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Actor Richa Moorjani says she’s had chronic pain much of her life, but it got really bad in her 30s. She tells Reshma how she’s learned to prioritize self-care and why she finds that talking about it publicly has been healing. Plus, they talk about Richa’s acting career, including the importance of representation in media and the reason Richa almost didn’t audition for what became her breakthrough role in “Never Have I Ever.”

Follow Richa at @richamoorjani on Instagram.

You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reshmasaujani/?hl=en

Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife

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To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Reshma Saujani, Richa Moorjani

Reshma Saujani  01:09

Welcome to My So Called Midlife, a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living it. I’m Reshma Saujani, so I got a confession to make. When I go to Starbucks, I lie almost all the time. I lie when I’m ordering my grande chai latte. It’s a white lie, but it’s a lie that I tell to make my life a little easier. So when the barista comes up to me and I give my order, and she says, What’s your name? I almost always answer, Maya. Why do I say Maya? Well, because it’s easier to pronounce. And the barista, she doesn’t have to spell it out when you grow up and you don’t see yourself on TV or movies or even in the dolls that you play with, when you know that well, nobody looks like you and nobody can pronounce your name correctly, it’s easy to feel invisible. It’s easy to feel like I’m not important, that I have to lie to make it easier for you. I had often wished that my mom named me Rachel or Rebecca, so every time I went to a coffee shop or Starbucks, I wouldn’t have to be reminded of how different I was. Culture matters. Representation matters. You know, the show Never have I ever on Netflix? Well, it’s about a high school girl, Devi who’s trying to thrive in high school as a first generation Indian girl who just lost her dad. The show is so funny and heartwarming and relatable, and I just can’t tell you for me how much that show made me feel seen, because when I was growing up, there were no shows like that, shows with South Asian families just doing normal things, like falling in love, going to a dance, partying. I always thought that people well, they just didn’t want to watch shows about people who looked like me and my family. And Never have I ever really changed that for me. Even watching it as a middle aged woman, I just wish that that show was around when I was a kid. So today, I am beyond hyped to be joined by one of the cast members, Richa Moorjani, who plays Davey’s cousin Kamala. I was so excited to talk to Richa initially, because she’s been so outspoken about the need for South Asian representation in media, and when the two of us talked, it was so clear that that’s a big driver for her, something that not only she’s proud about, but that she’s leading on. And then when I talked to her and I dug into her story, I realized, well, there’s something else that she’s really outspoken about, something that a lot of my friends and people in this midlife community experience chronic pain. I’ve had a lot of people in this community reach out to me about how to help either someone they love who has chronic pain or how to navigate their own new chronic pain. This is another way that people can suffer from feeling invisible. Did you know that 24.3% of adults in the United States experience chronic pain? Chronic Pain is defined as pain that lasts more than three months. And here’s the thing, women, we suffer even higher rates. We are more disproportionately affected by chronic pain. And look, I don’t think we’ve been paying enough attention to it. Of course, it felt so important to have someone I admire, like Richa come on the show and talk about this. But what really blew me away about my conversation with her was how honest she was, how vulnerable she was. She’s had chronic pain almost her entire life, and she had made. Said she’s still finding ways to manage it. She gave me and all of you now great tools on how to advocate for yourself as a person, as a woman with this invisible illness that’s so often overlooked and not respected. She reminds us that there are so many people struggling with chronic pain, and give suggestions on how to build a community around it and start to feel a bit better. Richard Marjani is a producer and an actress best known for her role as Kamala in the Netflix series Never Have I Ever and as Indira Olmsted in the fifth season of FX, crime drama, Fargo.

 

Reshma Saujani  05:46

Richa, all right, so first of all, I should tell you you’re 35 so you are in midlife, whether you like it or not. Hi, welcome.

 

Richa Moorjani  05:53

I did, I literally did not know that until I got an invitation to this podcast. And I was like, I guess, I am.

 

Reshma Saujani  06:01

Welcome, I know I was like, I had, I feel like I have to, like, let me break it too. But, you know, it’s and it’s and it’s funny, because, right, we’re living longer, so, like, this period of life is actually, like, much longer. And so one of the reasons why I want to do a show is because I feel like there’s just no playbook out there for like, how women should be living this moment? Like, there is one for men, but there isn’t one for women. But like, I want to ask you, like, as you’re 35 like, how do you feel about life? Is this like, the best time your life, or do you feel like all the good things that have happened to me have already happened to me?

 

Richa Moorjani  06:35

Oh, wow. I definitely do not think all of the best things that could ever happen to me have already happened. I think I’ve been extremely blessed and fortunate, and many incredible things have happened for me, along with a lot of struggles, but I also believe that many more incredible things will happen for me.

 

Reshma Saujani  06:54

I know for me, though, so much of like, the best things that were gonna happen to me, my biggest dreams were already past me, and you reach like this point. And I’m sure you may feel like this as an artist, because there’s so much conversation, especially about women in midlife in Hollywood, but it’s so hard to get those roles. Like, you hit a certain age and it’s like you’re no longer, like Nikki Glaser talked about this right at the last Oscars, like you’re just done. Like, how do you feel about that?

 

Richa Moorjani  07:20

Well, I mean, the interesting thing for me is that I, you know, I have been doing this now for 13 years. I moved to LA when I was just out of college at the age of 21 or 22 and it took me a really long time to establish myself as an actor. And really, the first time that that happened for me was when I booked, never, have I ever which was when I was almost 30 years old. Wow. So I didn’t book that until I was 30 and, you know, the show didn’t come out until I was almost 31 and you know, my second project I didn’t get until I was 33 or 34 so for me, it’s a little bit different in the sense that my career has really taken off only in the last few years, even though I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and I actually felt in my 20s, especially being a South Asian actor, that there were even less opportunities for me, because at that time, I felt like almost everything I was getting was actually for characters in their 30s, and I felt like I was too young for a lot of them. Or they were for characters in their 20s, but they were really looking for a white girl.

 

Reshma Saujani  08:29

Yeah, can I ask you something I’ve always wondered about this. How do you keep hope alive? Like all those years, going from addition to addition, getting rejection, not getting the part, not seeing people who look like you doing the part that you know that you could do. How did you make it through? Like, what were the like, the tactics or the tools or the strategies that you would use to, like, move through it?

 

Richa Moorjani  08:53

There’s a lot of tactics and a lot of tools needed to be used. I would say the one thing underlying everything was just my passion for it, and it was, it’s been a lifelong dream since I was probably four or five years old. I can’t even remember when I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, because I was so young I can’t even remember when that was. And so I think it’s because it’s been such a lifelong pursuit that once I moved here and I said, Okay, I’m going to actually do this, I didn’t even give myself another option. I never said My Plan B is this. I never said this is how long I’m going to give it. I was like, This is what I’m going to do. And I don’t care how long it’s going to take, I’m just going to do it. That being said, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t have moments of feeling hopeless and feeling beyond rejected and not knowing whether it was going to ever happen for me, of course, there were many times like that happened, and I’m sure will still continue to happen, because it’s not a linear journey by any means. In this industry, I think. It’s, you know, just recognizing that, that there are other parts of life to also prioritize. You know, there’s, there’s so many other things that we can do to feel fulfilled, not just from our careers. So having a strong support system, having, I personally have a very strong spiritual practice, and that’s really helped me through everything. Yeah, me too. Yeah, and, you know, spending time with people I love and who love me, and spending time in nature and and really spending time on the craft, not just the business part of it, but, you know, I still go to acting class once a week, and for me, that’s, that’s where I get to do what I love without really caring about what it’s going to be or what it’s going to look like, that’s just me working on my craft and doing what I love.

 

Reshma Saujani  10:46

I love that. I wish I talked about this in my book, brave, not perfect. Like, the difference between perfection and excellence and like, you know, it’s like the difference between love and obsession. And I loved what you just said. Because, like, if you are just if you love your craft. It’s okay if you didn’t get the role. It’s okay if you didn’t get the gig, right? Because, you know, you gave it your best. And it was never about getting the gig. It was about being an artist and being an actor, and, like, living your passion and living your commitment. So I thought that that’s really powerful. And I think second, this idea that, like, Look, I’ve been thinking a lot about this, like, you know, I I’m a Hindu, where I read the book with Gita, and I’ve been thinking a lot about, again, this idea of, like, passion and desire and success, and how we’re such a success driven society, and that that’s how we value our worth. And so for a lot of us, like, I’m a workaholic, like, it is hard for me to stop right in, like, be in the moment with my kids or my dog or, like, my friends, and it’s because I we live in a society that really encourages you to be a workaholic and encourages you to define your worth by what you’re producing. And that’s great that you like. I don’t know really practice that, because I don’t think a lot of us know how to.

 

Richa Moorjani  12:02

Thank you for saying that. And yes, I do feel like I have a pretty good ability to and I’ve gotten better at it. I should say to detach myself from all of that and not fall into that trap. But of course, I do fall into that trap sometimes too, and social media is a big part of that. So I take a lot of social media breaks. I personally have not been on Instagram in eight days as we speak. That really helps. Occasionally I go just to check a message that I need to check, but I close it immediately after that, because I really do think that that is a big part of the problem. We see what everybody else is doing, and we’re like, Well, I’m not doing that, and why aren’t I doing that? And it’s just so unhealthy, and it’s not a normal way to live.

 

Reshma Saujani  12:43

Yeah, comparing ourselves to one another, and oftentimes people are presenting a lie on social Right. Like, I think about this when I go on vacation, my kids like, everybody’s crying, we’re screaming, we’re mad each other. Like, you know, it’s just but the what is the picture we post online at IG, so part of it is just like, we just start telling the truth. So I loved Never Have I Ever.

 

Richa Moorjani  13:04

Oh, thank you.

 

Reshma Saujani  13:05

Loved it. So you were cast from a pool of 15,000 actors like walk me through that, that whole experience.

 

Richa Moorjani  13:15

Yeah, well, so to clarify the 15,000 submissions worth for the roles of the three main characters, so Devi who’s the lead character of the series, and Kamala, my character, and Melanie, they received anywhere from 15 to 20,000 self submissions, including mine, and that was after Mindy Kaling had put out an open casting call on her Instagram. So good thing I was on Instagram that day. And yeah, I initially, I think we had, like, a month to submit, and when I saw that post, I kind of just scrolled past it, because I, you know, out of fear, I just genuinely thought that if she’s putting out this open casting call, they’re going to get so many submissions. Like, what’s the point of me even sending anything? Because it’s just going to get lost. And I had had that experience a lot with self tapes, where I felt like I would tape and tape and tape and it would just go into a black hole and I would never hear anything. So I initially didn’t tape.

 

Reshma Saujani  14:12

Can you tell us what is a self tape? For those of us that are not in this industry?

 

Richa Moorjani  14:16

A self tape is literally, instead of going into the room physically and auditioning with the casting director. They a lot of the time ever since. I mean, it’s been happening for probably at least 10 years now, but especially during COVID. Basically, you just you tape it at home, you have somebody read the script with you, and you just tape it yourself, and you send it in to casting, and then they watch your tape. So I think it was like two days before the deadline that I somehow realized that the deadline was about to pass, and I should probably send the tape in. So thank God I did. And very last minute and I heard back. Think maybe a couple weeks later that I was in the mix of who they were considering. The phrase for that is they put a pin on you, means that they are considering you. And I just like, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t even made it that far. And for me, that was already enough. I was like, the fact that I made it this far is enough for me. Oh, and then they, I think a couple weeks later, said they want you to come in with just like two or three other actors. It’s down to like three people, and they want you to come in and read the script in front of Mindy and the director and the casting directors, and, yeah, it was very exciting, but I was freaking out, and I think it was a few excruciating days later, I got the call.

 

Reshma Saujani  15:45

So did you know when you were filming it, taping it, that it was going to be the hit, that it became?

 

Richa Moorjani  15:52

No. I mean, I definitely myself, and you know my castmates, we all knew that it was so special. But you just never know. You never know how something’s going to be received. And at the end of the day, we were doing something that had really never been done before, centering these characters that have never been the center of a story before in such a mainstream way. I loved the writing, I loved my character, I loved everything about it, but I think I just, we just had no idea how it was going to be received. And it was for a lot of us, including myself. It was our first time being on a Netflix series, and that itself is a whole different ball game, because when you’re on a Netflix series, you’re being watched all over the world, in like every single country. And our show dropped the middle, middle of April of 2020, so everyone was at home around the world watching our show. So it was like an overnight success, which was something I had never experienced before.

 

Reshma Saujani  16:48

Yeah, and what do you mean by that? So typically, there was thought that there wasn’t really an appetite to watch a South Asian family or an Indian family like just doing regular old thanks. You know, I mean.

 

Richa Moorjani  16:59

There’s such a lack of diasporic storytelling.

 

Reshma Saujani  17:02

How has this changed the game on that? Or has it?

 

Richa Moorjani  17:06

Oh, definitely, it definitely has. You know, I think that it always takes that one show to open doors for for other things to happen. Because after Never have I ever came out? I mean, the conversation completely changed around representation. It was a whole different era we were living in. And, you know, I’ve personally seen just how other projects have gotten attention that they may not have in the past. Because our show was able to prove not just to our community, but to the industry, that you can have a show like this featuring such diverse characters, and it can be successful, you know, I really think that it created a shift, and I’m just so humbled and honored to be a part of it.

 

Reshma Saujani  17:55

And you also started in Fargo season five, right? So there’s a female cop that was basically written to be a South Asian woman, which is a huge deal, right? You get this role like, what drew you to that character?

 

Richa Moorjani  18:08

So I got that audition while I was filming the last season of never, have I ever and I I had never seen Fargo before. I’d never seen the movie, and I’d never seen the show, and I didn’t know what a Minnesota accent was, so I was pretty terrified when I got that audition. And I almost turned it down, because I just didn’t think that I could do it. I didn’t think I could be believable as that character, and I thought I’d be wasting my time. Once again, I self sabotaged myself. I do this a lot, and my manager was just like, there is no way you’re passing up on this audition. You have to do it. So it was kind of like I was forced into doing it. But then once I, you know, I did my audition, and then I got to have a meeting with the director and the creator of the show, Noah Holly, who is a genius, and I got to read the first two scripts, and I My mind was blown. I had just, I just couldn’t believe the world he had created. And within that world there being this character of the South Asian woman who happens to be a cop in Minnesota. And it was something I had never, ever, obviously never seen on television or in film before. And for me, you know, when I for anything that I do, anytime I get an audition or a script, I ask myself a few questions. And you know those questions being, how does this shift the needle for representation? Or does it at all? Does this have something to say? And is this something that I connect with? And it checked all of those boxes.

 

Reshma Saujani  19:48

Yeah, it’s so I took my son recently to see Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. And I remember when I would go to movies and shows, if the person was a white person, they put a white person there. There person was a black person. They put a black person there. And, you know, that’s really shifted right where it’s like there is less typecasting. Do you think that, like, have we passed a precipice? Because, you know, right now, culturally, we’re in this kind of moment with dei that feels like we’re going backwards.

 

Richa Moorjani  20:22

I mean, yes, in many ways, I do think that, unfortunately, we may be going backwards, but I also think that there has been a lot of progress, and there are things that they may have gotten away with in the past that they will never get away with now. I don’t think that you could ever make a Simpsons with a character like Abu ever again. I don’t think that you could cast a movie like Gandhi with such an iconic and such a huge story and character. I don’t think you could ever cast someone who was but he is, to be fair, he is south half, south half, half. Is he okay? So, yeah, he’s half Indian. Yes. I definitely think that, in that sense, things have gotten better, but there’s always going to be actors who will do whatever is given to them. And, you know, I don’t, I don’t blame anybody, because everyone has to do what they have to do. But I, personally, I’m very careful about like, if they send me an audition for someone who is Mexican or afghan. I’m going to say no, like give it to an Afghan actress give it to a Mexican actress.

 

Reshma Saujani  22:01

I want to talk to you about chronic pain, and first, I want to thank you for being so open and honest. I. About this because a lot of people in midlife, a lot of my friends, a lot of people listening on their show, you know, are facing chronic pain. So how did it start for you? When did you notice that something was off?

 

Richa Moorjani  25:13

I think I’ve always had chronic pain since I was probably in high school. I’ve always had, like, back pain or neck pain and really horrible periods. But I think it got really bad in the last maybe seven years, like, maybe, like, right before I started shooting. Never have I ever and it just increasingly it’s like the day I turned 30, literally, the day I turned 30, I woke up with like, 10 new pains, and it’s just gotten increasingly worse every single day.

 

Reshma Saujani  25:41

And did you seek medical help when, like, for your chronic pain? And what did the doctors talk to you about what you were experiencing?

 

Richa Moorjani  25:47

Yes, I’ve been to every single doctor and paradigm of medicine you can imagine. And you know, we’ve it was a lot of, oh, well, like you have a labral tear in your hip, which I got diagnosed with, the MRI. So, you know, go do physical therapy, go do acupuncture. So I do all the things that I’m supposed to do when you get diagnosed with something, but, and it helps to manage it, for sure, but it doesn’t go away. And besides the chronic pain, I have some other mysterious, mystery symptoms of different things. And, you know, my doctors and I have narrowed it down to most likely I have endometriosis. But the only way to officially diagnose that is to do laparoscopic surgery, which actually I might be doing sometime in the next few months. So we’ll know whether or not I have it. But yeah, it’s been a journey, and it’s really, it’s actually, you know, part of the reason why, you know what we were talking about earlier, about, you know, how we’re so go, go, go in society. I literally cannot be that way. If I was to continue to be that way, I think I would just die. So I really, really prioritize self care and when I don’t have to be somewhere, when I don’t have a meeting, when I don’t have to be on set, like I spend like, 99% of my time just doing self care because I have to.

 

Reshma Saujani  27:07

That’s incredible. I mean, that’s so important. I had a one of my dear friends sent she’s been struggling with long COVID, and on her birthday, she sent an email to all of us, and she said, Look, I need your help, because I’m really struggling and navigating, you know, my my chronic health issues and like, I need help in introductions that you can make so I can have more flexibility with work, so that I can pay my bills and take care of my baby, right? And I just need your help and love and support, because it’s hard for me to wake up every morning and not be able to just go and that the morning is going to dictate what I can and cannot do. And I had so much awe for her, right? And just sharing that with with all of us, because I often think with chronic pain, one, a lot of people don’t believe you. And two, I think even as women, it’s really hard to ask for help. So how have you experienced like communicating, one, with your kind of friends and family and about needing help, and two, about what have been your experiences, about why we don’t seem to have the same empathy, right for people who have chronic pain?

 

Richa Moorjani  28:21

Yeah, these are such good questions, and I have so much offer. Your friend who did that as well, that’s something that I’m not great at, is asking for help. I’ve kind of always been the type of person that I if I have an issue, if I have a problem, I just have to deal with it myself. But I have gotten a little bit better with that in the sense of, you know, letting people know what’s going on. In the past, I might have just kept it to myself and felt resentful and been miserable. But now, you know, if I don’t feel well, which is a lot of the time, I will tell whoever I need to tell, whether it’s a friend I have to cancel plans with, or it’s something work related, I have gotten better at that, but, you know, sometimes it’s, um, it’s difficult because you don’t also want, I don’t I should say, I don’t want to come off as a burden on people. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, or to not invite me to things, or to be like, oh, she’s probably going to be in pain, so I’m not going to tell her to do this thing. So it’s kind of a balance of like really knowing when I need to share and when I when I can just kind of deal with it. But I have, you know, posted about it, and I have talked about it publicly, and for me, that was really healing, because a being able to share my story, but not just for the sake of sharing it. I do believe that when you share your story, you can reach people who may need to hear it, and maybe they’re going through something similar, or maybe they can offer some help in some way. I really think that in situations like these, having a sense of community is so so vital. And. So powerful. And, you know, every time that I’ve ever talked about it, I’ve been just so overwhelmed by the influx of messages and comments and just energy I’ve received about people being so happy I talked about it, and that motivates me to talk about it more, because I’m not alone, and I know other people aren’t alone.

 

Reshma Saujani  30:18

Yeah, and like, you know, I always say one God gave you a platform for that purpose and never gives you more than you can handle. I felt the same way. You know, I had recurrent miscarriages, and, you know, about 10 years ago, people didn’t talk about their miscarriages. You always rather tell somebody that you’re dying, right, rather than say that you have a miscarriage. But I started posting about it, and I would just seem like you, I would get all these DMS and emails and messages, you know, from women, from men who are like, my wife is going through this, I’m going through this. And even to this day, I would say that I probably talked to two strangers a week and helping them kind of navigate, you know, both their medical questions, or what do I tell my employer, or if they’re going through surrogacy, like, what are the things? Because it’s just community is so important, and like to feel like you’re not alone and you’re not the only one is just it’s like people need that.

 

Richa Moorjani  31:10

People need that. And it’s also destigmatizing it, because it is, it’s life. This is life, and it’s part of being a human being is we are going to experience pain and health issues and miscarriages and all kinds of things. And I think that, you know, everyone has the choice whether or not they want to share their story, but I do think the more that we share, the more we normalize it, and the the more we create space for other people to share what’s going on with them and just create a healthier world to live in, to be honest. Because I think that when we all try to hide it and completely act like these things don’t happen. That doesn’t help anybody.

 

Reshma Saujani  33:59

What have you learned as you’ve been on this health journey that has really benefited you, whether that’s like, I don’t know, a supplement, a vitamin, a thing that you’re doing that’s or journaling or meditation, or, yeah, what have you learned, what would you share? As you’ve been on this journey?

 

Richa Moorjani  35:42

I’ve been so incredibly blessed, and part of it, I think, comes with sharing my story, because people will send me resources. You know, there’s a I have to shout them out right now. There’s this incredible woman owned company. They’re based in Southern California, and they’re called BIA. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them, but these two women started this company, and it’s a seed cycling company. Are you familiar with seed cycling? No, tell me more. Seed Cycling is a practice where you incorporate different seeds, like flax seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, at different times of your cycle, and it’s supposed to be incredibly important and helpful for managing your hormones and decreasing pain with your periods and all the symptoms that you shouldn’t be having. It’s supposed to be a really, really good thing to do. So they created this product that just makes it really easy to do it, so you don’t have to go and, like, buy all the seeds. And make different mixes. Like, they just give you one for phase one of your period and one for phase two of your period, which is two weeks each. And so I was connected with them by Purna, my co star from Never Have I Ever who’s my lifeline, another one of my angels. I have many angels, so she connected me with them, and they have just been so incredibly helpful to me. Besides sending me the seeds, which are incredible, they opened me up to a whole world of functional medicine and nutrition and just learning about my period and how you know, different lifestyle factors affect my period. And so, yeah, I strongly suggest people check out BIA and I don’t know. The other thing I would say is something that I’ve found has really helped me, is morning sunlight exposure. So as soon as I wake up, I get 20 minutes of sun, and I make it. I’ve kind of always done this, but even more so now is I don’t even look at my phone for the first two hours I’m awake.

 

Reshma Saujani  37:51

Two hours that’s me. I was proud of myself that like I go to the bathroom, walk the dog without looking like another .something.

 

Richa Moorjani  37:58

Sometimes, if I have to like, if I have a busy day, of course I will, but if I can help it, I try to not look at it at all.

 

Reshma Saujani  38:05

Yeah, I want to break up with social media. Like, I want to break up with all of it. It’s just, I’m reading this book about kind of dopamine addiction and, like, the role of technology, and it’s just wild, right? Like, how much it has interfered and created this, you know, fight or flight, right? Like we’re not in this sense of rest and reset. It’s like we’re constantly in this anxiety, anxious, and it’s those dopamine hits all the day from like opening up social media and technology, you seem to have a lot of angels, and I suspect you might be married to one, like I am. What’s your advice for people who may not suffer from chronic pain but have a loved one who does? What advice would you give for them on how they should show up in a meaningful way?

 

Richa Moorjani  38:50

Oh, wow. Um, you should ask my husband that, because he’s so amazing at it.

 

Reshma Saujani  38:56

So what? So what are the some of the things that he does?

 

Richa Moorjani  38:58

Yeah, oh my gosh. Um, you know, he just listens to me. Sometimes he does the the male thing, where he tries to problem solve, but he’s kind of learned, he’s kind of learned that sometimes that helps and sometimes that doesn’t, but he listens to me, and he also tells me what to do, like, if I’m on my phone and if I’m on Instagram and he sees my anxiety levels are rising, he will literally take my phone away from me, because he he knows that it is going to affect me really badly, but he does, of course, in a very loving way. Yeah, I think it’s just so important to if you have a loved one, whether it’s your partner or a family member or a friend, check in with them, you know, ask them how they’re doing and, you know, don’t assume that if they’re kind of in the space where they want to not be out a lot, not be around a lot of people, just give them that space and don’t put pressure on them. Like, I think the worst thing to do is be like, oh, if you just come out to this party or to this dinner, like, you’ll feel better, because sometimes that’s. Actually not true at all. Sometimes that will make you feel worse. Yeah, I think there has to be a little bit of balance. I think there are some times where that can be the case, because it kind of helps you just get your mind off of it. But just, I think, be, meet the person with compassion and meet them where they are and and, yeah, just be there to listen. Sometimes that’s all the person really needs is someone who will listen and hear them and see them. Because, like you said before, part of the problem with having chronic pain is a lot of people don’t believe you, and that is that just makes it worse.

 

Reshma Saujani  40:31

Yeah, I definitely am working on the listening, because I like to fix things and help it and, like, solve it, right? That’s almost part of my own identity. But I do. I’ve really been appreciating this point about sometimes people just my house will say, it’s like, I don’t want you to fix this. Just listen to me.

 

Richa Moorjani  40:47

Yeah, totally, and, you know, sometimes it’s just like, just hug me. And so I can cry for like an hour and don’t say anything, and he will do

 

Reshma Saujani  40:55

Yeah, no. It’s true. Now that you know that you’re in midlife, what do you want to explore in this next phase of your life?

 

Richa Moorjani  41:07

Well, first and foremost, it’s figuring out whether or not I have endometriosis. So that’s kind of like my priority for 2025 is fixing myself like I am done with pain. I am done with all the issues I’ve been having, in the sense, I’m, like, so ready to be done with it. So that’s kind of my priority this year, is, you know, of course, aside from work.

 

Reshma Saujani  41:28

That’s a good priority, is focusing on you.

 

Richa Moorjani  41:30

Yep, focusing on me, and not Not that I ever have, you know, not prioritized it, but, like, really prioritizing it. And, you know, my husband and I do want to have a baby sometime soon, so that’s part of it. And you know, I’m kind of in the space where I don’t even really want to try that until I know I feel like I feel my best physically and emotionally and mentally. So that’s my priority.

 

Reshma Saujani  41:54

Well, thank you so much. This is such a powerful conversation, and I really appreciate your vulnerability and honesty. Like I said, a lot of people in our community are experiencing chronic pain, or know someone who does. And I think, you know, this has been an incredible conversation. And really, I’m really thinking about those issues and having compassion.

 

Richa Moorjani  42:15

Yeah, well, thank you so much for talking to me about it and for listening. And I, you know, I hope that whatever we talked about can help whoever’s listening to this, who might be dealing with something similar.

 

Reshma Saujani  42:24

Definitely will.

 

Richa Moorjani  42:25

Thank you.

 

Reshma Saujani  42:38

Richa Moorjani, is an actress and producer. Thanks so much Richa for coming on the show, and we hope you enjoyed our conversation. Thanks so much for listening to my so called midlife if you haven’t yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You’ll get bonus content, like extras from today’s conversation with Richa. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcast, or for all the other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe. That’s lemonadapremium.com. Thanks, and we’ll be back next week. I’m your host. Reshma Saujani, our producer is Claire Jones. Our associate producer is Isaura Aceves.  This series is Sound Design by Ivan Kuraev. Ivan also composed our theme music and performed it with Ryan Jewell and Karen Waltuck.  Our senior supervising producer is Kristen Lepore, and our senior producer is Kryssy Pease. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neel.  Special thanks to our development team, Hoja Lopez, Jamela Zarha Williams and Alex McOwen. Executive Producers include me, Reshma Saujani, Stephanie Whittle Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Series consulting and production support from Katie Cordova. Help others find our show by leaving a rating and writing a review and let us know how you’re doing in midlife. You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife. Follow My So Called Midlife, wherever you get your podcast, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, thanks so much for listening. See you next week, bye.