LadyGang - LG QUICKIE: Rachel Overvoll

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

Author Rachel Overvoll stops by for a quickie to talk about her book "Finding Feminism" and the lessons she's learned after growing up in a fundamental church led her to find the freedom to be the woman she chooses. Shout out to this episode's sponsors! MTV – The Real World – MTV’s The Real World Atlanta, streaming now only on Facebook Watch.  Third Love – Go to thirdlove.com/ladygang for 15% off your first order.  Vogue – Get 1 year of Vogue for just $10 plus a collectible tote when you visit vogue.com/lady.  Walt Disney World – Find your happy place at Walt Disney World Resort.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey guys, the following podcast is a Lady Gang Network and Podcast One production, which means it's going to be awesome. Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive, The Price is Right Fortune Pick, has to offer. Don't miss out! Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show, only at BetMGM. Check out how we've reimagined three of the show's iconic games, like Plinko, Cliffhanger, and The Big Wheel, into fun casino game features. Don't forget to download the BetMGM Casino app for exclusive access and excitement on the Price is Right Fortune Pick. Pull up a seat and experience the Price is Right Fortune Pick, only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager.

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Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Lady Gang Quickie. We have a special treat for you guys. Our little Jack Vanek got stuck in Phoenix with some canceled flights. So you have the two better Lady Gang members. I mean, it's not a competition, but if we were in a Broadway show, I would definitely be the Roxy. Oh, God. Or whatever. I can't.

Roxy and Velma are here. Well, we have a third member taking the place of Jack Vanek. Her name is Rachel, and I'm going to tell a little story of how I met Rachel. When I was in Brooklyn doing the Create and Cultivate event a couple months ago, I was walking around after my panel, and this girl comes walking up to me, and she's very sweet and a very warm energy, and she's like, I love the lady gang, and we just start talking, and she's adorable. and she's not only adorable she also wrote a book which is very impressive and then she continues to

tell me what the book's about and i just was i very much connected with her and connected with also the the book itself and i recently read it it's very good it's called finding feminism but kelty's gonna give her her official lady gang rundown because i can't let becca ever do anything for real that's my fault like we could just go from here but like she wanted to give you one I want you to have your lady gang. I'm so excited. Okay, here we go. It's a team effort.

It's a team effort. Our guest today is a true inspiration to us all. After growing up in an extreme and fundamentalist religion in Indiana, she decided enough was enough. The toxic views she developed had created a woman that she just couldn't love. By the age of 21, she found the courage to find herself, move across the country, and leave her past in the rearview mirror. It took a whole lot of work, but by shifting her mindset,

she discovered the independence she'd always been searching for. With a desire to share with others what she had experienced, she decided to write an incredibly uplifting memoir, Finding Feminism, and advocate for women's rights. She hosts conversations around religion, feminism, body positivity, and privilege, and is so beyond badass in her daily Instagram posts. Girl, I saw you there in your underwear, making me feel good. Please welcome to the show, Rachel Overvall. Thank you. And I love the voices. That was good.

It's actually because I'm sick. yeah she's giving like i was giving you like sexual dramatic i didn't i think it it worked it worked yep was that a good uh kind of background for for you yeah like i don't really know how to explain you you're kind of yeah i mean a juggernaut a juggernaut i like that uh so yeah i mean i grew up in indiana um moved around quite a bit but kind of stayed there went to college at indiana university but grew up in fundamentalist evangelical religion so how do I describe that. It's really like the Bible is the absolute truth. So when you see like Westboro Baptist people, right. That's like how I grew up. Um, and then it was about when I was

2021, I started questioning things. I was engaged really young to someone that was incredibly abusive. Um, and kind of woke up one day and was just like this voice of survival inside of me that said, you can't live your life like this. And I listened to it and I left him and left religion and just had to figure out, okay, what am I doing from here now? Because the whole life that I had and I had built is not the life I'm going to live. So what do I do? So I graduated, I moved to Denver, and just kind of started rebuilding. And then it was about two years ago I decided to write the book.

I was like, I'm going to write this. And it was really just realizing that there is incredible power in sharing your story and incredible healing that took place when I wrote it too. What I think is really interesting is that you definitely are a victim, like you've been victimized in your life, but you don't act like a victim. You know, so often people go around and they hold whatever that story or whatever that headline is about themselves and they hold it over themselves and it's who they are. And you're like, that's actually not who I want to be and I'm going to rechange my whole self. There's a lot of courage in that. And I like to say I'm who I am despite, not because, because it goes back to that victim mentality, right?

When you have that idea, I've become who I am. I've become strong. I've become independent. I've become incredibly loving of my body and who I am as a person and authentic despite of what's happened to me, not because. Right. Interesting. So when did you realize that you had to make this change? You're pretty young.

I mean, most of us have no idea what we're doing at 21. I mean, I still don't know what I'm doing. Right. I'm just like, I'm still like, I wake up every day and I'm like, I feel like I have this much to do and how much do I know what I'm really doing? Like this much. Zero. Zero percent. Exactly. So, um, yeah, it was kind of a decision that was made for me in a way. So I left, I broke up with my then fiance that was incredibly abusive. And when that happened, I was told by multiple people in church and religion that I wasn't following God's plan. So it wasn't ever at that point, really my intention to leave religion I kind of got pushed out of it in a way and so there was

probably for like a year after that where I was still trying to like be a part of religion in some way but I just couldn't because the community had kind of said like oh you're not following God's plan so bye um and then it was really just a lot of therapy I would say and a lot of people who loved me and were really kind to me as I was growing and helped me on that journey and a lot of people a lot of women that supported me along that way this is something we haven't actually brought up a ton on the lady gang but we see it a lot in our social media and our facebook groups like how do you overcome abuse like how do you be someone that has had an abusive partner or an abusive parent or an upbringing and then go on to live your life and not have it follow you everywhere

or can you you can i think but it's really intentional um i have been to a lot of therapy and I can't recommend therapy enough that's amazing but also like deciding um for instance like the last man I dated I remember when I realized that I was falling in love with him and I was like I have a lot of trauma and I've never I haven't felt in love with someone since my ex-fiance so how am I going to go into this relationship and really love him how he deserves to be loved when I don't know how to do that so I started making a lot of kind of lists of like what are some bad habits I have I pick fights when I feel like I'm going to be left I um you know I close up sometimes sexually because of trauma and like what are these lists of things and triggers

that I have and how can I overcome them so that I can really love someone and it's it's still a journey it's still something I'm learning but it's getting better and better and you know you just work through it and you have to be really honest with your partner too I think that's a huge thing and explain to them like hey these are some traumas that i'm dealing with these are things that have happened in my past i need you to know this and you didn't know what triggers me and also like how can you help love me through this and how can we grow together but it's not feel like so much like when do you put that when do you drop that ball oh yeah well the first time i did i was like blacked out hammered at a wedding and i was like let me tell you about what happened because

that's what always makes it better right yeah right definitely the right yeah exactly then the next morning he was like do you want to talk about that and i was like oh maybe i need a mimosa though so i think it's just you have to well you have to trust someone first of all you have to know you can trust them and um i don't recommend alcohol always it did help me that time but it's just yeah and you work through it and it's not just one conversation that's the other thing it's a lot of conversations. We have so many girls in the lady gang who aren't in identical situations that you were in, but parallels where you grew up in a small town, you, you have the small community and everybody's sort of doing the same thing and everyone's on the same timeline.

And it's scary enough to break away from that when you're not dealing with things like abuse and religion and it's hard enough to walk away. So how did you find the courage? Was there a moment of extreme loneliness because I imagine that that's super isolating but how did you essentially get there because I think that girls just sit in it and it's too late to leave totally and it's really easy like I I'm so thankful that I left I can't imagine I mean if I was still in Portage Indiana I'd probably be like married with five kids by now right um and not that there's anything wrong with that that's just not what I wanted right um and I think there's this moment that happens where you have this voice inside of you saying like, it's time to move. And I think we've

all heard that, right? Are there something better for you? And it comes to listening to that and trusting it. And that's really what I felt. I was like, I'd never been to Denver. I was literally just like, I'm going to pack my car and move. Wow. Here we go. What did your family think? They were actually incredible for being conservative. They were incredibly supportive. Wow. Um, they were, my mom said the sweetest thing. She was like, this is what I raised you to do i raised you to spread your wings and if you weren't spreading your wings i feel like i would have failed that's incredible i know my mom's amazing wow okay mom yeah so yeah listen to your voice and like be comfortable in the uncomfortable if you're not uncomfortable you're

not growing that's like my biggest thing yeah um how was writing the book therapy so i started it like through technically like three years ago as a therapy assignment it i was kind of like diving into like i never really realized how traumatic religion was until like three years ago and the religion i specifically experienced um and then it was about last year i had a close friend that passed away just randomly like 30 years old driving had a heart attack super healthy like just one of those freak things and when that happened i was like i have all of these stories what if I just put them down like how long do I know that I have how many of us have and like this could truly impact someone like you said there's parallels I've had so many people

reach out to me and be like I didn't grow up in religion or you know I didn't grow up with an abusive partner but a lot of the messages I talk in my book about oppression of women in general are things that we can all talk about and we've dealt with so that was a big piece um what advice would you give like minus 10 years you 10 years me um like if to the girls that are just starting to feel that rumbling in their gut like what do you say live authentically and love yourself like those are those two things have changed my entire life like just not being scared to be who I am yeah it's changed everything it's made my relationship strong my friendships my romantic relationships um it's made me so confident um and just like when you step into

this is who i really am i'm not scared of it this is my purpose yeah that's when you really step into life the lady gang so you are doing some brave things on instagram when all of us are so scared about taking a bathing suit shot in the most perfect lighting where you can't see any of the dimples on our asses and uh in a backdrop that you can also facetune like it's a really you're on the total opposite end of the spectrum and what you're doing is really amazing our own jack vanek has started to do something very similar yeah um but what was what is that like right now have you just received insane feedback from women because i imagine that everybody's applauding the out of you but also are you still terrified every time you put a picture up like

that. Oh yeah. I'm so terrified. Like I took, I posted a picture the other day and like some MeUndies that they sent me and I have like a scar on my stomach from, I had a surgery when I was a child. So I have like a weird looking belly button. It's not perfect, right? It's weird. And so I always get super uncomfortable and I was like, I'm just going to do it. So I set up my little self timer and took some pictures until I felt really good. And then I was like, I'm just loving it. Turned on some music and just kind of like took pictures. But there's something so freeing when you just say this is who i am and i'm not gonna fight it anymore i could i spent so many years staring at the mirror and being like i hate myself i hate my legs i hate my stomach i

hate my and hating my body and it was really kind of about the time i started writing the book about three years ago unintentionally writing the book and i there's this rupee car quote and i'm totally gonna mess it up but it's something along the lines of and i looked at my body softly and whispered I love you and my body started weeping and said I've been waiting to hear that your whole life and I read that and I was like have I ever looked in the mirror and told myself I love myself have any of us right and then I did it and I was just like that's incredible and so when it's just like we all and it gives other women freedom right when I'm saying like yeah hey look I'm really confident I have scars on my stomach and I have cellulite and it's okay yeah I'm still gonna

I'm not going to hide it. Wait, how old are you? 28. Damn. She's so much further ahead than we are. I think I was still drunk with like a very thin eyebrow at 28. But well, that's what the microblading is for. I did have to do that.

So did we. So did we. Did you go into this with like an MO of becoming this like girl power guru in a way? Or were you just like, is this been a surprise? This has been kind of a surprise. anyways um i mean i think it's just it's been a lot of small steps and i kind of talk about that at the end of the book that there wasn't really one thing where it's just like okay now i'm leaving religion now i love my body and everything's great and i'm so awesome and it took one day

it took like 10 years you know it was a lot of small steps and journeys to finally be like okay this is who i am who i am is amazing and there's nothing wrong with who i am outside of religion or outside of a man and who i am is incredible and when you come to that moment it's just the most freeing thing in the whole world it's like if i would have done this when i was 18 sure 10 years ago who would i be i don't think you have it i don't think so the capability at 18 no um and not to be like ageist or whatever but i think that like there is a part where like every decade of your life you figure out a little more shit totally and there's going to be parts of you at 38 that are like oh my god i really thought i loved myself at 28 but i didn't even

know yeah you know that's it's a very weird um it's like a weird situation i guess being a woman being a lady yeah seriously really fucking hard um yeah then you like teeter that line of like okay how much do i do to myself where i still feel good because like yeah i still get botox and i do facials and i do all this stuff but then coming back i kind of like how i always bring it back is like what's my intention is this making me feel good about myself or am i doing this so that other people think i look good see i really am all about this because for me like i have had my hair short for like most of my adult life and like i know i would be sexier with like a big long weave but i'm like i like i don't really care about that but i'd love a spray tan and people are

probably like oh because you're like you're sexy you're hotter with a spray tan no it's because when i look in the mirror i don't hate myself right because i'm like i just feel healthier with a tan and like the botox like it's really not for the other people right it's for me yeah i don't want to see my tiredness on my face in the morning i want it to be smooth i feel like it's the worst when i'm curling or straightening my hair that's when i notice i need the botox again because i see the lines and it's like oh that's when i'm putting on mascara oh that is the worst because you know you make like crazy faces yes once i can start doing that i like raise my eyebrows so much to do the mascara when i don't have botox and then when i'm done with the

mascara there's the deepest creases in my forehead and i'm like well i can't even i have to start over oh or when you're like oh i think i'll just fix my eyebrow a little bit and you have like the close-up mirror and you fix the eyebrow and then you all of a sudden get a shot and like no one's told you for six months that you have a mustache it's like so long yep the hidden mustache is sneaky i feel like i always see it in the car like the car light i have tweezers specifically in my car so when i see that long hair which i'm gonna see and it's gonna be black i can grab it at the stoplight i have one on my chin that's just a mother just every like two weeks it just somehow appears and it's just they're the worst because they appear and then they're like four

inches yeah how did this appear and is it four inches i don't get it oh my god wait i didn't tell you last night my nipple hair is back oh great thank you so long congratulations i haven't been home in like a month oh i haven't i just let it grow for cp2 yeah anyway okay it's no but it's a thing it's no it's real it is it's real yeah it's real um okay so the book is finding feminism Yes. And you can get it everywhere, right? Yes. You can get Amazon, probably the best.

Local Denver people, go to Awakening Boutique. Cute. Go visit them. Yeah. The Amazon and Awakening Boutique and other online retailers. And if you want to feel really, if you want to follow someone, here's what I want to give everyone some homework today. Go on your feed, unfollow 10 accounts that you, for some reason, scroll past every day

that make you feel like shit about yourself. like unfollow those 10 people and then go follow rachel your handle is at rachel overvaul um you're so lovely congratulations on your success thank you for taking the time out and like even hanging up with me when i'm sick and all and we'll be posting in this photo we'll be holding the book so you guys can see what it looks like and swipe up to buy swipe up to buy okay we weren't here for a good time nope nope we weren't here for a long time we were here for a good time thanks for listening and make sure to rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcast we have new episodes of lady gang every tuesday and thursday follow us on social media at the lady gang

follow us personally at kelty most importantly at becca and at jack banik and we will see you next tuesday