myself, but then the pandemic hit, so there was just nothing going on. So then I was like, okay, what do I want to do with my life next? I spent a lot of time, of course, alone in my studio apartment in the East Village, thinking about my life and what I really loved and what would make me happy even if I wasn't making money from it. And I listened to my old birth chart recording and I remembered that there was a piece [about how] my moon is conjunct my midheaven.
And so the moon represents our emotions, the midheaven is basically how the public sees us. So the message was essentially that I'm meant to put my emotions out there for people. And I really thought about how much I always loved having really deep conversations with people, and even if it's a complete stranger, we always somehow end up unpacking our traumatic childhoods and things like that. So originally I developed my idea for my newsletter as a podcast, but then I was like, that's too technical. And then I switched to a newsletter because I've always loved to write.
I feel like it really helped inform what the path is for me and I really leaned into it. I could also just tell by how people resonated with my content. Like yes, of course, I'm a fashion person. I've always worked in the industry and getting dressed is always going to be fun for me, and I love making that content. But it just doesn't do as well for me as when I write really heartfelt posts about what's going on in my life. And now I'm navigating my life through the principles of spirituality that are important to me.
LK: This also relates to something you just talked about: on Instagram, you had a post that really resonated with me about being a late bloomer and all the different choices you've made in your life and your thirties. What was the process of coming to terms with the unique timing of your life?
CR: Oh my God, it's been such a fight. It's been such a struggle. And I think that's why having this newsletter has been so, so hugely transformative for me. It has set me free in so many ways because one of my biggest insecurities throughout my twenties into my early thirties was the fact that I had never been in a serious, long term relationship before.
Yes, of course I've dated, I've had sex. But it just felt like I always had these little relationships that felt like blips and ended as quickly as they started. Out of most of my friends, it felt like I was the only one. So of course, then you sort of internalize that – oh, I'm the only person that's never been in a long term relationship. That's what ends up happening to so many people, and I think it happens to men as well. It wasn't until I made the decision to write an essay about it that I was able to come to terms. Because I had really – I blamed myself, because I believed that there was something wrong with me.
It took a lot of therapy, as well as spiritual counseling, to understand that it wasn't because something was wrong with me and this is just part of my path, and part of my conditioning and the generational trauma that I'm feeling. I think people never really consider how much that affects them, and impacts how you date and how you get into relationships with people. I got to this place where I was like, okay I'm ready to write about this because I do think that other people will be able to relate. And,of course, the morning that I was publishing it, I’m like, why am I telling people this? Do I really want to tell people this? But then I read the responses that I get from people who feel seen by what I say and that's really what makes it worth it.
LK: Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing. I have a similar experience, so seeing you talk about the way that your thirties have been so transformative for you has been really helpful for me.
CR: Exactly. Also, I'll tell you when I was in my twenties, the most terrifying thing to me was ending up 30 and single. I truly thought that was going to be the worst thing to ever happen to me. And then I turned 30, and I was single, and then you're kind of just forced to get over it. And, yes, it was still hard, but what you do is double down on loving yourself and creating a life that's really fulfilling.
I was even having a conversation with someone earlier about this today. You know how people always say, “you have to love yourself until you can love other people.” That saying always confused me because I always felt like I loved myself. I never hated myself, but I think I can recognize now that I really loved myself in superficial ways, and now I'm in a place where I feel like I am so connected to my purpose and what I'm on this planet to do. That is truly what sustains me and I feel so grateful for all that I have in my life right now that there's no way in hell that I’m gonna let not having a man make me feel bad about my life. I just can't and I won't. I have so much going for me that it's insane to think just because I don't have this one thing – that I do legitimately want and believe is still there for me – that my life is shit. I won’t do it.
LK: Yeah, the messaging is so crazy, especially for women. I feel like I've had to go through a similar journey of being like, wait, you're doing all these amazing things, you're not a piece of garbage because you're not in a relationship right now.
CR: I know, but a lot of people will want you to believe that. Or believe that your life doesn't really begin until [you’re in a relationship], or you're not really whole until you find that other person and I just think that's complete garbage. There's also this narrative about how our hyper-independent ways are terrible for us, and I agree we all need connection. But that's why you should also spend time cultivating a life outside of yourself, having family and friends that you care about – all that is important too. There are other types of relationships to have beyond a romantic relationship. And yeah, I feel really, really content about where I am in life. I don't know that I ever really imagined that I could get to this place and not be in a relationship and still be okay.
LK: This is a perfect segue to what I wanted to talk about next, which is how has your experience of getting to know yourself better and developing a deeper understanding of what relationships mean to you affected the relationships that you do have in your life?
CR: It's really interesting. I think I've been sort of going through something in the last year about how my relationship with myself affects how I relate to other people. I think it starts with the role I played within my family where I was the peacemaker, and I was the translator and always feeling like I had to save everybody from themselves. I think I have played that role a lot in my relationships and that was definitely connected to romantic pursuits as well, feeling like you can save or fix someone.
I think I'm finally in a place where I realize I'm actually only responsible for myself. I'm not here to save anybody. I have put in a lot, a lot of work on myself. I just don't have that energy to give to someone else, especially not someone who is not interested in doing the work because you see that a lot. That's like my situation with my parents. They're not interested in therapy or really doing anything like that. But I understand that that's their journey and their path to walk and I'm on a different journey, and that's okay. I think there's this part of me that's always wanted to show them there's a different way but I can't. I can't keep showing them or trying to explain to them. It's really just accepting that everybody is on their own journey. And making peace with that.
LK: Yeah, that's real. I'm also the only daughter in an immigrant household, so I feel like that peacemaker role is definitely something I've experienced and had to break out of. Switching gears a bit, what would you say is the most important belief that you've unlearned during this process?
CR: I think the biggest one is just that there's nothing wrong with me. That was my belief of why I couldn't be in a relationship. There was something wrong with me. It was also kind of connected to this idea that men don't want to be in relationships. That was also a very deep belief that I held and I've been able to let go of both of them. It's so funny. I'm trying to almost put myself back in that headspace and I'm even finding it hard too.
LK: That's a real win.
CR: I know. ‘Cause I'm just like, what? I thought there was something wrong with me, but like, what exactly? I don’t know but it just felt like men didn't want to be in relationships with me because there was something wrong with me. I think it was also a combination of feeling like you're too much or you're too this or too that. I had a little bit of perfectionism of like, well, maybe I said the wrong thing and would overanalyze my behavior and oh my God, it’s so exhausting. I don't do that anymore. My mind is so free.
LK: Amazing. What does the idea of a spiritual practice mean to you? And as a follow up, what does that look like for you?
CR: I think it's things that just keep you connected to yourself. For me, it's been a lot of self- regulation. That's something I really struggled with. And it's not like I couldn't be still. I think I've always been very good at being still or being alone, but, it was just always still linked to that feeling of I'm alone, but I wish I wasn't. Or I wish that someone cared – those kinds of feelings.
I'm very sensitive. I'm a Pisces, and I did not have any self-regulation skills at all.That's something that I think has also really changed my life in the past couple of years. I’m really dedicated to how I take care of myself and how I self-regulate and being able to show up for myself and not abandon myself. That takes a lot of talking to myself, like quite literally talking to myself. I literally will take myself on a walk and I will be talking to myself the whole time, telling myself, “I'm not going anywhere. You're safe. I've got you. You're not going anywhere.”
I think about the younger version of myself a lot, because when we're in emotional distress, that's who's in emotional distress. It's that younger part of us. I also journal a lot. I have a meditation practice, but I'm not regular with it anymore. But it is really powerful for me when I am. I get a lot of downloads from it. I also feel like getting good sleep is also a spiritual practice for me because I have a very, very overactive subconscious and I dream a lot, very vividly. I don't really necessarily have prophetic dreams, but I write them down and I bring them to my therapy sessions. We talk about them and do dream work. It's just another layer of being able to analyze my own emotions.
LK: What advice would you give to someone who has reached that crisis point and knows they need to start a healing or spiritual journey?
CR: Number one, go to therapy for sure. And I think journaling is so powerful. I think people don't truly understand how important it can be to process your emotions through writing. I think people also put a lot of pressure on journaling, like it has to be perfect or something. When I journal, I just write and I don't look back. I'm lucky if I can even read what I wrote because I'm scribbling so furiously I can't read my handwriting. I don't edit myself. I just have to do it to get all my thoughts out of my head.
I'm an overthinker. I'm always stewing and thinking about things, and journaling is the only way I can clear out my mind and make sense of what I'm feeling. I can even tell sometimes when I'm avoiding journaling because I'm afraid of what is gonna come out on the paper. Sometimes it feels safer to leave it just ruminating in your brain.
My other suggestions would be to read books by Alan Watts, Pema Chödrön and Thich Nhat Hanh. And also Eckhart Tolle. All of their books have had such a profound impact on my life without a doubt. I know The Power of Now [by Eckhart Tolle] sounds like we've all heard it a million times, but it's a really powerful book. Even when I have read those books, I also buy the audiobooks. Whenever I’m going through a difficult time, I like to pop them on and listen, even if it's just a chapter. It always makes me feel better. I think those books are so essential in giving you perspective, because when we're going through a hard time, I feel like we become so focused on ourselves and what's going on in our lives. You need someone that can just pull you out of that bubble and that's what those books do for me.
LK: We’ve touched on a lot of this already, but if you can narrow it down to one thing, what was the catalyst for your spiritual journey?
CR: The catalyst for my spiritual journey was this situationship that I was involved in for…I don't even know. Sometimes when I think back on it, I don't even know what to call it. But it was just this on and off thing that went on for three years. Sometimes it was bordering on limerence. It was a guy that I really liked and he liked me, but he was very adamant about not wanting to be in a relationship, which meant that he didn't want to be in a relationship with me.
When it all finally blew up in my face, as it always does, I was just confronted with the question of like, how did I let myself get involved in this? It was so clear that my sense of self worth was not there and I really had some self-examining to do. One of the first books I ever read [on this journey] was How to Love Yourself. And that kind of jump started things and then I met this tarot reader, like I mentioned before, and the reading he gave me was just so spot on. He talked a lot about my approach to relationships and how I was abandoning myself in them. I felt like I had a lot of love to give, but I was trying to give it to the wrong people. I was really forced to examine what was going on with me. I think it's one thing to know that my shitty outlook on relationships is because of my dysfunctional family, but I really had to take ownership of that and think about how to course correct.
LK: Can you talk a bit more about that, the decision to take ownership and how it felt? I know for me, learning to take accountability in this way was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
CR: I think there's been different waves of that for me. In the beginning, my motivation was I need to fix what's going on with me so I can be in a relationship. My thinking was I can't get the relationship that I want unless I fix this, because I always felt that there was a missing piece to the puzzle of why I couldn't get the relationship. So it was still acting from this place of there's something wrong with me.
To a certain extent, there were things that I had to work on, but of course, there's nothing wrong with me. It was just me having to work through my conditioning. And I got to this place where I was reading all these books and I'm doing the therapy and I'm doing all these tarot readings and working with spiritual mentors while I take a break from dating for a while. When I got back into it, I was like, I feel like I know a lot, but I'm still getting very, very triggered by relationships. When I really got back into dating in 2021, it was like, okay, I'm in my mid-thirties now, and I'm an adult, and I want to find my person and blah blah blah. I was so confused why I knew all these things, but dating wasn’t easier for me.
It felt like I could feel everything more intensely and my therapist was like, well, that's what happens when you have more awareness. You're able to feel things more intensely, but that surrender piece was really missing for me. I still felt like when I found someone, I had to hold on for dear life because I didn't know when I was going to find someone again. Again, I'm a Pisces, not only Pisces sun, but Venus and Jupiter. So, I feel like, in a lot of ways, my entire existence is about finding a partner. That's also really hard to contend with, when it literally feels like every fiber of my being is about being in a relationship, but I can't be in one for some reason. I really felt like the universe was blocking me in many ways, because I would find these guys and it felt great and I could see as I was healing that the quality of the men would improve. It was getting better, but still just missing the mark a little bit.
It wasn't until – honestly this past year, that I was in my first long term relationship, [it lasted] like nine, ten months. And I broke up with him [last] April. That was the first time I ever made the decision to really walk away from something even though it was actually a great relationship in many ways. I just knew that there was something that just wasn't right. I think through that process I finally came to realize how I've been a participant in my own suffering in relationships because sometimes to fix these things – especially if you have attachment issues, and you have abandonment issues, which I did – you have to go against what feels normal and what feels natural and what you're inclined to do. But that's a really, really hard thing to do when you’re locked in a pattern. It is so hard and it feels completely counterintuitive. You feel like, why would I walk away from this guy when everything feels so great but there's still something I know is missing.
LK: I feel like that's a situation when the universe is testing you.
CR: Yes. For sure.
LK: Because I've had situations like that and where I've been like, oh, but it's good enough. And when I make the decision in myself that I'm gonna settle for this, that’s when other forces intervene to end things. So I feel like you put out a massive wave of positive energy for yourself when you decided to leave that relationship, because the signal you put out is that you’re willing to wait for exactly what you want.
CR: Yeah. And I think, honestly as women, and especially right now in the dating world, I don't think enough women are taking responsibility for the role they play in their own suffering. But it's a journey.
LK: That was a word.
CR: Controversial, I know, but yeah. But listen, it's a journey for all of us. I had to examine, why did I keep trying to make these things happen that clearly weren't right for me? I look back at some experiences I’ve had, and none of these guys could ever give me what I truly needed, yet I was still trying to turn them into someone that would.
LK: I think the expiration date mentality that women grow up with makes it very tough to make those decisions.
CR: True. But I think going through with something that I knew wasn't right…I think that scares me more than the fact that I'm 38 and single. I think we're all on this earth to learn specific lessons and no amount of advice is going to stop us from learning the lessons that we’re here to learn. Because we’re gonna learn that in one way or another. So it’s better to take ownership sooner rather than later.
LK: It's kind of scary when you hear it that way. But it's true. I had a similar realization when I was struggling during the pandemic, and it was like – either I take control of this journey and make myself learn the lessons or life is going to keep kicking the shit out of me and teach me the lessons that way. Feeling like I could take control of this journey kicked me into action for sure.
CR: Yeah. I'm in this peaceful place now where I'm like, I have no control over who I'm gonna end up with or when or where or what is gonna happen, but I just know that I don't wanna force anything. There's no point in it. The person that's meant for me is going to come into my life when they come into my life, and there's no amount of worrying about it that's gonna make them show up sooner.
LK: And that worrying frequency is gonna repel them.
CR: It's absolutely gonna repel them. Which is why my only true advice is you have to, you really have to go inward and learn about yourself to create a life that you truly love. That's the only way. Create a life that you love and that can sustain you regardless of whether you are with someone or not.
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Lovely nice to read this again.