She comes from a long line of American royalty, but Maria Shriver says being a member of the Kennedy family made her feel like she wasn’t enough.
And when her marriage to actor Arnold Schwarzenegger fell apart, so did she.
But her new book, “I Am Maria” takes readers on a candid journey about how she overcame those feelings and found healing.
In an Instagram post, Maria lets fans watch as she sees her new book for the first time. In the caption she writes, “There is nothing like getting to see your book after all the hard work that goes into making it. The dreaming, the creation, the writing, the editing, the artwork, and then finally, seeing it in your hands! I am so excited that “I Am Maria” will finally be coming out on April 1st, and I am so proud of this book and the finished product. I truly hope that it inspires you, it makes you reflect, it makes you think, and it gives you the urge to write something for yourself (or share it!). “
Maria Shriver’s Unlikely Love Story
In an excerpt of her book published in “PEOPLE” magazine, Maria writes, “Thirty-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger looked and sounded different from anyone I’d ever met. My attraction to him was instantaneous.
Like me, Arnold was also in the Big Expectations business. He told me “I want you to go for it, and I won’t stop you—because I want to go for it, too.” It was a turn-on.
My family was shocked. No one understood my relationship with Arnold. After all, Arnold was a Republican, a bodybuilder, and he wanted to be a movie star. He lived in a two-bedroom apartment and wore a Speedo.”
The couple married in 1986. They went on to have four children: Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt, 35, Christina Schwarzenegger, 33, Patrick Schwarzenegger, 31, and Christopher Schwarzenegger, 27.
GettyMaria Shriver’s Life Imploded in 2009
In 2009, everything changed. Shriver’s parents, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver both died.
Then she says her marriage “imploded.”
Maria writes, “Without my marriage, my parents, a job—the dam of my lifelong capital-D Denial just blew apart.
Now, much has been written about the end of my marriage, and frankly I don’t feel like I need or want to discuss it here, or anywhere.
That said, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the grace, valor, and courage my children exhibited. Everything about their world and the sanctity of their home got uprooted in an instant.”
While Maria says at first she was “consumed with grief and wracked with confusion, anger, fear, sadness, and anxiety,” she then began a journey to healing.
Maria Finds Healing Through Poetry
And she found that healing in writing poetry.
“I started writing from a deep place within,” she writes in her book. “Through my poetry, I’ve found a woman who was terrified of not being able to live up to her family’s legacy—scared of not being big enough, a good-enough daughter, sister, wife, mother, journalist. I found a woman who had insisted on measuring herself by some impossible standard that guaranteed she’d come up short and feel bad about herself no matter what.”
In “I Am Maria,” Shriver speaks frankly about learning not to tie her self-worth to her achievements, her age, or her marital status. She also learned how to be vulnerable, writing, “At first, I didn’t want anyone to read my poems, as they are deeply personal, and I worried they would not measure up to the classic definition of what poetry is. But eventually, I showed some of them to a few close friends, and they urged me to share them, because my poems ignited their own self-discovery. Poetry is incredibly powerful and can help you tap into your unconscious, where so many insights are hidden. I believe anyone can do it and feel its power in their own life, as I have in my own.”
Shriver Plans Ten-Stop Book Tour
March 31, Shriver will launch a ten-stop book tour at the end of March. And friends and family will join her on-stage at stops along the way. You can find out more at iammariabook.com.
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Maria Shriver Gets Vulnerable About Changing Her Life