‘Making Space With Hoda Kotb’: Maria Shriver

foreign if there is one thing I've learned in my life it's the importance of the people you surround yourself with and maybe you know by now Maria Shriver is one of the friends I hold so dear to my heart she is my go-to at any time I'm in a Crossroads or in a funk one call to her and suddenly my mental load feels lighter but this Maria you're about to hear from is not like the Maria you met in the past we go deep she is candidly reflecting on topics we haven't heard from her on everything from growing up a Kennedy to navigating life after divorce and guys she's just so full of wisdom once you're touched by Maria's Insight you'll never look at life quite the same way for everyone who's listening I'd get a pen and paper ready because I feel like you do this thing where you drop all these little wisdom bombs just today you said something about I was explaining to you how sometimes people poke me in a way that is painful whether it's somebody who I knew a long time ago or somebody who I work with or whatever I said when this is actually a teacher who taught me he said to me think of that person as your teacher they are actually bringing up something in you that needs to be resolved they are teaching you how to handle whatever comes up in your interaction with that person and uh he was saying instead of being irritated by this person look at them as your teacher and try to understand what's happening in you and you in you because it's always about what you're supposed to get and how you can heal whatever is going on in you because it needs to be healed everything that I've learned in this journey of life is that which I wish I had known actually so much younger is that everybody is coming through as a teacher and that if you could look at them that way yeah it actually demystifies them in some way it takes away some of the irritation about them and this person came to teach me about my pain yeah this person came to teach me about strength that I didn't know I had and I think one of the cool things about you is you are a learner and a teacher you just recently talked to the coach from duke right for your show for our show all right here we go let's go Motion head coach Cara Lawson is changing the game hit the gourd on the Tycoon not just for her players and the Duke Women's Basketball team good but for everyone thanks to her message captured during a team practice earlier this year and posted on social media that went viral you wait for stuff to get easier so that's a mental shift that has to occur in each of your brains it has to because if you go around waiting for stuff to get easier in life it's never going to happen what did you learn about life from from her first of all I think we all need coaches in some way right it's not just the person who's on the basketball team or the football team and I always looked at coaches of those young people and thought that I wish I had that now at the same yeah somebody coaching me forward right so she said you know I was focused on only 17 people and it went to tens of millions of people and she said I think people focus a lot of the time on like I have to impact the world and just focus on the 1 5 17 people you want to focus on and then leave the rest kind of up to God I always say up to God coach Lawson said you know I am here to remind people that they have done hard things and they can do more hard things and what I took away from that was like yeah I've actually done hard things I don't give myself credit for the hard things that I've already done yeah which then encourages me or inspires me yeah I can do more hard things because I've done them I forget about them yeah and I took that away that we're capable of doing hard things in our future because we've done them to get to where we are right look at us sitting here and I like that like don't go wide go deep yeah she's like I wasn't talking to anybody else she said because I took her her speech and put it up on my Instagram and she goes I for sure wasn't talking to Maria Shriver isn't that interesting but I ended up talking to her and I was like that is so wise just focus on the kid that's in front of you the friend that's in front of you I did not grow up with that message and I have found in my life that what fills me up what makes me feel good is not what I thought when I was 20 or 30. it's the I'm talking to you somebody's talking to me uh and that's kind of I think a secret that people don't talk about enough when did you start on this journey of like figuring out who you were because I would imagine with with all your kids in your life you were just getting through I think I've actually thought a lot about and I don't I'm on a continual Quest actually to um learn about myself why I'm here and how um I'm moving through the world and its effect on my small world right and so I've often thought about was I always curious and the answer is yes I was always curious which is why journalism was so great for me I think um I've had a couple big pillar moments I think when my dad lost he was the Vice Presidential nominee on the McGovern ticket and that was a huge hard lesson about politics for me it was well it was you know that it was for me loss grief it was assassinations it kind of confirmed for me like oh I don't want anything to do with this it's not real it's not honest it's not what it pretends to be and the journalism lesson was you know that I could put my whole heart and soul I could work seven days a week 24 hours a day and they could decide on a whim it was over and I'm out the door right and certainly the um I I wanted uh to have a different kind of marriage than my parents had I wanted to have a different kind of life than my parents did and the ending of all of that definitely sent me on a journey to reevaluate everything in my life every aspect of my life and how I had gotten where I was what was my role in it what could I do better um what had I done that put me in that place I looked at my religion I looked at the judgments of my religion I looked at my own judgments I looked at myself as a woman I looked at everything and I did everything that was available uh that I could find to heal myself and I still look at myself as on a healing journey I think I just kind of have tried to dig deep and to understand that how I work in the world has a lot to do with how I feel about myself and I didn't connect those two things I was raised with just go out and try to work on the world and don't worry if you're upset or angry or resentment or any of these things and then to actually turn that Journey onto myself and into myself and then connect to how I go out in the world has been a glorious uh Journey for now I remember once you were talking to me and you said you were time to separate what you believed as and and wondering like what you believed inside or what things your parents put in you when you were a kid you know parents put things in us when we're a kid and we say I always believe X if so you were discovering I still remember you were combing through stuff in your life like what do I actually believe and what stuff was taught to me so much and drummed into me that that became part of my DNA how did you break through all that stuff I think you know we all at some point go through that right we all Wonder like is this my opinion or is this my parents opinion or is this you know just something I heard and adapted or and I I think that's a gradual process you know I grew up in this big Democratic family and I was taught to believe that people who were Republicans well you know were the enemy and then I fell in love with the Republican and I was like what whoa you know and then everybody in my family is like I could see people in my family having judgments about you know the person that I was choosing hadn't gone to the same kind of schools that people I grew up with and wasn't the same political party and wasn't this and wasn't that and then I started wondering about judgments I started thinking about gosh we all judge people that are different from us so that I began kind of thinking about that then I moved to Los Angeles and my family was like oh my God you would have thought I had you know I don't know what I had done you know my mother was like you know you're in Hollywood and that's terrible and that's odd and I was like is it I don't know you know and so I think that um you know I feel blessed to have had obviously the parents that I had but they're very different than me and I have some similarities to both of them but I have tried to pick apart and I wanted to be as I said a different kind of mother a different kind of wife and I've only in my adulthood tried to kind of be a different kind of woman and I realized I thought I was so much like my mother in so many ways and now I'm looking at things like I'm like my mother but I'm very different from my mother how are you the same I think we're both Restless I think we're both um determined she came up very much in a man's world and when I was starting out certainly in journalism was very much of a male profession so I I adapted this like okay you know yeah fight right and I remember a guy I was working with it was a teacher and he said what are you fighting and I was like what do you mean I'm fighting and he's like what it's like I don't know I was like I don't know yeah and he's like you ought to be thinking about what you're fighting yeah maybe that's old and you're bringing the fight you know to the room and you've already won that fight and it's old it's over you're in the room now and you're in the room and so you don't have to do that anymore right and no one had ever said to me wow you know like it's like my friend Martha Beck I was like I gotta hurry up and do this and she goes were you hurrying up to where are you rushing to and I was like I gotta get this done I get this why and I was like yeah I I if you really break it down I've actually tried to slow down yeah because I'm a different person when I'm going slow yeah you know everybody's rushing and they have their face in their phone and they're you know running through their life and I did that and I don't remember a lot of it because I was running through and so now I try to go slower so I can remember the conversations I can remember the moments I can remember the people right okay you tell me how you're the same as your own how are you different I'm not as angry as my mom yeah I don't have as much rage as my mom I've been able to delve into that in a way she couldn't she wasn't given the opportunity or she didn't know that it existed there so I have a very different spirituality I think I have we're both she was deeply religious um and I think I'm deeply spiritual I've been able to explore my femininity in ways I think my mother never could I think I'm a more kind of uh affectionate physically affectionate mother than my mother was was it hard or awkward in the beginning if you didn't receive it to give it or what no because I knew that it I didn't receive it and I needed to give it to you because I I it was a big thing for me not to get it and uh and I think I also say that my mother was probably not the recipient of it either and that we talked about breaking Cycles in our families and that's a cycle I wanted to break how was your mom with your kids uh very different yeah uh than she was with the five of us I have four brothers and myself and so she was able to take more time I think my mother was in a real Rush when I was little her brother was President she was trying to build a worldwide organization she was trying to change the world and I think that's really hard to push up against that 24 7 and you know bounce the ball yeah yeah it's really hard and I always said to myself I knew that my kids you know would end up in therapy at some point but I knew that they wouldn't be able to say she wasn't there they could say she was this this or this but I didn't want them to say that I had chosen something over them I wanted them to know that they were my priority and I wanted them to feel that one thing that you're doing right now as we speak is we hear a lot about raising kids up and the right way to raise them up but there's not a whole lot said about how to raise or continue to raise adult children right I've seen people when you were on the show asking about that and it doesn't get a whole lot of attention I know I was just actually talking about that all the parenting books are you know for five and under teenagers and I think it's complicated with adult children and I I know people say like you know 18 out the door yeah cut them off let them go there's that philosophy I've tried to kind of look at my home as a fueling station where people can come back and get the love they need the food they may need the encouragement and nourishment that they may need and then to go out into the world and the truth and the truth you always tell us the truth you know like the truth that they may not get someplace else and I I think I did not get a lot of talking yeah when I was growing up I think that's why I started writing books because I didn't you know there were things going on in my family that nobody talked about and I think that was really detrimental because you'd say like I would hear things in the Zeitgeist and I'd come home I'd go is is that true and oh we don't talk about that we don't talk about that and or when you know my uncles were killed we're like we don't talk about that we just move right along and I'm like yeah but like right somebody just nope let's go do you want to go sailing now do you want to talk about something else and I'll be like okay okay you bury this so I buried it and I buried it and I buried it and that and whatever you bury comes out and so I think understanding learning about that um helped me and I think also wanting to talk and realizing I was in a family that was well known that didn't talk about it so where could I talk about it because I didn't want to talk about my family so I masqueraded it in the books isn't that interesting so I talked to the world about about grief about heaven about intellectual disability about Alzheimer's in my children's book or in my reporting so I could talk about what I couldn't talk about at home wow that is fascinating yeah and then when did you start just saying okay well I'm gonna I'm just telling the truth like that's how I'm gonna go through life I think I started feeling like I had the freedom or the permission uh when my marriage ended I first you know felt like oh I better go and figure out like what is the truth and I went to a Convent uh to um I did like so many things but one of the things I did is I went to a conventor to be in silence and you know look for advice and the Reverend mother there said to me at the very end she said I think you came here looking for permission and I felt like I was in a scene out of the sound of music you know which had been like I was like I was like all right she goes you can't come live here and she goes but you do have permission to go out and become Maria and I was like I was like sobbing and I'm like who's that I was like who is that and so I think the word permission I had never given myself permission to feel to be vulnerable to be weak to be brought to my knees and the world did it to me and then I was like okay God like let's go yeah and I'm gonna take this and learn everything I can um about my role and what I need to learn you know when something like that or the universe knocks you like that I think you have to like not focus on the other person just figure out like what is your learning curve what do you need to learn from this experience and um and so I I gave myself permission to start learning you talked about I was asking you about raising up adult kids yeah just about giving them a place a place to come nurturing yeah that that's what I feel that is my role and I'm learning a role as a mama G yeah how do I roll with my children's relationships do I give my opinion do I not I do but I don't don't keep right give it once I'm giving maybe twice but you let them know yeah I let them know you know and then I have to step out because it's not my life and uh watching your kids fall and and make mistakes and everything is um painful and that's the other thing I've learned actually that I wish somebody had told me very young is the and joyful and painful the greatest thing ever and it's the most heartbreaking thing ever so it's a lot of and holding both things on any given day yes that's good yeah not but but and if you're listening and you haven't read Maria's Sunday paper please read it I look forward to it every Sunday morning and the one you've had so many brilliant ones but there was one about when people feel invisible yeah and that struck me and it actually surprised me to hear you say that about yourself like I was reading that and I was and you're talking about when you're next to Arnold sometimes people would reach across you as if you were there to get to him that's a big story of my life actually feeling invisible I grew up feeling invisible an incredibly public famous family so if you as a child are standing next to the president of the United States two U.S senators the first lady nobody's looking at you you are background noise and you take that with you really through life and you end up putting yourself in situations where that continues until you learn your lesson that it's not about other people seeing you it's about you seeing yourself and that took me a really long time a really long time to learn and so I would find myself getting angry at people you know who came up and didn't acknowledge that I existed um when I was standing next to Arnold or when I was standing next to you know my uncle or something I'd be like and then I was like they're teaching me a lesson that it's not about whether they see me do I see me am I visible to me I thought what made people feel seen was winning an Emmy getting an award getting a book being on TV but what actually makes people feel seen and Worthy is talking to them sitting with them calling them slowing down right sitting on the porch going I don't have anywhere to go I'm right here with you and you are enough it's funny because you're talking about relationships parent work spouse all that stuff you are doing these these things are amazing it's radically reframing and now you're doing radically reframing relationships yeah how do you radically refrain relationships well I think they're they are already being radically reframed I mean I look at my kids in their 20s and 30s their marriages their relationships or not marriages are so radically different than my generation how people get in and out of friendships uh you know people midlife understanding they need new friendships delving out into friendships understanding that friendships take work and then also looking at the different kinds of relationships that exist that you need it does take real work it does yeah are you expanding like tell me about your Friendship Circle or do you kind of I'm not no I mean I you know I I wish I I feel like you know there was my college friends my high school friends and then you know when I had little kids there were like all the mommies then all my kids left right so then all of a sudden kind of a lot of the school mommy friends left too right they drifted and I found like at work most of the people other than us are like 20. yeah right yeah so so I'm conscious of the fact that I want to make sure the friends I do have that I'm going deep and the other thing that I feel like is so big with you is you're radically reframing aging yes that's very important to me was yeah it was so important but yeah yeah because we're all aging right A lot of it is such a state of mind but your mindset about who you are what you're capable of whether your best days are in front of you that's so important to be able to think positively about the Aging experience it's a blessing it's a gift to give reminding yourself as opposed to getting looking in the mirror and going like damn who's that because we all have that critical voice right and it's it's never or certainly mine has never been kind to me uh and so I have to catch myself all the time like you're okay yeah you're not this you got this you're never going to be this young again yeah so enjoy it there's a person I see occasionally walking around and she's always like oh God getting loads of pain and that and I don't like I don't think that way I mean I just feel like you're so optimistic you're so upbeat you're so positive and so that's such a great thing to be around because that's contagious and that makes you feel also good about yourself right if you're around somebody their energy like we were talking the other night walks into the room before they do yes I feel them coming in right it's big yeah yeah I love speaking to you are we finished I don't want it to be we made space you made space right I love you I love you too thanks for coming to see me [Music] please hey thanks for watching don't miss the Today show every weekday at 11 A.M Eastern 8 Pacific on our streaming Channel today all day to watch head to today.com all day or click the link right here

Channel: TODAY

Views: 231,028

Keywords: Today, Today Show, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, domestic news, international news, weather, interviews, politics, money, media, entertainment, sports, breaking news, food, health, home, parents, style, concerts, pets, shopping, Hoda Kotb

Id: YwywFKXWtsY

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 03 2023