The Tell: What Happens When You Finally Share Your Story

27:37There's the caretaker. The caretaker. But I was able to put that guard down a little bit and just let someone love me. And then I kept trying that on with all of those in my life and that I really care about. And I think that the telling for anything that goes on in someone's life, I think people have experienced far worse. than I've experienced. I feel like what I went through was awful, but just the ability to go and find someone else that you care about and that you, the relationships in your life. And if you don't have that, then that burden of the secret is so difficult. And, and the thing that is so powerful is that I think we have been brought up to think that secrets, like secrets keep us safe.

28:23The tighter you keep them to you, they keep us so safe, but really they keep you stuck. The secrets keep you stuck and sick and sick. And, and I think totally, you know, on an Island unto yourself, it's like, if you have no secrets, meaning if you are totally honest about who you are first to yourself and then to the people who love you, like you're in integrity and that's where all the power is. It's in that unity between, and that's what, what's been so amazing about watching you go through this process is like the real you, this you that we have now, that is just like this strong, amazing, integrated person.

29:03She was desperate to come out, but, and you built this life around like keeping it way back in the recesses of your mind to protect yourself. But really when you did tell yourself the story, like thus began this unbelievable process that I was, I've been so honored to witness of you slowly taking these baby steps, right? Because first of all, I mean, can we just say that that first year after you told yourself the story, that was like one of the hardest years. I mean, just as a friend I've ever had, you know, like to watch you traverse through that. There was a depth of darkness and despondency.

29:51And there were times where I really thought like, was this worth it? Yes. But you're the very person that said to me, and we've talked about this so often, that life is all about having one foot in a bucket of hot water and one foot in a bucket of cold water. And that's what makes a life. And don't think that there weren't, there were feelings on either side. There were feelings on both sides that I worried sometimes that I was burdening you and my closest friends with being too sad. But let me tell you, for you to see me come out of it and to watch me come out of it, to remind me that I went through it is part of the connection.

30:36And when I came here today, and it's been so many years, I came here today. And I think one of the things that's so incredible is even then you would say I was a joyful person, I hope. But I live from such inner integrity, from such inner peace and freedom that all of my relationships are better. So every relationship I have in my life, I would think that when I would say, you know, hopefully five or six years ago when I was ragged and I had, you know, a million sinus infections and I was always thinking if I hadn't done enough for that person, I was always thinking maybe I forgot to invite that person or I somehow didn't, you know, say the right thing.

31:16Now I live from a place that is so different than that, that I actually realized how much better I am for everyone in my life, how much more centered and grounded I am for, for friends like you. And And also our relationship of having gone through this together, you know, there's just nothing that can transcend this in a friendship. And so I guess, can I just, can I say thank you?

31:43No, don't make me cry.

31:51when you think about those even irrespective of like because there's I think there's there's a part of watching you on this journey that is like I feel like this, this revelation that you had has really supercharged you, like propel you into this version of yourself, like the grownup integrated woman, you know, that you were like, there was something much more childlike about you before this happened. Not that you still don't have like joy and wonder and you get more excited. I do cartwheels again now. No, I'm not as good at them anymore as I was growing up in Texas, but I still can, I can do a cartwheel.

32:36You can do anything physical. It's insane. But what, what is like the, what are the things that like those, those steps of acceptance along the way? Like, was it really, how did you contextualize that? You know, like we, cause we go through like bad shit happens or even bad things we do to ourselves. Like we cheat on someone, we tell a lie, we, you know, you, you lie in bed and think like, or, you know, someone hurts you or someone is abused you. Like what are the steps that you took to alchemize what happened to you, you know, and like recontextualize it to make it so that it was your ally. Well, the overall process, if I give an analogy, I think about the idea that if you live on a block and you live on a street and you walk down that street every day and you always walk on the right-hand side of the street to get to your house and you get to the door and you open the door, so you always see the tree the same way.

33:41And then you always walk on that side of the street. I feel like this was a complete reprocessing of my brain. I must feel like a quarter of my brain got re plugged in. Wow. And I now have crossed the street and I walk on the left-hand side of the street and I can now look across at the house and walk to the house on a different side of the street with a completely different perspective of myself and, and the people around me. And I think that it's the great point of, you know I only look back now and I think I'm so grateful to my husband for a million reasons but in that real darkness when there was very little light and I don't like to remember it because it was very very dark yeah and he handed me a journal and said you're really good at writing this just go right I don't think he even said to me this will save you but that saved me yeah it The writing, it saved me.

34:43And then as you know, I was writing so furiously and I like to think I have this handwriting that looks a lot like my grandmother's, but sadly it's so bad now that I can't even read it anymore. So I'd filled these journals. And then again, my husband came back and said, Hey, I got you something. And he said, I got you an iPad. It's just a tiny little iPad. Just go and write. And, and that way you can write faster and harder and longer. And so I sort of transferred all of the moving quickly and fast. I would sit on the floor in my bathroom, which is where I feel like everything happens for everyone, either in the water, in the bathtub with my iPad or on the floor in the middle of the night.

35:20And I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. So you ask about the process. And the process is now. I feel there is – I went through so many waves to get to where I am now. But I have it all documented. because there was a fear, a deep, deep fear that if I didn't write down every single thing I ate, every single thing I did for years, that then I would forget it because how could I have forgotten all of this? Right. Right. Right. Like it's, it must've, it must've been like impossible to, I mean, it must've brought up a fear of like you, you not being reliable to your own self, like that your memory has the capacity to fall away underneath you.

36:06So I was recently at an NBA basketball game and I was watching someone, the person next to me said, why are you staring at the side of the team? Why are you staring at that team? You're not watching players on the court. And I was fascinated with this woman. So then I thought to myself, oh, I'm fascinated with this woman because she's a female coach for an NBA basketball team. This is so cool. This is like so up my alley. And then, but as I looked at her, I said, I know her, I know her intimately. I know her well, I know her movements. I know the way she's looking up, like talking into the player's faces.

36:39I know her, her, the way she walks her hair. Like I know her really well. I've spent time with her and I was just staring and I was taking videos, taking pictures. So I leave the game and I go and I look at the team and someone in the car reads and says, oh, this is who it is. She was a college basketball player at the University of Virginia, two years above me. We'd spent tons of time together. I haven't seen her in 25 years. But even just in the way that she moved her body and her arms and her limbs and was talking to me, I could imagine the way she would be talking to me at a party or saying, we're going to do this.

37:14And if you'd asked me who was going to be an NBA coach for a male team, I probably would have said this woman. But oddly enough, that story reminded me that my memory, that I, the way I remember things is real. Yeah. Is that, does that make any sense? It makes absolute sense. And you know, this, like you, you remember things in pictures, like even when you start telling me about the, the coffee cup from Starbucks, it's emblematic of, you know, it's like you, you sort of have these really strong memories of physical things. It's like in the book, you talk about it in the bathroom. I mean, and that always struck me so much, like when you were suffering this abuse that you were so fixated on the tiles and the color of the, like, it was like this way to give you a framework that you were alive and you were okay, right?

38:12Like the visualizations of all these things. And you still, like it's, your memory's always like that. You know, it doesn't surprise me at all. And I think one of the, a great gift too, is in coming to under, to trust your memory. Like for all of us to trust your memory, which is also trusting your instinct, but to trust your memory and not have to go searching. And that's, you know, the story alongside of all the telling was, you know, as I was writing it, I think that I was telling myself this all really happened. This all really happened. It's, it's really wonderful to say that you can get to a place where you don't say that anymore.

38:51You trust your memory and you also trust that memory might be off. You know, I might've remembered giving you a decaf and the straw might've been red and you said, no, the straw was green, but still the memory was there and it's just how I processed it. And I've tried to, one of the things I tried to do was to read every possible book on memory and how memory works and what does it mean and how could I, I think in some ways to try to discredit myself. I couldn't, and that was part of my own telling. That was part of my own investigative search. Yeah. You go, you read the book, you see this crazy story.

39:26It's like this crime novel that's going on. It is. At the same time, which, you know, I've had people say to me, well, I would have, you know, I can help you with bringing in different investigators. Or what were you thinking at this time? Why did you do this this way? Or why did you do? I said, it wasn't about that. I was trying to stay alive for myself. In my inner self, there was so much inner turmoil. I talk about this a little bit, that to be running parallel, me as the criminal investigator, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it well. So I'm going to do that myself. And I'm also going to heal.

39:58But at the same time, I've got to wrap it all up, as we do as women, in a big pink bow and say, I did it. I took care of this person so that I can say to my children that I made sure this person will be held accountable. I also get to be validated because it makes everyone believe me. And then I'm also healed and I'm, I'm perfect. Right. And that just, it's not the way it goes, but I obviously, but I, I love your, the self-awareness, right? It's like, even when you were doing all that stuff you knew. And I think you knew that you, you, even though there were days that were so hard and dark and dramatic, you know, when you were doing all your investigation and the huge disappointments that came and the people who let you down and the misinformation you were given about laws and like all the stuff that was happening.

40:54I think you did know that it was, you were chewing through this stuff. You were chewing through what happened to you. You were chewing through how it could have happened to you. You were chewing through the idea of consequence and accountability and who you were. And so it was like this, it was all part of the process. And guess who the accountability lies with? Myself. In the most beautiful way. I never, I've been asked a million times, what did you want to happen? Not how do you want this to play out? I, I don't even, I can't even answer that right now. All I can say is I took accountability for myself, which is compassion for myself.

41:38And I think the word that has come to me so many times with my children, especially with my children and my friends and as a woman is this permission, yeah the word permission to tell your story no story is too small just to share it and to realize I've had I think I think this other piece in writing it with the permission first for myself permission for me to ask you Gwyneth can I tell you this story because I have to make sure that you're in a place that you're okay to hear it and what I realized was as I was writing and this is where it went from go from me realizing that this was a story that I wrote for myself to oh my gosh the more I tell the story the freer I become is that every time I went to tell someone I mean it was like all the time many many many many many times the person I would see it in their eyes and then I would realize oh my gosh this person is now about to tell me their story that's right And so the telling switched gears so many times such that the permission in another woman's eyes came right back to me.

42:51And then there was this incredible opening to say, you know, with eyes, locked eyes, it's okay. Yeah. And it's not yours. It's not mine. It's not yours. You know, I think that's the real, the real damage is things happen to us and then we hold it as it's ours. And then it's our burden to carry that someone else's shame becomes our shame. And that's not true. and there that's that there's you're right I mean there's such freedom in women being able to say you know this also happened to me and this is this is my story and for us to be able to hold that for each other I heard a woman recently at this beautiful gathering talk about how she for the first time was even just saying you know what I do everything for my husband I cook I clean for him.

43:52I do everything. I actually never had an opinion for myself about what I want. And she loved her husband. She loves her husband. But she sort of made this comment of, oh my gosh, this is about me. I'm going to have opinions now. I'm going to stand up for myself. What do I want? What do I care about? I don't know how relevant that is to my story, but this idea that even that woman was given permission to say, this is who I am and start from that. because our, our culture and society is just not set up that way that we are allowed to turn inward and contemplate who we are and what we want. You know, we're, we're not raised that way.

44:32I mean, I hope that Gracie and Gigi and Apple and all their friends are more raised that way, you know, in, in this generation, but I don't think we were raised that way. It was all about, you know it wasn't I certainly was not pointed in the direction of like hey who are you really who are you really and and what do you think you're here to do it was like so confusing to always be trying to fulfill somebody else's idea of who I was supposed to be and what are the social norms at the time and it was I definitely was such a different time but you know what are the contracts that you're supposed to fit into what boxes are you supposed to fit into as a woman so that you are doing being the perfect girl yeah you know being the the good girl and doing the right things and and as someone who is and there are parts of me I think I love the whole parts I love all of that is separating out I think that in doing this work I realize okay I can take some of these parts and I can throw them out and say I don't want those anymore I'm done with those but I love a lot of the parts of me I love the southern parts of me I love a thank you note.

45:42I know you too. My sweet mother, my incredible mother who I would not have survived without. Thank God I had these incredibly loving parents and a community to go home to that, you know, I could have gone down different paths, but I had this incredibly nurturing, loving family. But at the same time, had to protect myself because I didn't want to hurt them because they said, I was told you will not be believed. You will not be loved because you have this wonderful family if you share. Yeah, there's the parts of me that I love and I can say, OK, I'm going to keep those and deal and throw some of them out.

46:16But I love the athlete part of me. I love the ambitious side of me. I love that it doesn't all come from the trauma. And some of it probably doesn't. And I've even recognized that I might keep some of the trauma stuff. I love to walk into a room and say, I can tell you who's hungry. I need to go know who needs to use the restroom. Let's figure out like, you know, who do we need to move it along? And I like that part of me. Yeah. And that it's, it's interesting, right? Cause trauma is like, you, you build a personality around coping with trauma, surviving trauma. And I think that that's part of it, right?

46:53Like you're sort of the thermostat, like, oh, this, this guy's a little hot. I'm going to cool it down. This woman's a little cold. I'm going to warm her up. You know, it's like, it's a certain, you know, codependence, I guess. I definitely suffered from the same. But I can also, like you said, I can put the bridle back on and think, oh, I can kind of laugh at myself and say, or you can make fun of me, G and say, you're doing, you're doing it again.

47:23How was it to tell the girls? Well, I think it was the day I dreaded. Well, looking back at it, I thought I dreaded it more than any day of my life. But actually, even in going in to go tell them was the most liberating experience of my life. So while I was so fearful, and I was fearful around their maturity or how they would handle it, I knew, I knew that they are these, they are my teachers. They are the greatest extensions of me, both so different, but so wise in so many ways. And if I could tell you, it was, it was this divine intervention in my life for both of my girls. They both said things that I write about in the book that, that no adult could have actually said.

48:15And at the time they were very, very young very knowing that this is something that's still really hard for me they gave me they gave that missing piece of me back to me in the acknowledgement um that this happened and and then it also set us on this path of not that I mean my relationship with my children I think has always been wonderful but there was this idea as a mother that I thought it was in the doing for them so it was the taking them to soccer class the making sure that the romper was the right hem length and that the donuts were hot for the parent teacher appreciation. And that wasn't it.

48:53And I realized that I needed to show up for them in different ways that had nothing to do with the doing for them, but the really being there with them. And I think, I hope I could say that they would tell me anything or come to me and say, look how vulnerable my mom was. It's hard. I think it's probably hard with any mother daughter relationship to have vulnerability, but I was at my lowest. I was putting myself out there in a way that I've never put myself out there in terms of being vulnerable. And while I I've never said, and I hope I never say on a podcast or in doing this, that I'm brave because I don't know that it's brave.

49:32I just know people have said that back to me, but I know I was vulnerable. And that word vulnerable is so powerful. There's so much power in vulnerability. Yeah, there really is. And people don't realize that. There's so much power in vulnerability. Do you think that, did you get a sense that their childhoods were different from that point or your dynamic with them was different from that point? For me, it was like completely, it was like a new door opened. It was a different way. I think they talk about it. They've said to me many times, mom, you would have not done that before. You would have handled this differently.

50:11They will actually point out the instances where I would have done something differently and we can laugh about it now. I'm sure I still drive them crazy, but we have just real honest, open conversations. And they've also gotten older, but at the time for them to really pinpoint it. And they are the reasons that I actually really went in to go do this work when they called me out to say, where is that missing piece? Yeah. Remember I said, where are you? Where are you? Yeah. Why do you think that when people have abuse that they have such a hard time setting a boundary? It's a real common denominator.

50:51I think that boundary, what does that mean? I've been learning. I'm getting better. Oh my God. You're so much better. I think that there's always this need for the seeking approval that you'll be found out that it's your fault. I think I can now use my adult brain and it makes such sense. Everything I use, I always use as an analogy, a puzzle piece that sometimes they snap in above my head into place and I can easily see why this happened and this happened and this shifted. But at the time, I can now also see a child's brain in trying to understand. I didn't have a construct for any of it. None of it actually made sense to me.

51:38I didn't know the words. I didn't know the parts. I didn't know. More than that, the sheer manipulation that happens that you have no idea. You don't recognize it. You don't recognize the patterns. and so the other part of it that I love I'm not always perfect at it but I love compassion like I'm having compassion for myself so in these moments and I also love when I'm quick to judge someone if if someone might have hurt my feelings or I think why are they acting that way that I tried I really do go to that place of thinking you Amy you have no idea what they're going through and and that's like so true just overall that people they never know what's going on in someone's life so when people said to me growing up or in new york oh you have your life so perfect perfect i hate that word it's such a loaded word for so many women it's what is perfect what are we striving for how do we what does perfect even mean it's and yet i would always look over my shoulder?

52:42Who are they talking to? And to think they have no idea. There were moments, many moments that I would think they have no idea, but yet I still wasn't going to go there with myself. So interesting. I mean, I, it's something that I think about a lot too, like, where does this drive for perfection? Like, where did that come from? And, you know, of course I have my, my hypotheses for my own life around why but I feel like it was also so like that I don't know society like it's like everybody's conspiring to get us to think that we're not enough you know like we're not good enough and we come in we're already broken and people break us more and then it's like the antidote to that is like I've got to be perfect and I've got to you know and I never Like in my case, I never even – it was never even comparing myself to anybody else.

53:44It was just to myself. You know, I was always thinking that I was not good enough. But now can't you say – I think that you can say coming from inside yourself. Like I show up now in rooms and I think I am so lucky. I'm so blessed to be in this room. I know I'm so blessed to be in this room. But I'm so blessed to be – that I know who I am. So I don't even care that other people, that I'm in this room, I just show up as myself. And I think, you know, from the things, I have this profound gratitude that when I can show up in these rooms and I think, you know, I am just so grateful that I'm here, that I survived this.

54:24Yes. That that child, that Amy that was back then that thought there's no way out with this, that I'm here, like just alone being here and having survived it, there's so much gratitude and joy. So it starts like so simply. So when, you know, it can be as simple as just like having an incredible cup of coffee in the morning where I think I'm so grateful that I'm here with myself. but yeah that whole drive for perfection it's hard yeah it is hard and it it's quite punishing you know and it's something that i don't know i really am i've really worked very hard on trying to undo a lot of that programming and just to to be with myself and to accept all the parts of myself too you know like all the things that i don't like about myself and try to make friends with all those parts of myself too.

55:23You think that the permission and the compassion and the trust and those things that you work to build in all your relationships. And then you think, but I never really took the time to build that with myself and to give myself permission. And then once you start doing that, you build that muscle. It seems like it's a muscle, don't you think? I do, and I think it's work. I mean, and it's like the fundamental truth and the way through life is to accept all those parts of yourself, right? But it is work because I think we're, I don't know, it's hard to sometimes live with those things about yourself that are the harder things.

56:04And I don't know, especially when, you know, sometimes I think about, you know, something that I did want to, and if this is too personal, we don't have to. but I think like it's such an interesting area that people don't talk about still that much you know I think we're getting to a point in society where you know as women we're holding hands and talking about a lot right we're talking about perimenopause and menopause and we're talking about you know there's so many areas there's so many there's so many I think taboos that were kind of in in our sisterhood saying like we're going to talk about this and help each other through that.

56:41Like, and we've talked about this together, but you know, I think it would be really helpful to understand how, how does this impact adult sexuality? Well, speaking of the stigma piece, one way that I was looking at it and I was thinking about, sounds crazy. I woke up like a day or two after Cecile Richards passed away. and I don't think of myself as a woo-woo person but I'm a woo-woo person you totally are a total woo-woo person totally and I am a very I'm a very look to the universe person and I woke up I was in a dream I woke up and I kind of heard her saying after she passed and I've been reading everything about her life and and she said Amy go tell this story there's so much more to do and she and it just kept I was like okay fine I'm gonna write it down Amy go tell this story there's so much more to do and it's kind of in line with what I do in business and in the companies that I support and the founders I support and how I've found myself in various sectors like you said talking about menopause and women's health and places where women were left out of the conversation in sports and media and in other areas but one of them was this little moment when I remembered that with breast cancer if you remember and the way I understood the breast cancer symbol was sort of form because you you do you remember when people that say someone has breast cancer you can see the symbol but you can't say breast cancer right like we didn't talk about breast cancer no because it was the word breast i know so that's when i think about making progress and how far we've come and then i think about cecile richards i was just thinking about that in terms of sexual health you know i just can only go to the relationship i've had with my husband where there was again this very secure attachment and I've said to him why did you never say anything to me when you noticed certain things that were happening in our life and I there was an instance where I was in the yoga when I was doing yoga and he was being funny and he I write about this and he tied my hands the yoga strap or something and I said I I lost it yeah I lost it and I ran out of the house and he kindly followed me out and said do you want to talk about that and I said nope And that was a tell.

58:57Yeah. That was a tell. And I tucked it back in my brain. But so I think about that in terms of my sexuality around when I was ready after so much of that connectedness with John and my relationship with him that I think that was part of how I was able to tell. Right? And it's something I enjoy working on with him. Yeah. Yeah. I feel safe. Yeah. And so you can heal that part? Well, I guess isn't sexuality, it's about you with you. With someone else. And then with someone else. Or alone, I guess. Or alone. Or whatever. Whatever. Lots of people. I don't know if I'll get there to that. The Texas part of me.

59:37We'll talk about that. Sorry, John. But that connection of isn't sexuality and sensuality and all of the differences about real connection. Like just holding John's foot is sensual for me and a connection like through the foot, like that he knows me and I know him. And I think that there was so much of that for 20 years. So much connection. And don't kill me, John, but I'm going to say another wonderful John thing. But he tells me every day as I'm going through this because this is new territory. Very, very new territory. This is not a story that I wrote a character about that I can come say, I'm this character so cool and crazy and all the things that have gone on.

1:00:21And this is me. This is my life. This is the innermost workings. And so he, every day, he wrote me a note and he says it to me every single day. You are safe and you are loved. And I spilled coffee on it, but I still haven't. And it got all shriveled and I had to make sure I got to frame it. So I have you are safe and you are loved. And in a way that sort of says everything there is to say to me about even sexuality.

1:00:51you know i was just thinking about like your pain tolerance before all this you know like and your hip replacements you know that book the body doesn't lie well i don't know if you know this so it wasn't replaced i'm actually proud of the fact whatever you i mean i've had a million surgeries back together and my hips have re-sewn back on and that was a that was a real tell for me too. I was wondering. It was a real tell. I think after, you know, I had one hip re-sewn back on, shaved down the whole situation. And then seven weeks later, I went back and did the second hip. And that's why I was on crutches for 14 weeks.

1:01:28And that was from all of my athletics. And, you know, when you, I remember someone once saying to me, Amy, you're going to get to a place where you can't do all of that. And you're going to have to slow down and have to pay attention to what your body's saying to you and tell you like the word tell. I was like, I get it. I get it, but I get it. I get it, but I didn't want to get it. But what was really interesting is that that was the first book. So it's interesting that you say that. And I'm so grateful that Bessel actually gives me a blurb for the book, gave me a blurb for the book, because that was the book that I read the first second I came out of my sessions and was honest with myself, because that was a real light bulb for me of, oh, this really makes sense to me as to all.

1:02:11The body doesn't lie. The body was trying to tell me what was trying to give me clues. And this was this idea of like really listening to yourself. But I was in many ways running from my physical sense too. Do you have a different relationship with that now? Like do you listen to your body more? Would you like to know that I only check my aura when I know I'm really tired instead of checking it all the time to make sure I'm getting enough steps. I just check when it says you should not work out today because you're going too hard. Like I definitely, and in ways where I used to punish my body talking about it, I write about being in hotel gyms and low ceiling rooms of, you know, I have to get the six miles in or whatever it was, was because I was, you know, punishing myself.

1:02:53But I think that now I'm so much softer with myself or have the moment, have the stay a little longer with the friend. So beautiful. And I think we all can do that. We can all have, and then there's that compassion again. It shows up like, that was so great. I sat a little longer. I, I, you know, what are we going to remember? All we have are our memories and our relationships when we go, that's all we have. And I, I don't know, I guess, I hope we get to take both of those with us, our memories and our relationships. Yeah. It's true. Actually. Now that you say that, like when we first met all those years ago and you were doing three hours a day of this and that and the triathlon and all the training and do you remember that you saged me i remember that oh yeah oh my gosh we were working out after after this all came out we were working out we did start laughing after we cried we did we cried we did the one bucket one foot in cold water and one foot in hot water i started sobbing you came over you saged me as only Gwyneth Paltrow could do that's right and then and then we started laughing gosh I forgot about that yeah but that was also so caregiving of you it was so loving and you know that's where in the telling you feel so seen you feel so seen people can feel so seen I just hope that for people when they you know I this story I want to make sure that I really care about.

1:04:25I wish I could be the repository for every single story in the world. I don't know how I was like, how can I create a repository? But I think I'm sure knowing you, like you'll have a startup next week. I don't know. I don't know because I think there, I don't know if there's enough of me to be able to do that, but I do feel that it's within everyone. Like I hope that people see the story and see a little bit of themselves somewhere in it and then say, Oh, I can tell that I can share that, you know? I never told that thing. I'm going to go tell that thing. I'm going to go share that thing and then see where it goes.

1:04:59And then that person, which as you see as I write about, they then turn around and say, oh, I have to tell you too. Yeah. Yeah. Our mutual friend Kate said to me once, you know, these things that are hard to say are really the only things we should be saying. That is exactly how I've thought of it. It's the simplest thing. the telling is the simplest thing to do in life. But it's the hardest thing to do in life. It's like anything, right? The best dress has no bells and whistles. It's just perfectly tailored. Right? But telling is super simple, but it's so hard. There's so much freedom on the other side.

1:05:41I know. And that's why this book is so incredible in your story, to be able to light the way for people and to make it, you know, you didn't have to do this. You didn't, you know, it was like when you were writing this and you were on your iPad and when you said, you know, I might, I might make this a book. And I was worried because I thought, oh man, is she going to put this out in the world? And what are going to be that I just from a protective place, you know? And I thought, no, but it's so good that she's writing it and using it as a tool to really process through it all. And then out of this came the most exquisite, beautifully written book.

1:06:20I mean, I'm so proud of you and what you were able to do. And not only because the work in and of itself is exceptional, but because you light the way you give, you're giving anyone who reads this permission to tell their story as difficult as it might be, as shattering as it might be for the people around them in their lives. You know, it's, it's an incredible feat that you've been able to, to do. And it's deeply, deeply healing, not only for you, but for anybody who has a story to tell, who hasn't told it yet. I I'm so thank you for saying that. I'm so grateful. And I, I look back, I'm a process person, as you know, I love looking back.

1:07:04There's so much gratitude. I feel in the word, in the processing, like the process of all of this is what really has transformed my life. And I think about the day when, as I knew I'd been writing and then, you know, I had this, someone said to me, Amy, I got a call and someone said, Amy, we'd like for you to write a book about women in business. And I said, I'm not qualified. There's someone, there's other women that are more qualified to write. You are, by the way, how many public boards are you on? You're on the board of the Met. You're on the board of Spanx, Bumble. I mean, but I really felt, I felt what was interesting in that moment was as she asked me and I was honored, I said, there are so many women that are more qualified to write a book about women in business.

1:07:43But what's really interesting was that's where I literally flipped a switch and recognized, oh, but I have, I have something that's more important coming from me. I know this was one of the moments of the tells when I knew why I'm here. I know why I'm here. And I knew that this moment to give this book to the world was why I'm here and what I've been through to then share it was far more important than anything that could happen at that moment in time. And, and, and I realized this in the processing that when I literally sent the, what I'd written, I just sent it, I pushed send and I ran in and I said, John, I just, someone just called me and I, you know, I sent them what I've been writing.

1:08:20And he said, what do you mean you sent it? And I said, yeah, just push send. And he said, did you, do you trust this person and I said yes but more than anything I trust myself wow I mean I mean it's just mic drop drum dropping it on the table oh my gosh well I mean I had also I had all these other questions I wanted to ask you about work and but you know I just this has been really incredible and i'm just so proud of you like i you're so inspiring just to to be able to watch someone's journey to this degree like most of us in life it's like yeah we're working on something we make a little progress and we were you know it's like you've just come leaps and bounds and you've blossomed into the fullest imaginable version of yourself can i make a joke just to say, to say, well, I told you, I don't do anything halfway.

1:09:23That's a part of me that I'm not losing. I don't do something halfway. I, and that's just kind of how, when I went into process, it was like, it's either all it's, it was, it was jumping in. And I've been saying this over and over again, I was jumping off the high dive into the deepest water and there's no other way around it. And I, I kind of like living life that way. It's again, back to the one foot in one, you know, highs and lows of life. And that's what makes up, that's what makes up a life. So if you had to go back to the darkest day and in the post, you know, the tell, just cause it may help other women listening to this, if they're going through something similar, like what would you, what would you say to yourself now?

1:10:04If you think back to yourself, like on the lying on the bathroom floor in the wake of this huge revelation in the, on the darkest day? I would say trust yourself like at your inner most core. It may be so slow going, but a tiny little change, just trust yourself and show up for yourself in little tiny ways.

1:10:34and slowly that muscle gets built and find the people in your life who can listen i think that is you realize you learn a lot and and i learned so much in the last few years who could listen and like when i talk to those people you being one of them there's a shared connectedness that you you you can't explain and that comes from having gone through both you you know you hope you hope the people that you talk to in your lowest moments are the same people that you talk to in your highest moments yeah that is really beautiful friendship that is so good it's true i want to be able to come to my friends when i'm you can't have it any other way no it's true it's true I find that yeah those people that you can't do both with they fall by the wayside eventually as you grow up and that's okay too yeah it's totally okay totally okay absolutely well thank you so much thank you for being who you are to me in my life thank you for letting me walk beside you on this journey.

1:11:49I'm so incredibly proud of you and this book, and I'm so excited to see what's coming next. Do you remember what you said to me as I say, thank you to you a million times over. I wrote it all throughout the journal. There's a million times as I go through. Thank God Gwyneth called. Thank God she called. She said, get up. We're a lot of get up. But do you remember the line you said to me? I guess maybe that's not sitting in your memory, but we were outside. The sun was coming down. The sun was like on our faces. And you said, Amy, you have to put your feet in the sand. You have to put your feet in the sand.

1:12:31You have to ground yourself. You're going to find yourself by doing that. And when I said earlier, what's the advice about trusting yourself and doing one little thing? Can I tell you, I was at a place where just putting my feet in the sand from your advice is what saved me. So I love you very, very much. And I will always put my feet in the sand with you.

1:13:00I hope everybody has enjoyed listening to our kind of deeply personal conversation. I really forgot at times that there were even microphones in front of us. I cannot encourage you all enough to order and read the tell it's available for pre-order now. And I found it personally life-changing and I hope you do too. So thank you, Amy. And thank you all so much for tuning in and being a part of this space. This has been a presentation of cadence 13 studios. I hope you'll listen, follow, rate, and review all of our episodes, which are available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.