Maria Shriver is opening her heart to the world, sharing for the first time the depths of pain she experienced after the collapse of her 25-year marriage to actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In her new book, I Am Maria: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home, Shriver pulls back the curtain on a period she describes as a “devastating, life-altering blow” — one that came on the heels of the loss of both her parents.
“Then a year and a half later, all hell seemed to break loose,” Shriver wrote. “My First Lady job came to an end. My father died. And then came another devastating, life-altering blow: my twenty-five-year-long marriage blew up. It broke my heart, it broke my spirit, it broke what was left of me.”
The end of her marriage, she said, left her reeling — consumed by grief, confusion, fear, and sadness. “I was unsure now of who I was, where I belonged. Honestly, it was brutal, and I was terrified,” she admitted.
During this painful season, Shriver sought healing in a variety of ways — through therapy, spiritual direction, even visiting a cloistered convent. Ultimately, it was writing that became her lifeline. Through poetry, she began to process years of suppressed grief and unrealistic expectations she had placed upon herself.
“I 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,” Shriver confessed. “I found someone who had spent a lifetime avoiding grief. And I also learned that when that lifetime of dissociated grief and trauma is released, it rushes out like a tsunami.”
She also confronted a painful realization: she had linked her self-worth to her accomplishments and to being part of a partnership.
“I’ve made lots of mistakes,” she wrote. “One of them was tying my self-worth to my achievements. Another big mistake was thinking that someone outside of me could guarantee my safety, my worth, and my peace.”
Shriver said she now knows that worth and love do not depend on another person. “I used to believe that if you didn’t have a partner, you must be unworthy and unloveable. I’ve learned that nothing could be further from the truth.”
Maria Shriver’s journey reminds readers that true healing comes not from achievements, relationships, or external affirmation but from discovering the unwavering love and worth that God places on every human heart — even when life doesn’t go as planned.