Hoda Kotb sings “Fight Song” with Rachel Platten during a retreat into space

To kick off the first night of TODAY’s Making Space Wellness Weekend with Hoda Kotb, Rachel Platten performed in front of an intimate crowd and ended the evening with a sweet surprise.

As she sang her famous “Fight Song” and was about to finish the final chorus, she called on Hoda and several other retreat speakers to join her on stage, including TODAY special contributor Maria Shriver and It Cosmetics co-founder Jamie. Kern Lima. You can watch the special moment here.

In this emotional moment, the women gathered around Platten’s piano, the crowd joining them in the final chorus as Hoda applauded. For a few brief moments, the group even played acapella, led by Platten on piano.

“Someone whispered to me right before I went on that Hoda wanted to sing,” Platten told TODAY.com when asked about her current inspiration.

“I thought, ‘She does?’ I love her. I like that about her. She’s the best. Plus, I could just see her… face, and this is her event, it feels like she deserves to be on stage performing her favorite song right now,” Platten recalls.

“Her joy is so contagious. I just thought it would be like a triple dose of the energy we were already feeling.”

TODAY is Cosmic Health Creation Weekd with Hoda Kotbsponsored by Miraval Resorts & Spas, it features speakers such as Platten, as well as experts on happiness, breathwork, neuroscience and a range of other topics. About 150 guests gathered in Austin, Texas, from across the country to learn from Hoda, who spoke publicly about her health journey, experts and each other.

Before the performance, Platten and Hoda spoke candidly about some of the singer’s mental health struggles, including combating postpartum depression after the birth of both daughters, who are now 3 and 5 years old.

“When I turned 40, I feel like everything fell apart,” Platten told Hoda. “It all kind of shattered… the ability to maintain this appearance of being so sweet all the time, and suddenly this Evil version of me was here, and I thought: Who is she? I don’t like her. But she was there, and she was always there… and I started getting to know her.”

“Something I work on in my life is just learning all the parts of myself,” Platten continued. “There’s a part of me that’s very empowered and that wakes up excited… and there’s parts of me that I’ve learned to recognize and not suppress over the last seven years that aren’t nearly as good as they are now.” everything, and I no longer wanted to ignore it all my life.”

“Starting to explore all the different parts of me, loving them and loving myself completely has been the most healing work I’ve done in my life,” Platten added. “Because of this, I love who I am now, all of me.”

Platten told TODAY.com that this new phase of her health journey involves listening to her body and prioritizing what it needs.

“I try to ask my body, ‘Hey, what are you doing today?’ Sometimes it’s heavy weights, sometimes it’s gentle yoga, but it’s just a pause that I take to put my hand on my heart and just check in,” she explains. “I haven’t done this before. I would train more to fit into the sample size or something like that, but now I train to be strong and carry my girls.”

She also included some of her wellness practices, such as journaling, in her new album. “I’m Rachel Platten” which she released last month.

“As a songwriter, I’m always looking for what is the truest and rawest thing I can say. I think this is exactly what is needed. That’s what I’m really interested in as a musician,” she says. “I am extremely frank and extremely literal… Some of them are diary entries, literally written in my hand, tear-stained pages into song.”

When asked what motivated her to take part in the TODAY Making Space Wellness weekend with Hoda Kotb, Platten explains, “I love the idea of ​​making space for myself. … It’s very difficult to choose a time for you.”