Episode 2122 - Paula Franklin’s “Fear Unraveled” Memoir

Author Paula Franklin recently sat down with The Ash Said It Show for an exclusive interview to discuss her raw and riveting memoir, Fear Unraveled: A Journey Through Life, Bikers, Boaters, and the Bible. Blending humor, heartbreak, and spiritual transformation, Paula’s book offers a deeply personal look at her unconventional life—from growing up near the Blackstone Rangers in Chicago to finding redemption through faith.

📘 About the Book: Fear Unraveled
Fear Unraveled is a confessional-style memoir filled with short, punchy stories—most under a page—organized by age and life stages. Paula’s writing is intentionally candid, often shocking, and always infused with humor. She describes the book as “upbeat for the most part,” aiming to make readers laugh, cry, and reflect on their own journeys.

🧭 Themes of Transformation and Faith
The memoir began as a personal project for Paula’s son, James, who asked her to document her life experiences. What emerged is a spiritual journey that weaves together encounters with boaters, bikers, and the Blackstone Rangers, all anchored by Paula’s evolving relationship with God. From a self-described “weekend warrior partier” to a woman
transformed by Bible study, Paula’s story is one of redemption and purpose.

Key themes include:
Confession and raw honesty about addiction, rebellion, and spiritual awakening
Drama and travel through decades of cultural upheaval and personal chaos
Faith and transformation, culminating in a renewed life in Christ

🗣️ Interview Highlights: Ash Said It Show
In her interview, Paula dives into the emotional and spiritual layers of her memoir. She discusses the impact of historical events like the Civil Rights Movement, the influence of pop culture icons like Elvis and the Beatles, and the societal shifts that shaped her worldview. She also reflects on her family's struggles with addiction and the healing power of scripture.

✝️ A Message of Hope and Legacy
Paula’s memoir is more than a collection of stories—it’s a call to faith. She hopes her transparency will encourage others to seek Jesus and embrace their own spiritual journeys. Her favorite scripture, Matthew 7:1, serves as a guiding principle throughout the book: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

Get The Book Here: https://a.co/d/1ololAL

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
What it is, what it dos, CyberWorld. It is your girl,
the one and only Ash Brown, and this is the
Ash Said It show. Over twenty one hundred episode since
twenty fourteen, half a million streams around the world. None
of this is possible without you, guys, So I thank
you so so very much. Today we have an exceptional

(00:26):
guest with us. We have got the author of the
latest book in her wonderful collection. We've got Paula Franklin
with us today. We're talking Fear Unraveled. Hey, Paula, Hey,
II girl, I'm great. How are you today?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm happy to be on the show.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Thank you so much. You know, we've been looking forward
to this and we've been hearing all the rave reviews
about this particular book. We know that you are a
very accomplished and celebrated writer. So I am Sue for
due for Trooper, excited to chat with you today.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yes, I thank you for having me and inviting on
your show.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, so we're talking all about Fear Unraveled today. Paula,
how was this process started for this particular book. Well,
my son.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
He's twenty When he was twenty one, he's twenty seven now,
and I always tell him like, all these crazy stories
about my life, I have hundreds of thousands of them.
So he says, Mat, he goes, can you write me
a book about your life? I was like, sure, I
could do that, you know, So I started writing and
it just came to Nashville. I was just for this book.

(01:43):
I remembered, like so many things when I was a
little girl, and then my parents would tell me stories.
So I wrote some of those too, obviously, and then
whenever I remembered, and then I just kept writing probably
two hundred and forty two hundred and sixty short stories. Yeah, yeah,

(02:03):
I mean it's it was a crazy life.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yes, yes, Now with the title Fear Unraveled, where did
you get the inspiration for this?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Honestly, I didn't even know the title at the time,
and that's not like me. Usually I need a title
that I write a book, the title comes to me.
But after I got to writing the book, I realized
how much fear I had from all the experiences in
my life. So I just said fear unraveled because it's
it's unraveled through my life. But Jesus God has been there,

(02:39):
not that I really knew all about, you know, I
knew about God, but then I realized I seen his hand.
I mean, I had some big angels in my life,
I'll tell you because through my high school years and
a little beyond that, I was quite the partier. And
luck I'm alive.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Just stay there, Yes, as we are, all our ball is.
You know, we've all gone through some storms. We've been
through some some things in this life, Paula, and God
has definitely had an ever changing hand around all of
us and blessing us and allowing us to continue to be.
You know, a lot of our our colleagues and a

(03:19):
lot of our peers don't necessarily make it through some
of the storms in life.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
So yeah, but I always try to like the things
that you go through. Sometimes they make you stronger. And
some things that happen in your life that are like
I go voting and I forget the keys all the
way two hundred miles away and wouldn't get there. It's like,
oh my gosh, you know, and then later, you know,

(03:48):
a year or three years later, you're laughing about it.
So some of the hard things are odd things are
just the funniest things until you know forever twenty three years.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Wow, So what was one of the most significant real
life events that you wanted to make sure that you
shared with readers.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Well, I started. I always believed in God, you know,
but I started reading the Bible at forty and you know,
I just love it. It's one time I started reading it.
Someone said front to back, so I did that. It
was just horrible experience, just terrible. And then someone years

(04:34):
later said, you just read the book as a little book.
You know, there's so many there's like sixty six books
in the Bible. They're full of love stories, adventure instructions.
Like I didn't realize, you know, all the stuff that
was a sin? Have you read? And I was like,
that's a sin, that's a sinner. Like what's going on here?

(04:57):
Because I used to have a short temper and I
always wanted a perfect cup of coffee. But during the
years reading a Bible, I started to become gentler. But
I still do have my you know, I can get
my south Side personality going if I need it. It's
still there in my pocket. You know, when you gotta

(05:18):
be tough or whatever, I can just pull it out
like a card.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yes, definitely. Now would you say that these life experiences
because I'm an aries. I'm a fire sign too, so
I definitely identify with kind of softening myself throughout the years,
so to speak, because I was a little firecracker growing up.
I definitely was a spitfire. And I think life's experiences

(05:46):
have absolutely humbled me. And do you feel like that's
maybe the same case with you.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, And I think, you know, when you go through
difficult times in life, I've noticed I think I'm more
humbler to people, to their situations. But when I see someone,
you know, I could still be kind of rough, like hey,
you know, get it together, but when people are going
through tough times, I can't. Even though I was brought

(06:16):
up on the South Side, I had the you know,
this whole neighborhood who really didn't didn't like us. So
we only had to stay in our little, our little
sidewalk area. Yeah, and then we will. Then we moved.
Like I laugh about this because I don't know if
you remember, you might be younger than me. The Jeffersons

(06:41):
that sitcoms moving up, moving on, I was like, that's me.
I was moving out up, you know, the Jeffersons. But
as you see in the Jeffersons sitcom. They had a
lot of trouble, you know, and I still did. You know,
I went from one area like the Jeffersons to this,

(07:02):
you know, other high class area. But then those people
treated me bad, you know, because where I came from.
And we didn't have any grass for two years, but
we had even though on the South Side, I have
to say, we had some good times. We used to
go out. There was four of us and ten of

(07:23):
my cousins before six of them, and we'd stand in
front of the house on Halsted Street and we put
sign signs on us when we were little said kids
for sale, Kids for sale. So we get a couple
of pennies or whatever, and everything was a penny candy,
and then one of the older kids, like nine years
old or eight years old would run across the busy

(07:45):
street get the candy and then come back and we
just gobble it all that So my mom caught us
one time and my cousin had soaping her mouth, so
she like shut it down. She's like, this is shut down.
You're not doing this again. Well she thought we shut
it down, but we didn't. We just never got caught again.

(08:06):
We used to dock eyes of stilly stuff like that.
Oh my god, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
So talk a little bit about your time in the sixties.
You grew up in the sixties and so you're kind
of like in the middle of you know, women's suffrage.
The civil rights movement was also, you know, it was
happening as well during that time. What do you recall
of that period?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, yeah, I was born in fifty nine and so
we lived at ninety third in Halsted, and back then
it was pretty rough. We had the Blackstone Rangers. They
had their their little place where they hung out and

(08:54):
so they always shoot guns and stuff like that and
try to scare us, which they did a good job
at it. They never heard us certain things. But then
you had Martin Luther King who was standing up for
everyone's rights and he got shot. And then you have
Kennedy who did the same thing. He gets shot, and

(09:16):
little Rosa Parks, you know, standing up for black people's rights,
but she won the case, Praise God, you know what
I'm saying. And then then there was the spec murders
with all the nurses, so there was a lot of
you know, and so we had a big dog and

(09:37):
he was mean, and so there was a lot of
fear there, but growing up in the sixties. Yeah, then
then came you know, the Beatles and drugs and Women's
Live and so it was. Yeah, I'd say it was
a good time, interesting time, And I really even though

(09:59):
all that was going, I think there was people were
just so much nicer back then. Yeah, you know, really
and everyone pretty much looked out for everybody no matter
where you were. Yeah, you had sound stripe, but yeah,
I thought it was a pretty good time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I think that today's society lacks that because I even
remember in the eighties growing up in the Bronx, like
it was a very much like a community centered situation
on our block, Like everyone looked out for everybody, everyone's family.
If somebody's sick or something, you're checking on them, or
you're sending your kids to go check on them, or

(10:39):
everybody was very much like taking.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Care of your own block. And I feel it's the
complete opposite today, And unfortunately, we're just kind of seeing
that how our country is uh is handling that today.
But that's a whole other topic for another show, Paula,
We're gonna get based on track. That's a whole other

(11:01):
topic for another show. But but Holy.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Paula, if you had one piece of advice from your
book for readers to take so they could implement it
into their life, what would it be.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
I guess to say, God is really always with you,
and sometimes you don't see it till years later, you know.
And I realized that as I got older and I
look back and see some even you know, like even
the Bible says bad things are going to happen. Yeah,

(11:45):
But he's there, you know, and he'll take care of,
you know, those bad guys and those bad girls whatever.
They'll work with them in his own way, you know.
And like I said, pray for your enemies. We pray,
We don't, we don't. We try not to stay mad,
we try to love them. And just I always think

(12:07):
when I pray for my enemies, I pray that they
come to the Lord. Yeah, and they are quite Jesus,
you know. Even though I don't do that all the time.
I try.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
We're doing we're human being. You know, we're gonna we're
gonna misstep, we're gonna miss fall, you know, we're just
I think the best thing that people can do is
just try to be a better version of yourself. That's
The best way I think for people to move forward
is just yeah, you know what, sometimes we backslide. Sometimes
we slip, and you know, we fall into two bad

(12:40):
habits are always well, as long as you're recognizing it
and you're trying to improve, I think you're gonna be okay.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah. But the book, the book is I tried to
make the book very lighthearted, right because I had a girlfriend.
I had the whole book done and then one of
my girlfriend called me. She says, I hate autobiographies, they're
so sad. I was like, oh my gosh, I made
have some sense, you know. So I redid the whole

(13:10):
every story, I reread it, and I made it a
twist of funny for happy, so it's not like that
downer type thing when she was talking, Yeah, oh, I
gotta have some comedy in there, you know.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, that's that's what life is about, you know. You
gotta take the good with the bad and all that
good stuff back. I want to hear about, like, what
did your son have to say about the book after
everything was said and done. What was his reaction?

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Oh my gosh, well he's so proud of me, and
he says, and don't worry if you don't sell any books. Mom, Ever,
it doesn't matter. You wrote. You wrote a book. That's
what they accomplishment. And so I give him a book.
And I actually made a hard copy and those things,
you know, are very expensive, so I wasn't going to

(13:59):
make one, but then uh, I gave it to him.
I said, are you going to read it? Well, how's
it going? I'm not reading a book until you pass away?
I said, what? What? What? Like? Well, I know all
the stories. I'm like, oh, I don't.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Oh my gosh, he's a rascal.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
You know, kids could be, but definitely lads was certainly not. Lise. Paula,
what's the best way for everyone to get the book?
And you know, if people want to reach out to
you with questions, do you have like an email address
or any way for them to reach you?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yes. JC Warrior two thousand ed Gmail.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Oh cool, and you guys can check the description of
this episode. I'm going to put the link for the book.
You guys can get it that way. Paula, thank you
so so very much for coming through. We so appreciate
all of your energy, your good vibrations, and of course
your amazing story.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
And my book is on Amazon. Yeah. You just go
to Amazon Books and then put in the book name
or my name and there's yeah, there's proud. There's another
thirteen books there, but not that one.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yes, loving that cool, Cool bads, And and thank you, guys,
thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate all
of the love and support. Keeping in mind. Anyone to
tell you that you can't do what you want to do,
you look them square in the face, you tell them,
don't believe me. Just watch that's what I do. Watch

(15:45):
me make it happen, Watch me make history. That's what
we're doing. Is for the history books. Social media is nice,
but real life is so much better. Until next time,
you guys,