The Lara Love Hardin Redemption Story

On this powerful episode, Lara Love Hardin shares her remarkable journey from suburban soccer mom to convicted felon, and ultimately, to bestselling author and advocate. She opens up about her struggles with addiction, the depths of shame and isolation, and the transformative power of truth-telling and community. Lara’s story is a testament to resilience, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption, no matter how far you’ve fallen.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was taking sixty pills a day, twenty for breakfast,
twenty for lunch, twenty for dinner. To get that same
little feeling of pretending everything is okay. I started smoking
heroin and it was eleven months from that moment that
I googled how to smoke heroin to losing everything in
my life. He grabbed my arm very hard and he said,

(00:21):
you know, squeezed up my upper arm really hard, and
he said, you will never see your son again. You
should not be anyone's mother. And in that moment, I
one hundred percent agreed with him. But She's like, you know,
is there any book club you want in particular? And
I was like, well, which ones have you reached out?
You know? We did this back and forth and I
was said, well, you know which one I want?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And then Oprah pops up on the zoom and she says,
which one?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Laura, Welcome back to the Sino Show. I'm your host.
Cina McFarlane, Today's guest has a story that reads like
a thriller, hits like a gum punch, and upslipts like
a redemption anthem. She's a literary force, ghostwriting for major

(01:08):
names and earning multiple New York Times bestsellers. But before that,
she was a suburban soccer mom living a secret double
life as a heroin addict, convicted, fellon, eventually an inmate,
and county jail. Her memoir, The Many Lives of Mama Love,
doesn't just reveal how she survived. It shows how she
turned pain into purpose, shame into strength, and chaos into creativity.

(01:34):
Please welcome the show, Laura Love Hard and welcome. Welcome.
I believe in manifestation. I thank you too too. I
want to talk about that a little bit later. So
I manifested this this episode with you because you are
a very special human being. You're my kind of junkie.
You're my kind of grifter, and you're my kind of
redemption story. Like I would rob Beggs with you, I'd

(01:56):
let you. We would be a great teav.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I use powers for good, No, but if I didn't,
I would Bondy and Clyde with you, for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Let's talk about young or. I got a sense, like
so many addicts myself included, growing up profound loneliness.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
That's that, like Hacks thirty years of therapy right there.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Books had a great impact on you when you were little. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I mean the first line of my book is reading
was my first addiction. And you know, my family was
chaotic and quiet, if that makes sense, Like it was
chaos and nobody talked about it.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
And so my sort of.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Retreat from from family life and the chaos and and
undiagnosed like alcoholism and addiction around me that no one
talked about way back when, was to just escape into books.
And so I started reading really young, and I read,
you know, with a desperation like what books were my

(02:58):
next fix? Like how like there's no not books, right,
and so I just I remember just like hiding in
my closet is basically what I did. And I just
read book after book after book, and in books, like
people made sense to me in books, right, even they
were sad stories, there was like clear motivations. There's often
happy endings, like I just loved books, and that's you know,

(03:20):
often a gateway drug to writing. So that's how my
trajectory started really young, but reading and writing.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
And during that time, if there's one, I know there's many.
What book had the greatest impact on you when you
were little?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
H I mean this is going to sound very strange,
but I remember in first grade, I read Gone with
the Wind twice, and I loved that book just because
it was eleven hundred pages long. I didn't understand any
of it, but but.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I read.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
You know, I read a lot of when I was
really young, I read a lot of like books about kids,
like in California. I grew up in Massachusetts, and and
you know, their biggest problem was like the Orange grovee
was going to for I don't know. It was just
a lot of a lot of simple lives books, like
a lot of Beverly Cleary and Nancy Drew. And then

(04:09):
I got into like the romance Nora Roberts, and I
was like, oh, look, there's there's Happily ever afters out there.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know all of that.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
So and I read anything and everything I could get
my hands on.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Right, so you were just able to disappear in some
of these.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Characters and in some of these lives.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
And some of these lives and but so, why don't
we go to this place? I mean, there's so much
I want to talk to you about. Why don't we
just start your your addiction path kind of where it
started and then where it culminated with the Sheriff's coming
to get you. Can you walk us through that?

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (04:46):
So I you know I thought I could out educate
and what afflicted my family? You know, like I knew
there was there was a lot of drinking and drugs,
and I said that would never be me. And so
I was like to say, like I was a I
was a late bloomer to addiction and then an overachiever, right,
and so I you know, I held it off. I mean,

(05:07):
you know, I'm kind of an overachiever for good or
for bad, but when I do something, but I kind
of held it off. You know. I went straight from
high school to college, three thousand miles away from home
and went out to California. I went straight from college
to graduate school. I went straight in graduate school to
having three boys in four and a half years. And
it was really only you know I was. I was,

(05:29):
you know, mid twenties, and you know, I was desperate
to have sort of the happily you know, like leave
it to beaver for people who know who are old
like me, know who that is, but that kind of family, right,
And I growing up, I thought everyone else had a
normal family, Like I thought I was just you know,
like the terminally unique outlier and everyone else had a

(05:50):
normal family, and I wanted that desperately. And so in
my first marriage, I had three young boys and my
husband was cheating on me. And it was then throughout
every and it was then when I realized, you know,
I I'm not going to have this happily ever after family,
I'm not gonna have the white picket fens. And it's
you know, I remember really taking you know, a a

(06:12):
prescribed opiate. You know, this is back in the in
the mid nineties before the crisis was a crisis, and
you know, Vicodin specifically was handed out in blister packs
and little like candy dishes at the dentist, at the doctor, everywhere.
Try this, try this. And I remember taking one for pain,
emotional pain for the first time, and it lit.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Me up right.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
I was like, oh, And mostly what it did is
helped me pretend I was okay and I was happy,
and I you know, looking back now, I kind of
I didn't, you know, I wasn't thinking at the time,
but looking back now, I was like, did I have
postpartum depression? Like I read this book by this woman
who who wrote a whole book about her postpartum depression
and drug use, and I was like, do I need
to change my like villain origin story, Like I.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Didn't you know?

Speaker 1 (06:57):
There was like it really shook me. I was like, wait,
but I think, you know, basically, I think I was depressed.
I would never have admitted that or told anyone that
or asked for help even if I knew I was.
But I took that pill and I was suddenly smarter, better, funnier, happier, brighter,
more connected to the world. It didn't make me sleepy,

(07:19):
didn't make me not off, it didn't do any of
the things stereotypically people think. The way it reacted to
my brain was like everything I could pretend everything was
going to be okay, easier, and I loved that feeling.
And you know, I had three little boys and doing
laundry and playing army guys.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Isn't that exciting?

Speaker 1 (07:35):
But suddenly it was, you know, and I remember. And
then it took two to have that feeling, and then
it took three, and then it took four, and then
I got scared. I was like, oh my god, I
took four pills in one day, and this is not
who I am, This is not what I want to do.
And by the end of that to jump ahead. Struggling
on and off with that. For a very very long time,

(07:56):
I was taking sixty pills a day, twenty for breakfast,
twenty for line, twenty for dinner, to get that same
little feeling of pretending everything was okay. And then eventually,
you know, I did get six years clean.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I stopped. I had six years clean, and I was
in a second marriage.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
You know, I wanted to ask you, how did you
get your six years clean? How did you stop? Then?
That was interesting me. How did you just stop on
your own?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah? I mean I went to a lot of meetings.
I went to meetings, and I became the poster girl
of twelve step meetings. I said all the right things.
I didn't do any of the work. I mean, I
pretended to do the work, but I didn't do it,
And I did it at the surface level, right, And
I like volunteered and I hosted parties at my you know,
like it was all very still pretending. I think, like

(08:39):
that is my you know, that is my warning sign
for me when I'm pretending in an air area of
my life. But my husband's second husband, i'd met in
recovery and he ended up relapsing, and he brought I
found this like sticky brown stuff in the house. I
didn't know what it was, and I called a friend
and she's like, that sounds like heroin. And then I,

(09:02):
you know, I had kids in private school, and I
remember I was driving to the Montessori school to volunteer
in the classroom, and I googled, you know, how to
smoke heroin, like at the stop light. And that's really
all it took. That's how I knew all the right
things like, oh, ask for help, I'm thinking of relapsing.
It was none of that. It was just like proximity

(09:23):
and go and and so I started smoking heroin. And
it was eleven months from that moment that I googled
how to smoke heroin to losing everything in my life
and and the Sheriff's coming to.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
My you know, suburban cul de Sac to arrest me.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
And from that, how long was it from the moment
you googled that to the sheriff show up at your house?
How long was that period?

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Eleven months?

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Oh, in eleven months, you created that much chaos over it?
Were there?

Speaker 1 (09:59):
You?

Speaker 3 (10:00):
I mean, how many is this right? Thirty two felony counts.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, I played guilty to thirty two felonies.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
You're not messing around, nope, Yeah, Yeah. The Junky's are
very resilient. I mean we figure out ways. I'm sure
that was quite clever. Some of the things you were doing, well.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
You know part of it. You know, It's interesting because
it's never like I knew right from wrong. I knew
this is actually not who I am at all. Like
I'm the most generous person. I'm not going to go
into my I'll give my neighbors whatever they need. But
in that eleven months, it was a level of compulsion
and desperation and I'll fix this tomorrow, I'll stop tomorrow.

(10:41):
And every day it was like that tomorrow, this is
not who I am. I know right from wrong. I
don't like to steal, and you know, my kids are
in private school, and so I was stealing, you know,
from my basically my friends or the other parents of school.
They leave their persons in the car and I'd grab
some cash or grab a credit card, and you know,
mental gymnastics I did to justify in some ways, like

(11:03):
I'm not actually stealing from them as a credit card company,
or I'm gonna only buy groceries and gas with the
card I stole from my friend, be you know, not
really playing that all the way out. That's because all
my money is gone for Heroin. So so it was
a miserable, miserable existence that I couldn't stop.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah, there's that great line in twelve step recovery, our
old enemy friend rationalization steps in. Right, So that was.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Just smart enough to be really damaging to myself.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Right, I love it. Oh, I so get it. I
so get it. And you know, I read your book
and I think one of the things that had so
many things had such great impact on me is the
sheriff comes, you'll walk us through this. Obviously a part
of you is relieved. And then he says to you,
you'll you know what about my You're saying what about
my children? And he says, I believe this is correct

(12:00):
in the book. You'll correct me if I'm wrong. You'll
never see your kids again, You're an unfit mother, something
along those lines. Could you walk us through that moment?

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, So, you know, everything was closing in, and you
know this is sixteen years ago, sixteen years ago, yesterday
I walked out of jail, absolutely yesterday was the walk
out of was Liberation Liberation Day yesterday anniversary anniversary.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
That's incredible, thank you.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
So, you know, everything was closing in. You know, I'm
not as clever as I think. I Am not a
mastermind criminal. And so the sheriff showed up my house.
I you know, I had four boys. Three one was
in junior high, two in high school, and then my
youngest Cayden, was close to turning four, and he was
the only one home when the sheriffs came. And they

(12:51):
came in to arrest me and my husband at the time,
and and you know, like I was relieved that it
was over, and then suddenly I'm in handcuffs and I
was I was asking the sheriff, let me call someone
to get my son, Let me call someone, and he
didn't do that.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
He called Child Protective Services.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
And I think that moment when my son, who had
just been like he was watching Wonder Pets will never
like I hear that tune and it's just PTSD. He's
watching this cartoon with the stuffed animals, and he'd never
been a night away from me, and basically strangers came
in the house to take them and he goes running
to me for comfort, and my hands are handcuffed behind

(13:32):
my back and strangers are pulling them out of the house.
And you know, I've had nightmares about that. You know,
it's only you know, maybe up until fifteen years later.
You know, it's only the last year. Probably I can
tell that story without crying now. But it was that
moment where I was like, oh, I can't there's no
fixing this tomorrow, Like there's no like this is going
to be irreparable, Like this is that moment where it's

(13:54):
just like a you know, like a before and after,
like a de marcation line, like this everything before and
now what's after? And so I was in the back
of the sheriff's car, and you know, I was crying
the whole way, like where are they taking my son?

Speaker 2 (14:07):
What can they do?

Speaker 1 (14:08):
And I said to my son, it's okay, you know,
like these are friends, the CPS workers taking him because
you know he's in that stranger danger age. It was horrifying,
and I we'll get to the Santa Cruz County jail
and the sheriff takes me out of the car first,
and there's sort of this hallway between the outside world
and when you go into the jail. And I was

(14:29):
still crying the whole ride, like where did they take
my son? Like is he gonna be okay? What's happening?

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Can you tell me?

Speaker 1 (14:33):
And he grabbed my arm very hard and he said,
you know, squeezed up my upper arm really hard, and
he said, you will never see your son again.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
You should not be anyone's mother.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
And in that moment, I one hundred percent agreed with him.
I mean like I believed him on the first that
I would never see my son again and that I
shouldn't be anyone's mother. In that moment, I just I
just remember and just like dropped my head and I was,
oh my god, he's right, like I should not be
anyone's another. And it was a horrible thing to say, right,

(15:08):
you know it was it wasn't true, and it would
take me a long time to know it wasn't true.
But a few nights later, you know, I remember being
in jails, my first time in jail, and I was like,
I just failed at life. Like everybody else has it
figured out. I just failed and I don't have the

(15:30):
strength in me to get what's ahead of me. I
you know, was charged with all these felonies. Bill was
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Like I've imploded my
life so so big in such a huge nuclear explosion
and hurt all this collateral damage and fallout, Like I'm not.
I don't have the spirit and strength or spark in

(15:52):
me to get through whatever is ahead of me. I
can't imagine not seeing my children ever again, which is
what I thought, and so I decided in that moment
in jail. I was like, it should probably trigger warning
this for people, but I said, you know, it would
be better for my children to have a dead mother
than a mother who's in prison.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
And so I decided to end my life.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
I wrote a note to my boys and said I'm sorry,
and I love you, and I hope addiction never gets
a hold of you, and and made plans in my life.
And it was such a peaceful decision for me in
that moment, like I can't even explain. It was like
dark but quiet, and I was like, oh, this is
this is the only way, Like I'm not, Like I'm

(16:32):
a pretty resilient person.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
And I didn't have any resilience in me at that moment.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
I thought, Wow, thankfully that wasn't the case something, right.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, thankfully I was in my failure era, so I
felt at that too, so right, yeah, yeah, but I did,
you know, I did. I tied it, you know, I
made all the preparations and then and then, you know,
what I think is a like miraculously, you know, I
was waiting for the guard checks to come every hour

(17:02):
and everyone to fall asleep, and then miraculously I fell asleep.
I didn't sleep again detox and eopius for a month,
but that night I fell asleep and I with with
you know, not to be to grab but I had
you know, a sheet, you know, six knots around my neck.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's tight, and.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I fell asleep waiting for it to get quiet in there.
And I didn't wake up until they were like scraping
these you know, plastic chairs in and throwing the lights
on at five am for breakfast. And and in that
moment I was embarrassed. I was like, oh my god,
I don't want anyone to see, you know, and I'm
trying to I can't even get the knots off. I'm
hiding under my blanket and trying to do undo the

(17:41):
knots not once thinking like maybe my.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Chef's for help.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
I was just like, oh, like, what happened? Why didn't
that happen? And and luckily I was never in that
dark place again. I got pulled an hour later into
like emergency CPS court and got some I heard where
my son was, and you know, not like everything was
you know, roses and flowers from that moment on. But luckily, gratefully,

(18:07):
I was never in that dark place again.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Oh that's good. Thank God for that, Thank God for that.
But how many days did you attempt that? From your
how many days in jail were you before you did that?

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Two?

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Also right from the gate? Got it? Wow?

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Okay, So in the in the in the heat of detox,
in the in the heat of just knowing, you know,
all I'm getting information on is like, you're gonna go
to you know, you're charged with this many felonies, your
bails this much, You're you're not going to see your
children for thirty seven years. I was like, am I

(18:45):
not going to see my children? Tew? They're like grown men,
Like I couldn't I couldn't fathom that. I couldn't fathom
getting through that.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
I'm sure, And I'm also assuming you're in a population
that you normally don't mix with and trying to figure
that that us have been out. Can you walk the
audience through that, because that was a real I mean,
that's a fascinating education that you had to walk us
through that.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, I mean I had I had never been in
jail before. I was again sixteen years younger than I
am now, but I was the oldest person in jail,
I think almost. You know, my best friend in jail
was a girl who is nineteen, and my oldest son
was seventeen. You know, it was it was a different world.
I didn't know the rules, I didn't know the lingo,

(19:30):
I didn't know the etiquette, you know. And and the
women I was in jail was saved me.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
You know, they really did save me.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
And you know, I think I think people form a
family in whatever circumstance or situation or environment they're in
if they're there long enough. Right, So nobody, nobody, you know,
I didn't have one friend from my pta life or
my book clubs, or my soccer mom or coaching little

(20:01):
league who.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Came to visit me in jail.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
And wow, and you know, really, the women in jail
save saved my life. You know, and I was an
anomaly to them. They're like, what what are you doing?
I was like PTA club, you know, like it was
it was you know, They're like, who you rep?

Speaker 2 (20:22):
And I'm like aptos.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
It's like a suburban clubs, you know, so like but
everyone had humor about it, you know, and and you know,
and they helped me kind of learn the ropes and
you know, and you know, there's there's hierarchies and power structures,
like like in the PTA or like in you know,
whatever it is. And so you know, I've always I've always,

(20:46):
you know, one of my childhood trauma responses. I'm really
good at reading a room and reading people, and so
I think that, you know, that serves me, you know,
as a lot of addicts are right that hyper vigilance.
And so, you know, they told me what was happening
in court. They told me what CPS meant. They told me,
you know, my s number, Like you're given a number,

(21:07):
and the guards didn't want to say my last name
because it was love and so that was like too
nice to yell out. So at first they're yelling out
this number, and I had no idea what my number was.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
And so yeah, it was. It was a.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Culture shock, and a part of it was kind of
nice also because it was insulated. I was so there
was so much craziness going on in.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
The outside world.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Obviously liked my community, my friends, like all this stuff
that you're sort of insulated there, like no one can
reach you unless you call them collect and so there's
a you know, the introverted part of me kind of
liked that a little bit, you know, because I didn't
have a lot of inner strength to deal with anything.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, and a lot of moms in jail.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, eighty percent of women in jail are mothers, and
often of my children.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
And you got a copy if I got this correct
of Eckhart Tolly's book and Mark Naples book, right.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yes, So.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, there wasn't a lot of to read in there,
but a woman who went off on the prison bus
left behind the power of now and and so I
just started reading it with the with the same desperation
I did as a kid, right, like just escape, let
me read this book, and and it saved my life,
both of those books, did you know? I recently, just
like a month ago, was teaching at Omega Institute of State,

(22:35):
New York, A writing a writing retreat and Mark Naple
was teaching there the same exact weekend.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
So I love true stories, like you can't even make
this up.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
And and you know, I got dropped off there by
the director of the program in front of this cafe
and he's sitting right there on the table and he's
I look at him, and you know, my mouth drops open.
He stands up and he goes, Laura, I loved your book,
like he had read it. And so I got to
have all these meals with him and just tell him
how much he saved my life. You know, that Book

(23:06):
of Awakening is just an amazing book, which is jumping ahead,
but Eckhart totally I read it. And you know, I
was spending all my sleepless nights, you know, like we do,
trying to like rewrite the past. Why didn't I do this?
Only I had done that? If only I had done that?
Why didn't ask for help? Why did I ever take
that one pill? Why didn't I, you know, like all
of the things or worrying about the future, like am

(23:29):
I going to go to prison? Am I going to
fight fires? Do I know how to fight fires? I'd
rather fight fires, like am I gonna never see my
kids again? Am I ever going to get a job again?
Like all of that anxiety and worry of the future
and regret for the past and hit and Eckhart Totley's
book Power Now taught me to shut that all down
one sentence in his book where you just think to yourself,

(23:51):
I wonder what my next thought will be. And I
remember I was like, Okay, I'll do this. It was
written in the book. And I did that and there
was like a millisep a peace, and I was like, oh,
then I would do it again, and I'd get like.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
A little longer, a little longer, and then.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
You know, and then you know, jail is a great
jail in prison is a great place to learn to meditate.
There's you know, there's online courses do that for your listeners,
but but it really, it really helped me to.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Tame my own mind and my own fears and my
own worries.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Beautiful. I mean mark'scot that I don't want to that
great quote that I love pain pushes and television pulls you.
Mm hmmm, God, that's rich. Right. Where does that hits you?
Where does that hit you? I'm curious?

Speaker 1 (24:37):
I mean, right, in the heart right, like it just
when I and when I read that, I ever get
a tattoo of words, it's going to be that, right,
like if I ever get a I think, because I
just I remember thinking, God, I've let pain push me
my whole entire life. Drove what I did, It drove
who I married, it drove what work I you know,

(24:58):
just like pain pushing trying to like let it push
me while I'm trying to outrun it. And then you know,
it was it was that switch like vision pulling, like
oh yeah, I could have a vision. Let me think
about what my vision would be and let that pull me.
And that's a powerful switch.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Mm hmmm mmmmm mmmmm. And you because of good behavior,
you got out earlier, correct.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
I got out.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, it was about ten months I got out, and
then I got out.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
They'd started new work release program.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
So when I got out, you know, sixteen years ago, yesterday,
August seventeenth, I had to go back every day and
like work outside the jail, which was fine because it
was working outside the jail for a week or ten days,
I don't remember now, but but yeah, but it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Over for me.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
You got a very public arrest. You know, a lot
of a lot of you know, a lot of media,
a lot of exposure, newspapers. Shame, there's a big, big
part of your life, right, How did you deal with
the shame? Talk to the audience about that.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
You know, when I was sentenced, my my face was
on the front page of the Santa Cristentinel local paper.
It said, you know, Aptos neighbor from Hell sentence, you know,
full color my face in the courtroom. And and then
someone anonymously mailed me that in jail, that article in

(26:31):
case I didn't see it. I remember the next morning,
the guard handing me the paper, you know, like making
sure I saw it, because otherwise I wouldn't have seen it.
And there are all these online comments, and so one
anonymously printed out like three hundred, three hundred fifty comments,
really hateful, hurtful, mean things, and some I could like
decipher and see, you know, I kind of figured out

(26:52):
who the people were, and they mailed them to me
anonymously with a fake name, to the jail, and I
just remember being well, I was in cars just reading
these comments over and over and over again, and something
in that act of doing that for months, it just
seemed the shame just seeped in my bones. I was like,
I am bad, like I am so bad and I

(27:17):
and you know, redemption is for people who are good,
like I believe in redemption like and I did. Then
I just not for myself, right right, but redemption is
for good.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
People who mess up.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
And and I carried those comments in that headline around
with me for you know, over a decade. I mean
not not physically, after a couple of years. I got
rid of the just because of friends, like can you
throw those comments out? Like stop reading them, but but
mentally and figuratively, I carried it around for you know,
eleven years, probably where I lived in fear of people

(27:52):
googling me and find seeing that headline right like right now,
if you google me, it's still there, but you got
to you gotta go back like fibers good pages of things, right,
which is fair. I think that's fair. It's always going
to be there. But but I you know, the shame
is insidious. It just seeps into everything and it's really isolating,
you know, And and you know, I believe people healing

(28:14):
community and shame is so icoly when you don't advocate
for yourself when you're in shame, right Like, you're not like, hey,
that's unfair, You're just like, okay, what else? You know,
it was really hard, you know, it took me a
very long time to advocate for myself or to think
that I deserve to if something was unfair, that I
could speak up, and you know, shame was like, you know,

(28:37):
I'm not post jail. I wasn't going to make friends,
right like, I'm trying to live my life with you know,
that radical honesty. But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
just tell you my whole background and then watch you
run screaming from the room, or you know, even you know,
when I did eventually get I got kit and back
my son back and he you know, he's in first

(28:58):
grade and you're you know, back to school night, and
another mom comes up to me. She's like, oh hey,
she you know she didn't you know, Santa CU's kind
of a big enough time that not everyone recognized me
or was thinking about me as much as I thought
they were. But but she was like, oh, hey, you know,
my my son loves your son, Like maybe they could
have a play date. I could drop off at your
house and I was like, ugh, you know, there's this

(29:19):
crisis moment because if you knew my past, you probably
wouldn't want to drop your son of my house. But
I'm not going to tell you. And so it's just
really isolated. I couldn't make friends. It was very It
was also like my childhood, a period of profound loneliness
with that shame.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Wow wow wow wah, I so get that. Let's talk.
Let's talk where do you want to go about your
life after jail. Let's kind of walk through that incredible
journey you start as it was not just you walked out.
Everything was great and I got these are crazy and
I'm working with the pope all of a sudden, and
did happen that way?

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Did it?

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Yeah? No, it didn't.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
You know, it's interesting because in jail, you know, every
single woman who I watched leave jail, we had a
little we had a little party for her, and she
was full of good intentions. I'm gonna, you know, break
up with a drug dealer boyfriend. I'm gonna go back
to school, I'm gonna reconnect with my family.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I'm not gonna hang out with those friends. I'm gonna
move the area.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
And then a week later, she'd come back and arrested,
and I, because this was my first time in jail,
I was like, and I'm not proud of this, but
I remember thinking like, how could she be so stupid?
Like that's what I thought, right, like just sure full honestly,
like when I leave, I'm never coming back here, you know.
Like I had this sort of righteousness like that's just crazy.
Why would you you know, it's so bad in here,

(30:30):
Like why would you do that? And then when I
got out of jail, thinking, you know, and despite the
thirty two fellonies, I'm kind of a rule follower. I
was like, Okay, I'll follow all the rules and I'll
do all the things and I'll be done, you know.
And the court says I'll be done, and my senate
says I'll be done. And I didn't know then that
you're actually never done. Like I'm still not done today.

(30:51):
There's not enough New York Times bestsellers I can write
that will make me completely make some people think I
have completely paid for my cry, or that I'm completely done.
It pops up in all kinds of ways, even today,
and I didn't know that. There were times in trying
to like rebuild a life and re enter that I
would be like, Wow, I think I'm safer in jail,

(31:14):
Like it almost feels like it would be safer there,
because I think good people like people, not even good people.
I think people ideologically believe in second chances. They believe
in rehabilitation, but not enough to hire it, right, not enough,

(31:35):
not enough to let it move next door, rent to it,
not enough to befriend or let it in your book
club or your game nights. And so there were all
these obstacles and barriers that I had no idea about
that were very illogical, right, and really just a setup
to go back, Like, you know, I had to check

(31:56):
in in three different courts, were monitoring my progress, they
cared about me that much, And drug tests for three
different agencies on any given day. So it's hard enough
to get a job with a criminal record, much less
to get a job that on a moment's notice, up
to three times a day, you can just leave that
job to go drug test. And one I had a

(32:19):
car that didn't even go uphill. It was like a
you know, donated car. So it was really scary. All
the ways you can go back to jail, they have
nothing to do with ever doing a drug again or
committing a crime again, just transportation related, childcare related, logistics related, illogical,
bureaucracy related. And I had no idea about any of that.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
And tell, did you ever come close to relapsing?

Speaker 1 (32:44):
No, I did not come I've never come close.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Here's why.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
I mean, in the immediate after jail, I was still
in this crisis mode, which is, you know, sometimes it's
very easy to stay cleaning crisis because I was fighting
against this clock to do all the requirements to get
my son back before the year ran out and CPS
could say I'm no longer his mother. So I was
There's no part of me that was going to let
that happen. But there's no part of me even to

(33:14):
this day. And I know this is not normal, you know,
And I relapsed, Like in jail, I stopped, and then
when I got on bail, I relapsed. And you know,
a lot of people who've read the book had strong feelings.
I was like, that's the reality, you know, It's not
just like, you know, we skip off to happily ever after.
But from the time I made that decision on March eighteen,
two thousand and nine, not to use drugs. It's been

(33:36):
fairly I mean, I feel guilty say this, but it's
there's no part of me. There were things like, oh,
it wasn't so bad, even to this day, like oh,
even though you know, like I made a nice narrative
out of it, but there's no part of that that's like,
oh it wasn't so bad. Maybe I just a recreational herald.
Like there's just no part of me. And more importantly
than that, I have so many other coping skills now

(33:58):
that it is not that it is not the thing
that pops up like, oh things are hard, I should
do that, And I didn't have that my whole life,
you know, and and you know, I feel grateful for
that because it's not normal. But it has been so
far not the hardest, not even close to the hardest
thing in my life since I walked out of there,

(34:21):
and and and my you know, canary, and the cold
mine for that isn't like isn't going to come from
like oh I want to I need to do it.
I want to have a craving to do drug. It's
not going to come from that. It's going to come
for me pretending in any area of my life it's
going to come for me saying yes what I mean no,

(34:42):
for me being an unhappy relationship and not saying a word,
me being miserable at work and not saying it, you know,
like that kind of sort of internalized misery. So so far,
so good, so far. But we remain vigilant always.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
Right, Yes we do. You've so many great lines. This
line just is so you say, as long as I'm
sick as my secrets, well then I'm in hospice. Fuck
what a line? What a line? When did you make

(35:21):
the declaration? I can't live like that anymore. I need
to start telling people really what I'm scared. I'm overwhelmed.
I don't like myself. When did you say enough's enough
with that? When'd you hit bottom?

Speaker 1 (35:32):
There? It took a long time. I mean, you know,
it took a couple of years to get work, and
I got a job at a literary agency, and you
know what I was doing. I was in so much
shame that what I was doing for a long time
is building my resume of goodness, right like and hiding
my past. But I was like, you know, I'm building

(35:53):
a resume goodness, like you know what Nelson Mandela thanked
me in his last book, So put that in the
resume of Goodness, along with the neighbor from Hell. You know,
all these things, you know, our tuiship touchous that I
have a heart of gold, you know, like all of
these things.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I was working on these amazing books with like.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Big people in the world right and building this resume goodness,
And I thought, if I'm just good adjacent enough when
the truths like two trains, like here's the truth trained,
like we all know the truth is always going to
come out, Like I knew, you know, I lived in
fear of people googling me.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I was hiding my past.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I was remaining isolated and disconnected from community because I
didn't want people to know and run screaming from the
room was what I imagined at the same time. So there's
that train, and then there's the truth train, and then
there's the train that was like, here's how I'm being
able to prove I'm good to the world. Here's how
I'd be able to defend my humanity. Here's how I
defend my badness with my goodness. You know. So those

(36:47):
things I knew they were going to crash eventually. And
first of all, it's exhausting and it's heavy, and there's
no room for creativity when you're in shame, right when
you're in like survival mode at all times, like who's
going to find out? Who's gonna you know, what problem
I going to have to deal with? And so it
was over eleven years, you know, and I was again,

(37:09):
I was working with these I was working as a
secret service agent writing her book, and she's talking about
all the bad guys, you know, and I'm writing it,
you know, but I'm like, I'm the bad guy. She
doesn't know, you know, it's like horrible to keep that secret.
And so I finally I had a friend in Santa
Cruz who like curated the local TEDx talks, you know,

(37:31):
and for a few years and known her for a
long time. So for a few years, she every year
she'd be like, can you want to give a talk?

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Tell your story?

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I was like, absolutely not, Like I would rather have
all my teeth pulled with no novocaine, like in no way,
I mean, you know, in the year after year, and
then finally in twenty nineteen, she came, thank goodness, Irene
is her name, and she came to my literary agency
where I worked, and she said, I'm not leaving here
till you say yes. The TED talks are in like
four days. And I was like, I'm not going to

(37:59):
say yes. You stayed for like almost four hours, and
I was like, okay, fine, I'll do it. And wow,
and I got up on that stage and I had,
you know, like two days to you know, write out
fifteen minutes and then memorize it because there's no notes.
And I got up there and I said, you know, basically,
my biggest secret, my biggest fear. I showed that headline

(38:19):
as like I was once the neighbor from hell, and
now I'm going to tell you about some other people
I've been and talked about my work.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
And I talked about shame.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
And you know when we just label people by the
worst version of themselves.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
And I, you know, like no one was doing that
to me more than me.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Right, I'd built a whole identity out of that headline,
and a whole identity out of my shame, and a
whole identity out of the worst season of my life.
And so that was really like the feeling I had
when that talk was over. One I got to stay
in ovation, which felt really good. Right, like telling my secrets.
People didn't run screaming from the room. But the feeling
I had, like in my body and in my soul

(38:58):
after I just told truth was better than any drug
I have ever taken. Honestly, it was like oh okay,
like and then I was like, I want more of that.
And that's really the only reason I decided to do
the book. I was like, maybe this will help, and
there's a lot more story to tell.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
And so.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
That was the moment after that talk at the end
of you know, being in of twenty twenty, where.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
I was like, Okay, well maybe I will do a book.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
Wow, before we talk about your book, which of course,
we're going to talk about, how did Desmond Tutu, the pope,
the Dalai Lama come into your consciousness? I mean, how
did that happen?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Yeah? Crazy?

Speaker 1 (39:42):
So so I was, you know, I was with Kate
and my youngest son Kate, and we're in like four
hundred square foot apartment. For two years, I been trying
to get a job, trying to do work, and trying
to get hired and survive and meet all my probation requirements.
And I saw Craigslist ad for a part time personal
assistant five hours a week for a literary agency. And

(40:05):
you know one of the gifts, you know, reading and
writing was my thing. And when I started doing drugs,
like I never wrote again. I never wrote again until
I stopped doing drugs in jail, like those two things
like no Offense, like Charles Wackowski and all the Hemiway
and all those great you know writers. But to me,
you know, writing was how I like made sense of
the world. Is how I made sense of my inner life,

(40:26):
which sounds like a lot of angsty, but you've read
the book, so there.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Was a little bit of that.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
But really it's how I understood things in my place
in the world and handled pain. And so without using
the drugs or pain, I turned back to writing and
I started ghostwriting in jail. I was writing letters as
the other women to the judge, and I'd hear their
stories and then they would write a letter as if
I were them, for them to the judge to get

(40:53):
treatment instead of prison, or to get a pass for something.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
And you know, I broke up with a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
I said, douced some people like I was great. I
was like, oh, I'm pretty good at this thing. I
didn't no ghostwriting, but but I was good at beeting
other people. And so when I started working this literal
agency was twenty dollars an hour.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
I thought my ship had come in. I was like,
this is the answer.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
And it was a very long questionnaire for a part time,
five hour week, you know, like there's probably twenty six questions.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
I had to answer essay questions.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
And one woman was on like integrity, which is again,
I'm going to be honest, but I had a don't ask,
don't tell policy, like if you ask me, I'll tell you,
but I'm not going to volunteer it, right, And so
you know, I was like, integrity to me means like
I keep my word, like I show up when I
say I'm going to show up. And so I was,
on paper overqualified for the job. He didn't do a
background check, he didn't you know, I had the privilege

(41:43):
of that not being the first thing people thought when
they look at me. Right, So luckily I had a chance.
So I went to work. He represented Desmond Tutu and
and when I saw the ad, I was like, who's
advertising on Craigslist that represents Desmond too? Too, Like I'll
probably get murdered, but it seems like a good risk

(42:04):
to take at this stage, you know, I was trying
to survive, and so I interviewed with him. He hired me,
and I started working on books, and like, this is
my first love. I was like, oh, this is a gift,
you know, like cause I'd been a real estate agent,
I dont a pet cemetery and bookie.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Like I've done a million.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Different careers and jobs, but this was this was who
I am. This is my first love. I always wanted
to write books since you know, that's what I went
to graduate school for long before this happened, you know,
and creative writing. So I started working for him and
he just trusted me blindly first, just one hundred percent trust.
And because he did, I would have never in a

(42:41):
million years done one thing to betray his trust. Like
I believe, especially with people who who've been written off,
who've lost everything, been marginalized, like they will one hundred
percent rise to the level that people believe in them.
Because to me, it felt so good to have someone
trust me that I would never break that trust.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
He used to give me receipts from his wallet and
there'd be like a dollar bill mixed in there, and
I'd be like, is this a test with their cameras,
you know, And I'd put it on his make did
you get your dollar? And he's like, why are you
freaking out about a dollar? But it was so important
to me and you didn't google me. So I had
about three weeks of working there and I started actually
collaborative writing, you know, like ghostwriting with one of the authors,

(43:22):
because I had that in my background. It wasn't what
I was hired for. And I remember it was Doug
Abrams is the person who hired me, and he he
called me brilliant, right, and I was like, oh, that
felt so good. And then two days later we worked
with that. There's this book called What Color Is Your Parachute?
We were representing it, working on the next edition, and

(43:44):
he was in the office on the phone and the
guy's like, I guess had said to him, you know
people just google their employees now, you know, there's no
like reference checks. And I think Doug was just on
the computer and kind of spaced out, so he googled me,
and I'm sitting across the room and he saw that
headline in his face with sheet white and he was
like hung up when you was just like I didn't
check your references and I didn't, you know, and I

(44:05):
was like, oh my dream is dead, you know, like
this is just another obstacle. And he's like, can you
just why don't you go and come back tomorrow? And
I left and I was like, I'm never coming back here.
I'm never coming back. And I called him friends, and
I did come back and I you know, I had
my speech preparing because I didn't sleep that night, and
I said, look, it's really important to me that you
know I didn't lie to you, and I'm sorry that

(44:25):
I put you in this position, but I'm just as
brilliant today as you thought I was yesterday before you
read that headline. And he ended up keeping me on.
He's like, maybe don't handle the finances, which is fine.
I eventually I became CFO, but I was there for
TWE When I left twelve years later to start my
own agency. You know, it was the number one boutique

(44:48):
nonfiction literal agency in the world. We had nineteen New
York Times bestsellers, and I was CEO from part time assistant. So,
like I I was determined not to let him down
just because he believed in me enough to give me
a chance.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
That's all, That's all I needed.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Wow, But what gave you the strength to advocate for
yourself that day and just and go up and show
up for yourself as opposed to this is my lot
in life? They found me out I am a bad person?
How'd you do that?

Speaker 1 (45:21):
I love that, by the way, Yeah, I mean it
wasn't you know, it wasn't automatic. It was a long
you know, one of those long sleepless nights of the
soul where because I left there and I was like,
I was so embarrassed and ashamed and just like disheartened.
And this is always going to be the way it is.
I said, I'm never going back. Like you know, I
don't you know, I once married someone because I didn't

(45:42):
like conflict and didn't want to say no, right like
so kind people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so like you know,
me in conflict. We didn't you know, it wasn't it
wasn't my favorite thing. I didn't go seeking it out
and I ran for it right pain pushes and so
but but my you know, I had such good feelings
of feeling so valuable for the few weeks before this happened,

(46:04):
and I knew I was doing good work, and luckily
I had gotten a chance to prove my work ethic
and my creativity and my brilliance right, and with someone
who didn't already pre label and prejudge me like we
do with people, right or stereotype it. And so yeah,
I don't Again, it's one of those things like I
don't I don't remember the conscious.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
Choice, like I'm going to fight for myself.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
It was just like I want this and I'm just
going to go and I wanted I wanted resolution. He's
such a good human, you know, such like a good, trusting,
naive human, you know, like he just believes the world's good.
But you know, luckily we were working with Desmond Tutu,
and when I got there, Doug said, look, I can't.
You know, Desmon Tutu did the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

(46:49):
you know, helped people forgive. He's the beacon of forgiveness.
And Doug's like, I can't work with Desmond Tutu and
not walk my talk. And so luckily it was a
combination of me being brave enough to go back and
him being brave enough to walk his talk and live
to his ideals and we're great friends today. I just

(47:09):
had a big conversation with him yesterday. But we did
a lot of great work together, like just Mercy with
Brian Stevenson. And the first book that I fully like
collaborated on to ghostwrite was Desmond Touto's Book of Forgiving
and I was like, I can't write this book. You know,
I don't know how to forgive myself. I'm great at
forgiving other people. And so you know, looking back now

(47:31):
I can see, you know, like you can trace the
patterns looking back. It's so much easier to rear view,
mirror things. But I can see what I learned those
eleven years before I got on that stage and told
the truth, Like what I was picking up from each
book I was working on, each author.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
I was working with.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Neuroscientists like neuroplasticity, Like what messages am I telling myself
every day? You know, Desmon Tutu about forgiveness and relationship
experts and spiritual leaders and the Dalai Lama, you know
who's you know, he's not a super judgy guy, you know,
so so so it was, you know, it was amazing

(48:07):
and and but what felt really good is I knew
I was doing good in the world, like I was
doing good work, and I was building that resume goodness
to defend defend my existence and my humanity and and
my soul. Really, and I didn't until I didn't need
to do that anymore, right until I was like, you
know what, I actually don't need to defend. It took

(48:29):
a long time, you know, my, My, I get a
lot of messages from from women who were sort of
gone through similar things, but through at the beginning stages
where I was maybe a couple of years out, and
I'm just like, do not take eleven years to forgive yourself.
Do not spend eleven years in shame because it's paralyzing.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, So before we get into your book, let's just
move into the forgiveness track. And the audiences wanted going
to know, how are your children? What was that like?
How did you build the trust up? And how did
you because you've talked numerous times about the pain of
what you went through and the kids and what they
went through, could you walk us through that police?

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, so my, you know, my older boys got to
come visit me in jail, and they did on the weekends,
and you know luckily, you know, my my boys had
a really strong foundation of feeling very loved by me
even as I was struggling with addiction. Like and they
didn't know they they had a strong foundation. Like I'm

(49:30):
one hundred percent biased, but they're like amazing humans. They're compassionate,
they're kind, they're smart, they're funny, they're good friends. They
just wanted me to be okay, right, Like they they
forgave me instantly. They just wanted me to be okay.
Now trusting. You know, my oldest son, Dylan, he said,

(49:51):
you know, mom, forgiveness is automatic, but trust is like
that's going to take some time.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
They just wanted to know I was going to be okay.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
And because my you know, my story of learning things
the hard way is their college essay topic, right, Like
that's my regret, Like I know that I'm someone who
kind of has to be a little extra and learn
things really the hard way. And my regret isn't that
that's what I needed. Is that the collateral damage of
that became their story of resilience.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Right, So, you know, they were you know, my son,
he was a senior.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
In high school when I was incarcerated, So right, after
I got out. He was going off to college at
cal Poly in California, and it was about maybe he
was in school four months and he called me five
months He called me said, Mom, dad keeps losing my mail,
and you're the only adult I can trust in my life.
I'm gonna have all my mail for two And it

(50:46):
was just such a little thing, but like, h like
I felt like more proud of that than like it's
a New York Times bestseller.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Like just that moment, it.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
Was just like those little moments where people are believing
in you again, Like just like with Doug saying, you know,
just those I can't like emphasize how important that is
to feel when you've been devalued and devalued yourself, to
feel like valuable to someone again.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
And and you.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Know, I managed that mail for so well, right, Like
so my boys are really forgiving when I got out,
you know, it's it was embarrassing for them. You know,
my son Ti, when he was in junior high, when
my face was on the paper, he said, Mom, every
single classroom I went in in junior high, I had
that paper on the desk, front page or picture. You know.

(51:32):
But luckily they are strong and resilient, and you know,
we have a sense of humor in our family. And
and you know all through graduated college who got married
last year, they're all like Cayden, my youngest is at
uc San Diego and he's here right now. I actually
sent him out of he's we're flying back to California,

(51:53):
where I sent him to the gym because I was like,
if there's no twenty year old boys give to stay
quiet during a podcast, but he's twenty now, you know, Mom,
He's like, Mom, do we have protein? You know, that's
all I care. So I just like, go to the jail,
come back, you know, come back, and now half. But
they're amazing. And here's the thing. My experience made me
a much better mother. It made me a much better

(52:14):
parent because I was real because there was nothing that
my boys couldn't talk to me about in high school
and junior high, in college, it was like even their
friends I was adult. They could tell all their secrets too,
you know. And this is before books, since my book
came out, Like, there's a lot of people telling me
their secrets right like in the world. But but I

(52:38):
wasn't at a I was just more real. I was like,
let's just talk about real things, Let's talk about what
really matters. Like it was a gift because before that,
I remember Stanford was the only school I didn't get into.
And so in my you know, like as parents do,
I was like, oh my boys, my boys have to
go to Stanford.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
That's the most important thing.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
And then write pre jail and then living the suburban
called the sac Libe the post y'all was like, they
need to do what they love, they need to be happy,
that's the most important thing. So it was like a
real shift, you know, it was a real gift. I
think in me as a mother, maybe a better parent
and friend and a better listener and a better empathizer.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Beautiful, Oh I love that. And and God blessed your
children and they're all safe and loving their mom and
a lot of lots brab to you, brabo to you.
Now the book did like your friend who did helped
you push you to do the Ted Talk? Did somebody
have to do that or did you wake up one
day and said it's fucking time for me to tell
my story.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
No, Honestly, I walked out after doing that Ted Talk,
and Doug was in the audience. I walked into the
hallway and he's like he just looks at me and
he's like, yeah, it's time to write that book proposal.
It's time, you know, And I always want my writing
A book has been my dreams since as a kid.
I didn't know and be this book, right. I thought
I'd be like at the Great American Novel. You know,
my writing is in my educations in fiction writing. But

(54:01):
I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do it. I wrote
the book proposal. And the thing is like I hadn't
told any those stories, Like first of all, no one
asked me. And if they had asked me any stories
about jail or anything, I wasn't like. I wasn't like, hey,
let me tell you about it. I was in so
much shame. I was hiding it all. And one of
the things with writing the book is I didn't realize
how much I needed to tell those stories. Like I

(54:23):
didn't realize like how much I was carrying, you know,
and a memoir, you're picking your scenes to fit your
your themes and your threads. So you know, there's been
some book clubs who are like, oh, that sounds fun,
and jel I'm like, no, no, don't go I didn't
tell all the stories, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
It's not that.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
But so I wrote the book proposal and then you know,
we're non fiction literacyes is. So Doug represented me as
your agent because you can't agent yourself, right. It's like
a therapist needs a therapist and an agent. Even if
I'm a literary agent, I need an agent. And and
so the book sold. It sold at auction, the editors
bidding on it. And you know, it was crazy because

(55:06):
these are editors I've worked with. They didn't know my
story and they're like, I didn't know that about Laura.
How great? You know, like all my fears are like
you know, And so Simon and Schuster.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
It went to Simon Schuster.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
And then, you know, nonfiction books, you don't write the
book first, and so I had a year to write
the actual manuscript before it was going to be due.
And I was like, okay, well, I'm the one way
I'm going to do this is I'm going to be really,
really honest. And so and I went away for two
months to write the first draft of the book.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I went to Thailand.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
I always wanted to go to Thailand by myself, to
Kosta movie Thailand.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
So I had to be away from my family, so
I was.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Going to be really, really honest. I had to be
away from work. There was like a small window with
a time that's where people could reach me. And and
you know, I read the whole first draft of the
book in like seven weeks. I just said a random
deadline for myself. And there's things in the book that
were not in my book proposal that I had never
told anyone, like all the stuff that happened when I
was on a beil that I hadn't told my agent,

(56:05):
that I hadn't told my editor that they didn't know
they were buying. And so but I was like, I'm
only I got to get really honest, Like I can't
think about how people are going to react, Like I
just have to think it's going to do some good.
And I can't cause when you can, you know, have
a lot of practice rearranging twenty six letters, and you're
kind of good at writing. Like I could have hustled honesty, right,

(56:28):
I could have like razzle dazzled the words. And some
people not everyone, right, But some people were like, wow,
that's such a braven, honest book. But some people would
have known I was hustling, and so I was like,
I'm only doing this, I could be really, really honest,
and and so that's what I did. And then you
know the book. It's a two year process from the
time you sell a book to when it comes out

(56:49):
in the store, so you know, it has a whole
year in production and they're planning to launch. And it
was about three weeks before the book was about to
come out and I had this one.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
I was like, Oh my god, what have I done?

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Like I was too honest, Like I went into a panic, right,
all that shame came back that I was supposedly I've healed,
you know, it all just came back.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
And I was like, what have I done?

Speaker 1 (57:10):
You know that feeling like you've you know, like those
dreams where you're like naked in front of the math class,
or you know, like or you're you know, or that
feeling when you're like eating too much cotton candy. I
was just like felt sick. I was like, oh no,
this is not going to go. You know.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
I was just terrified.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
And you know, the reaction with people did not run
screaming from the room, you know, with my honesty and
my you know, my messy inner world. And you know,
I had to let my boys read it, and I
let them all read it before. They're the only ones
I would have changed something for. And so I you know,
you have to tell the truth in a non fiction book,

(57:47):
and you can change the names of anyone who wants
their name change. They didn't want their names changed, you know,
did my ex husbands for some reason. But but I
let them read it, you know. And my oldest son,
Dylan said, Mom, I've always felt close to you, and
now I feel closer. And you know, the hardest was
to let Cayden read it because you know, he didn't
know a lot of the details. He knew the story,

(58:09):
but not the details. And there's a lot of stuff
about his dad that he didn't know that was in there.
So and I wanted, you know, I let his dad
read it early, just so he would know what Cayden
was reading. But Cayden, you know, he was eighteen, senior
year in high school. It was winter break, the book
was going in production in January. I was like, okay,
he's been asking. I was so scared to let him
read it. And so he read it, and you know,

(58:31):
he was reading it all night, and he's not a
big reader. He's a gamer, and so I was like,
what party you want?

Speaker 2 (58:36):
What's happening?

Speaker 1 (58:37):
I kept going in there room. He locked him out
of his room and he's like, well, talk about tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Let me read it.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
And so he read the whole thing straight through. And
I get a text from him at like midnight because
I wasn't sleeping. I was really scared, and he said, mom,
there's a big problem at the end.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
And I was like what.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
He's like, there's a typo and I was like, oh
my god, I hasn't gone to copy editing, you know.
And then he's like, you should pay me for finding
that TYPEO. Like he's an eighteen year old boy, right,
And then he came in my office the next morning
and he said I didn't know any of that. He
said it was like it was like watching a movie.
And then he said, you know, like he was unfazed
though in a way like he was like, he's like,

(59:12):
you know, there were some boring parts and I was
like what. He's like, what parts I wasn't in. You
don't get an eighteen year old boy like it was that.
It was that like I think it gave him more
context to a story that he vaguely has memories from
but mostly has heard, you know. So it gave context
and I think, you know, that's what I love about memoir,

(59:33):
Like when you're in the first person consciousness of someone,
like you're making those choices with them, and I purposely
have the book in the present tense, right, so if
you're reading this, you are me, and we're we're doing
this messy stuff together and we're making our bad decisions
or making our good decisions.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
But I think that's how you hack empathy. I think
that's how.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
You like really understand, Like there's nothing else that gets
you so close in someone's head, Like you can't watch
a video and be in someone's head.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
You can't watch you know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
So I think it helped to have context. And you know,
I've gotten like a lot of people said, you know,
my family members struggling, but I have a little more empathy,
or I lost my mom, but I think I know
a little bit more what they're going through, and it's
hard for people to reconcile, Like at any point in
my diction, I would have thrown myself in front of
a train to save anyone of my children or any
one of your children or anybody's children, I couldn't stop

(01:00:23):
using drugs for them, right, And that's so hard to reconcile. Right,
And there's a mom we're already got shame as a mom,
we're already not making the organic things, or as a dad,
you know, it's like we're always like questioning or parenting,
and so this is like this is like that on steroids, right,
like this sort of guilt and shame. I'm so far
from the perfect mother, but I think I've the only

(01:00:46):
thing I've done perfectly is make my children feel loved
despite all of the the scenes you read about, you know,
And so I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Proud of that. That's one thing I've done well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
That's beautiful. Well done you, mom. Let me ask you this.
The book becomes a huge success, Mss Whiffrey calls you up,
she shouts you out. Did you have a moment once
you realize, oh gosh, was it like were you proud
of yourself? Were you able to love the little girl
in you or walk us through that? Because I was

(01:01:21):
I was crying. I mean I just for you. I
was crying for you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yeah, I mean every writer wants that, right, And I
had co authored a book called The Sundayshine Fanthy Ray
Hinton in twenty eighteen, and not as it Gestor was
a co author, you know where you're on the cover
with them, and Oprah had picked that book. So I'd
been Oprah adjacent, right, And so that was the dream.
I didn't think she could pick my book because she's
a scene that twenty eighteen scene is in my book,

(01:01:47):
and I was like, she's not able to do that,
and normally she picks books, you know, right before they published,
so like when the book publishes, it's an Oprah book.
So I remember just talking about Manifesting that you said earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Yes, So I was.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
You know, it's like my book had been out for
six months and it was doing well, and Simon Schuster
like sent me on a big tour and you know,
word of mouth was great and good Reads Awards and
you know Apple Books Awards, but not Oprah Awards. And
so I remember I was kind of wallowing about that.
And I allow myself sometimes max two days to wallow.
I put on really sad music and I dive in,
and so I was wallowing. It was between Christmas in

(01:02:22):
New Years and the kids were gone I was like,
oh am, I just better at being other people in
books than me, because I'd written five New York Times
bestsellers as other people, right, and Oprah had picked a
book as someone else. My better being someone else than me,
you know. And I did the wallowing thing, and like
what if I'm letting people? You know, I just like
I dope and my brain could get messy if I'm vigilant,

(01:02:44):
right and so, and then I was like, okay, enough
of that. Now I need to imagine Oprah Winfrey picking
me a book.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
It was December.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I was like, Oprah Winfrey's going to pick it, She's
going to do it. I just like had this, you know,
Oprah fantasy. And I like, you know, whether it's manifesting
or daydreaming or dululucy or you know, I have scripts
that go in my heads. I do it sometimes I
fall asleep and I imagine conversations. So January comes around.
It's like three weeks into January, and Simon Schuster, my

(01:03:11):
publicist from there, was like, hey, can you hop on
a zoom talk about the paperback, which is really a
long ways off, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
Paperback comes out a year later. And I thought that
was weird.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
And we get on the zoom and she's like, you know,
I've been thinking about reaching out to book clubs.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Is there anyone you want? And I was, you know,
this is my day job, is it? Literally?

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I was like well, And they did the zoom on
Riverside and I was like, that's weird, right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
She's like Simon Schuster's using Riverside Now. I'm like, no,
they're not. I just had a meeting there, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
It was just like a weird I didn't know what
was going on, and I assume the worst.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
I was like, oh, they're going to cancel the you know,
like whatever disasters I can, I can catastrofize with the
best of them. But she's like, you know, is there
any book club you want in particular? And I was like, well,
which ones have you reached out? You know? We did
this back and forth and I was like, well, you
know which one I want? And then Oprah pops up
on the zoom and she says which one Laura, And like,

(01:04:01):
I go, there's there's like YouTube video of this summer
out there, and and I go blank because I didn't
know if it was my delusional thinking or real life
in that moment, and she said, you're my next book pick.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
And she said this is a full circle moment, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
And she said, I am just a vessel for you now.
And she said that she had been doing book clubs secretly,
no publicity, No one knew about it in the largest
women's prison in the world, which is in Chuchella, California,
for two years. So this was the subject she cared about,
no publicity around it. And she said, you know, Laura,

(01:04:40):
in December, I found your book in my living room
in Maui and nobody knows how it got there. I
asked everyone in my because there's a whole process with
you have to go through the editoral director, and you know,
an author can't send their book to Oprah House to
go through publicists and publisher she goes, I asked every
single person of my staff. No one knows how that
book got there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
And I picked it up.

Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
I didn't realize i'd met you before. I just started reading.
I couldn't put it down. And it's the next book
club pick. And so it became this big mystery. They
were talking about see disneys, like how did the book
get there? And I and I started like the old me. God,
I was like felt guilty, like I swear like it
sounded like maybe I broke in. I was like, I
don't know how it got there either, you know. But
it was this thing which was just, you know, like

(01:05:21):
these these crazy synchronicities in life, like the time that
I was I was wallowing and then just trying to
let vision pull instead of pain push. She was coincidentally
finding my book in her on her coffee table magically,
and so you know, and then once the Oprah shines

(01:05:41):
the spotlight, like everything changes, it's like a whole new
book launch, you know. And it was like traveling for
a year and just this amazing opportunity. And then she
and I went, you know, we did the whole the
book announcement happened. But she and I went into chow
Chill and did book club together, like Simon Schuster donated
like eight hundred books the war in.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
There allowed hardback books for the first time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
They did the first correction officers in book club with
my book and the hardback.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
I've gotten in there three times.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
But she and I, she and I went in there,
and I didn't know how the women were going to react. Like,
first of all, they don't know I'm coming. It's not like,
you know, it's not like everyone's on a group chat, right,
they know Oprah's coming. And I didn't know, you know,
I didn't know if I would be considered like, oh,
who's this woman? Why is she getting this attention? And
you know what, she snitched on a lot of things
in that book. You know, like I just had I

(01:06:29):
had no idea sure what the reaction would be, and
so I was kind of hanging back and Oprah walks
in and there's about one hundred and fifty women and
you know, all those staff in this big cafeteria and
chow chella, and Oprah has the mic and all of
a sudden, she goes, Mama, Love is here. And I
was like just walking and all of the women stood
up and started screaming and crying and yelling. I started crying.

(01:06:54):
And here's the thing that I'm most proud of my book.
It's not Oprah or all the things. It's the fact
that those women and it was the best. I've gone
back three times in there. I get I get teary eyed,
but those women felt seen in that book, and somehow
the women in chow Chilla are filling seen in my
book and all of the book clubs in all the states,

(01:07:16):
those women who are living entirely different lives, middle class
lives are feeling seen in my book. And I was like,
I don't know how I pulled that off, but that
feels pretty good right to bridge those things. So yeah,
that was the That was That was one of my
proudest moments.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Mama loves here.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Do you have a daily spiritual practice?

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
You know? When I'm reading Mark Nepo's book again because
I had him sign it when I saw him, so
I'm doing that again. I I you know, I want
to like tell you and your listeners that I'm MEDITRD
every day, but I don't, but I try to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
When I remember.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
My new spiritual practice right now because I'm living in Hawaii,
is I go at five point forty five in the
morning to the beach Monday through Friday. I meet a
group of people, We get an outrigger canoes and we
paddle out a couple miles right as the sun is
coming up over hu allah Lie the mountain behind me,
and there's chanting in prayers the sunrise every single morning,

(01:08:13):
and that is my current spiritual practice, like nothing like
it being out on the ocean. And you know, when
I was in jail, there's a woman had a postcard
of Hawaii, and I love I've always loved Hawaii, you know,
since I was twenty one. I wanted to live here,
and she had a postcard of Hawaii. I remember the
guard riving it up. But I remember being in jail
sixteen years ago. I'm looking at that postcard and saying,
I will never go there again.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
I will never be able to go somewhere beautiful like
that again.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Like there's no way I'm going to rebuild my life
enough that I could ever like have that place. And
so so I am so happy, you know, I'm here.
I'm writing a novel, writing my first novel. So I
came to Hawaii and yes, and you know, I still
have d lulu plans because I don't ever you know,
I believe in big magical thinking and plans and goals.

(01:08:58):
So yeah, that's my big spiritual practice right now, you know.
And one of the things coming here, I was like,
am I gonna find community? I'm gonna make friends and
and and I know how to do that now.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
So it's in pretty yes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
You do. Let me ask you this, what has been
your biggest defective character You've out of overcome.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Fear of the unknown?

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Mm hmm, right, how did you do that? What's your
what's your technique? Tell our audience how you did that?

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
No, you know what, I just I catch myself when
I'm doing it, you know, like as someone who likes
to to try to script out everybody's motives and script
out everything.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
You know, I'm sort of in this.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Like unhoused, untethered time in my life, which is so
uncomfortable and so wonderful at the same time, like not
knowing what I'm gonna what I'm gonna do next, or
where I'm going to go next, And that is just
not how I've operated.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
So, you know, I fear of the unknown?

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
How do I do that? One? I you know, I
catch myself when I'm in the fear, But also I
think I just trust that everything's happening for me, not
to me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
No, that's the difference, right right on. Oh that's beautiful, beautiful.
Oh I love that. All right. So I end a
lot of times I just want to do like I'm
just gonna ask you, We'll do like some rapid fire thing.
I'll ask you a question you just quick response? Is
that cool?

Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
Okay, all right? First one one word that best describes
your journey.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Messy.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
If you could send one message to your younger self
behind bars, what would it be?

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Ask for help? Don't be afraid to connect with people.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
What's the book that change your life the most?

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
The Book of Awakening by marketing poll right on.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
What's your go to matra when life gets heavy?

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Someday I'll look forward to looking back I mean someday.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Yeah, I just.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Say I look forward to looking back on this someday.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
That's how I know I'll get through it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Who's been your greatest teacher?

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Anthony Ray Hinton Man who was on Death Rowe, Alabama
for thirty years.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
My greatest spiritual teacher?

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Read the Sun? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
Well wait, I cut you off. What's the book that
everybody needs to read?

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
The Sun does Shine? He taught me more about gratitude
and forgiveness than than No Offense to the Dolly Loman
doesn't you too?

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
But Anthony Ray Hydton is my greatest.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
If love had a sound, what would it be?

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
Just be a big sigh, the big RESTful sigh.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
I love it What does freedom mean to you today?

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Freedom today means responsibility.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
What's one truth you wish the world knew about people.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
And recovery that they are exactly like you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
I want to thank you for not only being my guests,
but my sober sister. I've been blessed to have that.
I've been sober thirty eight years. I got a gift
to twenty two, so it's nice to walk this path
with you. Thank you for inspiring me, thank you for
inspiring our audience. And I just can't wait to see
what the next chapter is for you. Okay,