The Schwarzenegger daughters take the stage. They're cute, as they introduce their famous mom, Maria Shriver.
Secrets we don't know about their mom: We bet you don't know she's obsessed w/licorice and dots and hides them around the house. That she has her very own miniature pony named Whisky that's supposed to be in the backyard but wanders the house. That she travels everywhere with a tub of caramel popcorn. That she wears Halloween teeth in the morning for carpool and thinks it's hilarious. Or that last year, she took that miniature pony trick or treating and it kicked a child. She sometimes puts her workout clothes on inside-out in hopes of making it to the Lifecycle...
Maria Shriver takes the stage, kissing her daughters as they walk off.
Shriver: (Notes how young and tall her girls are, says everything they said is true). It is a joy and a privilege to be back here again. Would like to begin with a prayer she reads every morning:
May today there be peace within
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
Today, I think we are all where we are meant to be: right here, together.
I love this conference and what we've become. It's the only event that combines this variety of speakers all in one place: Condoleeza Rice and Gloria Steinem, Warren Buffet and Jennifer Lopez...
Our theme this year is being who you are. This is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, your communities, the world.
I was absolutely right not going back to NBC news. Five years later, I'm completely at peace being First Lady. I don't like the title, but I love the opportunities it's afforded me. Ironically, this has helped me shed a lot of old baggage. It has helped me find my own voice and step into my own authentic life.
Joan Chitester wrote it can take a really long time to become the person you want to be. I'm not there yet, but I'm further on along. It's because I've learned to work through my old fears.
Quotes a favorite poet: Tell me, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?
I realize what's been keeping me from doing it full speed is fear - that's what keeps us from becoming what we want to be. Keeps us frozen in old beliefs. Makes us give up our own power, or worse, prevents us from realizing we have power in the first place. Convinces us we're not capable of doing what it takes to live our own wild and precious life. So many people speaking today learned that themselves by acknowledging their fear and forging ahead.
Talking about Mary Tillman, who took the grief of her son's loss and used it to tell the world. Talking about Billie Jean King, who stepped out 27 years ago and told the world she is gay. There's Saru Conna Galla - this librarian wanted to live in a Democratic society in Liberia. She wanted Charles Taylor to be gone. She got thousands of women to join her in a campaign to deny their husbands sex until Charles Taylor was out of office. How brilliant is that?
From fear to freedom - that's how they got to know who they are or who they could be. Not suggesting any of us overthrow the government or fight the Pentagon. Staying in fear ensures you will feel bad about yourself. If you let fear stop you, you buy into the old message that you are a failure and you're too afraid to be happy.
How do we change that? We talk about women being architects of change. The hardest thing to do is change yourself, and the hardest thing to change is fear itself. For years, I've had a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt above my desk that says you must do one thing every day that scares you.
Maybe this might sound like just a bunch of words, but recognizing the role fear played in my life surprised me. I grew up in a family that put a lot of stock in courage. But the truth is - except for a few moments or a fleeting stab of anticipation, I didn't feel fearful at all. And if you don't feel fear, you don't need courage. The only way to get rid of fear is to face the thing that you're terrified of. You'll find out the fear just falls away. This year, I've learned that first hand as I've come face to face with stomach churning fear. I hate to admit it, but I was terrified of my oldest daughter Katherine going off to college. Not for her, but for me. I was afraid of letting her go. Now my other daughter Christina is getting ready to go to. I am afraid of the unknown. I'm learning to live with that fear, to keep my mouth shut and watch how it unfolds.
Earlier this year, I published a book - I have to admit I was fearful of how people would...
Presidential primary season. Like many women, I was passionate about this year being the one when we elect a female president. I truly admire Hillary Clinton and I have for years. Then I listened to Barack Obama. His language moved me, his story, his struggle for identity resonated with me. I identified with the way he emphasized his faith. I had seen first hand as a Democrat in a Republican administration how hard it is to bring people together. So before long, I found myself torn between my head and history on one side and my heart on the other. And when I confronted it, I was terrified. I'd changed my mind and I was afraid of what people would think when I told them. I hoped against hope I could keep my mouth shut until election day.
Then the California primary came upon us. There was a rally at UCLA. By that time, both my cousin Caroline Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey knew that I supported Obama. I didn't want to be seen as just another Kennedy jumping on the Obama bandwagon. I said to them, I can't. This isn't the right moment.
My daughter said, if you support Obama and your voice can make a little difference, why wouldn't you go? What are you afraid of?
I felt socked in my gut, disgusted that I couldn't say what was in my heart. And I realized the only thing to do was to go out and say what I believed. So I showed up backstage at UCLA. I said to Michelle Obama - who I barely knew - I'm here. I'll introduce you. They said you're the big surprise. We'll introduce YOU.
I was so scared backstage I thought I could just slide away. Then I heard Michelle Obama say, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special surprise for you." My knees buckling, I walked on to the stage. And right there, I realized then - I was right where I was supposed to be. With thousands of people who felt as I did.
That moment taught me a really important lesson. You can't wait until the fear goes away to take the action. You have to take the action.
Many women told me they had the same struggle and had come out the same way.
I endorsed not just Obama but my own gut and my right to change my mind. I felt free. Not fearless.
This year has given me plenty more opportunities to be different. This May, my brother Timothy called to tell me that my uncle Teddy had a seizure. He had a brain tumor. The fear was and is indescribable. All of a sudden, I had to think the unthinkable. My uncle Teddy is the go-to person. He is our family center. Our history. The repository of all our stories. And this year he has been a rock for my family as he's helped us deal with my mother's illnesses.
I called my uncle and told him I would help him in any way possible. And then I turned it over to God. I'm happy to say he's doing well and is taking his treatments.
Then I got a call telling me my friend Tim Russert was dead. My whole world was changing and changing way too fast. I could feel my stability cracking and I was shaking. A few days later I was asked to speak at his funeral and I saw the other speakers and I really felt sick. All of the heavyweight journalists, senators, the whole shebang. I looked at my speech and thought, Oh my God, I'm going to look like an idiot. Then they all spoke, everyone more eloquent than the last.
And then I thought, wait a minute. You wrote this for Tim. He would love me remembering these stories. He would laugh and give me a bear hug and say, you did good, kid.
So I told myself - don't compare yourself to Mario Cuomo or Tom Brokaw. Comparisons are what we do to make ourselves feel bad.
So then I got up, I told my speech. I did it to share my love of Tim. And when I was done, the fear was done, too.
Not too long after that, I was scrolling through my speed dial and I saw Tim's number come up. And I thought, should I delete this? And I decided not to. I hit the number and I heard Tim's voice - "This is Tim, leave a message."
And I said, if this is Tim, I love you and I miss you.
It felt good. And I still haven't deleted the number.
Tim knew I loved him. And there was no unfinished business in our relationship, or that with my uncle.
The idea of losing my mother has been a terrifying thought. I can't run away from it any longer. She's 87 now. She's suffered several more strokes, with harrowing trips to the emergency room. Watching her, being with her, being a daughter and a caretaker to this woman who has never let anyone take care of her, has opened me up like a melon. It has opened up this fear. And that, I realize, is a lesson.
Why have I always felt lost? Why do I always feel not good enough? Why do I think I always come up short? Who is the judge, jury, executioner that I perform for? What role did my childhood play? My marriage? My job? And what role did I play?
A reporter seeks the truth.
The answer is slow in coming, but it is coming.
At the hospital. A social worker came up to me. Can I help you?
No, no. There are people here far worse off than myself.
The social worker said, it's not a competition here in the ICU.
That was kind of an a-ha moment for me.
Your mother is ill, and you deserve attention, too.
And I let her do it. A big change for me. Letting her in, showing the fear and letting it hurt.
And I've done that more and more this year. As my mother's illness gets worse and my dad's Alzheimer's has progressed, I worry more and more about them - and me.
But this year, I haven't kept those fears to myself. I just shared them all with you.
I've been blessed with friends who know how to nurture. They have helped me to develop compassion for myself. My mother's illness has parallelled my own journey. I'm afraid of her dying, but I'm less afraid than I was a year ago. I have felt closer to her than I ever felt. We have had intimate moments I never thought possible - the least needy person on the planet.
One day in April we were watching Pope Benedict on television during his US visit. And she said I don't want to stay here any longer. And I asked her where she wanted to go. She said she didn't know - but she wanted to get going and couldn't. So she was cross with God.
Shriver talked about what she wrote in her journal that day. She put her mother to bed and did something she hadn't done since she was a little girl. She got into bed with her mother, at the age of 52.
Her mother said, all she does is wait and wait and wait to see her daughter. And asked her to call her when she got home.
Shriver: The reason we're here is to love one another, to connect one another. We're hear to share our hearts and our souls with one another and we do it by listening to one another. I have learned at the age of 52 that listening is love. If you allow yourself to be broken open, underneath is who you are.
A friend said be patient. It took you 50 years to get to where you are. It will be a little longer.
Read a poem (too fast to keep up w/typing)
This closeness could not happen before because my mother and I were running too fast.
Read a poem she wrote for her mother a few months ago.
Talked about her mother and her mother's brother Teddy. How they talk about their illnesses, which is worse. Seeing themselves in each other's eyes. What she saw there, she said to herself, she wanted that in her own life.
I hope to God when I'm old I am able to be like that with my own brothers. I pray to God I can silence that voice, that critic, that makes me feel like I'm not good enough.
Feeling afraid isn't weakness. It's the beginning of strength.
Concluded with another poem, by Derek Walcott:
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
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