HAYDEN PANETTIERE: The Truth Behind the Headlines (Finally Telling Her Story In Her Own Words)

28:09I didn't want to be lonely. I wanted people around me. I was still scared of the dark and didn't want to not have anybody to, you know, lay down next to me until I went to sleep to make sure that I was safe. So it was exciting, but at the same time, I would say it

28:32Jay Shetty:was it was more so necessity yeah yeah i mean you know as i was reading your book and learning more and more about you it was almost like my empathy for you just like grew every time and and i mean that in your strength for your strength in these situations not as a sense of pity or or feeling sorry for you but seeing just how strong you had to be in so many different situations and and this when i got to this part when you write about this in the book you write about a moment in your career where a friend of yours takes you onto a boat, you're led to a room which has an older man in it and then basically told to perform sexual acts.

29:12Jay Shetty:And when I read that, I'm like, oh gosh, not only have you felt like you've had a really unsupported upbringing, you're now with a friend in the industry and then ending up in a situation like this. Could you talk to me about what that moment does to your psyche when you're that? I mean, the fact that I was 18, even though I'd lived such a huge life and I thought I was oh so mature at 18, you know, scientifically, you know, her frontal lobes don't develop until we're, what, 20, 26, 25, 26. So even though I felt like I could make healthy decisions, safe decisions, I wasn't capable of being fully aware of what was going on around me.

30:03And it wasn't until I found myself in predicaments that I realized, like, my perspective completely shifted and I realized that I was in danger. But by the time I'd realized I was in danger. I was quite literally out to sea. And, um, and it was, it was that, I mean, that moment shook me. It was shocking. Um, and I was quite literally put, walked down and I had been having a great time. There was no hints of anything like that happening. So it took me, I was shocked. It took me by surprise. And it was somebody led by somebody that I had grown to trust and see as a protector and somebody who had my back and to be walked down, you know, down the stairs.

31:07and it was like a surprise, presented as though it was like a surprise. And it was this very small room, and she physically put me in the bed next to this undressed man who was very famous and had his hands like this. This was just an average day for him. This is something that happens all the time. And I waited for her to leave. And I mean, that lion in me, that fire in me, that my hair stood on end and I became ferocious. I was like, this is not happening. But I had nowhere to hide. And I bolted and I hid wherever I could think of to hide on a boat. on a boat. There was no jumping off and swimming away.

32:11And there was nobody who was going to, I realized that there was nobody who was going to be empathetic to my situation, that this was nothing new to them.

32:20Jay Shetty:I mean, you know, that sounds, it's such a horrifying event to go through and to be put in that position at 18 years old. And disappointing when somebody lets you down like that. And I'd been let down so much before and that when you really find somebody that you trust like you hold on to them for dear life and you feel so lucky so to be betrayed like that it's just an awful feeling

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36:11Jay Shetty:How do you decide who you trust now? It doesn't seem like I've done a very good job. I don't think I've gotten much better at choosing on one hand because I do feel like I have, there are certain people that I, negative, with negative energy and that are just not good people that have been, I've, that have been drawn to me for whatever reason and who I've not seen clearly immediately. It took me a while. Like they really were able to pull the wool over my eyes, which you would not. I didn't expect of myself, you know, having had all the life experience that I have and having had things like that already happened to me.

37:03Like you would think it would have been a learning experience and, you know, I would have made sure that it never happened again. And unfortunately, that was not the case. But that being said, on the other hand, I have had amazing people in my life. I mean, my dad has been a huge support system for me since I was a kid. He was the safe space. And there's a lot of me in him. He is the person that kept me grounded and made me, you know, the good in me. I got my big, big heart from him. But I have, throughout the years, been fortunate enough to meet just incredible people. And I do have a group of friends that are incredible people, incredibly loyal, and are genuinely, genuinely good.

38:05So there are just a few that have snuck in here and there.

38:11Jay Shetty:Yeah, I think, and I got to meet some of them today. Your best friend is with you and others who are wonderful people and, you know, great to see you surrounded by them. And I was sharing this with you as we were speaking before that sometimes I feel that I think a lot of good people beat themselves up for attracting negative people around them. And the truth is, I don't think you attract negative people. I think when you get so big and large in your work and your career and you're exposed to so many people, you just come across more negative people because you're exposed to more. You know, you don't.

38:47Right.

38:48Jay Shetty:Like if you're only exposed to your town or your community or whatever, maybe you'll come across a couple of people. But when you start getting exposed to a bigger industry and a bigger world. Right. Exposed is one thing, but then it's hard for me not to beat myself up over letting them get past my defenses, letting them get close to me and for how long. I have you know it's really as I told you before it's really important for me to have to choose the the people who are around me why wisely and I have an incredible team of people who are are not just great at what they do but who are just have become dear dear friends and and confidants and and protectors and i haven't always had that um and i and they're not afraid to tell me the truth either and that's a hugely important thing um for me but it's hard to not beat myself up for for certain people you know having access to my life that not should never have had access should never have been a part of my life for many many many reasons yeah i feel like when you're young as well from having spoken to quite a lot of young talent in the industry it's it's almost like you're hoping that the adults around you are making good choices and you talk about in the book how you were actually given pills before a red carpet to make you feel more confident and how that planted the seeds for so many other things that came in the future and again you're coming to a point where you're hoping the people around you especially when you're young to help you make better decisions especially when you start as young as you did yeah and the person who handed me those pills i had already developed a very tight relationship and a great bond with them.

40:52So when it happened, I didn't see it as anything inappropriate or negative. I trusted this person and I didn't just have a great personal relationship with this person, but this person's job is part of their job was to always protect me. And so I was, I was so used to following the directions of the people that, uh, that I respected the people that I worked with. If they told me to jump, I jumped. If they told me to wear this, I wore that, you know, I trusted them more than I ever trusted myself. I wasn't raised to trust myself except for my instincts as an actor. That was instilled in me. But as a person, it was a completely different story.

41:55Jay Shetty:And at the same time, you're getting this huge wins. You become one of the most well-known, popular young actors when you land heroes. And it's this huge moment. And from the outside, it just looks like an incredible accomplishment. What's going through your heart and mind when that happens in all emotions? What are you experiencing? The success meant that my mom was going to be happy with me. So that was hugely important. It also meant that I fit in. You found your place. Yes, I found my place that I was finally somebody accepted me and I was part of something that involved other people and they became my crew, my group of friends.

42:41I finally felt like I fit in somewhere and I finally felt like, my gosh, I made it. But, like, I remember the first time I walked out of my apartment and paparazzi, I was about 16 years old. And I had imagined younger, you know, getting to the place in my career where I would get paparazzi'd. And, you know, I just think it'd be like, what am I going to do? Like, one of those, like, no, don't take a picture of me. like like it's gonna be one of those like just like beautiful perfectly you know beautiful shots and it was just sheer terror i mean the shot like when i actually happened i i heard this clicking and i looked up and it was i remember it feeling like i was looking down the barrel of a gun and it was a guy sitting in his car with his window rolled down and i i was i think it was walking my dogs and I was horrified because I was like, oh my gosh, that's not the look that I expected to have.

43:48That picture is of me looking terrified, absolutely terrified and probably go something like that. That's not the shot you the first want.

44:01Jay Shetty:Yeah, definitely. But that's what happened. You can plan all you want and God laughs. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, but you talked about this. You said this at the start, this idea of just like how your life became used to living for applause like having to get the applause from your mom and then the community and then of course paparazzi whatever right it's like you kind of see that trend oh yeah and then it grows and it grew and it grew and it went from something that was like kind of cool to something that was incredibly dangerous and incredibly invasive and not just for me, but for the people around me.

44:42It felt like the people around, like I wasn't safe. The people around me were being affected by it. I was very protective of my little brother, fiercely protective of the people I love, period. And especially back then, when I was 16 years old, it was a whole different ballgame. Like the paparazzi situation was across the lines that still blow my mind today that they were legal. They were able to do the things that were said, the way that they would box you in while you were driving. I remember coming out of a store once and it was, you know, one person saw me in and suddenly it was over a hundred outside and they kicked me.

45:38I just felt this kick on the back of my leg and I realized, and when I turned around, they had a camera in my face and I realized that that's, they were trying to get a reaction out of me. So I remember a very famous, successful publicist sat me down when I was young and when Heroes was about to change my life permanently. And he knew this and he sat me down and had a whole conversation with me about how to handle paparazzi and how to keep your expressions, you know, kind of boring, if you will. But the lengths that people will go to get that shot. And the things that they would say to me at such a young age were appalling.

46:26They were truly just mind-blowing and shocking. It was wildly dangerous. And I was like, why? Especially after Princess Diana, how has this not changed? How has nobody stepped in and stopped this? This is crazy.

46:43Jay Shetty:How did you cope? And like, what did you do? How did you deal with all of that? Because that just seems overwhelming. There was nothing to do. Like that was, that was, you feel completely helpless. Yes. Powerless, helpless. Um, I would get in the car and I drove like, uh, bat at a H-E double hockey sticks. Like I, I would, I was, I became a NASCAR driver and knock on wood, thank God, nothing, nobody ever got hurt. But there was one time I was out trying to outrun them in a rental car and I was going so fast down the street that I had to make a quick right turn. I hit my brakes and instead of the car stopping, it just went for the slide directly into traffic.

47:32so i would um i mean i i was able to turn into traffic like just in time in the nick of time like somebody i felt like somebody was watching over me um and protecting me at that point and sometimes i just had to go home afterwards i and and i went out with a plan to do something and it wasn't safe and I didn't feel like dealing with them all day long. So I just went home and would go, you didn't get your shot. But I also didn't get to do what I wanted. When I was living on my own, I remember having to call taxis at the time. We didn't have Uber or anything up to my house and I would have to lie down in the backseat, like almost on the floor so that they couldn't see the paparazzi that were waiting in the street, couldn't see that I was in the car or have a friend pick me up and I would have to hide under yoga mats and things like that.

48:41I also didn't realize like we'd go to somewhere like, let's say the Grove, how many people or somewhere on like Rodeo, how many people were paid money to do this, to be a celebrity spotter.

48:57Jay Shetty:Right. And, you know, you think you, you, you've fooled them and you got out of there and it just takes one person to the wrong person to see you and there goes your day. Yeah. Well, I believe it was around the same time in the book you talk about meeting Vlad for the first time when you're doing the show and I was wondering what do you when you reflect back on it now and meeting him what version of you were you then when I met him I was 19 I liked myself back then actually when I think when I think back on it I felt like I held my own well I I found a lot of joy in life. I was a really happy person.

49:44I hadn't had anything, you know, I hadn't lost people I loved or been through anything that had negatively shaped me. So I was in a really good mental spot, a healthy mental spot when I met him. I was full of piss and vinegar, as my mom would say.

50:08Jay Shetty:And did it move fast? Did you, were you, you know, was it just instantly you both knew that there was something there at the time? He was not my type at first. I mean, he was like looking at a Greek statue. Like, that's what it was like being in his presence. Like, I just studied his face. he looked chiseled out of out of you know stone out of marvel you're like and he was so big yeah yeah i mean his features just like everything about him was so so fierce and i was so small but the personality that came out of him was uh surprisingly gentle and kind and made me very curious. But I had just gone through a breakup with a co-star that I was still working with.

51:10So I wasn't really in the headspace of fully moving past that breakup yet. So it took, it was another year. It was when I was 20 years old that Vlad and I actually connected and started dating. I think that we were supposed to meet up. I was at the Super Bowl. We were supposed to meet up once when I was still 19. And I guess I was supposed to call him and I never did. And there he was, you know, the heavyweight champion of the world and going, apparently he was very pissed off that I never, that he was waiting around for my phone call. He was like, who does this girl think she is. She knows who I am.

51:58He's not a cocky person, but I remember his reaction to that being very, very funny. That's fair. That's fair.

52:07Jay Shetty:That's fair. Yeah. As the heavyweight champion. So it took a year. I met him. We kept in touch. And then actually, my first fight was for my, I brought my little brother to his brother's fight for my little brother's birthday. So It was a very special time. And then Vlad and I stayed in touch and then started a relationship. Yeah. In the part in your book that I found, like something that I was totally unaware of, and I'm going to read from it here. You talk about this is, so while you were on Nashville, you obviously become a mother. And it was this idea that Nashville was almost writing based on your life and writing around you you talk about the storylines for your character juliet barnes and how unnatural they mirrored what you were going through in your personal life and you write this specifically i was suffering from debilitating anxiety and an addiction i couldn't shake and i had to live through it twice first at home as hayden and then in front of millions as juliette yeah and that really struck me because you know i think we all watch tv and film and everything and we don't really it's almost like we believe you are that character anyway absolutely and you don't really ever know what the real character is until you and it's you can in an interview but if you don't see that if you only see someone for three minutes on a late night show or a morning show whatever you have no you have no real sense of who they are beyond and oh well Aiden and Julia like that's who she is right like on TV and what they see you see in the news and and what you look like you see headlines and news gossip and all that kind of stuff you see the TV show and then you see pictures you're absolutely right and that's all you get and this is why I really appreciate just how I just want to acknowledge and for anyone who's going to read this book like you get to see someone who's I believe lived through a lot of hardship but has this ability to reflect and introspect about what's happening.

54:15Jay Shetty:And when you put it that way and you're like, oh, I didn't realize, Hayden's going through this, she's living through the reality. And I want to talk to you about the anxiety that you're experiencing. And then at the same time, you're living it twice because now you're having to act here at work and they're writing around you being pregnant to have the show continue. And then after that as well. And so talk to me about where the debilitating anxiety was coming from and what it felt like to live it twice it felt like it never ended i didn't know where juliet began and hayden ended in the beginning when i first started doing nashville i thought well it's just a coincidence that our our lives are have so many similarities It must be.

55:06And then as the years went on, the episodes went on and everything kept, started matching up from, you know, who Juliette Barnes was dating to being an alcoholic, to postpartum depression, to losing her child, basically abandoning her child. then it was like okay this you guys are just mirroring my life and we would get the the we wouldn't get the episodes very far ahead of time so to to go to them and say hey you got to change this and that wasn't wasn't anything I was used to doing I was just used to to doing my job and making it work, but it felt like the day never ended. And we would shoot 10 minutes out of the year, year-end 12 to 20-hour days.

56:10And I never thought I was a method actor. And I've worked with method actors who, when they play a character role, they never jump in. They don't jump in and out of the character. They are the character for the entirety of the filming process. Shooting something for six years, ten months out of the years, that's not what you want to do. But it was unavoidable because it was my life. I couldn't come up for air from it. There was no break from it. And here I was playing this very deeply emotional, dark character. We had so much alike, but we were different in who we were as people. But especially when I was on set, even during breaks, I didn't even realize that I was becoming her constantly.

57:22And I wasn't therefore taking care of myself, able to take care of myself mentally and decompress and process what's going on in my life, nor did I want to talk about it because I had just spent all day acting it out and crying. I just felt like I was holding my breath all the time and I couldn't get away from it. And, you know, you're in a contract and I was I became desperate and I was doing every that's why I turned to to substances because the anxiety that I start I started happening, having the panic attacks that I started having. I used to have nerves a lot and I had stage fright. I've had stage fright since I was a kid.

58:14But those good nerves that keep you on your toes at some point turned into genuine anxiety that made me incapable of functioning properly or thinking clearly. would make me physically shake. So I was self-medicating and looking for relief at the bottom of a bottle. And it was the only thing that worked. But I needed to numb. I needed to self-numb. I needed my brain to take a trip. I needed to go on a vacation. I needed to not think about all these ugly things for for just a little while and i didn't find myself able to do that

59:08Jay Shetty:without the help of um of a drink yeah i mean explain to me the uh the complexity of and i and i asked this from the perspective of having so many friends who've gone through postpartum depression and it just not being talked about enough yeah and whether it be even initially when it happened, I remember speaking to a lot of my male friends and them not understanding what their partner was going through, only then to realize that we were just unaware of, you know, the amount of women that go through postpartum depression. Talk to me about the complexity of the emotion of having your baby girl and the emotions that come with that as being a mother, and then the postpartum depression that follows that.

59:52From a young age, I was dreamt of becoming a mom. Like, it was something that I always knew that I would be, always wanted to be. And I had all these ideas in my head of the kind of mother that I was going to be. And I was going to have cameras in every room. And I was going to capture this and that. And I was going to get them into all these different extracurricular activities. and made sure that they spoke different languages. And I had this beautiful plan in my head. And then I had my daughter and I knew something was just terribly, terribly wrong. And now there's a lot of stigma around postpartum and there's a lot of misunderstanding.

1:00:48And it's on a there's it's on a spectrum. It's on a scale. And unfortunately, I never felt any hostility or negativity towards my child, thankfully. But I wasn't connecting with her the way that I knew I should be. and that I was full of stress and anxiety all the time. And what I was doing to suppress those emotions was not normal and it was not healthy. I was miserable. I was in tears all the time. um you know even though the alcohol helped you know my nervous system calm down it it is a depressant so over time it made things worse not better in a moment or two it might feel give you the illusion that it's making things better but ultimately it becomes um it backfires and it becomes a disaster.

1:02:01But Vlad was incredibly supportive, even though he had no idea what was going on. And I had no idea what was going on either, because I had never been around anybody who had ever experienced postpartum depression before. I'd never heard it spoken about. You know, my mom, my mom, the females in my life, nobody ever said anything about it. all of their stories were of these beautiful, positive moments of joy and love. And I would say expectation leads to disappointment. But in this way, I had, of course, I had expectations and they were good and they were positive and they were going to be, life was going to be great.

1:02:47And at about four months old, I finally went to Vlad and I said, I said, I need I need help. I can't live like this anymore. You know, something is terribly wrong. And he said, okay, let's get you some help. I went to a facility during the hiatus of the show, so I was kept private. But I was there for alcoholism. They were treating me for alcoholism. And nobody ever said anything about postpartum depression there. So I felt unfixable. I felt like there was no way out of it. And I was trying to process the idea that maybe I was going to be depressed like this for the rest of my life. And this was just the new normal.

1:03:45So that was terrifying. I had this gorgeous, sweet angel child, healthy. I was so lucky and blessed and I was just a mess. I was just a mess and there was nothing that I could do to fix it properly. And it felt like there was nobody around who understood because there was so much stigma around it and because it's so misunderstood. It took me probably about 10 months to really realize what it was that was going on of me researching and figuring it out myself.

1:04:29Jay Shetty:Wow, you had to do it yourself. Because I know also you talk about how when you finally did talk about it, you even lost an endorsement deal. Yep. Neutrogena I was with for 10 years. And I mean, they have morals clauses, which had a huge impact in my life because I was a teenager and I had all the paparazzi around me catching all of these gory moments. Every moment, every cigarette that I smoked or bad outfit or, oh, she's looking chunky in a bathing suit. Oh, she has a fat vagina. I mean, I went through all of that. They were there for everything. Neutrogena was a huge part of my life. I had the memorials clauses.

1:05:24they caught absolutely everything and of all the things to that they would fire me over. This was the last thing that I thought they would ever fire me over. And when I actually went out on to stage, it was live with with Kelly and Michael. I had no intention of or plan to talk about postpartum depression. It just came up and I was just being honest. And never for a second did I think that anyone or care that anyone would have a bad reaction to it. It was my truth. So when I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that and my representative at the time said, that's illegal. You can't do that.

1:06:16And even though, you know, she saved the day that year, I knew that that was going to be it, that there was going to be, I was not going to be invited back the next year. And I had worked with these people for 10 years. And I remember not hearing a word from anybody, not a great working with you for, for 10 years, not a, a nice hope you're okay yeah hope you're you're good we wish you well and i remember that really breaking my my heart um i wouldn't change it for the world i i wouldn't take it back but as i said of all the things that i had been caught doing that being the thing that that was where they drew the line.

1:07:10And it was immoral, was shocking to me. And it made me realize and understand exactly what people thought of women who experience postpartum depression and how misunderstood it is, how much stigma there is around it, and how, I mean, we're already in pain. We are already like the worst possible thing. One of the worst possible things in the world to happen to a woman is already happening to her. The last thing we need is, you know, the icing on the cake, you know, and feeling so judged and in such a negative way.

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1:10:33Jay Shetty:what do you want people to know about postpartum depression that you think they miss that it's real that it's not something we make up it's not something we want it's not um you know that we've We've lost our marbles and it's not something that we want to go through. And we're not lying when we tell you something's wrong and we're in tears for absolutely no reason. Like, we don't have control over this. And this would be the last thing that we would ever want to experience or go through. We want to be with our child, our brand new child and be filled with joy and feel like the luckiest person in the world and capture every moment.

1:11:34and for anyone to think otherwise is just misinformed. And yeah, I just, I think people need to know a lot more about it. Need to understand.

1:11:51Jay Shetty:Did the facility you visited help you with the alcoholism or what finally actually helped with that? Oh, I struggled with that for years. It was an on and off battle for a really long time. And getting out of that depression was really difficult. And the fact that I didn't have the time to really spend on healing myself and fixing myself, figuring out, you know, how to navigate this and get back to my old self because I was on Nashville and we were shooting so, so much. I mean, at one point I did have to say to the show, I have to go get treatment. You're going to have to write me out of the script, which upset a lot of people and made me feel awful because I'd always prided myself on being a professional.

1:12:51but it was incredibly important for me to get my head screwed on straight or I was gonna you know I was just gonna going off the deep end I was I was I felt myself sinking further and further and further into this dark hole that I just could not climb out of when I was reading the book it just

1:13:09Jay Shetty:felt like the challenges just get tougher and tougher and tougher and tougher and tougher as you kind of, you know, go, go through it with you. And they also seem kind of, again, just as your career in the beginning stages was almost not a choice. All of these things also feel that way where it's kind of like just happening to you. And because of, you know, just there's, there's not a, it's not a choice to bring these things on. They're coming off, you know, of course, postpartum depression and, and everything else that's happening through that and not, and also not having these conversations like today you know millions of people will listen to this conversation and be able to have a better understanding of what that means and what that looks like and today the conversation around these things is growing it's still not where it needs to be yet and sadly there are still terrible headlines and terrible gossip and terrible stories made up about people and but these conversations are beginning to happen and you go okay well hopefully the next person doesn't have to go through the fact of not knowing where to go for help or be seen as i'll just get over it or move on or there's something wrong with you or whatever the ridiculous things we all hear are in in those scenarios yeah i think it was around this same time that you talk about the book where the custody of your daughter shifts from you know over to Vlad and to Ukraine, I believe as well.

1:14:34Jay Shetty:And I feel like that was especially talked about terribly where there's so many speculations and so many opinions and so many assumptions on why that's happening. Could you tell us what was really happening? I mean, the idea that anybody would think that I would just give away my child and be okay with it is heartbreaking. Couldn't be further from the truth. You know, as you said, I was struggling with mental health and anxiety and the postpartum and having to act my way through it and just feeling like I completely lost myself. and I think a misconception is that I have been in the past forced into treatment when in fact I have been the one who has sought it out who who was saying I desperately need help I don't you know I know this is going to look terrible but I am I am I cannot live like this anymore And even though Vlad didn't understand it, the people around me didn't know what was going on.

1:15:56I didn't know what was going on. They were supportive. I went to go get help. They didn't know what was going on. And so it became this horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse and me just trying to find my way back, my way out of this darkness. I would have done anything and tried anything. But it wasn't until Kaya was two years old, about two, two and a half years old, that Vlad decided that he thought it would be best for her to live in Europe. And when that first happened, I did not have a good reaction to it. I went like mother lion. I would have burnt the world down for my child.

1:17:08so that was incredibly difficult not you know the fact that my my child wasn't going to be with me all day every day was um was i i mean it just you can't put words to it it's just a a really intense layer you know feeling that are multiple feelings really like layered together but um but i realized that you know she had been traveling back and forth for so many years and because i was working on the show and because vlad had had to prepare for fights and as a businessman in in his own right she had to go back and forth between the u.s and europe and sometimes we would go together and sometimes she would go with the nanny.

1:18:02So she had spent a lot of time over there. She had family. She had friends. She had extracurricular activities. She had a really, she already had a beautiful life and she understood the languages and was starting to speak them. So by the time I finally got healthy, I felt like it would have been unfair of me too. And selfish of me to try to pull her out away from this life that she had been created, that she was living an incredible life. she's an incredible little girl so happy and and speaks five languages and and and rides horses and knows that she's got two parents that love her and she i i i know in my heart that she feels supported.

1:19:07I have an incredible relationship with her. I travel as much as I can. I see her. I do spend a lot of time on FaceTime with her. But we talk about really deep things. We have a really intense, incredible bond. And I'm very grateful for that. And I know that she knows that she has two parents who would do anything in the world to make sure that she is happy and healthy mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and she in no way feels abandoned. And that's something that I've made sure to stay on top of and be very aware of. And I think it's also good to lead by example as a parent. She didn't just get born with one parent in the limelight who is famous and powerful.

1:20:13She was born with two and two completely separate continents and in their own ways. But she's very proud of watching her mom and dad kick butt and do what they do. She's our biggest fan. I think it makes her feel like she can accomplish anything. You can just see that she is good. She is solid and she feels loved because of the way that she's able to love herself. and self-watch as a parent, your 11-year-old already have this beautiful ability to love other people and love themselves. You just can't ask for more than that. So I think there's been a common misconception that I just gave up my child when that could not be farther from truth.

1:21:21So I hope people that are watching this, I hope it's a little clearer and I hope it becomes clearer in the book.

1:21:30Jay Shetty:Yeah, I think when they read the book as well, you see so much of the context that I think we miss in everything else. And there's this really powerful line in the book that you share where you say you grieve not being, this was at that time, you grieve not being the mother you thought you'd be. And I wanted to ask you, how do you hold that grief without letting it define the mother you are today? The grief has definitely gotten the best of me many times, many, many, many times. But it's transformed from grief. It was grief in the beginning, but because of the relationship that I do have with her and how things ultimately played out, I'm incredibly grateful to her.

1:22:24She has an incredible father, an incredible family. And I don't feel, even though it's not what I wanted to happen and it's not what I hoped motherhood was going to be or what it would look like, I'm so lucky that it turned out the way it did and that she is safe. and a wonderful, well-rounded person that we have the bond that we have, which is something that I was terrified wasn't going to happen when she was taken away, that I was going to have to fight really hard to have any sort of relationship with her. And it ended up, in a lot of ways, being a blessing. I always want her here. I always miss her.

1:23:22I always want her to, you know, be and to have my arms wrapped around her. But that's just not the way life is right at this moment. But I do believe that, you know, there will be a day where she is an adult and she's able to make her own decisions and go wherever she wants. wants and I have faith that she is going to come to me and that we're going to have an incredible relationship and bond and friendship that a lot of parents don't get to have with their kids.

1:23:57Jay Shetty:Thank you for sharing that. It's always incredible how like things don't turn out the way we expect them to and yet it seems like you've found a way to work at it and work on yourself and try to make the shifts and changes you need to whether it was you know with the alcoholism whether it was getting yourself up out of spaces that you didn't want to be in to try and be the person that you that's the only option to to me that's yeah is is you keep getting no matter how many times you fall you you keep getting up and dust yourself off it's it's it's and and you can you keep going it's It's how you, what you do with these failures or falling on your face.

1:24:43It's what you do after that really counts. It's how you handle that that really counts and matters. And I'll never stop fighting to be good. Yeah.

1:24:53Jay Shetty:I mean, you were mentioning to me that also you have a strong relationship with Vlad, which helps this situation. Yeah. Vlad and I are very close. We, all three of us, talk all the time. He travels a lot when he's in Europe, too. So sometimes we have a three-way FaceTime going on. And sometimes it's the two of them and me. But yeah, he's been incredibly supportive. I mean, he's brought her over here. She's known her great-grandparents. They've been a part of her life. life. I've lost my grampy and my papa, but they were able to know her, which was really important to me. And she still has my nana and my grandma.

1:25:46She calls nana super nana. Super nana. And she is super nana. Yeah, we have a great, great relationship. And Vlad and I are still best friends. There's not many people who know me in this world as well as he does. And I know that we still have an incredible amount of love for each other. And most importantly, we have an incredible amount of respect for each other. We made promises that something that I unfortunately grew up with was hearing a lot of negative talk from my mother about my father. And that had a really negative impact on me. It hurt to constantly hear the person that you love be put down.

1:26:41So we made a promise to each other that we would never say anything negative about one another to our daughter. And that both of us have stuck to that promise. And we talk each other up to our daughter and talk positively about each other. And I check in with her and make sure she's, you know, being respectful and that she loves her dad. And that she knows he's a hero and one of the bravest people I know. and she loves both of us to death.

1:27:25Jay Shetty:Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's an intention we all have to kind of repeat the good things our parents did well and try to not repeat the things that maybe they didn't do so well. And it's almost like we're always trying to be, I think those of us who are trying to be on the path of awareness. Yeah, evolve and just say, hey, I'm going to make other mistakes. We all are because we're human, but going to try and do my best in this capacity. I feel like something we were talking about earlier about repeating patterns and people that we attract into our life. And you talked about this and you were mentioning it to me earlier.

1:28:01Jay Shetty:You talked about, you know, surviving your abusive relationship with your ex. And I just, I wanted to ask you about, because like I said before, it's like every time you go further in the book and deeper in the book, I can tell that you, you know your truth and you know who you are and as you said earlier in our conversation today you're like but I don't know if I'm always good at knowing or trusting my gut or following through on it yeah why do you think that is I feel like I've let myself down so many times and let other people down so many times and i've i've just i i mean i i worked so hard to create and this incredible life and and career and i basically burnt it all to the to the ground essentially and had to you know start climbing up that mountain um and it happened you know more than once and having to try to get out of my own way was the most difficult part of it.

1:29:10It was almost like I would self-implode and destroy something good that I had going on before anybody else got a chance to. It was like instead of setting myself up for failure, I knew I was going to fail, so I I was going to just, it might as well happen sooner rather than later. And it made me stop trusting myself. I mean, I wasn't even raised to trust myself, as I said before. Like, my instincts, aside from my instincts as an actor, as a human being, I was not taught to really trust myself. I was taught to trust these people around me. It's been a really long road and a really hard road and a really stressful road trying to get back to that trust I had at one point when I was younger in myself.

1:30:21Knowing how important it is that you listen to yourself, that you listen to your gut. Every time that I have not listened to my gut, I have always regretted it. I found myself in a terrible position. The abuse, the fact that I allowed this person not only into my life, but for how long I put up with it. And this is something, this is a topic that is, I've been journaling a lot about it, trying to organize my thoughts and my feelings. And I did journal last night, and for the first time I really feel like I was able to put into words what has been going on for the past decade of my life in regards to the abuse.

1:31:17And I was actually going to ask if I could read it because I think it's really important. This topic is really important for me to word properly, word well, so that the people listening really understand what I'm saying.

1:31:36Jay Shetty:Please, yeah. It took me a long time to finally see the situation clearly. I've had to do a lot of soul-searching and therapy around this topic because allowing somebody to get away with harming me was so unlike me. The more I thought about it and analyzed it, the more connections I made between the abuse I was allowing to transpire and the abuse I've gone through in my past. They say that you end up marrying one of your parents, and no, I'm not married, but I found a very interesting connection between this abusive behavior and my mother's. abusive behavior. Even though they would both shake their heads and say I was crazy to think there was anything similar about the two of them, there definitely was.

1:32:23I realized that I was more afraid of being alone than being abused. And in order to be around that kind of behavior, it took me dulling my senses and numbing myself with substances in order to silence that rational voice in my head that was telling me exactly what was going on and the many reasons why I needed to get myself out of this toxic relationship and as far away from this person as possible. Somehow, every time I found the strength to get away from my abusers, they would always find their way back into my life one way or another. It was like being on a hamster wheel in this endless dizzying cycle.

1:33:03And the craziest part and the hardest part was to understand was that the physical abuse would come out of left field, but it was always when he was drinking, same as my mom. We could be dancing and joking, then a switch would flip and suddenly it was on. Something would snap and it was like watching a predator suddenly smell blood. I was dealing with this Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde situation. I tried to fight back in every way that I could think of. I took every approach from standing my ground to attempting to calm the situation to running and hiding from it until he sobered up. Then, once he was sober, that good part of him would be back, and he would see the damage he had done, and he was devastated and apologetic, and it seemed so honest and genuine that I was torn.

1:34:01I thought back to everything I've done wrong in the past and the forgiveness I was shown, so I think a part of me felt an obligation to be just as forgiving. I desperately wanted to make him a better person. I wanted to fix him. I'm a really strong person at my core, and anyone who knows me was shocked that I would ever allow anything like this to happen. I have this bright, powerful light in me that comes on, but then it would dim around that kind of intense conflict. I found myself trying to be smaller and weaker just to avoid a battle because there's no reasoning with the unreasonable, and as strong as I am, I couldn't physically stand up to a grown man.

1:34:48I know I have a big heart, and I always try to see the good in people so much so that it's been to my detriment at times. The worst part was that by allowing the cycle to continue, it hurt the people I love who came to my rescue, and I cannot allow that to continue to happen. In order to finally get off the hamster wheel and put an end to the cycle of abuse with him and with other toxic people in my life, I had to remind myself how strong I am. I had to envision the life I want for myself, and most importantly, I had to take accountability for enabling unforgivable behavior. Thank you for sharing that from your journal.

1:35:34Jay Shetty:very very personal and appreciate you you know letting us in that deeply as you do in the book and in what happened in the last couple of nights I believe um thank you for letting me share I I feel like I mean that's the first time I've shared that so I'm I'm feeling the weight this this weight come off my shoulders at this moment How does it feel to say it out loud? You know when you feel so much pressure on your chest and that anxiety and nerves and then you're relieved by something like that, it feels like an elephant stepped off my chest. I feel overwhelmed in a positive way. I feel like I finally did it and I got to do it in my own words.

1:36:34In this moment, I feel more trust in myself than I have in years. So I got a little bit of me back just now.

1:36:50Jay Shetty:That's so beautiful to hear. I mean, you just said now that in your own words, and I feel like this entire book is a reclaiming of who you are. Yeah. yeah, one step at a time, one step at a time. But that, it's been a 10-year dilemma and trauma after trauma. And just to be able to explain it at all, I never thought that I would be able to put it into words. You said in there that you, and I think a lot of us, we tolerate abuse because we'd rather do that than be alone and i think when you look back on that you can beat yourself up to say why don't i leave earlier and as you were saying like i'm stronger than that like why wouldn't i stand up for myself and at the same time there has to be a sense of compassion for oneself to to say you you're just doing the best you could in that moment coming from a good place talk to me about that that was one thing that was that made it all the more confusing to me is because I knew throughout, I've known throughout the whole thing that I didn't, I wasn't doing anything to deserve it.

1:38:05And that's why I say in that part, like talk about how come out of left field, it didn't take me saying anything wrong. It didn't take me doing anything wrong. It didn't take mistakes or jealousy or like there was no catalyst and suddenly it would be I would be being dragged by the hair and it was like what just happened what did I do what and what can And I do to make it go back to, you know, two seconds ago. Like, what's going on? And as I said, you can't reason with the unreasonable. And it was like the person that you love just disappeared. I would look in his eyes and they would be vacant.

1:39:09And it was terrifying, terrifying. And I've always been interested in psychology. And so trying to understand what was going on, I mean, I was going through the DSM in my head and trying to figure out, you know, is it schizophrenia? Is it paranoid? Like, what in the heck is going on? Because it was only when alcohol was involved, but no amount of alcohol could ever make me capable of doing something like that, especially over and over and over and over and over and over again.

1:40:02Jay Shetty:I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It was like, I don't know, maybe it was my ego, like he was in my ring and I felt like I was not going to let him win the battle. and by me not the idea, what would be winning to me would be fixing him, being able to fix him and make him better because I saw some good in there and wanted to bring that to the surface. But I had no control over that. and some people don't want to change and you just have to accept that as disappointing as it is again i think you're being hard on yourself like i think you know there's a there's a sure there's you know all of and and by the way we we're all people pleases we're all we all have all of that in us because of how we've all been raised and there's a sense that we all want to fix people and make people better and of course we're working on these things but we all share this and it's but it should never lead to that no you know yeah i i know the and the fact it still baffles me that that it ever went there that i ever allowed it to that i ever stuck around for it i mean it's just so unlike me but i think it that a huge part of it is that being alone piece.

1:41:47I had just finished, when I met him, I just finished Nashville and just moved back to LA. And I was lonely and nobody was present in the beginning. It was the person that I fell in love with was great. So the Mr. I did not show up until I was already in love with the Dr. Jekyll.

1:42:17Jay Shetty:Were you able to talk to anyone? Did you feel you could reach out to anyone or did it just feel so unsafe? I felt embarrassed, humiliated. I felt ashamed. I wanted to keep my friends and the people that I loved as far away from the situation as humanly possible because there was no understanding it. It didn't, it wasn't rational. It didn't make sense. And I wanted to protect them from feeling the need to protect me. I just knew there was no explaining it without getting the reaction of what are you doing what are you thinking and i would go i genuinely don't know i don't know what in me is is is putting up with this is allowing this to happen i really don't and as i said before i never there's never for a moment did i think that i deserved it or that it was okay at all.

1:43:24That was never, never a thing. I mean, I use the term forgiveness very lightly because as hard as I tried to forgive, I'm unable to do that. You don't forgive and forget those kinds of things. And it's not just the physical abuse, but it's also the emotional abuse that leaves the deepest scars. The bruises might fade, but you're left with these incredibly deep emotional scars from gaslighting and being made to feel like it's your fault. And I think I was caught at that very, that perfect time where I was incredibly vulnerable and incredibly weak. He preyed on that, on my vulnerability.

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1:46:59Jay Shetty:What did it take to finally get out? Like, what does that take? Because I feel so many people stay there. How long were you tolerating this for? Well, I thought I, at one point, I thought I had gotten out of it and gotten away from it. But it's like, we talked about before, it's like abusers, they weave themselves like weeds into your life. And there's always something that they left behind. There's also always something that they have to come back for. There was always something that they find to keep that connection, keep you on the hook, keep that connection with you. No matter where you go, that they will always find you and find an in, find a way to slither back into your life.

1:47:56so i i went from you know really wanting to keep my the people my loved ones away from it to to that's it i've snapped you don't pull out a gun and wave it around you only pull it out this is this is but you don't raise wave it around you only pull it out if you're gonna pull that trigger. And I finally decided, you know, that I needed to pull the trigger. And I called in, I called in the heavy, heavy hitters and the people that were going to protect me and make sure that he had no way back, back in, that this was going to be a done deal. Finally, I always hoped that this was going to happen by me one day.

1:48:53And as I said, I really thought I had done it and I was capable of doing it by myself, but I needed an incredible amount of support and backup in order to make sure that there was no way for him to find his way back in.

1:49:13Jay Shetty:What did it take for you to take that step? What had to happen for you to say enough is enough? Finding out that the good that I was holding on to, that I thought I saw in him, was not real. That it was realizing all of the lies. I mean, you got to be really good to pull the wool over my eyes. and that he was. But once I knew that that good was not real, that good side of him, the big heart that I saw was just made up and was just acting, just really good acting, then I had the ability to let go and let myself off the hook, that I didn't have to care anymore and that I didn't have to feel guilty anymore about parting from him.

1:50:20Whatever struggles he goes through are his and they're no longer mine to clean up and I don't have to worry about it anymore. I've released myself.

1:50:34Jay Shetty:What you just said there is so real and so true and I honestly honor your vulnerability and clarity because it's what you just said, this idea of accepting that that person's good isn't real because that's the thing that keeps finding their way back and keeps appealing to someone who wants to help and solve and fix. And it's just believing, oh no, but there is that. And you keep thinking it's real, even if it's small and you don't see that often. But then when you finally accept oh no it's not real it's it's actually the reason that they keep getting away with this behavior it's heartbreaking to find out that it's that it wasn't real i mean i i remember finding texts and having relationships and this and that and one of the things that that that I thought was great about him is how loyal he of a person he was.

1:51:33And when I realized how long that had been a farce, like I was, I was like, I have somebody ripped off the rose colored glasses and I see clearly now. I see clearly now and there is nothing left to, as you said, hang on to. There's nothing to keep me there or invested or forgiving in any way.

1:52:03Jay Shetty:Yeah. Yeah. And when you say heavy hitters, you mean the FBI had to get involved, right? Had to get to that level or not really? Oh. Not with this. I mean, no, he went to jail. Yeah, yeah. He went to jail. And they did have to get involved. Yeah. Um, but he, he managed to weasel his way back in even after that for a little bit. Um, so I had to get him out again. It was, it was, it was like this, this period of time of like back and forth, um, um, battle. and I mean as I said I thought I had gotten away from from him for this this big period of time and then for you know certain reasons I'm I'm I'm going to you know gory the gory details of exactly what what happened but but don't believe just what what you see in in a picture there's so much more going on so much more going on truth is stranger than fiction it truly truly is like you couldn't you can't write this stuff you can't make this up as i was reading the book and thinking about all the headlines that you've had to live through and the conversation and the gossip and you know the everything that comes with it and then you know you did this people interview I think it was like a year ago or something as well.

1:53:41And then again, the rumor mill begins about

1:53:45Jay Shetty:questioning your sobriety and how you're talking and everything. And then we learn actually it's because you're grieving and going through so much more behind the scenes. And I keep thinking like, when will we finally stop? Like assuming that we know what's going on in someone's life or we know exactly why they are the way they are or who they are. And when will we allow them the opportunity to tell us because it's a real human with a real brain, with a real mind, with real well-being, with the real emotions. And yes, no matter how successful someone is or whatever it may be, it's hearing things about you that are untrue are just so like at the core, just unsettling for any of us.

1:54:26Jay Shetty:And we know what that feels like at school. We know what that feels like in a family. And when somebody says something, it's like there's no changing people's minds. It doesn't matter really, you know, what you say. You know, when I was younger, my father was accused of hitting my mother. And even though I knew the real story, when you say something like that about somebody, there's no convincing anybody that that's not the truth and that didn't happen. There are just certain things that people go, eh, I'm not buying it. I saw it for myself. When you're like, if you saw the big picture, you would go, aha, now it makes sense.

1:55:23Jay Shetty:It's like watching, yeah, I feel like it's like watching 30 seconds of a movie and deciding who the bad guy is and the good guy is and why they're in that scenario. and then you're like, all right, well, if you watch the whole movie, well, you're walking halfway into the theaters and it doesn't make any sense. And yeah, I just, you know, I really feel like this is me, this book does that for people who want to understand, you know, what the picture really looks like. And you sadly, I mean, you've talked about him throughout, you know, you sadly lost your brother three years ago. And you describe him in the book as the heartbreak of my life, always right there in the center of who I am.

1:56:04Jay Shetty:I wanted to ask you, how did losing him change the way you see all of this? Because it feels like the hardest one, even though everything we've talked about is extremely heavy and hard. Oh, yeah. There was nothing in my life that feels like losing my other half, like the other half that was born to be the yin to my yang. Um, and we were so close and especially being the older sibling who, it's your job to protect them and keep them safe. and not being able to is, I mean, heartbreaking doesn't even begin to cover it. I would need a dictionary to go through all the words for all the feelings that, you know, that go through your mind.

1:57:01But I, I've, I mean, I collapsed and it stayed with me. I know time is like the best is the best healer generally, but it's been three years and every year it's gotten, it's changed. The heartbreak has changed, but losing him and realizing how much of life I was going to have to go through alone and without him, when I always saw him as being there, you know the day that my parents are not here anymore i'm gonna have to do alone and the fact that he's he's not here to be a part of my daughter's life and the fact that he's i mean there's so many times i want to call him all the time and and he was my best best friend and And, like, when he first died, I just remember screaming, I don't want to live in a world where he doesn't exist.

1:58:12So I unfortunately had to. But he seemed so alive in my head still. He was such a big, big personality. And he just, like, no matter how, no matter what, like, he was just one of those people I never thought anything could take him down or take him away. He's so good, too, and it makes you so angry to see that there are bad people thriving in this world, and then one so good that's just taken from you. Why? It's not fair. It doesn't make sense. so that's something i i just i don't think i'll ever i'll never get over it it'll just evolve luckily he was an amazing artist and i'm i have his his paint some of his paintings and that keeps part of him alive for me he left that behind beautiful things behind but and I feel him with me.

1:59:36I know that he's protecting me from where he is and was needed elsewhere, but I wish they would send him back to me.

1:59:47Jay Shetty:I'm so sorry for your loss and hearing about him from you and reading more in the book, it's about your relationship. It's so special to have an amazing sibling relationship even when you grew up in a home where things were maybe a bit more complex. Yeah. That becomes kind of like your... Yeah, he was more of my rock. We're the only two, he was the only other person who fully understood everything about me. I mean, we grew up in the same position, seeing the same things. We joked about the same things. We laughed about the same things. We cried about the same things. We were, if we weren't five years apart, you would think we were personality-wise twins.

2:00:38So, you know, to lose somebody who understands you on that level, yeah, and feeling like I failed to keep him safe was really hard. of all the people that should have understood him and been there and been able to protect him. It should have been me. And I did try. And I was shaking the people around me going, wake up to what's going on. This is serious. You know, his struggle with addiction was serious. and I mean I remember before he was 18 saying begging my parents to send him to military school before he was capable of making decisions for himself that they needed to do this for his safety and he needed to be disciplined and as much as I loved his free spirit spiritedness is that a word spiritedness yes he was such a deep and emotional person he was so beautiful i mean you think about i think about the way that i'm able to forgive like and and and how i'm a first person to see someone struggle and i will be the first person there like he was me times times a hundred it was just too much i think i think it was too much to be to be him it was over overwhelming this the way he thought was overwhelming the way he felt was overwhelming so he had to numb too so i i i get it and And I just wish I could have done something differently.

2:02:43Jay Shetty:Yeah. It's hard when you love people and see them do that and you have a deeper understanding of it because you've been there as well yourself and know what that can look like and feel like. But again, it's too much pressure for you too. It's like, you know, you have a big heart and you care a lot, but be kinder to yourself because you can't, you know, solve and say and fix everything and everyone it's it's a lot i feel like that's something that they need to teach in school to children like how to be kind to yourself teach them about negative self-talk because that's something that we're all guilty of and and it's it's so It's horrible what it does to us.

2:03:35We've found out scientifically that it does to us in our energy and the way we think and just the physical, emotional, mental effects it has on us. I feel it's really important for people to understand that even though it might be something small in their minds, that it's a big deal to talk to yourself like that. When people ask, you know, would you talk to a friend the way you talk to yourself? And most of the time people say no. Right? Yeah.

2:04:20Jay Shetty:and the pressure we put on ourselves to solve everything and fix everything and be there for everyone all the time it's it's a wonderful intention and a desire but it's it's impossible to live up to forever oh yeah absolutely agreed yeah no matter how much you care and love someone it's it's a it's impossible but i'm so sorry for your loss and yeah it's it's one of those things that never goes away but you know you you get to like you said beautifully that he's still living with you and you still feel him and still feeling protecting you from wherever you know he is that that's that's a really beautiful approach to to grief i can't imagine how much it took to write this book and we're only talking about specific events that we're diving into and there's so much more inside when people will read it and learn so much more about everything we're talking about but I can't imagine just how much excavating it took.

2:05:17Jay Shetty:And then to add to it all, you write about in the book how you had a stalker and through the isolation, through the, you know, and I'm just like. It just keeps getting better. How does that feel to be going through grief, to be isolated, and then be dealing with that on top of everything that you've gone through that you've shared today? They have that saying, when it rains, it pours. I feel that all the time we go through periods of times where things are great and then everything will go wrong all at once. And I don't know if it's Mercury in retrograde or something in the air. Like what is going on to make all of these things happen all at once?

2:06:09but the experience with him is the man who who stalked me was was terrifying and this man was not just a stalker who who was a big a big fan like he was genuinely mentally unwell and and leaving message after message about how he was going to bring his katana sword and decapitate. And I had to actually cancel speaking engagements that I had because he was flying and he was waiting for me there. Now, I've had stalkers before in the past who are all talk, right? and no action, and you go, after a while you go, okay, they're not really going to do this. This is somebody who just has the time to sit here and do this.

2:07:11But then there are those that you realize are incredibly dangerous, and they mean what they say, and the FBI and the Secret service had to get involved and um i mean i thank them both all of them from the bottom of my heart for for getting him and for putting him away he did just recently get out so um i've that's too You know, I'm feeling, you know, all these different emotions going on. I like the way you say it, excavated my life and written this book and put it all out there. Very emotional topics. Then to deal with something like this on top of it and knowing that he just got out, too. of jail recently um is is scary the whole experience was just i to deal with somebody that's that unhinged is terrifying it's because it goes back to that you can't reason with the the unreasonable and you have no idea what they're capable of when you don't know what somebody is capable of.

2:08:45I mean, we've all seen people do things that we could, we would never imagine them, people being capable of doing. And to feel like you're sitting in limbo and just, and you have no idea if they're going to show the stories that we've heard in the past of people showing up and just boom you're done you're you're you're gone you we to deal with somebody like like that that is that that is one of the most terrifying

2:09:21Jay Shetty:feelings in the world yeah can't even begin to imagine i'm happy that you're it was the icing the icing on the cake it was very very thick i'm happy that you're protected and that you're taking the right precautions and measures because you're absolutely right. And just glad that you have the right people around you to see you through this. I've been, you know, I wanted to, there's only one last thing I wanted to say to you and, and, and ask you was just, you know, when you came in here and I want to point this out because we've had to, we've, you've had to revisit for this conversation to talk about the book.

2:09:55Jay Shetty:We've revisited so many hard and dark moments in your life. But when you came in today, you had this big smile on your face. You greeted me with a really warm embrace you were so kind when we walked over here we were having wonderful conversations and you were telling me just about this next chapter of your life and how excited you are to attract goodness into your life and attract love into your life and just and and i could see in your eyes and and you know you are this light as you said as yourself in your journal and i want people to know that that i felt that and saw that when you came in because you know we we've revisited the past that is tough and is talked about in your book, This Is Me.

2:10:35Jay Shetty:But when you write a book like this, it almost feels like the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one as well. You kind of put all of this together and you share it. And I wanted to ask you that, what would you want to call the chapter of this that you're entering into now, that you walked in with today that I got to experience? I don't know yet. It was one of the hardest parts of this too was figuring out what to call it. I felt like I couldn't come up with a name until I was done with the process of the book. Sometimes people do it in the middle of the experience. Sometimes people do it.

2:11:15They need a title before they start the process of writing. And I felt like I had to wait till the end. And so, I mean, I would have to, I feel like to come up with something good, I would have to see where the book went, see where my life is going to go. because I finally feel like I have shaken off all of this darkness and this negativity. And that means I've closed one door and another door is opened. and I can feel it open and I can feel all the possibility, all the possibilities, all the exciting possibilities. I feel like I have a lot more life to live.

2:12:14Jay Shetty:Absolutely. I think you're one of the toughest and most vulnerable and bravest people who sat in that chair and I really notice and acknowledge just how much work you've had to do to even be sitting here right now to share your story with this much grace and courage. So thank you for trusting me. Thank you for being here. And I'm really looking forward for people to read this book. And I hope it reaches the people who really need it right now. People who may be caught in cycles that you found yourself in can break out, that it can protect others who are in the early stages of careers like yours.

2:12:49I pray. I just wanted to help people. I want what I have gone through to be for a reason, to have happened, everything to have happened for a reason. And for that reason to be to help people, to help people go through whatever it is, whatever challenges they're facing. And to know that it's possible. It can be done.

2:13:15Jay Shetty:Thank you, Hayden. Thank you. Can I give you a hug? Of course. If you love this episode, you'll really enjoy my episode with Selena Gomez on befriending your inner critic and how to speak to yourself with more compassion. There's blessing in the breaking. And every moment that you encounter in your life, even if it's just road rage. Shh. Enjoy a roomy seat as we get you to your destination in pure peace and quiet. Plan your relaxed ride in the quiet car at Amtrak.com Amtrak, retrain travel Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great way to keep your mind clear That's why a State Farm agent is there to help you choose a coverage option that's right for you As you go through life getting that new house, car, boat, motorcycle or even RV Helping protect it is always a good idea Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or on the award-winning app, State Farm is there to help protect what's important to you.

2:14:23Jay Shetty:And with so many coverage options, it's nice having help to find what fits for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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