Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: No monologue today, but coming up an interview with Carrie Sheffield.
Speaker 2: Join us after the break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Carrie Sheffield. Carrie is author of Motor
Speaker 1: Home Prophecies, A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. So nice
Speaker 1: to have you on, Carrie.
Speaker 2: Hey, Carol, thank you so much for having me. Good
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 1: So your book has been compared to Vice President jd
Speaker 1: Vance's book, He'll Billy Elogy. He credits his grandmother for
Speaker 1: helping him overcome a difficult childhood not dissimilar from the
Speaker 1: one you describe in your book.
Speaker 2: To get to where he is today. Did you have
Speaker 2: someone similar help you? You know, Carol? Megan Kelly asked
Speaker 2: me that same question. And did I have a mamma?
Speaker 3: Because said at the convention that was a big theme
Speaker 3: for JB where he talked about the mamma with the
Speaker 3: gun and every drawer.
Speaker 2: I need to read his book.
Speaker 3: I didn't read it because I didn't want to be
Speaker 3: accused of plagiarism. But now that the book's long out
Speaker 3: and the cover of folks want to check it out
Speaker 3: let her prophecies. I need to read it. But from
Speaker 3: what I've gleaned and what I told Megan was sometimes there.
Speaker 2: Is no mamma, and.
Speaker 3: So in that respect, I've had to be my own mamma,
Speaker 3: and it's I have not done a good job at
Speaker 3: it at times since Donorry.
Speaker 1: Neither did Mema. Mema also did not do a good
Speaker 1: job at it at times, and he described that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think to have a figure in your
Speaker 3: life that is defending you and looking out for you,
Speaker 3: I just didn't have that. And so for people who
Speaker 3: are listening, you know, viewers in your show, but maybe
Speaker 3: you know a child in your life who maybe it's
Speaker 3: a distant niece or nephew or someone you know, just
Speaker 3: know that you could be that person for someone and
Speaker 3: maybe that's where God placed you. I think partially why
Speaker 3: it was a lot harder for us was because we
Speaker 3: were always moving and I ended up going to seventeen public.
Speaker 2: Schools and home school.
Speaker 3: So the name of the book is called Motor Home
Speaker 3: Prophecies because with my seven biological siblings, our mom all
Speaker 3: ten of us, our dad made us live in the
Speaker 3: motor home partially so that he could he could run
Speaker 3: away from authorities. One of the earliest memories I talked
Speaker 3: about in the book was child custody when I was
Speaker 3: about four years old or so, trying to take.
Speaker 2: Us away and taking us down to.
Speaker 3: Child Protection Services office and interviewing us. And we packed
Speaker 3: up and we high teled it. This that happened in Massachusetts,
Speaker 3: and we packed up and went to Utah to avoid,
Speaker 3: you know, scrutiny. And so the difference with is I
Speaker 3: understand it again, I need to read it. But with Dad,
Speaker 3: it seemed like he had more, at least a little
Speaker 3: bit to some degree. Different circumstances obviously, but but he
Speaker 3: at least was able to have a home, and in
Speaker 3: my case, we had sheds and tents and motor homes.
Speaker 3: And so I told Megan, I was like, he's a
Speaker 3: US at the time, he was a US senator, happily
Speaker 3: married with no kids, and like I'm forty one, not married,
Speaker 3: no kids, and I spent three days in a psych
Speaker 3: unit at age thirty six, and I don't think he did.
Speaker 3: So he's he's had much better life outcomes as an
Speaker 3: adult than I have.
Speaker 2: Right, what you know only so far, well, I mean.
Speaker 3: He's the second highest office in the land, so I
Speaker 3: think he's done pretty well for himself.
Speaker 2: So but again I'm not.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, I've learned all so since even
Speaker 3: the books come out, the more I was living in
Speaker 3: my victim story, the more I was keeping myself down,
Speaker 3: you know, And so clearly j D was able to
Speaker 3: get out of that victim story.
Speaker 2: And I think that's having a me MO can help
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have that, then you've got to
Speaker 3: be able to do that yourself. And again, this isn't
Speaker 3: about me wanting to wallow in that victim story so
Speaker 3: much as with the book and even talking about childhood
Speaker 3: trauma is to realize that for a lot of people
Speaker 3: struggling with things like addiction, I mean, we have the
Speaker 3: highest usaide rate ever and that's ever been recorded in
Speaker 3: the US history.
Speaker 2: Why why is that?
Speaker 3: And not something that I've wrestled with a lot since
Speaker 3: the books come out. And I think a big part
Speaker 3: of it is that myself and a lot of us,
Speaker 3: we don't realize the impact of childhood trauma. Again, not
Speaker 3: as Abigail Schier would say, it's not about getting trapped
Speaker 3: in bad therapy it's not a hou getting trapped.
Speaker 2: In what I say.
Speaker 3: It's the question is do when I'm going to therapy,
Speaker 3: do I want redemption or do I want rumination? And
Speaker 3: I think the way that our mental health industry has
Speaker 3: been taken over by the left, it's become a rumination.
Speaker 2: Industry where it's just.
Speaker 3: A hamster will. And that's what addiction is. That's what
Speaker 3: alcoholism is, drug addiction. In my case, you know, repeated traumas,
Speaker 3: I just get stuck in that hamster will.
Speaker 2: And so therapy can do that if it's bad therapy.
Speaker 3: And so I like to say, if there was a
Speaker 3: title for my book, I wanted to be good therapy
Speaker 3: because I support therapy. But I think that so much
Speaker 3: like for example, more than two thirds of therapists self
Speaker 3: identify as atheists or agnostic of course, right, and yet
Speaker 3: eighty percent of Americans say they believe in God. So
Speaker 3: there's this huge gap. And there's a researcher who is
Speaker 3: about Jewish. He's fantastic. He's at Harvard Medical School. I
Speaker 3: pray to God, they don't try to, can't. But his
Speaker 3: name's David Rossmartin. And he's found, for example, that seventy
Speaker 3: three percent of mental health care patients say I want
Speaker 3: mental health care integrated into my mental health care, and
Speaker 3: yet seventy one percent of therapists say, I have little
Speaker 3: to no training and how to do that when.
Speaker 1: I integrate what into their mental health care?
Speaker 2: Faith? Like faith?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and because there's a lot of evidence to show,
Speaker 3: even just like with an MRI, that people who believe
Speaker 3: in faith and believe in God and engage in regular
Speaker 3: faith practice, prayer, religious community, they do better. They do
Speaker 3: so much better, and yet our mental health industry does
Speaker 3: not promote this at all.
Speaker 2: So just all I have to say is the book
Speaker 2: is about.
Speaker 3: Good therapy and how I eventually, despite our mental health
Speaker 3: care system, learned that I needed to integrate faith into
Speaker 3: my mental health care. And that's really helped me to stabilize,
Speaker 3: and it's really helped me to overcome a lot of
Speaker 3: my inner self sabotage.
Speaker 1: What made you have to write motor home prophecies? Why
Speaker 1: do you need to tell your story?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I wrote this story. Well, it's interesting. I
Speaker 3: call this version.
Speaker 2: My Paul book.
Speaker 3: For those who are Christian, they'll know the story of
Speaker 3: Paul the Apostle versus Saul. So he had the given
Speaker 3: name Saul. So my first edition of the book before
Speaker 3: it came out, my first iteration was I called that
Speaker 3: my soul book, pre conversion book, and that I started.
Speaker 2: That way back in twenty eleven.
Speaker 3: Goal for that book was going to be my secular
Speaker 3: conservative manifesto and it was going to be my call
Speaker 3: for conservatism to be more embracing of atheists and agnostics.
Speaker 1: Interesting to because things have changed, yeah they have.
Speaker 2: And so that's the book.
Speaker 3: So just to take a step back, the book is
Speaker 3: about my father.
Speaker 2: The reason he had.
Speaker 3: Us live this way is because he claimed to be
Speaker 3: a Mormon prophet, hence the name Motor Home Prophecies, and
Speaker 3: he claimed that he would be president someday, and he
Speaker 3: made us travel around the country playing music on street
Speaker 3: corners and passing out brochures and try to convert them
Speaker 3: to be more people to be Mormon. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: so far fetched that he could run for office because
Speaker 3: his father had been the Republican whip in the Utah legislature.
Speaker 3: So it's in my grandfather's obituary that if you turn
Speaker 3: right at a red light, that's legal because the law of.
Speaker 2: My grandpa wrote.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: One of my favorites.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so if you're in Utah and you turn
Speaker 3: right a red light, you can thank grab a Sheffield.
Speaker 3: And so he was a successful lawmaker, my grandfather, and
Speaker 3: chairman of the Zoning and Planning Commission of Salt Lake
Speaker 3: City for a long time. So he helped to find
Speaker 3: those design those beautiful streets. And the idea of having
Speaker 3: my father be running for office is not too far fetched.
Speaker 2: I try to be as fared my dad as possible.
Speaker 3: But unfortunately, my father was sexually molested by a Mormon
Speaker 3: babysitter when he was young. And as I looked into
Speaker 3: the research, children who suffer sexual assault are multiple times
Speaker 3: more likely to commit suicide as an adult. And he
Speaker 3: said that that attack made him feel suicidal as an adult,
Speaker 3: and it's pushed him over the edge. You know, childhood
Speaker 3: trauma affects you much more. The effects of trauma as
Speaker 3: a child are much more profound than on adults. And
Speaker 3: then and unfortunately, if that's not treated, then it gets
Speaker 3: passed down through generations. And that's what he did to
Speaker 3: my siblings and I to the point where four of
Speaker 3: my siblings have attempted suicide and I was suicidal, and
Speaker 3: so it's it's very unfortunate that these intergenerational curses continue.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: I and he put a curse on me in the
Speaker 3: name of Jesus if I left the cult, if I
Speaker 3: left the motor home. I have two Schitzophanic brothers now,
Speaker 3: who were healthy boys, and the older one tried to
Speaker 3: rape me. He groped me when I was seventeen, and
Speaker 3: when I was eighteen, I finally said I wanted to leave.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to college.
Speaker 3: And so my father raised his right hand like he
Speaker 3: was making an oath, and he said, I prophesy in
Speaker 3: the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2: You'll be raped and murdered if you leave.
Speaker 3: And to have someone put a curse on you in
Speaker 3: the name of Jesus can understand why I didn't like
Speaker 3: Jesus for a long time.
Speaker 2: And so that was the place where I started to
Speaker 2: write the book. Was this place of anger toward organized religion,
Speaker 2: toward God.
Speaker 3: The idea of a loving father seemed so ridiculous, and
Speaker 3: you know, I figured if there was a God because
Speaker 3: I was agnostic, I was never apeist, which is you know,
Speaker 3: I call it a fence sitter that you shoulder your
Speaker 3: shoulder shrugging, You're like, I don't know, right.
Speaker 2: But if there is one.
Speaker 3: He seemed like he was a jerk and I so,
Speaker 3: and that he hated me and I hated him back.
Speaker 2: So that's where I was when I started to write
Speaker 2: the book.
Speaker 3: And then around that time I also had that I
Speaker 3: had a different book agent. I have Jonathan Brendanski. Now
Speaker 3: I know you know Jonathan, but uh so my previous agent.
Speaker 3: He and I decided, because they had also had an
Speaker 3: idea to start at a media company, a TV a
Speaker 3: digital TV network, and we both decided, let's do the
Speaker 3: media company first, and then we can use that as
Speaker 3: a launch pad to get more attention and support for
Speaker 3: the book after. And so I figuratively put that book
Speaker 3: on the shelf. And in that period I became a
Speaker 3: Christian and.
Speaker 2: The thesis a little bit whle premise.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then the working title of that soul book was
Speaker 3: The Heathen next Door How I left religion and found Joy.
Speaker 2: Wow, and yeah, totally different.
Speaker 3: And so so now it's that convert it's the conversion
Speaker 3: story of my journey out of agnosticism. I first had
Speaker 3: to just in general believe in God. That was a journey.
Speaker 3: And then and then specifically going to Christianity was another
Speaker 3: part of the journey. So so now I wrote the
Speaker 3: book with the goal of speaking to people who both
Speaker 3: have maybe people have gone through abuse or trauma, and
Speaker 3: then also for people who are thinking about religious faith
Speaker 3: or faith or exploration. I get into some of the
Speaker 3: metaphysics and lay lay person.
Speaker 2: But metaphysics was a.
Speaker 3: Big reason why I started believing God the more I
Speaker 3: researched it. It's just the probabilities of creation and the
Speaker 3: earth being the way it is to be random.
Speaker 2: It actually takes more faith to be an atheist.
Speaker 3: So I wrote that book to really share my my
Speaker 3: my reasons for believing in God. And it's a totally
Speaker 3: different book, but ultimately the goal is freedom, freedom from pain,
Speaker 3: form from trauma, freedom from depression, freedom from doubt, freedom
Speaker 3: from living in darkness, because ultimately that's what I think
Speaker 3: the truth, you know, like the Bible says, you should
Speaker 3: know the truth.
Speaker 2: The truth will set you free. I believe there's I
Speaker 2: do believe there is a God.
Speaker 3: Now, the fact that he allows evil and darkness to
Speaker 3: occur does not mean that he endorses it, and I
Speaker 3: do believe that he will make all things right. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a real twist in your story. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and be right back on
Speaker 1: the Carol Marcowitch Show. So you've been through so much
Speaker 1: in your life. What advice would you give your sixteen
Speaker 1: year old self? What would you want her to know?
Speaker 3: There's so much run away from my brother, to not
Speaker 3: go near him that way, you can't attack me. But
Speaker 3: when I was seventeen, but now, I think the biggest
Speaker 3: one would be don't walk away from God. Don't give
Speaker 3: up on God. Because I was agnostic for about twelve
Speaker 3: years and I call that my walk in darkness. And
Speaker 3: I think a lot of young people are going through
Speaker 3: that right now. And what's been interesting, disease gen Z
Speaker 3: is actually swinging back. I saw a piece that said
Speaker 3: that actually gen Z is more likely to believe in
Speaker 3: God than their parents, which is fascinating, and so that
Speaker 3: gives me hope. But I think because our culture, you know,
Speaker 3: Hollywood media, academia, has been taken over by this radical ideology,
Speaker 3: Marxist atheism that wants.
Speaker 2: To destroy Judeo Christian values.
Speaker 4: I understood that for a while because I was so
Speaker 4: abused by a man who claimed Judeo Christian values and
Speaker 4: so that was part of why I had a hard
Speaker 4: time disaggregating the abuse from the philosophy or the sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I.
Speaker 3: Would say, don't don't, don't be confused, Like, don't be
Speaker 3: confused that this one person, what he did to you,
Speaker 3: is not illustraed of the broader values, because he would
Speaker 3: he would go and preach pro America values on the
Speaker 3: street corners while passing out the brossures.
Speaker 2: And so in my head I have this sort of
Speaker 2: like deep hostility that.
Speaker 3: Was kind of latently trapped in there because I had
Speaker 3: been abused by him. And so I think for a
Speaker 3: lot of these students that we see on campuses, a
Speaker 3: lot of them see, and I say this over and
Speaker 3: over in the book, that God is not religion. And
Speaker 3: so if they're seeing, you know, pedophilia and the Catholic Church,
Speaker 3: or a priest or, a pastor stealing money or abusing women.
Speaker 2: That's not God.
Speaker 3: And it's sometimes it's easy to be confusing that. So
Speaker 3: that's what I would tell sixteen year old Carrie, don't
Speaker 3: confuse God with religion.
Speaker 2: They're not the same thing.
Speaker 3: Religion is at best an institution that will point you
Speaker 3: to God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exactly. Yeah, it's a tool.
Speaker 3: But yeah, don't confuse God with religion, I would tell her,
Speaker 3: And don't walk away from God.
Speaker 1: You went to Harvard on a full scholarship, you worked
Speaker 1: on Wall Street, you have this amazing book. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like you've made it? And are you surprised? If
Speaker 1: you think yes, are you surprised that you have?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 3: Well, like I said, it's like the last long term
Speaker 3: boyfriend I had was cheating on me with multiple women.
Speaker 3: And it's like, to me, success is not just the resume,
Speaker 3: it's the personal as well. And so in that respect, no,
Speaker 3: I'm a failure, Like I want to have kids in
Speaker 3: the personal life, you know. But what I realized recently
Speaker 3: since figuring out why do I keep? And I have
Speaker 3: a chapter in the book called the Queen of Lonely Hearts?
Speaker 3: So just it was the same man but with different names,
Speaker 3: over and over and over and over again. You know,
Speaker 3: a man who was a drug addict behind my back,
Speaker 3: a man who was an alcoholic behind my back, a
Speaker 3: man who verbally abused me, a man who emotionally abused me.
Speaker 3: It's like, while I'm successful in my career, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm doing all these things.
Speaker 2: Externally that are really successful.
Speaker 3: Then I come home and then I just get you know,
Speaker 3: emotionally abused and cheated on.
Speaker 2: So it's just like, why do I keep doing this?
Speaker 2: You know you've had some trauma.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're right that it does seep into
Speaker 1: other parts of your life and it's hard to get over.
Speaker 1: It's not like you just walk away from that. You know,
Speaker 1: the things you went through as a child and grow
Speaker 1: into a completely functional adult.
Speaker 2: It's hard for.
Speaker 1: Anyone, really, and I think you've been through a.
Speaker 2: Lot, go a little easier on yourself.
Speaker 3: Well, what I've realized recently, even actually since the book's
Speaker 3: gone out, I went through this amazing program and I've
Speaker 3: posted on social about it a few times.
Speaker 2: It's called the Atlas Project.
Speaker 3: They're based in Las Vegas and Austin, So I did
Speaker 3: it in Austin, and I realized why I kept dating
Speaker 3: these types of men. And I would say men would
Speaker 3: have the same traumatized men would do the same, similar things.
Speaker 3: So it's not I'm not picking on one gender. It's
Speaker 3: about the childhood trauma effect. So I realized going through
Speaker 3: this program that because I had fundamentally not accepted my
Speaker 3: own worthiness. That I was encouraging and attracting and staying
Speaker 3: with men who felt the same way.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, because they.
Speaker 3: Themselves felt the same way about themselves too, Because that's
Speaker 3: ultimately what addiction is, you know, drug. Because I've never
Speaker 3: had substance to these addiction problems, thank God, Like I've
Speaker 3: never so I never understood, like, what's.
Speaker 2: Wrong with me? Why do I keep like attracting these addicts?
Speaker 2: Like what am I addicted to?
Speaker 3: And it's but it's the same brain patterns of.
Speaker 2: A trauma victim, the similar behaviors.
Speaker 3: It comes down to self loathing or self hatred, and
Speaker 3: so that's what addiction is. And so working through all that,
Speaker 3: I realized the book really is more about the father wound,
Speaker 3: as they say, and I realized I had not really
Speaker 3: worked through the mother wound. And the mother wound was
Speaker 3: that my mother chose to see with my father, and
Speaker 3: who is a lot like these men. They're different but
Speaker 3: in the same outcome, you know. And so she's been
Speaker 3: with him for almost fifty years, and so that pattern
Speaker 3: it gets imprinted, that done, Yeah, it gets imprinted on
Speaker 3: the child. And so subconsciously that's what I was attracted to.
Speaker 3: And so to just be aware of it is half
Speaker 3: the battle. So I'm like, thank God for this program
Speaker 3: because I'm like, I will, I will not allow this anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm much more sensitive to the red flags because before
Speaker 3: it was just you know, begging this person to love
Speaker 3: me when they didn't deserve it at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I love that you've like discovered all these things
Speaker 1: about yourself and I believe in you. I think you're
Speaker 1: going to be okay. And this is, you know, a
Speaker 1: difficult road you've been on, but you have always seemed
Speaker 1: to be someone looking for the right path and it
Speaker 1: does seem like you're on it.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well, if you know a great guy, I will definitely
Speaker 3: get you a husband.
Speaker 1: What do you worry about?
Speaker 2: So, I mean there's a lot, there's.
Speaker 3: If anything, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, which
Speaker 3: is like worrying too much. But working through that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's I and my faith also has helped to really
Speaker 3: temper that.
Speaker 2: My faith gives me the belief that.
Speaker 3: Whatever are going through on this planet, God, God is
Speaker 3: sovereign at the end of the day, and so in
Speaker 3: that respect, I don't worry about anything.
Speaker 2: But that's very abstract. Okay, we accept abstract here.
Speaker 3: So I think though, like on a day to day though,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm worried about China overtaking us in the
Speaker 3: AI race.
Speaker 2: I'm worried about.
Speaker 3: Marxist ideology overtaking our major institutions. And as Ronald Reagan said,
Speaker 3: freedom is never one uh you know, just one generation
Speaker 3: away from perishing, and it's up to us to claim it.
Speaker 3: And so I worry about that. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: I do feel excited about what's happening in our country
Speaker 3: right now. I feel like truth is having a fabulous
Speaker 3: showing and that people are are being red pilled, and
Speaker 3: the fact that we're having I think it's a cultural
Speaker 3: watershed moment to me is wonderful and so that gives
Speaker 3: me a lot of hope.
Speaker 1: I love it, a lot of optimism there. So this
Speaker 1: has been an amazing conversation. You're you're so vulnerable and honest.
Speaker 1: It's really like it's almost surprising. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: feel like people open up like this, And I think
Speaker 1: everyone should go get your book, Motor Home Prophecies. It's
Speaker 1: it's a really wonderful book, and us here with your
Speaker 1: best tip for my listeners. On how they can improve
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, I would say, go to God. That's
Speaker 3: that's the you know God.
Speaker 2: The Bible says God is love, and.
Speaker 3: I think as our society turns away from God, we
Speaker 3: turn away from love. That's really when I was agnostic
Speaker 3: that I always thought that was a little sneaky of
Speaker 3: like the Bible says God is love.
Speaker 2: I believe in love.
Speaker 3: So by the transit of property, you're saying I believe
Speaker 3: in God, I think that's sneaky.
Speaker 2: But like, yeah, got us. The fact that our.
Speaker 3: Countries, you know, our motto is in God we trust,
Speaker 3: is so unique within the human experience because before it's
Speaker 3: like in a king, we trust in weaponry, we trust
Speaker 3: in science, we trust whatever. It's like whatever these things
Speaker 3: they will all fail except God. God never fails. And
Speaker 3: so whatever you're dealing with, go to God. And for me,
Speaker 3: as a Christian, I have my specific practices of how
Speaker 3: I think about God.
Speaker 2: And we're pluralistic society.
Speaker 3: I know we have a lot of Jewish people in
Speaker 3: the Conservative movement, but any faith, I you know, I
Speaker 3: believe that Christ is the way, the truth in the life.
Speaker 2: But to experience God is first and foremost I think
Speaker 2: through prayer.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting, I can't believe that this is not
Speaker 3: better expressed by marriage therapists. But if couples pray together daily,
Speaker 3: they only have a one percent divorce rate.
Speaker 2: So it's individual prayer, community prayer, family prayer.
Speaker 3: I just think that is the best place to start,
Speaker 3: and there are lots of things you can go from there.
Speaker 1: I love it. She is Carrie Sheffield. Her book is
Speaker 1: motor Home Prophecies and Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming.
Speaker 2: On, Carrie.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Carol, thanks so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: the Carol Markood Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.