Maria Shriver
Appearances
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Yeah, I can't do that. I have to call my son all the time. And he's like, I've shown you this before, Mommy. I said, I know, but I can't remember. Could you show it again?
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Okay, it went away. It went away. It said, update now, update later, press here. And Sean's like, move it, move it. So I can watch the three of you. That's what he kept saying. He's like, I want to mirror the three of us. I'm like, just wait a minute. We'll watch the three of you. He goes, do you want to watch one version of us or do you want to watch 10 different clips of us?
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I said, oh, I want to watch 10 different clips. That's all I want to do tonight. You're hijacked. Yeah, is watch the three of you.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I go to the last, I go to a place where my emotional sobriety is challenged. And that's, I go home to Hyannisport where all my cousins are.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Oh, I went to, yeah, I've been to a lot of retreats. That's Hoffman. That's what it is.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Actually, and I'm going back for a tune-up again. I'm a big believer in exploring yourself. That's kind of why I wrote this new book on poetry and reflection.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Yes, I am. And there's a long story behind that. Yeah. Anyway, I'm a big believer in trying to understand why you may feel dissatisfied, why you may feel stuck, why you may feel angry. Why do you erupt here, there, and everywhere? What is going on inside of you? You erupt!
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I feel like I'm at home. I feel like I'm so at home. I've asked Sean to bring you guys to dinner one night.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Sean, you said, remember I said when we did those questions that lovers do, marriage couples do. And so I asked Sean to do it with me. And one of the things was, you know, you had to go through what do we like about each other? How do we want the other person to grow? He had done it with Scotty. So I said, can you do it with me?
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And then one of the things I said to you at the end is I want you to invite me to meet your friends.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I love that. I love that you're doing that because I think it's, I do that through writing and sometimes I've done it through therapy, but I find that when I write and if I write early in the morning and I write when it's quiet and that's what this book kind of is a lot of poetry.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
It's kind of on the stream of consciousness, just allowing stuff to come up and you find that there's a whole other person living in there or a whole other voice that wants to speak, which is really fascinating.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Oh, I love that. That's so beautiful. My brother now goes to Clay too. Clay is really great at reminding you who you are at telling you what he sees and reassuring you that that voice that's telling you all those other things is wrong and that what he sees is what other people see. And I think we all need a friend like that, actually. Sean, you're like that with me, right?
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
You tell me what you see, you remind me when I go down a hole. They often, in lyrical, sometimes people call that an anamkara. There's a book about that that John O'Donohue, the poet, wrote called the Anamkara, which means soul friend. It's Gaelic, right? It means soul friend. And it's somebody who is a very intimate friend. It can be a sexual person, but it can often very not be at all.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And it's just someone who sees you, who reflects back to you who you are, who tells you, who's honest with you, who tells you what they see. Yeah, I love that. and reassures you that you're on the path and also is honest enough to tell you when you've fallen off of it and can remind you that you can get back up.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
He does bring his own dessert, though. He does bring his own dessert. He sure does.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Do I talk to you or do I talk to, I mean, or Will? Will, ask me a question or do I go to you? I know.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
It's a lot. It's a lot, actually. But I find after doing a lot of work, I find myself now in a really good place about it.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Right, yeah, but I think we all have a choice about how we want to conduct ourselves in that experience, right? And I think what I tried to do was outwork my lineage, which was a mistake. And I thought, like, oh, if I...
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
you know, get accomplished if I do all these things, then you won't be introducing me by whose daughter I am, whose cousin I am, whose niece I am, and won't be talking to me only about those things. And that was a driver, certainly, but I think it was unrealistic because I came to understand, like, I'm never going to outwork that. I'm never going to outperform that.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I'm never going to out that, right, so to speak. So getting to a place where like, okay, wait a minute, let me figure out how to accept that, how to be happy when people come up and that's all they want to talk to me about. And then just try to understand that I have my own practice. I have friends who understand who I am, who love me for me, and that I can't change everybody's opinion.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Like I go through the... or I sit down and that's what all people want to talk to me about, I just go, okay, now I understand that. I just let that be and I don't get mad at them.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And so I think it's just getting to a place of understanding that, that that's part of you and not fighting it. And then just trying to figure out, okay, what do I want to do? Which brings me back, you know, what are the issues that I care about? And not feeling like I'm not performing if I'm not running for president. That's kind of how I grew up. Like, if you're not going to...
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
you know, run for that, like get out of the way, you know, go to the back of the room. So I had to go like, okay, you know, and my mother was also a total force of nature, quite a tough woman. And she also was not interested in hearing any complaint about anything.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Well, I was aware she terrified everybody and she terrified me too. So, I mean, I... So, I was aware of that. I was aware that she was formidable. And, you know, I stood up, as I said, every time she walked in the room till the day she died, right? Both my parents. I was raised that way. My grandparents, my parents, you know, like... They're in charge. They're running the roast.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And they had really high expectations. And I was... And my brothers. So they were very clear about their expectations. And if you were not doing them... You just did not do that.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Well, I tried to kind of take a lot of the things both my parents instilled in me, but I tried to be softer in that I tried to say, I love you. I tried to touch them and hold them and nurture them. you know, I guess really touch, you know, hold them.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And, you know, I think my, but I also have, and through Hoffman and other work, understood that my mother, you know, asking my mother to give me something that wasn't given to her was unfair. And so she didn't grow up being held like that. She didn't grow up being, she was loved in a different way. And I felt loved, but not like how I would look at other people's mothers.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I think, and I always tell you, I think like, who do I want at my 70th birthday? Who do I want at my funeral? And I work on those relationships now.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And I'm now going to include you to the other boys now at my funeral and my birthday party. I just grew my list.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I hope you'll bring a poem because I've got this book of poetry. That's mainly when people use poems, right? They stand up at a funeral. They stand up at a wedding.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Yes, and then a poem. Do you have a poem in your life that's, like, important? Nothing.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Oh, yeah, I have a person I'd get to meet. I really want to meet and sit and have a meal with the Pope.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I'll change. I'll even give up my Sunday dinner for the Pope. Let me talk. I'll move everything around for the Pope. Wow. For Francis. Yeah. He's my man.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Just put me in your luggage. Take me there to Rome. I think if I could just get in and sit down at the table, you're not allowed. My brother went there and you're not, if you see him eating there, you're not allowed to go over and talk. And so my brother said, well, you would break that rule, Maria. I said, oh, for sure.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I can't believe that. I can't be, I'm going, I'm throwing, the blowing. I just am like, oh, I feel so at home. I have four brothers.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I grew up like that. I still live like that. So I have four brothers, so this was not a shock to me at all. I actually really enjoyed it.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
The first day of our friendship. I know I've been asking Sean to invite me on this show since the very beginning, and he wouldn't invite me. He wouldn't invite me. He would never invite me.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I'm like, because people all say to me, why has Sean never had you on a show? It's so weird. I go, I know, it's so weird. It is weird.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
But you said to me, I said, what I'm so excited about is the only show I've ever gone on where I haven't prepared at all. Because you told me not to prepare at all. So I didn't brush my hair. I had no makeup.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Good question. I often go to my kids, actually. I have deep conversations with my kids. It depends what I'm looking for advice for. I have four brothers, so I usually go to them. I would say I go to my four brothers.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Depending on the subject matter. So each brother's a little different. They have a different level of expertise in different areas. But I often go to probably my brothers, my kids... Sometimes my son-in-law, now, I go to him.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Well, how to stay engaged and not be mean in the engagement. How to get above all of the rancor and still stay in trying to make the world better. Still trying to figure out how to keep your voice measured. Really good word. How to keep myself focused on what I'm trying to focus on and not get mixed up in what everybody wants to get you mixed up in. Sometimes I do that well and sometimes I don't.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
I try not to do that. I try not to get into that at all. I try to just figure out what do I want to change in the world? What's my issue? What are the one or two things I want to do? And I try to stay on that. and really focus on that. I have a spiritual practice that helps me in the morning stay focused. And I try to talk about my own emotional sobriety.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And I try to think about, okay, how is this gonna put my own ball down the court? I work on Alzheimer's research a lot. I work on women's health. And so I try to kind of focus on those things. And I try not to kind of attack people personally, which is always a challenge.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Yeah, I also try to follow people that I admire, who are inspiring, who I respect. And there's a great guy named Father Richard Rohr who has a school. It's called Contemplatives in Action. And I think that that's a really cool concept to be in the world today. but to be contemplative in it, to bring about change in the world.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
But how you go about doing it, I think we think all the time we have to be angry and divisive and partisan to bring about any change. And I don't subscribe to that. I think that we can walk into the world and be determined to be focused, but we don't have to be angry and mean about it. It's kind of like, how do you fight, so to speak?
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And we always think you have to fight rough and tumble and mean. And I think you can fight for an issue in a very focused way, but not a mean, divisive way.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Although I just, I love, last year I worked with President Biden and we started the very first White House initiative on women's health and research.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
It was really big because there had never been believe it or not, in this country, a White House initiative on women's health and research. And there had never been, we only spend 10% of the NIH budget on women's health and research. So we're so far behind and that's been a passion.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
And so that was a really big passion project and we did a lot of great work before he left. And so that's something that's still really important to me because we're really far behind for women of all ages.
SmartLess
"Maria Shriver"
Talk about an instrument. I went there and I, of course, made me cry. Oh, we've talked about it.