Speaker 1: We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
Speaker 1: on the house, and I was rising to the moment
Speaker 1: like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
Speaker 1: the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, and
Speaker 1: the simplest things like getting out of bed, opening up bills,
Speaker 1: asking for help. I couldn't make myself do any of it.
Speaker 1: And the very next morning, when the alarm rang, That's
Speaker 1: what I remembered, and I tried it, and it changed
Speaker 1: my life, and it led to this belief that your
Speaker 1: one decision away from a different life.
Speaker 2: That was Mel Robbins sharing what it looks like to
Speaker 2: hit rock bottom and the extraordinary power of taking one
Speaker 2: small step forward. In this special episode of My Legacy,
Speaker 2: we're diving into the raw, unfiltered truth about what it
Speaker 2: means to fail forward. Hosts Martin Luther King the Third,
Speaker 2: Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kielberger, and Craig Urger bring together
Speaker 2: the most powerful stories from past guests, moments where failure
Speaker 2: didn't break them, it built them. Comedian and Emmy Winner
Speaker 2: writer Larry Wilmore on getting fired teaching him what breaks
Speaker 2: you can remake you, and Sarah Jakes Roberts on how
Speaker 2: healing isn't a dramatic Hollywood moment, it's small, intentional steps.
Speaker 2: But first, Mel Robbins on how to take that first
Speaker 2: step when your life is spiraling out of control.
Speaker 3: Meil, your career is rooted in reinvention and in resilience.
Speaker 3: You've also shared that you hit rock bottom and that
Speaker 3: was your catalyst for change. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1: You know, Sawyer was very gracious and uh talking about
Speaker 1: the good things. There were a lot of bad things,
Speaker 1: and we have had a lot of I would call
Speaker 1: it like invisible distance in our relationship. You know how
Speaker 1: when you have somebody that you love very deeply and
Speaker 1: you just wish that you could be closer, You wish
Speaker 1: you could have more fun, you wish it just sort
Speaker 1: of was more of a well oiled machine and nuts like.
Speaker 1: And I screwed up a lot of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: I had ADHD in dyslexia and was not diagnosed till
Speaker 1: I was forty seven. And when that happens to you,
Speaker 1: what you develop is anxiety. And so I had a
Speaker 1: chronic struggle with anxiety as a young mom. When Sawyer
Speaker 1: was born, I had severe postpartum depression. I could barely
Speaker 1: even hold her for the first three months of her
Speaker 1: life because of the medication and the severity of what
Speaker 1: I was dealing with, and it impacted our relationship. And
Speaker 1: when I was forty one years old, I was sitting
Speaker 1: here listening to Sawyer talking about the radio show, and
Speaker 1: I'm so thrilled that she has a wonderful memory of it,
Speaker 1: because that was during a moment in time where my
Speaker 1: life was falling apart. And when that happens to you
Speaker 1: as a you do everything that you can to try
Speaker 1: to shield the reality of what's happening from your children,
Speaker 1: because that's not their burden to carry. And what was
Speaker 1: happening for us is my husband had gone into the
Speaker 1: restaurant business and it was really good until it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And at the age of forty one with three kids
Speaker 1: under the age of ten, so you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to do the math you were under ten years old.
Speaker 1: We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
Speaker 1: on the house, and I was rising to the moment
Speaker 1: like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
Speaker 1: the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, right
Speaker 1: because he tried to do this and the simplest things
Speaker 1: like getting out of bed, opening up bills, asking for help.
Speaker 1: I couldn't make myself do any of it, and I
Speaker 1: was the worst parent. I mean there were times where
Speaker 1: she would come downstairs and this, I know you do
Speaker 1: remember she would find Chris and I a sleep in
Speaker 1: the living room chair because we had passed out from bourbon,
Speaker 1: because we were trying to just suppress all the fear
Speaker 1: because it was just so overwhelming. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: can barely put gas in the tank and food on
Speaker 1: the table, I mean, that's acute level of stress. And
Speaker 1: then you add on to it the sense that you're
Speaker 1: failing your kids and you're about to lose everything. And
Speaker 1: so for me, it was paralysis. And what happened is,
Speaker 1: you know, I have learned from people who are first
Speaker 1: murdered that researched this. There's a saying in addiction treatment
Speaker 1: and psychiatry that people only get sober when being drunk
Speaker 1: is harder than facing the things that you're scared to face.
Speaker 1: And what I've also learned about myself and human beings
Speaker 1: in general, is people only change when they're ready to change.
Speaker 1: And if somebody your life is not changing or they're
Speaker 1: exhibiting challenging behavior, it's typically because they can't right now.
Speaker 1: There's some skill that's missing. There's hope that's missing, and
Speaker 1: for me, that was a big one. What was missing
Speaker 1: for me is this hope that anything that I did
Speaker 1: would actually matter. Because when your problems feel that big, like,
Speaker 1: what happens is despair sets in and it's very hard
Speaker 1: to motivate yourself when you feel like it's not going
Speaker 1: to matter anyway. And that's how I felt. Because what
Speaker 1: happened for me is that alarm would go off and
Speaker 1: I'd feel the wave of anxiety because I'm eight hundred
Speaker 1: grand in debt. I'm basically like feel like my life
Speaker 1: is about to implode. And so what do I do.
Speaker 1: I rot in bed, I stare at the ceiling, I
Speaker 1: think about all my problems. I then hit the snooze button, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is making procrastination the first decision of
Speaker 1: your day. I mean, I mean, how are you going
Speaker 1: to win in life if your first decision is I
Speaker 1: think I'll just avoid getting out of bed. And what
Speaker 1: happened is I would literally hit the snooze button four
Speaker 1: or five times in the morning, and then these guys
Speaker 1: would miss a bus. You probably don't remember this, but
Speaker 1: then I would thank God, and then I would come
Speaker 1: racing out of the bedroom like a lunatic because they
Speaker 1: would be waking me up. Bus would be gone. Chris
Speaker 1: was a very smart man. He didn't want to be
Speaker 1: there when I woke up. I mean, Martin right, and
Speaker 1: so smart, and so you know, he didn't want to
Speaker 1: be there when I got up, and so they would
Speaker 1: be waking me up. And so now I'm yelling at
Speaker 1: them because I am disconnected from here because I don't
Speaker 1: understand what anxiety actually is and what it isn't and
Speaker 1: I couldn't reconnect with myself and that's also part of
Speaker 1: the neurology and the physiology of it, but you can
Speaker 1: reconnect to yourself. And so they would then miss a bus.
Speaker 1: Then that's just sent my whole day just down a
Speaker 1: complete wrong way. And so what happened is I just
Speaker 1: got this idea that maybe if I moved fast enough
Speaker 1: when the alarm rang, that I could move fast enough
Speaker 1: and beat the anxiety. That maybe if the alarm rang
Speaker 1: and I launched myself out of bed like a rocket ship,
Speaker 1: like literally like NASA five four three two one, that
Speaker 1: if I launched myself, maybe I wouldn't be in that
Speaker 1: bed when the anxiety and the depression and the overwhelm hit.
Speaker 1: And it worked, and what it taught me, and this
Speaker 1: has been the thing that has really defined a lot
Speaker 1: of my career, is that you can build a skill
Speaker 1: in life where you learn to not let your emotions
Speaker 1: and fears about things dictate what you do. That you
Speaker 1: are not defined by how you feel. You are not
Speaker 1: defined by your emotion in the moment. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you really think about it, you can't be courageous without fear.
Speaker 1: You can't display confidence without self doubt.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I say to our daughter
Speaker 4: all the time is that courage is not the absence
Speaker 4: of fear.
Speaker 2: It's when you do it anyway.
Speaker 4: Yes, so it's not not feeling when we were talking
Speaker 4: about our grandparents, so we're talking about taking a test,
Speaker 4: you know, like it's not Lelanda not feeling it. That
Speaker 4: that's not courage. It's when we feel it and we
Speaker 4: do it anyway. I'm curious, what was the what was
Speaker 4: that impetus to make you even say to come up
Speaker 4: with the.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, okay, this is so So it's like Okay.
Speaker 1: So I was sitting in my living room and the
Speaker 1: kids have gone to bed, and Chris again, smart man,
Speaker 1: know where to be found.
Speaker 5: And uh, have.
Speaker 1: You ever had a moment where you're giving yourself a
Speaker 1: pep talk? I mean, that is a low moment. It's
Speaker 1: one thing if you're giving me advice, but if you're
Speaker 1: having to talk to yourself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there, I'm like, all right, that's it, mel.
Speaker 5: Tomorrow morning, it's a new you. Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: You're calling your parents and you're telling them what's happened.
Speaker 5: Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: You're gonna start exercising.
Speaker 5: Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1: You gotta look for a job. Oh well, I keep
Speaker 1: ticking off the list and then I get to and
Speaker 1: by God, tomorrow morning, when that alarm rings, woman, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna lay there in bed like a human pot roast,
Speaker 1: marinating in fear. You are going to get up and
Speaker 1: get those kids on that bus. And at that exact moment,
Speaker 1: a rocket ship shot across the television screen at the
Speaker 1: end of a commercial, and it gave me this hair
Speaker 1: brain idea. That's it. It must be a sign from God.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, I'm just gonna launch
Speaker 1: myself out of bed like a rocket ship. Now I
Speaker 1: had had four Bourbon Manhattan that night, probably you know
Speaker 1: what also opened me up to it. But I actually
Speaker 1: do believe it was divine intervention. There is no other
Speaker 1: explanation because the eye idea is absurd. And the very
Speaker 1: next morning, when the alarm rang, that's what I remembered,
Speaker 1: and I tried it, and it changed my life, and
Speaker 1: it led to this belief that your one decision away
Speaker 1: from a different life, that you still have to do
Speaker 1: the work and five four three two one is going
Speaker 1: to help you push through.
Speaker 3: The work came out. We all know five four three
Speaker 3: two one, right, the world, Yeah, the detective read the book.
Speaker 3: We all love it. I actually want to turn it
Speaker 3: to you, so it okay. So when those moments happened
Speaker 3: that the world now knows that story. Was there a
Speaker 3: moment that you saw your mom in that transformation and
Speaker 3: you said I want that strength in my life.
Speaker 6: A single moment. Probably not, I feel like I don't
Speaker 6: remember necessarily a single moment that was like I want
Speaker 6: I want that strength. I want to be as smart,
Speaker 6: as brilliant, as confident as her and just so loved.
Speaker 6: But I think it was honestly the little things that
Speaker 6: added up. I think it was the I think it
Speaker 6: was truly like all the small interactions, and I think
Speaker 6: overhearing her on meetings and just like all of you
Speaker 6: have said, like she's just brilliant and as are you. Oh,
Speaker 6: thank you.
Speaker 3: And did you notice that transformation, that moment that she
Speaker 3: described from the anxiety, the stress, the to that change.
Speaker 3: But candidly like and partially I even love the fact
Speaker 3: that there wasn't a moment, because I even not only
Speaker 3: changed my question because I think we so often envision
Speaker 3: change being dramatic, the heroine arising, the melodramatic music in
Speaker 3: the Hollywood moment, and instead maybe it was to your
Speaker 3: point of series of small things and that's where the
Speaker 3: puff found changes because it adds up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think. I mean, I've always looked up to
Speaker 6: her more than anyone in the world, and I think
Speaker 6: it was hard because she was always gone in high
Speaker 6: school and so I didn't really know what she was doing.
Speaker 6: I've seen one or two times of her speaking, and
Speaker 6: during those times, I was like, Wow, that's my mother
Speaker 6: up there and seeing in her element, which was incredible.
Speaker 1: Let me, you can address two things here because I
Speaker 1: don't think changing your life is glamorous, and I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody notices when you do it right. I think
Speaker 1: it's a grueling process. And Chris and I protected our
Speaker 1: kids as best we could because I remember the morning
Speaker 1: they found us when we had passed out in the chairs,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I can't expose them to this. I
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to at least pull it together for.
Speaker 5: Them, and.
Speaker 1: Sawyer is painting the story with a beautiful brush. And
Speaker 1: it also created a lot of heartbreak for us, because
Speaker 1: ultimately my husband left the restaurant business and was a
Speaker 1: full time stay at home dad, and I was off
Speaker 1: on the road saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to
Speaker 1: everything I could because I was the breadwinner. And we
Speaker 1: went through so many things in our marriage because I
Speaker 1: resented the fact that I was in that position, and
Speaker 1: I was mad that I was on the road all
Speaker 1: the time, and I was scared about our finances. And
Speaker 1: I also feel like our marriage is ours, it's not
Speaker 1: their business. And so I'm happy to hear that we
Speaker 1: insulated them from a lot of it, But the truth
Speaker 1: is me not being there created a lot of distance,
Speaker 1: and this is a huge issue inside of relationships between
Speaker 1: parents and children, the tension between admiring somebody, and also
Speaker 1: the mismatch of what I'm providing versus what she needs.
Speaker 1: And I did not provide what she needed. I had
Speaker 1: certain examples that I gave about hard work, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't there, and when I was there, I wasn't present
Speaker 1: like a lot of parents that are working, or if
Speaker 1: you're a single parent and you're stressed out all the time,
Speaker 1: the your kids are the only people that are going
Speaker 1: to remember that you worked. No one else is going to.
Speaker 1: And I very much regret the amount of time that
Speaker 1: I stayed on the road because there came a point
Speaker 1: in time where I was making enough money and we
Speaker 1: were being super responsible and shoving a lot of it
Speaker 1: back into savings, and so we were back in a
Speaker 1: safe territory financially that I could have started to have
Speaker 1: better boundaries with work, and I didn't, And it did
Speaker 1: create a real distance between us because I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: and I didn't do a good job because I was
Speaker 1: constantly onage, constantly stressed. And there's this thing I've learned
Speaker 1: recently that I wish we had all known, because I
Speaker 1: would always blame my bad behavior or my bad mood
Speaker 1: on work, and that's not an excuse. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I've learned recently that I wish they
Speaker 1: would always be, like, don't use that tone with me,
Speaker 1: or like just because it happened at work, don't bring
Speaker 1: it here. But there's a great way to say this
Speaker 1: to somebody, which is I'm really sorry about what your
Speaker 1: stress at work did to you, but you're going to
Speaker 1: have to apologize for how your work stress is impacting me.
Speaker 1: And I was chief offender in that regard of taking
Speaker 1: my stress out of my family. Why because I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the tools yet. I just knew how
Speaker 1: to push myself five four three two one five four
Speaker 1: three two one.
Speaker 2: Up next the hilarious Larry Wilmore and how he didn't
Speaker 2: let failure in the story, he let it help him
Speaker 2: rewrite it.
Speaker 4: Now back to my legacy, Laria.
Speaker 7: You've certainly had many ups and downs in your career,
Speaker 7: for sure. Often the most important lessons that we learn
Speaker 7: come from our challenging times. Can you share what has
Speaker 7: been your most challenging experience and what has been emerged
Speaker 7: from that experience.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've had many of them, many times people think
Speaker 8: your career is just this line that goes like that,
Speaker 8: but it really isn't. Some of my biggest ones was
Speaker 8: I was fired from the Bernie mac Show after I
Speaker 8: won every word you could possibly win, and I was
Speaker 8: in a fight with the network the whole time, and
Speaker 8: it was just one of my lowest points, and you know,
Speaker 8: I was you know, my personal life wasn't going to
Speaker 8: well at the time too. You know, we're trying to
Speaker 8: my wife and I were trying to figure out what
Speaker 8: was going on, and I just felt so isolated and
Speaker 8: just really really down. But I just relied on just
Speaker 8: doing the basics. You know. We spent a lot of
Speaker 8: time at that point. You know, Laren doesn't know about
Speaker 8: a lot of these things, but we just worked on
Speaker 8: our marriage for a long time, and doing the work
Speaker 8: of that just really helped, you know, we just it
Speaker 8: gets you out of the thinking about bad things, you know,
Speaker 8: and remembering why I liked the business and going forward.
Speaker 8: Getting fired from the Burner Max Show actually opened the
Speaker 8: door to me working on the office, to me being
Speaker 8: on the Daily show, to me expanding the things that
Speaker 8: I wanted to do all along. But you know, I
Speaker 8: didn't I was going down that road, and it was
Speaker 8: very instrumental for me to be to feel so low emotionally,
Speaker 8: but to know that I had love around me. You know,
Speaker 8: I had support, guys you have. It was amazing the
Speaker 8: outpouring of love of support just from show biz, from luminaries,
Speaker 8: people like James L. Brooks. I remember Stephen Boschko reached
Speaker 8: out to me people I didn't even know, saying it's okay, Larry,
Speaker 8: We're with you, hanging in there.
Speaker 5: You're great.
Speaker 8: You know, the work you're doing is great, let alone
Speaker 8: from friends. But the most important thing was family. And
Speaker 8: even when my wife and I split, when we were
Speaker 8: talking to the kids, we both understood how lucky we
Speaker 8: were to have a family that had love first, you know.
Speaker 8: And you know, even though you could be going through
Speaker 8: difficult times making difficult decisions, if you start there, you
Speaker 8: can make you'll be okay in the end. You know,
Speaker 8: that's always been my lifeboat. His family. Family's always the lifeboat,
Speaker 8: you know, And all the other stuff.
Speaker 4: Is around that now, Larry, I know that it's hard
Speaker 4: to select just one project that you would be most
Speaker 4: proud of outside of your beautiful children, But is there
Speaker 4: one that you felt particularly was significant because of how
Speaker 4: many obstacles or setbacks that you had to overcome to
Speaker 4: make it happen.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I probably go back to the Bernie Mac Show,
Speaker 8: you know, to quote from Dickens. It was the best
Speaker 8: of times, it was the worst of times, you know.
Speaker 8: So it took me. I'll tell this story real quick.
Speaker 8: It took I was in an office where I had
Speaker 8: like an overall deal a Disney that had expired, but
Speaker 8: I was still going to the office, just waving at
Speaker 8: the guard, getting on the last and just kind of
Speaker 8: hiding out. Guys, I'm not exaggerating. For four and a
Speaker 8: half weeks, I never turned in anything or something. I
Speaker 8: wrote the same three pages every day. I could not
Speaker 8: get past page three. This is four and a half weeks.
Speaker 8: You know I'm gonna get found out. You know they're
Speaker 8: gonna realize I'm a fraud. I'm scared. Every day now,
Speaker 8: I'm hiding in my office all the time. I just
Speaker 8: couldn't get it. Some days I didn't write anything, banging
Speaker 8: my head against the wall. And then one day I
Speaker 8: was I looked up and I was on page four,
Speaker 8: and I was like, oh, and something had clicked, and
Speaker 8: it just poured out of me the entire show in
Speaker 8: thirty six hours. I couldn't stop writing. It was and
Speaker 8: it was during the counting of the votes down in
Speaker 8: Florida with you remember Bush in that election. I was
Speaker 8: watching that as I'm as I'm typing, and that script
Speaker 8: ended up winning an Emmy, you know, a year and
Speaker 8: a half later and almost intact from that moment, and
Speaker 8: I just had Claire in that moment, you know, I
Speaker 8: just it took so hard to get it, but it
Speaker 8: just took trust. I was so proud of myself for
Speaker 8: doing that and just sticking in there, because I there
Speaker 8: could have been many moments. I mean when you're feeling
Speaker 8: really low, especially as a creative person, and you feel
Speaker 8: all alone, you know, and everyone's going to judge something
Speaker 8: you're doing is terrible. I mean, you're going through all
Speaker 8: the worst things that every writer has. You feel that
Speaker 8: way anyway, It doesn't matter what the project is, you
Speaker 8: you know, finally everybody's going to find out that the
Speaker 8: piece of craft that I already know that I am,
Speaker 8: you know. But when I when I broke through, I
Speaker 8: was so proud of the fact that I stuck in there,
Speaker 8: and it became like a template for other writers and
Speaker 8: that sort of thing, you know, and so I was
Speaker 8: very proud of that moment.
Speaker 3: You have played so many iconic roles you obviously, among
Speaker 3: the most iconic is the very sarcastic, hilarious Slack seeing
Speaker 3: your black Horse Senior Black correspondent of course from the
Speaker 3: Daily Show. Can you bring us some of your favorite
Speaker 3: memories from those from those.
Speaker 8: Show man so many you know, just working with all
Speaker 8: those talented people. I was just so lucky to be there.
Speaker 8: I mean, I started right after John Oliver it started
Speaker 8: writing rob Rego and also Momby. We all kind of
Speaker 8: started at the same time.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 8: My audition was was funny because it wasn't quite an audition,
Speaker 8: but I met with John and we had talked about
Speaker 8: doing something because that's when I was looking to start
Speaker 8: kind of performing again. I was in that transition point
Speaker 8: and we thought it would be something fun. We weren't
Speaker 8: quite sure. They thought, well, maybe you're like a black Republican.
Speaker 8: I was like, no, I don't want to just be
Speaker 8: anti South them. And then someone said Senior Black Cords
Speaker 8: Final and that just sounded really funny. And so what
Speaker 8: they says, we'll write two things and we'll just do
Speaker 8: them you know, we'll take we'll tape one and we'll
Speaker 8: do the other one in the show. And so we
Speaker 8: wrote them. And when you're trying to find it, you're
Speaker 8: not sure what you are or what that type of thing,
Speaker 8: you tend to overwrite it. And I remember during rehearsal.
Speaker 8: Rehearsal went horrible. I mean as a comedian, especially as
Speaker 8: a performer. It was just too overwritten and nobody's laughing,
Speaker 8: and it's that point where the crew isn't kind of
Speaker 8: looking at you because you know, it's like it's like
Speaker 8: how you don't name certain farm animals because they might
Speaker 8: be food one day, so you don't want to get
Speaker 8: too close to them, you like, so making sure they're
Speaker 8: not gonna get too close to me. You know this guy,
Speaker 8: he may not stick around, and you can just feel
Speaker 8: that you're not connecting.
Speaker 5: And so I was kind of down.
Speaker 8: And then I found out, you know, before air, that
Speaker 8: they were going to cut one of the pieces we're playing.
Speaker 8: I'm like, well, I'm not going to be on this show.
Speaker 8: And then uh, they decided to do one piece. And
Speaker 8: right before air, John goes through this rewrite and he
Speaker 8: says he brought me and he said, hey, man, let's
Speaker 8: just go through this, and he said, let's just put it,
Speaker 8: just talk it through. And I really just put it
Speaker 8: in my voice and I'm working off of John and
Speaker 8: we're doing it like that, and we really got it tight.
Speaker 8: And right before we went on, I was sitting there
Speaker 8: and he said, hey man, I was little numbers. She said,
Speaker 8: just look in the camera and just f and give
Speaker 8: it to America. That's what he took me. And I
Speaker 8: was like, okay. And so the first joke, huge laugh
Speaker 8: and as now my comedian in seems to take it over,
Speaker 8: like okay, this is like I got you guys know,
Speaker 8: and it's like dam bam bam. And now the crew
Speaker 8: is likes a brother now, you know, the crew is
Speaker 8: like where did this guy can? Where he When did
Speaker 8: he sneak in the door?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 8: And I'll never forget that, and I'll never forget John's
Speaker 8: generosity knowing that I needed a little boost at that
Speaker 8: time and just saying, hey man, don't worry about this.
Speaker 8: Just you know what you're doing, you know. And it
Speaker 8: was so nice too.
Speaker 2: We're sharing the most inspiring lessons from the voices you love.
Speaker 2: Subscribe now. It's the best way to support the show,
Speaker 2: and please share with someone in your life who could
Speaker 2: really use.
Speaker 3: This right now, now back to my legacy.
Speaker 4: Now, I'm going to turn to your husband, because you've
Speaker 4: said in the past that toxic relationships used to be
Speaker 4: your drug of choice. I want to know what helped
Speaker 4: you finally break that pattern.
Speaker 9: I think what really helped me was really realizing that
Speaker 9: the toxic relationship wasn't with the other person, it was
Speaker 9: with myself. Like I think that part of the reason
Speaker 9: why I was so drawn to people who I felt
Speaker 9: like I could save or make better, or who could
Speaker 9: ad it worth or value to me if they were
Speaker 9: able to be loyal and significant, significantly present in my
Speaker 9: life was because I felt so devalued myself.
Speaker 5: I was so insecure myself.
Speaker 9: I was so frustrated with who I was that that
Speaker 9: person became a distraction and a trophy that would make
Speaker 9: me feel better if ever they would just get it together.
Speaker 9: And so I made the pursuit of them my focus
Speaker 9: instead of really trying to figure out who I was.
Speaker 9: And there was really one thought that really changed my life,
Speaker 9: but it was after I we got into a really
Speaker 9: bad argument and the police recalled. So maybe more than
Speaker 9: argument and I had to go to CPS to just
Speaker 9: tell them, like, hey, the kids are okay, you guys
Speaker 9: can continue to check in on me, because the police
Speaker 9: had been involved. And I was walking out of that
Speaker 9: CPS office and I just said, I can do better
Speaker 9: than this. I can do better than this. And it
Speaker 9: wasn't like I thought, I'm gonna be a New York
Speaker 9: Times bestselling author and I'm gonna host an event with
Speaker 9: forty thousand people. I meant, I can avoid going to
Speaker 9: CPS offices, I can avoid getting so angry that the
Speaker 9: police are called on me. I can do better than this.
Speaker 9: And I just did what was a little bit better
Speaker 9: than that, and then I would get on that level
Speaker 9: and I would think I could probably do a little
Speaker 9: bit better than this. I moved back home with my
Speaker 9: parents and I had the kids, and I thought, well,
Speaker 9: if I could just get my own place, and better
Speaker 9: and better and better just became my pursuit. Not better
Speaker 9: for the pursuit of moments like this, but just better,
Speaker 9: because I just felt like, anything is better than this,
Speaker 9: you know, anything is better than this. And if to
Speaker 9: not pursue better is to move backwards. And I was
Speaker 9: moving backwards quickly, and I think that that's what we
Speaker 9: have to understand in these toxic relationships, whether it's with
Speaker 9: ourselves or.
Speaker 5: With other people.
Speaker 9: Cause you gonna have a toxic relationship with yourself that
Speaker 9: makes you just get degree after d d, degree after
Speaker 9: degree because you think that's gonna make you feel better.
Speaker 9: A toxic relationship that makes you achieve and pour yourself
Speaker 9: out every Anyone who's dealing with some type of trauma
Speaker 9: that is unresolved may have a toxic relationship somewhere, but better.
Speaker 9: It's just I think I can experience better health than
Speaker 9: where I currently am, and I'm really grateful for who
Speaker 9: I am now on the inside. Like I I've had
Speaker 9: all of these different things happen to me. I have
Speaker 9: not changed my bio on Instagram. My bio is the
Speaker 9: same bio that I ever had, cause like I, you know,
Speaker 9: the books are nice, the things are nice, but like
Speaker 9: if that ever becomes my bio for me, it just
Speaker 9: feels like I I miss something because I'm so proud
Speaker 9: of the girl who like finally figured out who Jesus is,
Speaker 9: who loves her husband, whose children are her teacher, Like
Speaker 9: I'm so proud of who she is that that's what
Speaker 9: I want you to know about me more than all
Speaker 9: of these things I achieved, because that's what I fought for,
Speaker 9: and that's what I thought was never possible.
Speaker 5: The other things are they're just cherries on top.
Speaker 4: Well, let's talk about something that you wrote on Instagram,
Speaker 4: because in your getting better and getting better and getting better,
Speaker 4: at one point you thought that you didn't you did
Speaker 4: not ever want to get remarried. Oh yeah, but then
Speaker 4: someone changed your mind. Oh yeah, and this is what
Speaker 4: you wrote on Instagram. The vulnerability required to become one
Speaker 4: after you fought to become whole is not often discussed.
Speaker 4: I had to surrender my identity as a powerful single
Speaker 4: mother to discover my power as a married woman.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nasty work. You know. Here's the thing, here's the thing.
Speaker 9: You know. I got to a space where I was healthy,
Speaker 9: I'd bought a home for me and my children, and
Speaker 9: I thought, this is the dream. Like I thought that
Speaker 9: getting married and having the white picket fence was the dream.
Speaker 9: I saw that white picket fence just keep falling off
Speaker 9: over and over again, and I said, you know what, fine,
Speaker 9: I love me and my mindself.
Speaker 5: I'll travel the world.
Speaker 9: I'm still young. Everything will be fine. Then, I met
Speaker 9: this man, and in meeting him, I just I love
Speaker 9: the way the world looked through his eyes. It was
Speaker 9: a compliment to the way the world looked through my eyes.
Speaker 9: But it also had so much more vibrancy and color,
Speaker 9: and there was so much more care and depth for
Speaker 9: people and opportunities. And I thought to myself, I think
Speaker 9: that he would make me better. You know, as we
Speaker 9: talk about this better better, But I will say that
Speaker 9: I underestimated the transformation necessary for me to let go
Speaker 9: of the pride of being like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 9: made it. I'm this single mother who bought this house,
Speaker 9: and I can make good decisions, and I can take
Speaker 9: care of my family. I can bring home the bacon
Speaker 9: and fried in a pan. And now I have someone
Speaker 9: who's like, hey, I could grab the pan, or hey,
Speaker 9: I could bring home the bacon. And I think I
Speaker 9: did have a sense of pride and identity connected to that.
Speaker 9: I never wanted to need a man again. I never
Speaker 9: wanted to feel like my life would fall apart if
Speaker 9: something happened.
Speaker 5: And I think in the.
Speaker 9: Resistance of oneness that I could have lost out on
Speaker 9: the opportunity to experience the beauty of oneness.
Speaker 5: And so that took a lot of work.
Speaker 9: He's got some battle scars, God bless him. But my
Speaker 9: life woman evolved when exists if it wasn't for him,
Speaker 9: because his ability to create space for me to dream
Speaker 9: and to believe in those dreams and to say they're
Speaker 9: not crazy, they're possible, gave me the courage to actually
Speaker 9: pursue them. So he's definitely been a north star for
Speaker 9: me for many years now.
Speaker 3: I love that you speak to women who are in
Speaker 3: the middle of it. I let this term not post breakthrough,
Speaker 3: not post glow up. What do you want people to
Speaker 3: know about the messy middle of the journey.
Speaker 9: I think that people should know that it's all the
Speaker 9: messy middle, you know what I mean. That's that it's
Speaker 9: all the messy middle, That there is no there, there
Speaker 9: there is no Once I do this, then that once
Speaker 9: you get there, you realize that there's another mountain, that
Speaker 9: it keeps going, that there's something else that you have
Speaker 9: to overcome. So instead of trying to get post anything,
Speaker 9: I think the question is how do I find the
Speaker 9: better in now? And I think that that has been
Speaker 9: one of the things that has really been instrumental for
Speaker 9: me is recognizing that there's beauty in the messy middle.
Speaker 9: And if I keep moving the goal post, then I'll
Speaker 9: never find peace. But if I dare to believe that
Speaker 9: there's peace somewhere here, then all I have to do
Speaker 9: is start searching for where it exists. Now I just
Speaker 9: have gone through enough to I mean, especially if you
Speaker 9: think about my life like as a team mother. I thought,
Speaker 9: when I get married, then I'll be okay. And then
Speaker 9: I got married and I'm like, well, if he would
Speaker 9: do this, then I'll be okay. And if we do that,
Speaker 9: then I'll be okay. And then I left it and
Speaker 9: I'm like, if I could get the house, then I'll
Speaker 9: be okay. Then I got the house and I met
Speaker 9: this incredible man, and it's like okay. Once I moved
Speaker 9: to La then like it just kept moving, and so
Speaker 9: it dawned on me this is all a part of
Speaker 9: the journey. It's all the messy middle. But I do
Speaker 9: believe that our lives can be scripted and cursive. And
Speaker 9: I say it can be because a lot of times
Speaker 9: we miss out on how things can be woven together,
Speaker 9: We miss out on how all things can work together
Speaker 9: because we segment our lives. We try to leave some
Speaker 9: things behind. I'm gonna pretend like that never happened. I'm
Speaker 9: gonna become another person, not realizing that the beauty of
Speaker 9: our story is the full weight of our story. And
Speaker 9: so if we can collect all of our pieces and
Speaker 9: look at the President and say, Okay, this is the
Speaker 9: wisdom I have, the experiences I have, how do I
Speaker 9: apply it to this moment? I have found that that
Speaker 9: is the shovel that we used to find the beauty
Speaker 9: in the messy middle.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for the best of my legacy.
Speaker 2: New episodes drop every Tuesday. Don't forget to subscribe so
Speaker 2: you never miss a moment.