Loading summary
Transcript253 lines
- [00:00]
Oprah Winfrey
This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by Lilly Direct, your online healthcare resource. Hello to you, dear podcast listener and YouTube watcher. I know your time is valuable, so I am thanking you all for taking the time to be with me here. My guest today is a long, long, long time friend, Maria Schreiber. Actually, Maria and I have been friends as long as Gayle and I have been friends. And we all met in the same place at WJZTV in Baltimore. We met when we were both in our early 20s. So I've known you now for. We've been friends for 49 years.
- [00:41]
Maria Shriver
Yeah.
- [00:41]
Oprah Winfrey
And I knew that Maria was writing a book and I asked her to send me her new book, I Am Maria. My reflections and poems on heartbreak, healing and finding your way home. I have to tell you all and to tell you that I read this on a rainy day sitting in my window seat and I wept. I wept because I've known you all these years. Maria Shriver has lived an extraordinary life, most of it in the public eye. She was born into American political royalty. Her father, Sergeant Shriver, was an American diplomat and was once a candidate for Vice President of the United States. Her mother was Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She was the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Eunice was the founder of the Special Olympics. Maria grew up the only girl in her family with four brothers. In 1986, Maria married the world famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who later became Governor of California. Together they have four children, Catherine, Christina, Patrick and Christopher. They divorced in 2021. Maria is an Emmy and Peabody Award winning journalist and former national news anchor. She served four years as first lady of California. She's the creator of the award winning digital publication, the Sunday Paper, which I love to read every week. Maria is the best selling author of many books and one of the world's leading advocates for women's health and Alzheimer's research. And now she is a loving and doting grandmother to her daughter Catherine's children with actor Chris Pratt, Lila, Eloise and Ford. In this book, you have opened, literally opened your soul and allowed all of us who have any feelings of loss or grief or not being enough or not being able to show up for ourselves. You have led us to the open field and bless you for that and I am so proud of you for that. And it's all in the form of poems and you go places I thought you would never go. I want to say I really, really, really am just honored that you have become and evolved into the woman that you are, and I'm so honored to have you as my friend.
- [03:20]
Maria Shriver
Oh, thank you. Well, I'm so honored to have you as my friend. And I love the idea of having such a long friendship. I love the idea of meeting somebody in my early 20s when we didn't.
- [03:32]
Oprah Winfrey
Know what was going on. I remember seeing you. You were in the bathroom that morning because you were working on Evening Magazine, and you'd been up, and I said, whoa, what are you doing here? And you said, I've been up all night, and you're throwing water on your face.
- [03:43]
Maria Shriver
And we lived in the same apartment complex.
- [03:45]
Oprah Winfrey
We lived in the same apartment complex.
- [03:47]
Maria Shriver
We shopped at the same supermarket. We ate in the same supermarket.
- [03:51]
Oprah Winfrey
We would sit there and have those crab cakes. Yes.
- [03:53]
Maria Shriver
In Baltimore supermarket. Very glamorous. But the idea of having such a long friendship, you see. You know, you see someone through a marriage. You were in my wedding.
- [04:03]
Oprah Winfrey
I was in your wedding. Yes.
- [04:04]
Maria Shriver
All My Children. You were there when I got separated. You were there when I got divorced. You're there for me now. And I feel like hopefully I've been there for you through all of your transitions, through all the people you've been involved with. Right. And I think that's one of life's greatest gifts, to have a relationship that stands the test of time, and that's given me the strength to be standing here. I write in this book that when I got separated, it was a masterclass in friendship, and you were there for me at every. As you well know, you smile, but at every step of the way. And I think that's how we become who we are meant to be, is that people hold our hands. They walk with us when we don't think we can get there on our own.
- [04:48]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah. And are willing to tell you the truth about yourself.
- [04:50]
Maria Shriver
Amen. Yeah.
- [04:51]
Oprah Winfrey
And are willing to tell you the truth about yourself even when it's hard to listen.
- [04:55]
Maria Shriver
Right, Exactly.
- [04:56]
Oprah Winfrey
So let's get into it. This is not a memoir.
- [04:59]
Maria Shriver
No, it's not.
- [05:00]
Oprah Winfrey
So. But how would you describe it?
- [05:01]
Maria Shriver
I'd say it's really an exploration of my life. It's an exploration, really of my childhood. My daughter calls it reporter poetry. It's poetry from the front lines of my life. It's an exploration of my childhood. Who was I? How did I end up in this family? What did this family mean to me? How did I become who I am today? What's mine? What's theirs? What should I drop? What do I want to own and who do I want to be? And I think I am Maria. As I write in the beginning, the reflection is when you're in a big family like that, you don't really have your own identity. You're part of something larger than yourself.
- [05:41]
Oprah Winfrey
Because you were a part of the family, was America was considered American royalty. Literally, you were born at a time when Camelot was becoming Camelot.
- [05:50]
Maria Shriver
Right, exactly. And so people would just come up to me and they would say. I'd say, like, oh, hi, I'm Maria. They're like, no, no, no. But which. Which Kennedy are you? Which Kennedy are you? And I'd say, well, I'm a Shriver. I'm a Shriver. They're like, but you're a Kennedy, right? Cause I don't want to be talking to you if you're not a Kennedy. Right. And then who's your mother? Who's your father? And I always had this sense of, like, that being just myself was not enough. And I think that propelled me throughout my life. And so coming to the place where it would be okay to be myself, claim my own identity. I am so my mother.
- [06:22]
Oprah Winfrey
I am Maria.
- [06:23]
Maria Shriver
I am Maria. Full sentence. Stop. It's not my job. It's not the family that I'm in. I'm not somebody's niece, cousin, ex wife, wife, friend. I am my own being. And who is that?
- [06:36]
Oprah Winfrey
Right. And you say early in the book, I never imagined that writing poetry, help me embark on a journey deep into myself. And I never imagined that everything I sought for, that you were thinking, that you were looking for, was within you all along. Well, that's every spiritual teaching we've ever heard.
- [06:57]
Maria Shriver
Well, I know, but I think I was raised in a family that taught you, like, you go out, you change the world, and that's the brass ring. There was no. There was no teaching that. You're here, you're enough. Sit down. It's okay. So I was like, oh, okay, well, I'm going to go out and change the world. And if I'm not doing that, I'm not going to get out.
- [07:15]
Oprah Winfrey
And it's because at your dinner table, people literally had to come talking about what you did today. And what is that going to. How is that going to impact the world? Oh, how are you going to be of service? Yes.
- [07:23]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. Big time. You know, you were there hiding in the bathroom.
- [07:27]
Oprah Winfrey
Hiding in the bathroom because it's too much pressure.
- [07:30]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. It's like, who is your friend? What is she doing? Where is she going? What has she got to offer at the table?
- [07:34]
Oprah Winfrey
What are you going to Offer? Yes.
- [07:35]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. What do you have to offer? And I was raised that way. And so what do I have to offer? So I would come prepared to the meal. I would come prepared to dinner. And I had the feeling that that's what was expected of me. It never dawned on me that just being able to sit alone with a person or just being on my own would be enough. And so I think I started to look at that. And I remember when I got separated, you gave me the gift of a meditation teacher.
- [08:02]
Oprah Winfrey
Yes.
- [08:02]
Maria Shriver
And you said. I said, meditation, Bob. Meditation, Bob. He came to the hotel and. And he said, I'm gonna teach you how to meditate. And I was like.
- [08:11]
Oprah Winfrey
And he was like, how to quiet your mind?
- [08:14]
Maria Shriver
I could not. I could not. He realized after the four days that he was supposed to be there with me. He's like, I don't think this is a good time to quiet your mind. But he literally sat with me from 10 seconds to 30 seconds to a minute, to two minutes, to that being now an integral part of my life. But that allowed me to sit with myself, to be enough for myself, and to start writing from this quiet place that I had never been in in my whole life.
- [08:41]
Oprah Winfrey
You say it was the heartbreak of your divorce that cracked you open to reveal some of your biggest trauma, and that turned out to be actually your childhood. How did your divorce lead you back to your childhood?
- [08:56]
Maria Shriver
Well, it made me get quiet, first of all, and it made me think about, who am I now? How do I move forward if I'm not somebody's wife? If I'm not the first lady of California?
- [09:06]
Oprah Winfrey
Who.
- [09:06]
Maria Shriver
Who is Maria? How do I conduct myself moving forward? What does forward look like? And so I tried to stop myself, get quiet and really think about, who am I? How did I end up here? How did I end up in this place?
- [09:21]
Oprah Winfrey
And how did poetry become a part of it? Maria?
- [09:23]
Maria Shriver
I just started writing. Well, you know. Yeah, I didn't. I had written, obviously, all the news stories. I wrote that kind of. But that's a different kind of writing. I wrote gratitude journals. You know, today I went and I saw Oprah. We had a fun time. This is what the day was like. But this kind of poetry, sitting there and just being quiet and realizing, oh, wait a minute, I'm sobbing. What am I sobbing about? Oh, I'm lonely. What am I lonely about? When did I first feel lonely? Where did that come from? Oh, I'm heartbroken. Is this the first time I felt it? Oh, no, I'm not. Let me close my Eyes. Let me think about when I was a young girl and I was in a house by myself. And then I just started writing, and it just poured out of me.
- [10:04]
Oprah Winfrey
So let's start with your mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who's one of the most formidable, powerful. I mean, I remember years ago saying, if she ran for president, I would do whatever I could to help her.
- [10:16]
Maria Shriver
Right?
- [10:17]
Oprah Winfrey
And I think she. If she were born at another time, she would have been president. So Eunice Kennedy Shriver, her brothers are your uncles, right? And were President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy. And Eunice was, as you say in the book, the most impactful person in your entire life. And in the book, you describe your household as being like a chaotic pressure cooker. Give us a picture of that.
- [10:43]
Maria Shriver
Well, when I was little, we lived on a farm kind of outside of Washington, D.C. and my mother started the Special Olympics. So she had, like, a hundred people with intellectual disabilities running around in the backyard, along with a hundred volunteers and coaches. And then my father would have all these young Peace Corps volunteers who wanted to go out and change the world. And they were running around on any given weekend. And my mother had this camp during the week. And I had four brothers. And I had four brothers, and they had, like, 20 dogs. And I was the only girl. I am the only girl. And I was in the middle of all of that. And so I was like, okay, where do I belong in all of this? And I had a horse, and I would go and spend my time with the horse because it was the only place that was quiet. It was the only place that I was, like, I could hear myself think. And I wanted to be a lot like my mother because she was my role model. Right. But it was chaotic and crazy and tragic, and there was constant upheaval. There were constant people coming in and out of the house. The table was filled with 15, 20 people. There was Mother Teresa, Robert McNamara. There were Vice presidents. Everybody was world leaders. World leaders, Yeah.
- [11:55]
Oprah Winfrey
I remember the first time I went to your house. There are all these letters in the bathroom from, like, all the world leaders you've ever read about in history.
- [12:03]
Maria Shriver
And you're, like, 23, right, and you're 24. Yes. And I got the message that, you know, you need to be this. And I. You know, it never dawned on me to question that. I just expected that that's the path that I was gonna take.
- [12:16]
Oprah Winfrey
So did you feel loved?
- [12:18]
Maria Shriver
I didn't even know what that was. I didn't even. Nobody talked about love in my house. It wasn't a conversation anybody was having. We were talking about we were out to change the world. We were talking about my Uncle Jack. We were talking about the Peace Corps. We were talking about people with intellectual disabilities. That's what we were talking about.
- [12:39]
Oprah Winfrey
I think things would happen. I remember having this conversation with you 20 years later, because I still remember November 22, 1963, like it was yesterday.
- [12:49]
Maria Shriver
It's probably in your body.
- [12:50]
Oprah Winfrey
Yes, it's in my body because I was nine years old, walking home from school in the rain behind by myself, and President Kennedy had been shot. And I remember having a conversation with you and you said we never discussed it at our house.
- [13:02]
Maria Shriver
No.
- [13:02]
Oprah Winfrey
And I could not believe that.
- [13:06]
Maria Shriver
Well, we didn't discuss feelings in my house. My mother had a saying where she would say, I don't wanna hear one yip out of you. And I don't think she did it to be mean. She did it to just keep it moving.
- [13:17]
Oprah Winfrey
So the President of the United States, her brother is shot, and there's never a conversation about that?
- [13:22]
Maria Shriver
No. Never a conversation about any of it. About.
- [13:26]
Oprah Winfrey
And then four years later, your uncle is shot, and there's never a conversation about that.
- [13:31]
Maria Shriver
It's just like, let's keep moving. Let's keep moving. And I think that came from her mother who had gone through losing two other children and she just kept moving. She had a strong faith, and I think she wanted to represent a figure to her children. Things happen, but we have to carry on.
- [13:48]
Oprah Winfrey
That's why this book I Am Maria is so miraculous, actually, because you came from an environment of what happened to you. Nobody discussed feelings, nobody talked about really what were tragic events in the household. You just kept going and kept doing. And let's show what we can do to serve the world. And yet you've now offered us your soul. Coming up, Maria Shriver explains why her brother Eunice had double padded doors to get into her bedroom. A a place Maria was almost never allowed. Plus, she reveals what happened the moment she found out her marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger was over. I know many of you are managing chronic conditions like migraines or diabetes or obesity. Well, I want to tell you about LillyDirect. It's a patient care resource designed to support you during those steps when you need it most. LillyDirect has options to help connect patients to independent providers and wellness education and information. Lilly Direct can help you get the guidance and expertise you need when you need it. Plus, their online pharmacy solution, powered by licensed pharmacies, delivers your medicines directly to Your door, if prescribed by a healthcare provider, that's key. You can visit lillydirect.com today and take the first step towards a healthier, more balanced life. Thank you for listening to my conversation on the Oprah podcast with my dear friend Maria Shriver. I've known her for nearly 50 years. We're talking about her new book of poetry titled I Am Maria, where she opens up about the highs and the lows of her extraordinary life. I want to begin with some of your beautiful poems. So in one stanza of a poem titled the Child Within, I think. Is that the first one? Yes. I want. I'm going to read it.
- [15:43]
Maria Shriver
Okay, you read it.
- [15:45]
Oprah Winfrey
The Child Within. What are you afraid of? Says the voice of the adult, full of judgment and scorn. I realize that's my mother talking to me. I know she can't abide fear or weakness. She can't handle neediness. She can't comfort the child in me. Don't come in my room, says my mother. Stay out of my room. Get out. Go away. Get out. Go away. So I do. That's my mother's voice. Stern, scary, terrifying. The child in me is anxious and scared. I wonder about the child in her. Is that child anxious and scared? Nobody saw her. Nobody sees me.
- [16:33]
Maria Shriver
That was how I grew up. And I have come full circle to really thinking about the child and my mother, how nobody saw her, nobody comforted her. And I think our job is to heal ourselves so we don't continue the pattern. Right. I didn't want to be. I admired my mother. She's still my greatest role model. I think about her probably every single day I'm in conversation with her.
- [16:59]
Oprah Winfrey
And you were one of those daughters, like Gayle.
- [17:02]
Maria Shriver
Right?
- [17:03]
Oprah Winfrey
You were my two best friends. And I didn't have anything close to that kind of relationship with my mother. And both of you talk to your mothers every day, multiple times a day. And I could never understand. What the hell are y'all talking about? We were talking.
- [17:16]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. About work, about my brothers, and about what are we doing? How are we changing the world? But I realized after my mother died, really, that nobody talked to her about her feelings. Nobody comforted her. Nobody talked to her about her grief. So how could I have expected her to. To do that for me? And I wanted to break that pattern as a mother. I wanted to break that for my own children. So I talk a lot about feelings. I talk a lot about.
- [17:44]
Oprah Winfrey
With your boys and your girls, with.
- [17:46]
Maria Shriver
My boys and my girls and with my friends as well. To me, that's really important is to go deep and to understand what are you feeling? What are you thinking? How can I be there to support you in any way? Because I didn't get that as a kid.
- [18:02]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah, explain the double padded door and the get out, get out. Your mother actually saying, go away, get, get out.
- [18:08]
Maria Shriver
Well, my mother was sick pretty much all my life. And I think people didn't realize that really about her.
- [18:15]
Oprah Winfrey
No.
- [18:15]
Maria Shriver
And so she had two padded doors before going into her bedroom. And she told us that it was because she was a light sleeper and needed to sleep, but there were two really double padded doors to get into her room, which you didn't get into. And so my experience was she lived at the end of the hall behind these two padded doors, that there was no way she could hear me if I knocked on the door. And I just grew up thinking, well, gosh, I guess that's how people are. Their mothers live behind padded doors. And then I would see other kids whose mothers didn't live behind padded doors. And my parents had separate bedrooms. And I grew up like that. And I started to think later in life, like, what was she doing behind those padded doors? What was she trying to keep out? What was she afraid of? And it brings me great grief to think of her behind the doors and to think of me and my brothers in front of the doors. Yeah. Trying to get in. And I think that, you know, I think I started to think about in what way was I doing that? In what way did I have padded doors in my own life?
- [19:32]
Oprah Winfrey
You write this about feeling terrified in your own home. You say, everyone lives behind closed doors. I stand here frozen in the darkness, terrified. My brothers can't help. They aren't yet men. As the sun begins to break through I return to my room down the hall. I shut my door. Daylight is coming One more night is over. I made it through again. What was it that was terrifying you?
- [20:01]
Maria Shriver
Well, you know, both of my uncles had been killed, so there was this feeling in my family that people were getting killed. And so I thought, well, we're all gonna get killed.
- [20:11]
Oprah Winfrey
And out to kill you.
- [20:12]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. And I lived in this house way out in the woods, lived next to a mental institution. And I just was terrified all the time. I was an only girl, as I said, and the feeling of, like, somebody's going to come in here. The house creaked, the house, and it was scary.
- [20:31]
Oprah Winfrey
Nobody talked about what it was and what had happened.
- [20:33]
Maria Shriver
And nobody picked me up and said, it's going to be okay. What are you feeling? The idea of somebody talking to me about my feelings was so foreign. I don't think that happened until I was in my 20s or 30s or somebody would ask me how I feel and I'd be like, fine. What, what, what, what do you mean how do I feel? I don't know how I feel. Just keep going, let's keep working. And I think it wasn't until really, you know, conversations that we would have or that I'd start to be thinking, wow, I don't think, I think I should be feeling something. I don't know what I'm feeling. And then as I became a mother, I started to feel. I, you know, gave birth. I was always terrified to become a mother.
- [21:10]
Oprah Winfrey
But where was your father in all of this? So they slept in separate, as a lot of people do, and your mother was at the end of the hall. Did he know that you were and your brother were trying to get in? Did he know?
- [21:24]
Maria Shriver
I don't know. My father was mad about my mother. He thought he was the luckiest man in the world. He idolized my mother, adored her and wanted to do everything he could to ease her physical pain and to help her be. I think my mother was constantly herself trying to get her parents attention, trying to be somebody in her own family. I think in many ways she herself felt invisible in her family and I think she felt she had no power in her family, that the power was all with the men. And so I have great empathy for my mother's journey. I have incredible empathy for what my mother went through. And I found that actually in going to Hoffman much later in life, understanding who my parents were when they were young, what were their dreams, how did they grow up? I hadn't really thought about them as two smaller individuals. You know, they were just big people to me. But trying to think about who they were at 12, who they were when they met, what their dreams.
- [22:30]
Oprah Winfrey
Hoffman is the Hoffman Institute.
- [22:32]
Maria Shriver
It's the Hoffman Institute where you go to look at kind of patterns and process in your own family and how you can kind of look at your parents with not, you know, with a.
- [22:43]
Oprah Winfrey
Greater sense of empathy, with understanding, not.
- [22:45]
Maria Shriver
Blaming them, but blaming them, what happened to them. And that was really the first time that I thought about what had happened to them.
- [22:52]
Oprah Winfrey
And did you see them differently? Is that where I see you now came from the poem that you write about your father?
- [22:57]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, I see you now. I didn't, you know, I wanted my father to stand up to this terror that I felt as a child. And I didn't understand his quiet strength. I didn't understand the way he was showing up in the world. And I didn't, I think, until I went to Hoffman. Until I thought of how scary it must have been for him, how he himself was trying to navigate this big, competitive Irish Catholic family, how he was trying to be a different kind of man in this family. And I didn't have any sense of that. I just saw him as somebody who wasn't.
- [23:32]
Oprah Winfrey
You think he was weak?
- [23:33]
Maria Shriver
I did. I did. I wanted to get a different kind of a man than my father.
- [23:37]
Oprah Winfrey
You're right. Will you read that poem? I see you now.
- [23:40]
Maria Shriver
I see you now. You see, all I wanted was for you to stand up, to rage against it all. But now I see that wasn't your way. You had a way of doing things, a way I didn't understand. I wanted you to speak your mind, to yell out loud. I wanted you to take charge. But you had a different plan. You had your own way.
- [24:05]
Oprah Winfrey
Wow.
- [24:06]
Maria Shriver
And I didn't know that about my father. I just felt like, what is going on here? Why don't you stand up? Why don't you get us out of here? Why don't you do something? And I didn't give him the benefit of what he actually was doing. I didn't understand him. I didn't understand the strength that he had. And I remember thinking to myself, I need to go out and get a different kind of man than this.
- [24:33]
Oprah Winfrey
And that's. Yeah. And you also write about.
- [24:36]
Maria Shriver
And I did.
- [24:37]
Oprah Winfrey
And you did. You definitely did. As I was gonna say, no surprise then that you would fall in love with somebody who was the exact opposite of how you saw your father. So when you met Arnold Schwarzenegger, you were just 21, and he was 30 years old. And when you first met, your family just thought it was just a passing phase.
- [24:56]
Maria Shriver
Yes.
- [24:56]
Oprah Winfrey
And you thought, I'm going to show them.
- [24:58]
Maria Shriver
Right, right. And I think the more they thought it was a phase, the more I dug in, the more I was like, okay, I'm out of here. I also wanted to find my own path. I didn't want to stay on the East Coast. I didn't want to run for office.
- [25:10]
Oprah Winfrey
You want to be in politics?
- [25:11]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, I didn't want to be in politics. I didn't want to work at Special Olympics at the time. I didn't want to work in the government. And Arnold represented for me somebody who lived on the west coast who had a freedom that I had never seen before. And I was like, I'm gonna go over There.
- [25:29]
Oprah Winfrey
And when Arnold decided that he wanted to run for governor.
- [25:32]
Maria Shriver
Yes.
- [25:34]
Oprah Winfrey
I remember those days. You were sharply opposed to the idea.
- [25:39]
Maria Shriver
Yes.
- [25:39]
Oprah Winfrey
And one of the things that I remember us having this conversation at the time about you. You can run and run and run, and eventually it catches up with you. Cause this is the exact opposite life that you had been seeking for yourself.
- [25:51]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, right. And it was what was interesting. My mother stepped in and was like, you know, don't complain here. I don't wanna hear a yip out of you. Support him and carry on. And I was. I didn't even realize your mother had said.
- [26:04]
Oprah Winfrey
As I recall at the time, your mother was saying, if you oppose it and he ends up not doing it, he will resent you forever. Forever.
- [26:11]
Maria Shriver
Forever. Yes. And I think the other thing I didn't even know is that how triggered that was for me. What a triggering decision. Cause I thought, he's gonna be shot or he's gonna lose. Cause those were my two experiences. And. Or the public will take him away and we'll be left. The kids. And I left here. So my experience with politics was so traumatic that that erupted in me. So I was like, please don't go and do that. So it wasn't that I was just like, oh, I don't want you to have your dream. It was that there was a lot of unresolved feelings that no one had spoken to me about. When he broached the subject.
- [26:48]
Oprah Winfrey
I remember you shared with me once. Was it your Uncle Teddy, or was it your father who had run for office? And how all the people around and the campaign, and it's hundreds of people, and then when you lose, you go home and there's. It's empty. And.
- [27:03]
Maria Shriver
Well, both of them obviously ran and both of them lost when they ran for national office. But my dad was on the ticket with McGovern. And I'll never forget, you know, standing on that stage with him. And they lost so overwhelmingly. And I felt so ashamed that he had lost so big. And then when we drove home, you saw all the Secret Service unplugging, all the phones, locking up the trailers. And in the morning, they were all gone. All the people that had been part of the campaign, all the. For months, just gone like that overnight. And it was an experience that I can almost call up if I close my eyes. It was so dramatic that I was like, oh, I am never gonna go through this again. And by the way, I was so angry. I was so angry that Richard Nixon was viewed as this incredible victor. And my father was viewed as this incredible loser. And I felt that I did not want to be in a business that, you know, pigeonholed people like that. Deemed winner. Loser.
- [28:07]
Oprah Winfrey
Yes. And especially when you understood your father's.
- [28:11]
Maria Shriver
Yes, exactly. And I just.
- [28:12]
Oprah Winfrey
He's the man who created the Peace Corps.
- [28:14]
Maria Shriver
Right. And who was viewed. And what was said about him was so contrary to who he was and so contrary to what he was talking about.
- [28:22]
Oprah Winfrey
Could you imagine?
- [28:22]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. And I just was like, I don't want to have anything to do with this business. And so I felt that Arnold was the furthest thing I could find from politics. Politics. And so I was like, oh, I'm going to go do my own thing, follow my own path. I'm going to go into journalism, which was also kind of contrary to my family. So I was like, I'm going to carve out everything differently. And then, of course, you know, you find yourself exactly where you started, and then you have to go, okay, how did I get here? What am I actually running from?
- [28:53]
Oprah Winfrey
What am I going to say, too, that you have to admit that the thing that you had not wanted turned out to be one of the best things for you, because being first lady of California allowed you an opportunity to reach and have a voice that could help change in a way that you hadn't before.
- [29:09]
Maria Shriver
Exactly. I mean, it turned out, obviously, I lost my job as soon as Arnold1NBC called and said, you know, you're out. So conflict of interest. It's hard to think of that today. Right. When you think about. They're like one, you know, a week in, they're like, oh, no, this is a conflict of interest. You gotta get out. But it turned out to be an incredible gift to be the first lady of California because I made lifelong friendships. I was able to meet, you know, so many people up and down the street.
- [29:36]
Oprah Winfrey
Conference going yet to this date.
- [29:39]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, it was incredible experience. And we raised so much money for so many programs and put people through school and did so many great things, and I met so many great people. And you're right, it allowed me to speak on my own behalf, really. And obviously, I was representing Arnold at the time, but I had been a journalist where you don't really have your own voice. Right. And then I had grown up in a family where I didn't feel like I had my own voice. So being first lady was the first time for me where I felt like I could speak out on what I wanted to speak. I could speak about women, I could speak about domestic violence. I could speak about Women entrepreneurs. I had this big women's conference. I was able to speak about Alzheimer's because my dad had just been diagnosed, and I had a platform that I had never had before, and it enabled me to actually use all of the things that I had been raised with. So it brought. My political kind of sense was there. My journalism was put to good use. My curiosity, my creativity, all was able to be used in that one specific job. And people don't really know what a first lady does. And each state is obviously different. We only think of, I think, oftentimes the first lady of the United States. But there are incredible first ladies going on in every stage and first partners and, you know, first gentlemen now. But you can have tremendous impact in that role, even though it's. You're kind of part of a team. But it turned out to be something that obviously I didn't want, but turned out to be an incredible gift for me. So I have to thank Arnold for that, and I have to thank the people of California for that. And it turned out to be a joy, really, for me.
- [31:18]
Oprah Winfrey
So let's talk about the other breaking open for you. The breaking open moment was the divorce. Unquestionably, your husband had a sexual relationship with somebody who was working inside your home, and a child resulted from that relationship. You were betrayed. And you write poems here about your feelings about that. And in the introduction, you write, you say, as I sat on my hotel room floor in the dark, terrified and alone, with tears streaming down my face, I thought to myself, maria, this doesn't have to be the end of you. It can't be the end of you. Make it a new beginning of you. And you write that it took you many years to get to that point, to recover. And that. And that's why I couldn't believe that you're putting this all in writing, because I know this to be true. You literally tried every method of healing anybody has ever heard of.
- [32:17]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, I did.
- [32:19]
Oprah Winfrey
You did.
- [32:19]
Maria Shriver
I did. And you're right, it did take me a really long time. And you were there on the hotel floor.
- [32:26]
Oprah Winfrey
On the hotel floor, yeah.
- [32:28]
Maria Shriver
And I really wanted to pick myself up. It's still an emotional thing for me, but I wanted to pick myself up. I wanted to be more open. I wanted to come out from behind whatever padded door I was living behind. I wanted to know how that had happened to me. I wanted to know who I could be moving forward. I wanted to show my daughters and my boys that I could hold myself up, that I could put my shoulders back, that I could heal. I did not know how to heal. I had just started going to therapy at the end of my marriage. So I had not been someone who had been in therapy. I had not been someone who was on the healing path of life. And I went all in.
- [33:15]
Oprah Winfrey
You were just being a mom with four kids and going through the thing and that.
- [33:18]
Maria Shriver
Well, I was being a daughter, I was being a journalist, I was being a mother. I was playing all the roles that I think so many people play. And it's a lot, right? Everybody that I talk to who's trying to raise kids, take care of parents, work themselves, be a good wife, you're not really thinking about a lot of other things.
- [33:39]
Oprah Winfrey
I remember the night that the story about Arnold's betrayal was going to go public. You had known for a long time. But the night that it was going to go public was the night that I was ending the oprah show in 2011. And I have never seen a friend like you, because on the night that you knew that that was going to be going public, you came and you showed up for me. You showed up for me. And I don't know how you did that, because I would. You weren't even in your right mind. Were you even present in your body? You walk out on the stage and you hugged me and Gayle hugged me. And I remember everybody cheering because the news had just come out that morning.
- [34:32]
Maria Shriver
Well, I didn't know it was going to go public that day because I flew to Chicago to be with you. And when I landed, I heard, I.
- [34:39]
Oprah Winfrey
Remember you called me. You called me.
- [34:40]
Maria Shriver
I heard. And I was there with my daughters, your two daughters. And. But I wanted to be there for you because you had been there for me and you are one of my best friends in the world. And so I was there and then I got on a plane and left.
- [34:57]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah.
- [34:57]
Maria Shriver
And. But that was important to me. Showing up in my life for people that I love is a big thing for me.
- [35:06]
Oprah Winfrey
Up next, in my conversation with women's health advocate, journalist, mother and grandmother Maria Shriver, she explains how she got to a place of forgiveness and healing with her ex husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stay with us. This episode is presented by LillyDirect.
- [35:22]
Maria Shriver
LillyDirect uses innovations to help simplify managing your chronic conditions. From independent in person care or telehealth consultations to direct delivery of select Lilly.
- [35:31]
Oprah Winfrey
Medications if prescribed by a healthcare provider, lillydirect is committed to making your health journey more seamless.
- [35:37]
Maria Shriver
And don't forget LillyDirect's platform also offers well being content, tailored to help you navigate your day to day life as you manage your condition. Visit lillydirect.com and discover how they can support your overall wellness. Now back to the program.
- [35:51]
Oprah Winfrey
Welcome back to my special conversation with one of my longest and most precious friends, Maria Shriver. For the first time, she opens up many aspects of her extraordinary life in her new book of poetry, I Am Maria. She has some wonderful advice on forgiveness that I hope can help many of you. And then you write about in the public square, the humiliation and shame that filled your soul. Can you read that?
- [36:17]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. The public square. Shame filled my body. Humiliation filled my soul. Every inch of my being crumbled. I stood humbled, disgraced, mortified. In the public square, I heard the whispers. How could she not have known, not have seen? She must have. She couldn't have not. Poor her, poor them. I could feel the stares of pity, of scorn. I tried to meet them, but eyes turned away. I stood in the public square, a mere shadow of my former self. Until I thought, no, no, this is not how it's gonna go. I'm gonna rebuild. I'm going to discard. I'm going to stand in all that I am and carry on. I'm going to move forward. Make no mistake, I hear you. I see you. But you'll see your whispers have nothing on me. And I did. You know, I really wanted to move forward and I wanted to have a good relationship with Arnold. I wanted my children to see me.
- [37:23]
Oprah Winfrey
Moving forward in spite of the shame and the betrayal. You wanted a good relationship?
- [37:27]
Maria Shriver
I did because I had been with Arnold since I was 21. He's the father of my children. I wanted to be able to go to our kids weddings when they have kids. I wanted to be the person that could be in the room and everybody would be okay.
- [37:46]
Oprah Winfrey
Well, this is what.
- [37:47]
Maria Shriver
And that was really important to me.
- [37:49]
Oprah Winfrey
Well, this is what's so powerful about all the poems that you've written and also so many times over the years. And on this podcast, we talk about forgiveness and how you forgive for yourself. And you write in the section on healing, you write these three lines, if I forgive me, I can forgive him. I can forgive her. And so it is all forgiven. We are all free to go. I mean, what did it take for you to get to where you are free to go?
- [38:24]
Maria Shriver
Well, I think one of my shamans or therapists said to me, you know, before you can talk about forgiving another person, you have to look at forgiving yourself and you have to go back and look at your own life and think about, you know, how hard you've been on yourself and how judgmental you've been of yourself and begin the process of forgiving yourself.
- [38:45]
Oprah Winfrey
There's really some elevated thinking because most people in the midst of betrayal are just trying to get through the next day.
- [38:52]
Maria Shriver
Well, I think it's a long process. You know, it's a long process, but I think if you begin to think about, you know, how tough you've been on yourself, how judgmental you've been on yourself, how hard you've been on yourself, because.
- [39:03]
Oprah Winfrey
Did you go through what a lot of women go through? I'm asking this, but I know the answer. Did you go through what else I could have done? It could have been better, and I wasn't a good enough wife. And if I had done this differently and that differently?
- [39:17]
Maria Shriver
Yes. Did you go through that for years?
- [39:20]
Oprah Winfrey
Yes.
- [39:20]
Maria Shriver
Yes, absolutely. And what did I miss? And to, I think, Arnold's credit, he's like, nothing. There's nothing you could have done better. And, of course, I kept going around and around, you know, and. And I think that that's normal. And I think it took me a really long time to forgive myself, to forgive the whole situation.
- [39:42]
Oprah Winfrey
Did you have to forgive yourself for also what you didn't see? Because I think one of the things. One of the things you talk about in the whispers, one of the things that was so loudly whispered, and I would get so frustrated when people would say this to me. Well, you know, that's what the Kennedy women do.
- [40:00]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. So that's what. To rectify that.
- [40:02]
Oprah Winfrey
That's what the Kennedy women do.
- [40:04]
Maria Shriver
Kenned. First of all, I'm a Shriver. I'm Maria.
- [40:07]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah.
- [40:09]
Maria Shriver
But this idea of, quote, the Kennedy women. Kennedy women are strong. Kennedy women keep the family together. Kennedy. So many of those kids, whether it was Ethel or Jackie, were single mothers raising their kids. So to any woman who's been.
- [40:25]
Oprah Winfrey
But you've heard that this idea that.
- [40:27]
Maria Shriver
Of course I've heard it. I've heard everything.
- [40:28]
Oprah Winfrey
You've heard everything.
- [40:29]
Maria Shriver
I've heard everything. And I'd say 90% of what I've heard. 95. Is never true. And I think I grew up with that. Also like to pay no attention to what you hear about anybody. So. And I think, you know, that had something to do with how I ended up where I ended up, because I never paid any attention to what I heard. So I think that that always drove me crazy to be referred to that way, because it wasn't True. And I considered myself. And do consider myself a strong woman. And I have met so many women and I've met many men. Right. Who go through heartbreak wherever it is in life and find a healing path forward. And that's the conversation I'm interested in having with people, because I think there's nobody who gets out of life without heartbreak. There's nobody who can stand at 70 and 80 and feel healed or feel like they're in the healing journey, who doesn't try to process forgiveness, who doesn't go down that path. And that's the. That's the point of this book, is for not to talk about my own story as much as kind of our universal heartbreak. And that's a way into conversations with other people. I think Arnold and I have a great relationship now, and I think there will always be a love there. Right. It's. I. As you said, I met him when I was 21 years old. He's the father of my children. We're grandparents together. And I don't want to have, you know, hate. I don't want to have anger in my body towards another person. I don't want that in my life at all. I don't, and I don't. I want.
- [42:19]
Oprah Winfrey
There's so many events where you absolutely have to be together.
- [42:23]
Maria Shriver
Yeah. I didn't want my kids to have separate birthday parties. I didn't want them to stress about when they were going to get married, stress about when they would have a child. I didn't want what happened between their dad and me to, you know, ruin their lives. It already causes a rupture in their life. Right. But I wanted to model for them a new way forward. And I hope they don't get divorced because I believe in marriage, but I want them to know that you can do it. Well. Well, I think that's very.
- [42:55]
Oprah Winfrey
I think. I think that's very rare. And it takes a special kind of person to do that and to want to do that and to not to use what had happened to you to turn the children against their father.
- [43:08]
Maria Shriver
No, I did. And I'm not saying.
- [43:09]
Oprah Winfrey
Not for one second. Did you do that. No.
- [43:11]
Maria Shriver
And I'm not saying, you know, every situation is different. So I think, you know, there are many people who can't be in the room, and I respect that. There are many people who want to be in the room.
- [43:21]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah.
- [43:21]
Maria Shriver
And I respect that, too. I respect that, too. Who don't want to be at the same birthday party, who don't want to have anything to do with the other person. I understand that. And people have told me unbelievable stories and, you know, have come up to me a lot about the ends of their marriage. Marriages. And so I think everybody has their own path. And I would never say that my way is the right way. I can only say that this has been right for me, and it has been right for my children.
- [43:54]
Oprah Winfrey
You talked about the two of you having grandchildren together. Your grandchildren call you Mama G. Yeah. How is being a Mama G different than being a mama?
- [44:03]
Maria Shriver
Well, you know, you have more time. They're not living with you. Right. You're not in charge, which I'm told repeatedly. So it's. I just play and have fun, and I want to help my daughter. I didn't live in the same city as my mother when I had children, and I really regret that, actually. I see how wonderful it is for Katherine and Chris that they have their whole family around and are together all the time. So I have a play date, you know, myself, with my grandchildren. And I just. I love being a grand. I feel so blessed.
- [44:39]
Oprah Winfrey
I loved you bringing them here the last time you brought them here.
- [44:41]
Maria Shriver
Yeah.
- [44:41]
Oprah Winfrey
There's a video of you and Patrick that went viral this year. It's where he's telling you that he got the part in White Lotus. You got it. What's it like watching your son have a moment like this?
- [44:56]
Maria Shriver
Well, I'm so proud of him. I'm really proud of all of the kids. You know that.
- [45:02]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah.
- [45:03]
Maria Shriver
And he has worked so hard. He's been in acting classes every single week for, like, 10, 11 years. And he really wanted to do his acting on his own. You know, there's all this Nepal, baby, Nepal, baby. And he specifically didn't want to go and get a job in one of his dad's films. He wanted to do little films. He wanted to do independent films. He wanted to find his own way. He goes out, you know, you see what he. You see the role he got, but hundreds he didn't get. You know, every week he's like, not getting a job, not getting a job, not getting a job. So when he said, you know, I'm gonna audition for White Lotus, he goes, but don't talk to me about it, because, you know, I probably won't get it. Everybody's auditioning for White Lotus. And I was like, oh, okay. And then he never said a word about it. So I just. You know, I didn't want to say anything because I figured he didn't get the job because he doesn't get most of the jobs. Right. And so when he said it, he said it in a restaurant on vacation. I screamed. So you said, like, how did the tears. I was just beside. Because I was like. I was just so happy for him. I was so excited that he was gonna get this opportunity. And I was just.
- [46:13]
Oprah Winfrey
That's why that video blew up, because it was so natural. It was so off the. Everybody knew that that was a real, real moment.
- [46:19]
Maria Shriver
Because I could see he and his fiance, who had just gotten engaged, were kind of whispering. I thought, what's going on? What's going on? They're like, no, we don't want to say anything. I'm like, they're pregnant. Oh, my God. They're going to be pregnant before the wedding. You know, they're like, no, no, no, we're not pregnant. I'm like, well, what is it? You can't just sit here and whisper in front of me. And then when he said that, I was just like. You know, I was, like, levitated off. And Catherine started crying, and she didn't even know what we were talking about. She goes, she didn't even know he had auditioned because he didn't want anybody. So she's like, what are we crying about? And I was like, patrick got a role in White Lotus, and I didn't know anything. I still don't know anything about the role.
- [46:59]
Oprah Winfrey
Cougars.
- [47:04]
Maria Shriver
Hey. Hey. We saw you guys on the boat earlier, you know, and Mike White, who's the creator of that whole series, so fun to watch. It's so fun. And his character, I have to keep now saying, like, he's not the character. He's not that guy. But he's. It's a great moment. But he also has his feet firmly planted on the ground that he knows, you know, this is a moment. And then you'll have to go out and get another job, and then you'll have to go out and get another job, and then it'll go like this. And I think he saw his dad go through that. He's seen people he knows and respect. You know, they have a moment and then they don't, and then they have a moment and then they don't. And what do you have in your life that keeps you in those moments when you're not having a moment? Do you have your family? Do you have other interests? Do you have faith? Do you have a gratitude practice? Do you have friends that love you for you? These are the things that I try to stress to the kids all the time. And I think he saw his dad go through that and I think he has a pretty good head on his shoulders. But he also knows that, you know, it's a long road. He's young.
- [48:10]
Oprah Winfrey
Well, you have done such a beautiful job raising your children. I mean, I know you have all of these different roles, but you're primary role.
- [48:20]
Maria Shriver
Yes.
- [48:20]
Oprah Winfrey
Even as your friend, as I see, has been that you have been the mother that raised generous and kind children, which is a very hard thing to do in today's world.
- [48:30]
Maria Shriver
Well, I wanted.
- [48:31]
Oprah Winfrey
That was a priority for you.
- [48:32]
Maria Shriver
It was the priority and it continues to be my priority. I wanted them first and foremost to feel loved. I wanted them to feel like they were the priority. I didn't get. I wanted them.
- [48:45]
Oprah Winfrey
They do. There's no reason why they shouldn't. I've seen it over and over.
- [48:48]
Maria Shriver
That's really important to me, that they felt love, that they knew what love was. That their being wasn't less important than maybe what their dad was doing or what their larger family was doing.
- [49:01]
Oprah Winfrey
That's right.
- [49:01]
Maria Shriver
That they were the priority and that they were loved for who they were, not for what they did. I certainly got the lesson that love was attached to accomplishment. And so I wanted to do the opposite of that. There were many things that my mother and father did that I wanted and did emulate, but there were many things that I wanted to do differently.
- [49:24]
Oprah Winfrey
What are the best lessons? What is the thing that your mother gave to you that you feel that you're passing on to your children?
- [49:35]
Maria Shriver
Strength. She gave me incredible strength. She gave me incredible faith. She gave me the lesson of family, the importance that family is everything. And she would always say, you can have an argument with your brothers, but you cannot be forever mad at your brothers. You know, they are what you have. And she showed me her brothers and her sisters were her best friends. And she showed me that. And she showed me even. You know, I remember when my uncle Teddy got divorced, she stayed in relationship with my aunt Joan. She stayed in relationship with my aunt Jackie. She stayed in the family, keeping the family together, laughing with her family and prioritizing her family. And she gave me that. She gave me so much. She gave me a firm belief that I was here for something larger than myself.
- [50:30]
Oprah Winfrey
And you write a poem about the fact that. It was a poem and a tribute. The fact that you were able to explore and touch your vulnerability and femininity in a way that she was not allowed or certainly didn't feel that she could never.
- [50:45]
Maria Shriver
And I have such. I remember when she was dying, I took her hand and you know, my Mother wasn't somebody that touched you and she didn't hug you or. That just wasn't her way. Neither was it my grandmother's way. And I remember taking her hand and saying, you know, you did such an incredible job. You know, I love you and you can go. Because my brothers and I were. We're connected, we're tight, we're good. You did a great job, and I want you to know that. And you know, she died like 24 hours later. But as you know, she was really everything to me. And her voice was tough. Her voice was tough, but I know it was tough on her, too.
- [51:28]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah, now you know that.
- [51:30]
Maria Shriver
More than that. Now I know that I know how tough she was on herself.
- [51:33]
Oprah Winfrey
And for 10 years, your dad struggled with Alzheimer's. I just so appreciate the poem that you did for over a decade when you watched him descend into Alzheimer's. And you write about this in the piece called Deep Inside. Can you read that?
- [51:49]
Maria Shriver
Who knows what lurks within the unknowing, the knowing all are one. Who are you? He says, I'm Maria, your daughter. And the light within his eyes flashes, a smile crosses his face. Oh, wow. Says he, I always wanted a daughter named Maria. That's all true. You know, he'd be constantly saying to me, who are you? And I'd say, I'm your daughter, Maria. He's like, you're my daughter. I go, yeah, I'm your daughter. I'm Maria.
- [52:23]
Oprah Winfrey
What was that like for you to watch him to. Mind blowing, disappear like that?
- [52:28]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, mind blowing. I use that word. Sometimes people don't like that word associated with Alzheimer's because, you know, your brain is going. But it's a mind blowing disease, which is why I've really spent 20 plus years trying to find a cure for it, trying to educate people about it. I started nonprofits, I've done documentaries. I've done everything you can do to try to find a cure for Alzheimer's, to try to help other families going through it.
- [52:54]
Oprah Winfrey
So when you're with a person who I've never talked to anybody who I knew as well as I do you about a family member going through it, when they first start to not to know who you are, do you feel that they are still who they are?
- [53:13]
Maria Shriver
No. And that's. I think I learned from my children, you know, it was a struggle for me. And it's different for parents, you know, it's different for spouses. They have their own journey. That's what I've learned is that when you. Everybody in A family has a different journey with the person who has Alzheimer's, but you want them to be who they were, and you can't. You know, it was very hard for me to see my father, who was the smartest human being I had ever met, playing with puzzles that my 2 and 3 year olds were playing with. It just. I couldn't compute that. It just made no sense to me at all. And my kids were really helpful to me. They were like, just accept him for who he is. You know, he wants to play a puzzle, let him play a puzzle. If he wants to just sit there in the yard and not speak, just sit in the yard. And so that was really a challenge for me. It was a challenge for me to watch him become a different person. It was a challenge for me to watch him not be who he was. And I think for everybody who has a loved one going through Alzheimer's, it's a really challenging disease. It's incredibly expensive. It's spiritually draining, it's emotionally draining. It's exhausting. And it has yet to become kind of a national priority, which I've tried and many other people have tried to make it so. And the numbers are astounding, the amount of people that are getting it. And we know so much more about it today than we did when I was.
- [54:44]
Oprah Winfrey
And women, it's more prevalent than.
- [54:46]
Maria Shriver
Way more prevalent with women. And yet we have no research into women's brains or women's bodies or women's health journeys. And I'm trying to change that with my women's Alzheimer's movement, is to really try to understand, particularly what's happening in women's minds, brains at midlife.
- [55:03]
Oprah Winfrey
You write, though, in I Am Maria that you sometimes still struggle to be truly at peace with yourself.
- [55:13]
Maria Shriver
Yeah.
- [55:14]
Oprah Winfrey
Did writing I Am Maria bring you a sense of peace?
- [55:17]
Maria Shriver
Yes. I find myself many days being at peace. Right. But it's. And it's a total inside job. So some days I'm kinder to myself than others. Some days I feel better about myself. I don't feel, like, totally healed or I got to the mountaintop.
- [55:37]
Oprah Winfrey
You don't?
- [55:37]
Maria Shriver
No. On a given day, I can, but. And then, like, maybe two days later, I hear my mother's voice, like, move it along, let's go. What are you doing?
- [55:45]
Oprah Winfrey
I don't wanna hear you, buddy.
- [55:46]
Maria Shriver
I don't wanna hear you, you know? And so I think it's a balance. It's a balance of understanding what I want in my life, where I am in my life. I make time in my life now for going and having fun, going and looking at the leaves.
- [56:01]
Oprah Winfrey
Maria and I are strength training together at the same time.
- [56:04]
Maria Shriver
That's right. We looked at the leaves together. Those are things I wouldn't never have done when my mother was alive, because I would have been.
- [56:12]
Oprah Winfrey
Yes.
- [56:12]
Maria Shriver
Remember, I was scared to tell her, I'm doing nothing but looking at the leaves with Oprah. She would have been like, what?
- [56:19]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah. Remember that night somebody you were talking about, a friend who was gonna take a vacation.
- [56:24]
Maria Shriver
That's right.
- [56:25]
Oprah Winfrey
For themselves. And your father was like, whoever heard of such a thing?
- [56:28]
Maria Shriver
Yes. That's like.
- [56:30]
Oprah Winfrey
I didn't say I was doing it.
- [56:32]
Maria Shriver
I was, like, afraid. Right. So I feel, you know, that I'm now much kinder to myself. I'm kinder to other people. I'm more open with myself. I'm gentler with myself.
- [56:45]
Oprah Winfrey
Do you think you understand now? I ask this question often on this podcast. Do you think you understand now, have a greater understanding now of what it means to have a well lived life?
- [56:55]
Maria Shriver
Absolutely.
- [56:56]
Oprah Winfrey
Yeah.
- [56:56]
Maria Shriver
And I'm in it. I am in it 100%. And that's my goal. To be, as I say, in the open field. I call it a wildly authentic, deeply meaningful life.
- [57:07]
Oprah Winfrey
And I was just gonna say, you end with the piece titled the Open Feel, and you say, I'll meet you there.
- [57:13]
Maria Shriver
Yeah.
- [57:13]
Oprah Winfrey
And what I believe. Can you hand me the book, please? What I believe is that all of these beautiful stories you tell through your poetry are gonna open up the hearts of other people to see themselves.
- [57:26]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, I hope so. That's why I did it. I wrote it because I wanted people to know that their heartbreak does not define them, that they can survive, that they can heal, and that they can find their way home to themselves. That they can be a better, more evolved version of themselves. That they can look at their life kind of with a deep appreciation, all of it, everything that happened to them. That they can look at the people in their life with love, with acceptance, with, you know, this great appreciation. That's kind of where I find myself.
- [58:00]
Oprah Winfrey
And the open field is what it represents.
- [58:02]
Maria Shriver
Well, the open field for me represents, you know, it's a riff off of Roomy, you know, where. I'll meet you there. It. It means I'm out beyond shame. I'm out beyond the public square. I'm out beyond guilt. I'm out beyond fear. And I'm standing there with people who love me, who accept me, who love me for just being Maria. They don't love me for the family I came from for the job that I'm doing. They love me for me. And I'm standing there, I hope, with my children who have love in their lives, who have partners with them, with my friends, who have been there with me the whole way through on the hotel room floor, on the hotel room floor and up. And I'm there, and I'm like, wow, this was one hell of a life. This was one hell of a ride. And all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it, and all of it made me me today. And I feel more at home in myself today than I have ever felt in my entire life. I understand myself better. I love my parents at such a deep level. I love my brothers. I love my friends. I love my kids. I'm grateful for every step of the way. And I'm hopeful that I have more years to come where I'm gonna do things I've never done and have experiences I've never had.
- [59:23]
Oprah Winfrey
The fact that you. You have written a book of poetry, Maria.
- [59:26]
Maria Shriver
Yeah, I know. Could you believe it?
- [59:27]
Oprah Winfrey
This is something you have never done. I thank you. And I know that so many people are gonna find comfort. And I know you would appreciate this because you and I both love Mary Oliver.
- [59:36]
Maria Shriver
Yes.
- [59:36]
Oprah Winfrey
And I have Mary Oliver's poems, the Journey Devotion.
- [59:40]
Maria Shriver
Oh, yes.
- [59:41]
Oprah Winfrey
The Devotion book by my bedside. And now this will go by my bedside.
- [59:46]
Maria Shriver
Aw.
- [59:46]
Oprah Winfrey
Thank you, Anna Maria.
- [59:47]
Maria Shriver
You know that. Do you know that you sent me to go. I was the guest editor, I don't know if you remember this, for a month of poetry for a poetry edition of O magazine. Yes, I do.
- [60:00]
Oprah Winfrey
I do.
- [60:00]
Maria Shriver
And I went down. I had become friends with Mary Oliver, and I went for Oliver.
- [60:05]
Oprah Winfrey
You interviewed Mary Oliver?
- [60:06]
Maria Shriver
I interviewed Mary Oliver for the magazine down in Florida. And when I was first lady, I had been trying to get her to come to the women's conference. And she's like, I don't do that. I don't do that. Stop calling me. Stop bothering me. I said, but the Journey, the poem, the Journey, it changed my life. And it got me thinking. I could write poetry. Said, do your thing. I'm not coming for you. And I went to meet her. I went to listen to her, read her poetry. I went and introduced myself, and I said, you know, I'm your biggest fan. Please. And she's like, okay, I'll just stop with me already. Stop bothering me. And she came to the women's conference. She read the Journey. She goes, I'll read one poem for you. I said, please read the Journey because the journey changed my life. And it made me think, what do I want to do with my one wild and precious life? And I knew when I was on the floor of the hotel, my one wild, precious life was not ending there. My one wild and precious life was going to be in the open field. And so when I told her I was writing poetry and I read some of it to her, she said, you're going to publish a book of poems. Carry On. And Mary Oliver said that. Mary Oliver. So Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson. You know, I've got a lantern and I'm out there looking for myself. I'm like, yeah, me too, Emily. Me too. So those women really, with their words, poetry changed my life. Reading other women's poems and men's poems, too, changed my life. And I'm hoping that these poems will help people look within their own lives and will assure them that they have the strength that they need within to carry on.
- [61:43]
Oprah Winfrey
Maria, you've got Americans reading poetry. That is a very big deal.
- [61:47]
Maria Shriver
That's a big deal.
- [61:48]
Oprah Winfrey
That's a big deal. Maria's book is called I Am My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding youg Way home. It's available April 1st anywhere you buy books, and Maria reads the audio version. I thank you to Lily Direct for presenting today's episode, and I want to personally thank you all, our dear listeners for joining us here. Talk to you next week. I am Maria. Go. Well, everybody, you can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.