“I got stung by a person saying I was fat. Why is that [emotion] coming up?” Gomez recalls, demonstrating the sort of dialogue she has with herself when a bad feeling arises. By the way, that’s not a hypothetical example—Gomez says comments about her body have always been particularly triggering: “I've dealt with a lot of weight issues in my life, and that's something I'm very sensitive to.”

It was DBT, she says, that gave her the tools to unpack why: “Oh, now I understand, that’s stemming from that one time when I was going through some medical stuff and I had gained weight….”

Some therapists even provide “little cards [you can pull out] when you feel a certain type of emotion, with questions to help guide you through understanding it,” she adds. “You just definitely have to be willing to do the work, and that part can be tricky.”

Gomez is, of course, no stranger to doing the work in all facets of her career, including her beauty brand. “I am going to be in this moment. And who knows, in a couple years I could be done, and that's fine,” she says. “I just need to make sure that while I'm here, I do the best I can."

That means trying to “give each of these projects—whether it's film, music, anything—my undivided attention. But,” says Gomez, “it'll always go back to Rare and the fund because that's something I deeply care about.”

She’s speaking of the Rare Impact Fund. Rare Beauty funnels 1% of gross sales into its philanthropic arm, which allocates the money to nonprofits that provide mental health education and resources to young people. And at the rate the brand is growing—early last year Business of Fashion reported it had exceeded $400 million in net sales in the previous 12 months—the fund is well on its way to reaching its goal of mobilizing $100 million to its partner organizations.

“We’re like the little engine that could,” says Gomez of her brand, as she sits cross-legged on a couch in her office wrapped in a peachy-pink chenille blanket, “and we’re still going.”

That afternoon, as she addresses her team (Rare Beauty has grown to 170 employees) and says thank you for their hard work, she tells them never to hesitate to speak up if they’re uncomfortable: “I want all of you to feel good.”

In this new season of life, that’s what Gomez wants for herself too. “I want to keep evolving and getting better in every area of my life. And I want to experience everything, so it's important for me to keep myself in check,” she says. “I'm so stoked that when an emotion pops up, I'm able to acknowledge it and be a part of it, then let it go.”

Photographer: Adrienne Raquel
Stylist: Anna Trevelyan
Hair: Orlando Pita
Makeup: Hung Vanngo
Manicure: Tom Bachik
Set design: Lizzie Lang
Production: Viewfinders
DP (motion only): Jesse Lee
Writer: Dianna Singh