1장
The Renaissance of Reimagining: A Journey Beyond Limitations
When Rachel Elizabeth Cargle found herself standing in the Pueblo Grande Museum in Phoenix during a 2017 backpacking trip, she couldn't have known she was on the precipice of a personal revolution. Surrounded by evidence of how the Hohokam people had lived communally-a way of life she deeply longed for-her phone buzzed with news that would catalyze her transformation. A photo of her from the Women's March had gone viral, but while white-dominated platforms celebrated the image, Black readers questioned why she supported a movement that historically excluded Black women. This wake-up call would set her on a path to reimagining every aspect of her life-from feminism to education, from relationships to rest.
"A Renaissance of Our Own" has become a cultural touchstone for those seeking to break free from inherited limitations. Beloved by celebrities like Tracee Ellis Ross and Glennon Doyle, the book has struck a chord with readers across backgrounds who recognize the revolutionary potential of questioning the status quo. In a world where we're often handed scripts for how to live, love, work, and rest, Cargle's manifesto offers something radical: permission to tear up those scripts and write our own.
2장
The Courage to Question Everything
Growing up Baptist in Akron, Ohio, church was Rachel's sanctuary-a place where she felt truly herself among other Black children, away from her mostly white suburban existence. Her family's devotion was absolute: Sunday services, Bible school, and various ministries formed the rhythm of their lives. She loved the community and safety church provided. But her stable childhood was upended when her sisters became pregnant and moved out, her cousin's daughter came to live with them, and her father was asked to leave. When he was diagnosed with kidney failure shortly after, Rachel prayed fervently for the miracle she'd been taught to believe in.
Despite her prayers, her father died when she was just a child, leaving an empty space where grief should have resided. With no time to mourn, her mother and she shouldered the responsibility of raising her sisters' children after both succumbed to addiction. Their home became a revolving door of social services, rehabilitation centers, and broken promises.
This challenging childhood gave way to college years where Rachel found community in a Christian student group. During her sophomore year, she met Manny-charismatic, dimpled, and deeply religious. Their relationship progressed quickly, and despite her hesitations and a persistent gut feeling warning against marriage, she silenced her intuition. The prospect of safety and security through marriage was irresistible after her traumatic childhood. In 2009, they married in a simple courthouse ceremony, with Rachel in a yellow sundress and Manny in khakis and a button-down.
The marriage didn't last. After signing her divorce papers, Rachel began untangling herself from Christianity and traditional female societal roles. Moving into her uncle's basement apartment in Akron, she experienced true independence for the first time-responsible for herself with no one telling her what to do or think. For six months, she reveled in freedom, enjoying simple pleasures like eating burritos while watching Scandal. When she finally pursued her dream of leaving Ohio, she moved to Washington D.C. in January 2013.
There, Rachel expanded her social circle beyond Christians for the first time since Catholic high school. Meeting kind, loving non-Christians who often lived more like Jesus than church people challenged her limited worldview. This revelation helped her realize she didn't want to follow religious rules rooted more in fear than freedom. Though letting go of Christianity brought grief, it also offered joy and liberation. Without the Bible as her guidebook, she learned to trust her inner knowing, integrating her rational mind, heart's desires, and moral compass.
3장
Finding Your North Star: Identifying Core Values
As Rachel transitioned away from Christianity as her moral compass, she needed to determine her own moral code by identifying her core values. Psychologist Angela Duckworth's book "Grit" introduced her to this concept of "deepest values" that spark passion and purpose. This felt especially powerful as a Black woman often ill-served by white society's and Christian values.
To discover her core values, Rachel used her daydreams as a guide, becoming aware of what naturally emerged when her mind was unencumbered. She observed what scenarios she conjured, where she was, what she was doing, who she was with, and most importantly, how she felt. This process helped her curate a lifestyle cradled by her heart's deepest desires, driven by a yearning for freedom from the constraints of an oppressive white gaze.
Eventually, she identified three values that resonated in her soul: ease, abundance, and opportunity. Using these as filters transformed her decision-making. The anxiety she once felt faded as she simply asked whether choices aligned with her highest values. Even when breaking rules or defying cultural "shoulds," she felt confident in decisions connected to these values. She stopped second-guessing herself and torturing herself with analysis. Even when outcomes weren't perfect, she viewed challenges not as failures but as opportunities to explore how her values played out in real time.
The beauty of living aligned with your highest values is the ability to forge new paths through curiosity. Because these values reflect your personal dreams rather than imposed structures, you can trust that wherever they take you is exactly where you need to be.
We can all identify our own values through specific exercises. When your attention wanders, notice what comes to mind as these vignettes provide clues to what's important to you. Imagine meeting your future self-five, ten, or twenty years older. Observe where she lives, what her surroundings look like, what she's doing, and who's with her. Rather than focusing solely on material possessions or experiences, consider goals as how you want to feel and what you want to be.
After completing these exercises, identify the recurring themes that point to your highest values. These patterns-whether they center on community, independence, creativity, or other core principles-should guide your decision-making going forward.
4장
Love Reimagined: Building Relationships on Your Own Terms
After breaking from the Church, Rachel began reconsidering her limited views on family, success, sexuality, and relationships. Free from religious constraints, she approached dating with an exploratory mindset, observing what nourished her and what didn't. Her three years in Washington D.C. included relationships with men like Sahil, Lukeman, and Biko-experiences that rebuilt her confidence in her body and sexuality before moving to New York to pursue entrepreneurship and community work.
Meeting Vanessa through a dating app marked Rachel's first intentional exploration of attraction to women-something she'd experienced but suppressed since high school due to religious pressure. Their coffee shop first date in Brooklyn blossomed into months of meaningful connection. Vanessa guided Rachel through her first experiences at gay bars and intimate moments with a woman, all while maintaining an open relationship with her long-distance boyfriend. This arrangement challenged Rachel's preconceptions but aligned with her post-divorce disinterest in serious commitment. When Vanessa eventually closed her relationship, Rachel was initially heartbroken but ultimately grateful for how she'd expanded her understanding of intimacy.
Through this experience, Rachel realized she could pursue relationships with both men and women, and that she valued falling in love repeatedly throughout life rather than seeking a single "right" person. She discovered she preferred a primary partnership model that allows for additional connections while maintaining clear boundaries-exactly what Vanessa had demonstrated.
Opening herself to diverse romantic relationships inspired Rachel to critically examine all her personal connections. She began dismantling the limitations imposed by tradition, religion, and societal norms. As she moved away from centering marriage as life's primary relationship, her friendships with women near and far provided the stability, adventure, and nourishment she'd been taught to seek in marriage. With intentional effort, she built her chosen family, sharing everything from Friendsgiving to important rites of passage.
When it came to children, Rachel made another unconventional choice. Her experience as a nanny in New York while building her business gave her profound insight into parenting realities. She discovered that what made her good at nannying-years spent in caretaker roles for her disabled mother and her sisters' children-was exactly why she didn't want children herself. She was both skilled at and exhausted from caretaking. Her highest values-solitude, spontaneity, independence, quiet mornings, and tidy spaces-conflicted with motherhood. Instead, she found joy in nurturing other people's children as "Auntie Rachel," embracing her role in the village without the full responsibility of parenthood.
When she couldn't find child-free communities online that weren't rooted in disliking children, Rachel created Rich Auntie Supreme. The "Auntie" honors the "othermother" tradition Patricia Hill Collins describes in African diasporic communities-women who step in as maternal influences, physically and emotionally. The "Rich" and "Supreme" parts signal that child-free existence can be supremely rich-with time, rest, spontaneity, and reward. Their virtual village of tens of thousands celebrates child-free benefits while nurturing their roles as aunts and othermothers.
Our first significant relationships aren't chosen-we're born into families predetermined by DNA. But we have the ability to be ruthlessly intentional in creating our most intimate relationships. We can choose our family if our birth family doesn't value who we are. We can select romantic partners based on our desires rather than society's limited precepts. We can define how we show up as mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties, and friends.
5장
Feminism's Blind Spots: Confronting Whitewashed History
Feminism marched into Rachel's life in 2013 through a PBS documentary while she was babysitting. Living in D.C. and working multiple jobs, she watched mesmerized as footage showed women marching for reproductive and workplace rights. She'd never heard of Gloria Steinem, and her religious background had misguided her to believe feminists were just angry women wronged by men or "simply lesbians." Everything she thought about feminism was wrong.
In the months after, Rachel devoured books about feminist movements-the first-wave suffragists and second-wave fights for reproductive rights and equal opportunities. But everything she read had been written by white women, with barely a mention of Black women or women of color. She actually believed Black women had opted out of fighting for their rights. The feminism she learned celebrated white women as the movement's champions, and without anyone telling her differently, she accepted it as fact.
By 2015 when Rachel moved to New York City, she proudly claimed feminism and entrepreneurship as her passions. Working multiple jobs including nannying, she attended as many women-led entrepreneurial events as possible. She had conflated the Girlboss movement-which equated female empowerment with earned wealth and glitter-with twenty-first-century feminism.
After Trump's election, Rachel and her friend Dana channeled their feminist energy by organizing a bus to the Women's March in Washington D.C. During the march, inspired by the iconic photo of Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, they recreated their pose with raised fists. Their photographer Kennedy captured them perfectly in front of the Capitol Building. When Dana posted this image to her substantial following, it went viral overnight, appearing in newspapers and on television. Suddenly, Rachel's social media followers exploded from thousands to twenty thousand.
Exhausted after the Women's March attention, Rachel traveled to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Arizona, seeking space to reflect. While cycling through Phoenix in March 2017, she discovered their Women's March photo had resurfaced on Afropunk's Instagram page. Commenters called her out for being unaware of white supremacy within feminism. This confrontation sparked an intensive period of research during her travels through Japan and Thailand.
Rachel was dismayed to discover the racist attitudes of first-wave feminist "sheroes" like Susan B. Anthony, who said she would "cut off this right arm" before demanding voting rights for Black people over white women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt made similarly racist statements prioritizing white supremacy. Returning to America after five months abroad, she felt betrayed by the feminist movement she'd embraced. She recognized her naivety in accepting a whitewashed version of feminism and finally acknowledged the inseparable intersection of her race with her womanhood.
Armed with revelations about mainstream feminism's whitewashed history, Rachel immersed herself in studying Black writers, feminists, and activists-her intellectual ancestors. She discovered Ida B. Wells, who defied segregation orders during the 1913 national suffrage march by strategically joining the front of her delegation. She learned about Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who boldly called out white suffragists' hypocrisy in her 1866 speech "We Are All Bound Up Together."
As Rachel shared these truths, her Instagram following grew to nearly 80,000 by early 2018-proving many others were also hungry for this unlearning and reimagining. She created a social syllabus titled "Unpacking White Feminism" to explain how white feminism was mired in toxic white supremacy since its inception-what she called "white supremacy in heels."
Over the next year and a half, Rachel shared her lecture in more than thirteen cities, starting in community spaces and eventually speaking at universities including Harvard. On a train ride to Cambridge, she realized three essential elements for effective allyship: Knowledge (learning the facts), Empathy (examining one's role in another's pain), and Action (taking concrete steps to improve Black lives). This KEA framework became seamlessly integrated into her lectures.
6장
Education Reimagined: Learning Beyond Institutions
Rachel's educational journey from a state school in Ohio to the Ivy League in New York City dramatically changed her ideas about how traditional education validates intellect and worth. Most of her learning about herself, the world, business, feminism and race happened outside any classroom, leading her to reimagine education by embracing community learning and self-study-practices rooted in indigenous cultures that better align with how she wants to exist in the world.
She discovered Columbia University by chance in 2016 while taking a Girl Scout to Riverside Church weekly. Passing the campus repeatedly sparked her imagination about returning to higher education after previously withdrawing from two universities. Despite being a two-time college dropout, she applied to Columbia's School of General Studies for nontraditional students, choosing anthropology as her major, inspired partly by learning Zora Neale Hurston had attended Barnard in the 1920s.
On her first day at Columbia in 2018, Rachel entered with junior-year standing and was immediately struck by the grandeur of Butler Library with its high ceilings and vast resources. While initially excited about access to private librarians and overnight book delivery from other Ivy League institutions, she quickly recognized the injustice of such exclusive knowledge. The stark contrast between this privilege and the lack of access for marginalized communities planted a gnawing feeling in her gut. Why should the wealthy be prioritized for education when many European and Latin American countries offer free university education?
After witnessing Alexander McNab, a Black Columbia senior, being aggressively pinned down by security officers for simply entering the library without immediately showing ID, Rachel reached a breaking point. The incident went viral, making national news, but Columbia's response was woefully inadequate. The administration merely issued vague apologies and placed officers on paid leave while suggesting that students themselves should "take action" through multicultural affairs programs.
This non-response crystallized Rachel's growing disillusionment with the institution. Columbia's dismal statistics-a mere 5.2% Black student population and less than 4% tenured Black professors-further confirmed the systemic issues. After soul-searching conversations with mentors, she realized she could chart her own educational path outside traditional academia, following in the footsteps of Black intellectual heroes from Frederick Douglass to Malcolm X who educated themselves despite institutional barriers. Testing this decision against her highest values of ease, abundance, and opportunity, she withdrew from Columbia after one year.
In spring 2019, Rachel embarked on her journey as an independent scholar focused on Blackness and womanhood. She researched spaces aligned with how she desired to learn, enrolling in community classes at small independent organizations, attending lectures at institutions like the Schomburg Center, and taking one-off courses at places like Juilliard. She registered for conferences, reached out to professors for syllabi, and engaged with mentors and peers to debate and receive feedback. This self-directed approach was invigorating-the synergy between her learning and work created utter satisfaction, confirming she'd made the right choice leaving Columbia.
Since embracing her identity as an autodidact, Rachel has replaced her value for education with a deeper value for knowledge. Education is associated with institutions, but knowledge exists beyond their walls. With unceasing curiosity, she trusts her abilities to gather the knowledge she needs in a world where it's more accessible than ever.
7장
Work Reimagined: Building Purpose-Driven Enterprises
As a child, Rachel had a straightforward vision of becoming a teacher. She'd create worksheets and lesson plans for her dolls and sometimes her sister. Today, teaching remains at the core of all her work-whether writing, lecturing, curating social media, or creating syllabi. Even her entrepreneurial pursuits allow her to instruct others on building businesses aligned with their purpose.
The entrepreneurial seed was planted during her time in Washington, D.C. While the full picture wasn't clear, she had her values, courage, and desire to reimagine entrepreneurship her way. She worked various jobs, absorbing skills and knowledge while studying successful Black women entrepreneurs like Oprah and Beyonce. She admired not just their fame but their behind-the-scenes strategies for building companies that integrated creative goals with world-building visions.
Rachel's journey to activism for women and the Black community ultimately led to founding her umbrella company, though she didn't recognize the connection at first. What began with charging small fees for her "Unpacking White Feminism" lectures gradually evolved as her audience grew and organizations began offering honorariums for her speaking. As her community expanded and her reputation as a public academic strengthened, her entrepreneurial dreams seemed increasingly attainable.
After withdrawing from Columbia in spring 2019, Rachel focused on developing a self-learning plan that could involve others. Having built her reputation through community education-from social syllabuses to anti-racism lectures-creating a social learning platform felt like a natural progression. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted her traveling lectures in 2020, she conceptualized The Great Unlearn (TGU), a public education platform featuring expertly curated monthly syllabi that would properly compensate and celebrate diverse thought leaders.
With a small team of three dedicated professionals who believed in her vision, they transformed TGU from concept to reality within months. While the pandemic was undeniably tragic, it created circumstances where people isolated at home craved educational opportunities and community. Their first social syllabus, developed with historian Valerie Wade, examined America's unromanticized origin story-particularly relevant during the 2020 racial uprisings following George Floyd's murder.
With The Great Unlearn's almost immediate success and her rapidly increasing speaking opportunities during the 2020 racial justice movement, Rachel made a life-changing decision with her earnings. Rather than saving for retirement or making major purchases, she invested in building The Loveland Group by hiring full-time employees who shared her values and vision. She assembled a C-Suite including a CEO to establish the foundation of the company she envisioned.
During this period, she also established The Loveland Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization providing free mental health therapy for Black women and girls. This initiative addressed a critical need she had personally experienced-lacking financial resources for quality mental healthcare during her early years in New York City when she struggled with depression without health insurance. What began as a one-time fundraising campaign evolved into an ambitious organization pairing Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people with Black therapists at no cost and without requiring proof of need.
The Loveland Group operates on matriarchal principles rather than patriarchal ones-focusing on sustainability and collective health rather than domination and concentrated power. They center the humans carrying out the work (their "human force" rather than "labor force") and create an environment that's nurturing, supportive and open.
8장
Rest as Revolution: Reclaiming Your Right to Pause
While devoting her energy to building The Loveland Foundation throughout 2019, creating a place for Black women to heal, Rachel neglected her own mental health. Between racial uprisings and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, she was balancing speaking engagements, her online community, and building both her company and foundation. Despite the world "officially slowing down" during lockdowns, her world as an anti-racism educator in high demand only accelerated until she finally had to stop. She needed rest.
Albert Einstein conceived the theory of relativity not at a chalkboard but during relaxation while riding a bicycle. Similarly, Rachel's best insights often come when her brain can pause from intensive thinking. Her friend EbonyJanice calls these moments of insight "casual brilliance."
During brunch in Harlem, EbonyJanice asked what they'd do with their lives and brilliance if they weren't busy trying to survive whiteness. Rachel pondered writing romance novels or children's books about Black girls who talk to animals, while EbonyJanice said she wouldn't work at all-she'd rest and rendezvous with lovers.
This conversation haunted Rachel. Though fighting white supremacy is a lifesaving calling she'd never abandon, she realized she hadn't explored other uses for her talents or simply resting and finding pleasure. As Toni Morrison warned, racism functions as distraction-keeping you explaining your existence rather than doing your work. Even subtle microaggressions hijack mental energy as you contemplate responses and process emotions.
By the end of 2021, Rachel felt completely depleted from her activism work. What began as community building had transformed into constant battle. Her life had become consumed by anxieties she couldn't control: managing thousands arguing on her social media, delivering lectures despite death threats in hostile towns, and being expected to immediately respond to every instance of racial violence in the news cycle.
EbonyJanice's words haunted her: "You are the Black woman you are fighting for." Rachel realized she would never tell another exhausted Black woman to ignore her needs and keep working until collapse-yet she was demanding exactly that of herself.
Like the "starving artist" archetype, Western activism embraces the perpetually angry, impoverished activist whose suffering somehow legitimizes their work. People wanted to see Rachel agitated, having heated confrontations with white women, embodying the "angry Black woman" stereotype. When she dared to advocate for rest or self-care, her authenticity as an activist was questioned.
Recognizing this unsustainable position, Rachel decided to pivot away from fighting white supremacy toward intentionally nourishing and celebrating Black women. She wanted to reimagine activism where one could be well-rested, joyful, and still effective. Today, she's abandoned trying to change white people's minds-she's lost hope in whiteness changing. Instead, she focuses on creating rest and ease for Black women and other marginalized people.
Social media connections helped reorient Rachel's relationship with rest and productivity. She discovered Tricia Hersey's Nap Ministry, with its revolutionary messages: "Rest is resistance because it pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy," "Black women! You are not the mules of the world, you can rest," and "Sleep deprivation is a social justice issue."
As Rachel incorporated rest rituals into her life, she became better at setting boundaries. She realized there was no glory in constant busyness, and her value wasn't tied to daily accomplishments. During a weekend at a Getaway cabin, surrounded by the healing quiet of nature, she had an epiphany: this restorative experience would be perfect for Black activists, organizers, and educators who were depleting themselves fighting for our collective liberation.
She approached the Getaway team with her vision, and within months, The Loveland Group partnered with them to create "100 Nights of Rest"-offering Black changemakers free accommodations, travel reimbursement, and food stipends. The program was so successful they expanded it to "A Year of Rest" to serve more people.
Rachel even integrated rest principles into her company, The Loveland Group. Recognizing that both she and her employees needed rest to effectively serve marginalized communities, they implemented seasonal rests-two weeks of paid time off in both summer and winter.
9장
The Renaissance of You: Choosing Your Own Path
Nearly ten years ago, around 2014, Rachel conceived the title for her book. Newly divorced and living in Washington, D.C., she was inspired by the opportunity to reinvent herself. On the verge of her own renaissance, she wrote "A Renaissance of My Own" in a small yellow notebook and announced on social media that it would become a book someday. She was manifesting a dream about a bold reimagining that hadn't yet unfolded, confident the journey would be worthy of publication.
This journey isn't about finding ourselves but deciding who we want to be and boldly living that truth. Rachel wants us to move beyond the hierarchy of "good, better, best" in our personal evolution. The concept of one's "chosen self" rather than "best self" shifts our focus from striving and struggling to alignment with nourishment and intention. Who you continue to be should feel whole and true to you, not measured against some external standard of "best."
The entire world is composed of manifested ideas from minds just like yours. Everything from our government to our educational curriculum, our ideas of family to our framework for love-each came from human minds. Your mind can shape reality too. This isn't easy, but it can be easeful. While "easy" means involving little hardship, "easeful" refers to a state of comfort or peace that comes from living in alignment with what matters most. This peace surfaces when our efforts go toward our values, when we choose a life that feels good to us rather than just looking good to others.
In a world that often hands us scripts for how to live, Rachel Cargle's manifesto offers something radical: permission to tear up those scripts and write our own. By identifying our core values, reimagining our relationships, confronting whitewashed histories, pursuing knowledge beyond institutions, building purpose-driven work, and reclaiming our right to rest, we can each create a renaissance of our own-a rebirth into lives that truly reflect who we are and who we choose to become.
