I'm Oprah Winfrey.
Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.
Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts now, right now.
Can you believe that your little book that's on my nightstand and now many people's nightstands?
I've been thinking reflections reflections, it's just reflections, it's prayers and meditations for a meaningful life yes, is still on the best sellers list.
I can't believe it.
I actually I started telling my brother I have this little book and he said stop calling it a little book.
Yes.
And that was actually a pivot for me because he said, it's actually a deep book.
It's a helpful book.
Don't call it a little book because that's what I was describing it as.
I said I want it to end up on people's nightstands or in their bathrooms, because then you pick it up and put it down.
It's too deep for the bathroom for me.
It's too deep for the bathroom.
I don't want to go this deep in the bathroom.
You don't want anything deep.
You want it quick in the bathroom.
Yeah, I want it quick.
Remember that joy book you gave me years ago?
That's right.
The yellow one?
I want that.
You want that.
Because it's one page and it's got some pretty flowers and it's a sentence.
But so many people have sent me pictures of this book on their nightstands.
Oh, really?
Yeah, really.
Like next to a flower, next to a telephone, just sitting by itself and That was how I pictured it.
That's what I envisioned for it.
Look at you manifesting.
Yes, look at me manifesting, finally.
I think it's beautiful.
And you know what?
As I was preparing to talk to you today, I actually just went through each chapter.
For those of you who haven't read the book yet.
It's just so beautifully conceived.
I am who I choose to become, seeing the jewel inside, working on intestinal fortitude.
What I learned about power from a community of nuns, and then the power of peace, the power of gratitude, the power of the mind, the power of women, the power of letting go, the power of empathy and the power of thank you.
I mean, you covered it all.
Yes.
You were doing a lot of reflecting.
I'm doing a lot of thinking.
But I think those are what I've discovered.
It's really what everybody is thinking about, in a way.
Everybody is thinking about their life.
They're thinking about transition.
They're thinking about letting go.
They're thinking about... why their life isn't the way it is.
Interesting, no matter what stage you're in, you're thinking about it.
Exactly.
Because your kids are thinking about it in a different kind of way.
Yes, exactly.
But what's been so interesting in traveling around the country?
Everybody's in transition that I talk to.
You know people have come up.
I just graduated from high school.
I'm scared about going for college.
I don't know how to do.
I just graduated from college.
I don't know what my job is.
I can't find my passion.
I just had a baby.
I've left my law career.
I feel like I don't know who I am anymore, or I try to get back into the workforce.
I don't know who I am.
My mother just died.
I just got divorced.
My parents are aging.
I mean, it's just this tumult, or what do you think about politics?
Or I don't know what's happening in our country.
There's this huge upheaval and people are all wondering how to make sense of it.
People are looking for direction.
They're looking for the rod and the staff.
And I love that.
Yes.
Because it elicits great conversations.
People want to talk.
They want to connect.
They want to know how to make sense.
So much so.
And here's my book.
Okay.
And so much so, share the story of you walk into this auditorium, there are all these people there.
Yeah.
And you're thinking, Who are they here for?
Well, I talked to you like half an hour after that event.
So it was like the second day that the book had come out.
And I went, it was out in Long Island.
And so I wasn't quite clear what it was.
It was like, you have a book event in Long Island, you'll sign the books.
And so I... in my mind was like, it's a bookstore or a book thing.
I wasn't quite sure.
And so I went into this like little kind of green room type thing and I was sitting in there by myself and I was like okay, fine.
And then I went around the corner, they're like, okay, here's the introduction.
And I walked out onto the stage and I looked up and it was full.
And the rafters were full.
And I had this instant thought in my mind, I'm on the wrong stage.
I'm in the wrong auditorium.
Because in my mind, when I looked up and I saw a packed thing, I thought A packed auditorium.
A packed auditorium.
And layers of it.
Layers, so I assumed immediately that I was in the wrong place.
That's like that bad anxiety dream that you have.
I have a bad anxiety dream when I have a lot of anxiety.
Yeah.
That I'm on a stage and either I've forgotten the words to the color purple, or I'm on a stage and Walter Cronkite's doing the news with me and my pages are out of order.
I'm on a stage and I've lost all the lines.
But the lines are on the floor and if I can just get to the floor,
That's my anxiety dream.
But I didn't imagine, I didn't imagine that.
All those people are there.
You didn't imagine that.
I didn't imagine that.
And it was, and I looked up and it was kind of in slow motion.
I looked around and then I was just overcome with emotion.
That all of these people were there.
Yes, for my little book.
For your little book.
And the majority that I could see were holding my book.
And I looked around and I was, you know, alone.
I was on the stage with this gentleman that I had never met before.
And I was just overwhelmed with emotion so that I came back to my hotel room.
And that's when I called you.
And that's when you called me.
And I was just like, and I was in my hotel.
I was just kind of like, oh my God.
How did this happen?
I feel so grateful.
Yes.
I feel so moved.
And it was really in a way, you know, I was clocking in my head.
I've gone out onto stages on behalf of so many people in my life behalf of my mother, behalf of my father, behalf of somebody running for office, behalf of the first lady's office, behalf of all you know NBC or whatever and there I was kind of standing there on behalf of myself and I was standing there kind of alone and I was just like it makes me even cry.
I was just like, oh my god, you know wow, I was so grateful And now it's happened over and over.
And now it's happened over and over, but it's always different.
The crowds are different, the people are different, but it still is moving to me.
But that moment was like a like whoa moment for me at this college out in Long Island and it was dark and at night and it was just like so deeply moving.
I think people hearing this, seeing this, are surprised at your level of, first of all, gratitude for a moment like that because, from what the world sees and knows of you,
You grew up in this family where people are used to big audiences.
As you say in the beginning of the book, I grew up in a family where people did really big things.
They ran for president.
They started programs that changed people's lives, gave speeches that moved the world, and they never, ever gave up trying to make our planet better.
I thought a lot about how I could create my own space, forge my own path, find my own purpose and mission.
So people would think that, oh gee, you're used to crowds and but not on behalf of yourself.
I think that's what's so powerful.
Yeah, and I am used to crowds, and I am used to also being somewhat invisible in them.
And so this book is really me.
What do you mean invisible in them?
Well, meaning that I don't give up much of myself.
I speak on behalf of somebody.
I urge someone to vote.
I urge someone to cure Alzheimer's.
But I don't say, I've struggled here.
I have anxiety.
I thought this, that, or the other.
And this book is really very much perhaps the most me.
I've written children's books about specific issues.
I wrote a book about journalism.
How to deal with grief.
Yes, how to deal with grief, how to deal with Alzheimer's, how to deal with disabilities.
So always kind of with a purpose.
This was really just me, me evolving, me growing, me changing.
It was just, it came from in here, out.
And so it was really, I think it's the most me.
And I think people have come up to me in a different way from this book than anything I've done.
Yes, because you have taken every challenge that you have endured and turned it into power.
I love what you say on page nine that power is actually our own.
It's yours and don't give it away.
I know because I've given it away and it's challenging to get it back.
Where are the instances where you gave it away and lost yourself?
There are a lot.
I mean, I think you get married, you have a lot of you know, you have four kids, you shift your career down, you begin to see your life as a wife perhaps, or as a mother, and you begin, I think, to doubt that you have anything really to offer.
And I think that maybe sounds surprising to people about myself.
And people always say to me, well, of course, it's easy for you to give a speech.
It's easy for you to write a book.
It's easy for you to get over this and that.
No, it's not. it's not easy.
It's like, I'm a human being too.
And so people always are like surprised that anything seems to be difficult for me for some reason, and perhaps i projected that.
So i think you know i i felt lost growing up a lot of the time because i was always a kennedy, without a first name and without really my own identity, and people would come up to me and say which kennedy are you?
Which kenny are you?
And i'd be like well, i'm maria.
They're like no no, but which Are you?
Bobby's daughter?
I was like, no, I'm Eunice's daughter.
And they're like, well, where's Bobby's kids or where's Teddy's kids or where's Caroline?
And so I think for me growing up, I was always like wow, it wasn't like a thing to be Eunice's daughter.
And I was really determined to become Maria.
And that was a motivation for me throughout my life.
But I always felt that people didn't really get to know me.
They were more interested in the things that came before me.
What was it like being Eunice's daughter?
Well, it was awesome because she was awesome.
And also it was challenging because she was a huge force and she thought everybody could change the world and had no interest in anybody unless you were changing the world.
I know.
Yeah, you know, and so she was demanding.
She expected a lot of you.
She was certainly my biggest cheerleader, but my friends will say, like you know, if they were spending the night at my house, You know, in high school, when you walk up the steps after you'd gone out, there would be articles to read by the morning.
Things that I should do.
And they'd go all the way up the steps.
And so I was very aware that my mother was unique because she dressed like a man.
She had pencils in her hair.
She smoked cigars.
She had a briefcase.
She went to work.
She was tough.
She surrounded herself with all men.
And so I was aware also that she really liked power and she liked people who did well and she respected people that worked 24-7.
So I knew to get her attention, I had to work, perform, do well. and meet her expectations.
Yes, I remember this time on vacation.
Remember, I told you it was vacation.
And your mother hunted me down.
There she is in her swim cap saying, you and Maria gotta get back.
And I can't even remember what the, what was the crisis?
I remember, because it was the tsunami.
Okay, there was a crisis going on.
The tsunami had happened.
She called me, she said, I just got Oprah.
I saw her on the pier and I told her that you girls should be doing a fundraiser and getting it was, I think.
I can't remember the date, but it was.
You were on vacation, so was I.
It was around Christmas.
It was around Christmas time.
And I said, oh my God, I can't believe you went up to her.
And she goes, oh no, she's gonna call.
You girls have got to get onto it.
You're not doing anything.
Forget this vacation.
Yes.
Forget this.
Well, she didn't vacation.
My parents didn't vacation.
So if we went anywhere as a family, it was on a service mission.
It was to meet political leaders.
It was to spend time in a kibbutz.
It was to spend time in the field.
So Chilling.
I was on vacation on a boat and your mother paddled out there to tell me to get off the boat and get with it.
Yeah, because she would expect that of you.
Yes, yes, yes.
And so she wouldn't understand why you didn't expect that of you.
Yes.
And so that was both fascinating and exhausting.
Yeah, so it was- Because the level of expectation- Yeah, it was high.
High, all the time.
But it was high for herself too.
And this new book that's just come out on her.
It's called Eunice The Kennedy Who Changed the World.
Really details how- I think I read that one.
Is that the one I read?
You did, you read it, yeah.
Is that the one I read?
Yes, yes.
It's the only one.
Because I was calling you about it.
That's right.
It's the only one.
And so here, which was interesting to me, because another network just did like a 10-part series on the Kennedys which they advertised almost nightly.
I saw it being advertised.
Never mentioned mummy.
And so here is this book at the same time that comes out on Eunice, The Kennedy Who Changed the World.
And it really details about how hard she worked to become visible to her father, to her mother, in her family, and how her work was never viewed the same as the boys.
And how she was behind the scenes in all the boys' career, giving them many of the accomplishments that they had.
And so I think that to me, that has always been a model or something to pay attention to, that people are often the most fascinating person in the room, is in the room and we're not looking at them.
And I always saw that with my mother, that she would really strive to be seen in the room.
And I think very often we make assumptions about people who live public lives that they're either comfortable in that room or that we know everything about them while they're in that room.
Or we're looking at someone who's more famous than somebody else in the room and the most interesting person who's doing life changing work is there, and we never give them the time of day.
Well, we truly, absolutely.
I mean.
We live in this world where everybody wants to be famous and many people think they are because of the number of likes, or you can just now be famous because you have followers.
And you don't necessarily do anything, but people just follow you on social media.
What I've learned also from this book is that people really likes are one thing, but connection is something totally different.
Connection is calming.
Connection makes you feel seen liked understood accepted, and that is what I think we're missing and that's what I think this book landed into the middle.
To people say, like I have likes but I don't have any friends, or I have likes and I don't have any connection, or I'm looking for meaning.
Can you help me find meaning?
Or I find that more and more people are looking for the connection, whether it's through a book or a friend.
That's real, absolutely yeah, and so I thought you wrote so beautifully.
You know you've written other books about dealing with grief and how children deal with grief, but I thought I
I felt your soul on these pages when you talked about your mother passing.
Do you mind reading page 102?
When she passed, I experienced the true depths of grief.
I now actually felt this tremendous loss, and it brought me to my knees.
Then, two weeks later, my uncle died, and a year and a half after that, my father died and my marriage ended.
So for several years I was marinating in grief and it was an incredibly lonely experience.
My world stopped while everything else continued swirling around me.
I felt isolated in my grief.
Yeah.
So you were there for those two weeks.
And I think, losing my mother, my uncle who was such a pivotal person my father, my marriage, all of that kind of like boom boom, boom really did knock me down, knocked me flat on my back.
My mother was somebody that I talked to every single day.
I didn't really make a move without her advice, her counsel.
You and Gail were the only two people I ever knew that way.
It's funny, they were the three of us.
I used to say to you, what are you talking about?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you didn't make a move without her and Gail was the same way.
Yeah.
And I didn't kind of make any big moves without her.
And she was the person when you talk about like anxiety.
She was the person that I could talk stuff through with which calmed me.
Right.
And she also understood a lot of my life in a way that nobody else did so losing her and then losing my uncle kind of back to back was was jarring and jolting and then dealing with your father at the same time my father who got alzheimer's and then he died a year and a half after that but even after mommy died he couldn't live in the house anymore he didn't want to live in the house and so My brothers and I made a decision to put him in a home, which was right next to my brother's, because he had really severe Alzheimer's, and where he could be in community and be cared for and not be in this big house.
So we sold my parents' house, went through all of their stuff.
So all of this was really a lot enough to crack you.
Enough to crack you and uh, so definitely, i think you know that i've always heard a saying that you're never, you know, truly a full-fledged woman until your mother passes.
I've heard that and i used to always think what does that mean?
And i feel like i'm a very different woman today, after my mother passed away and for a long time she was also super sick And in and out of emergency rooms, in and out of ICU units.
And so caring for my mother.
Being anxious that something might happen to my mother, worried about myself, of whether I could survive without my mother, was a huge concern of mine since I was little.
And so I find that I have survived things I was afraid of, I've overcome.
So I feel proud of myself that I'm standing, that I'm gentler, that I'm kinder, that I'm more open, but that also I'm more sensitive too.
What advice would you give to somebody who's going?
Everybody goes through it.
However, they need to get through it.
And there is no one way.
No one way.
There is no one way.
And everybody has different relationships.
Many people don't have a good relationship with their mother or their father.
Some people have.
I was just talking to this guy the other day who said that people mourn very often more over a pet.
Yes,
I think we do need.
I've often said that we're a grief-illiterate nation, but I think we're also kind of illiterate when it comes to emotional pain, understanding people's emotional pain, understanding that for somebody who comes in and says my dog just died, that that might be equal to me saying my mother died.
And trying to kind of talk to people about their pain, about the depths of their pain, makes people feel seen, makes people feel valued.
And that's really what I feel is something that I do well now and want to do more of, is to see people and connect with them in a way perhaps, that I didn't used to.
It has made you see and hear and feel other people differently with far more empathy and compassion.
Yeah, because I found that, when I myself was brought to my knees, that people who reached out to me, people who looked at me and said wow, you're like hurting
I'd be like, yeah.
And they're like, let me talk to you.
Let me call you.
Let me invite you somewhere.
That that was so moving to me.
So touching to me that I want to return that gift.
It was one of the reasons I wanted to write this, because I found that there were books when I was struggling and I've always been a big reader, as you know, and curious but that there were things that helped me on my path.
And so everybody's on their own path, and I think we all need something that we can pick up.
If we can't call someone, if someone's not there that we can open up and read and just sit with and that is calming.
I'm a talker, so I like to call or check in or hear someone's voice, but the next best thing for me is to hear a voice in a book.
And all of this is actually I remember when you started doing regular check-ins with me, because I think the pain and loss and grief made you an even more solid friend, a more caring, empathetic human for people you knew and for people you didn't know.
And you're the one who had this conversation with me about saying the things that need to be said to the people and clearing the path.
Clearing the path.
Absolutely.
And it's also me reaching out because I used to, my mother was a full-time person for me, right?
And then when she left, I was like, uh-oh, I need help.
I need to say like, can I come over?
Can I go with you?
Can I reach you?
And I realized that no one would know that unless I said it.
Unless I said, can I come for dinner?
Or can you invite me?
And that it's really a vulnerable move because people can say like, no.
And, or like, I will call later or yes, sure.
I'll catch up with you.
And then they never do.
So you're left with that, like, that doesn't feel good, but it feels worse not to reach out.
How were you able to pick yourself back up off the floor?
You said, I was on my knees.
How were you able to get off your knees?
Well, I have four children.
And so that's a big motivator.
And I always want my kids to see me as someone who's able to survive anything, because that's what they're going to need to be able to do.
They're gonna need to be able to survive the loss of their parents.
They're gonna be.
It's gonna be important for them to survive The loss of friends, the loss of a job, the loss of a pet, whatever it is.
So I think you want to be an example, I think, for your children.
I always felt like I had a lot more to do here.
I have a lot of life I want to live.
I have a lot of things I want to do. it's imperative that you pick yourself back up and move forward and really show, as I write in there, I wanted to show particularly my daughters like, yeah, no, I can do this.
I can pick myself back up and you will too.
Our conversation will continue in the next episode.
You can listen by downloading part two.
Hey there, podcast listeners.
I have exciting news.
We're launching a brand new podcast in addition to Super Soul Conversations.
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Listen as Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Ellen DeGeneres, Shaquille O'Neal, Reba McEntire, Dwayne Johnson, and Jane Fonda, just to name a few, share what they've learned about life.
And everyone can use their life as a class.
Oprah's Masterclass Podcast will be available July 19th on Apple Podcasts.
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I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast.
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