The Power of Your Story and Deciding to Tell It! You Are the Hero of Your Own Life with Amy Griffin

Whether you're listening for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast family. Remember, this episode is not just for you and me.
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Jamie Kern-Lima. What if I told you you are the hero of your own life? When you think about the journey of your life so far and how you have the power to decide how your story continues to unfold, would you say you're writing and casting yourself as the hero? Or do you feel like a background role still waiting to step into center stage and share your truth? Your story has so much power, power to inspire and power to heal both yourself and others.
Our guest today, my amazing friend, and soon yours too, is a business mogul, founder of investment firm G9 Ventures, author and icon of female empowerment, Amy Griffin. Amy's brand new memoir, The Tell, explores how far we will go to protect ourselves and the healing made possible when we face our secrets and begin to share our stories.
I have read this book cover to cover. It is so powerful.
And let me tell you, it is going to inspire your own hero's journey in your life through Amy sharing hers. For decades, Amy ran through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up, to the campus of the University of Virginia as a student athlete on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career.
She's a board member of many beloved companies, including Spanx and Bumble, and the founder of the investment firm G9 Ventures. Now to outsiders, it all looks so perfect, but Amy was running from something, a secret that she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself.
So began Amy's quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory, a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and ultimately home to the Texas panhandle where her story began. In her search for the truth to understand and begin to recover from buried childhood trauma, Amy interrogates the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drive so many women asking when, in our path from girlhood to womanhood did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? What kind of freedom is possible if we accept the whole story and embrace who we really are? With hope, heart, and relentless honesty, she points a way forward for all of us, revealing the power of radical truth-telling to deepen our connections with others and ourselves.
Amy Griffin, welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show. I'm so happy to be here.
Thank you so much. Thank you for that lovely, lovely introduction.
It's sometimes hard to hear. And I'm really, really honored to be here and grateful that you're having this conversation with me.
So I'm happy to come visit. Oh my gosh, I'm happy.
And you and I were like, our eyes are watering up for every person who's going to share this conversation with us, who's listening, who's watching right now. There are so many people who have a story to tell and they haven't told it.
They have a book to write. They haven't written it.
What is so inspiring about this conversation we're going to have is I know every person listening is going to literally speak to their soul on their own hero's journey in their life. Amy, you grew up in Amarillo, Texas.
You were a student athlete at University of Virginia. You built a life that most people say is what fairy tales are made of.
You married an amazing man, John, who I've had the gift of meeting. You have four children, a thriving career.
I think to outsiders, they look at it in so many ways, it seems perfect. But you say you were running from something, a secret that you say you were keeping from everyone, including unconsciously from yourself.
That's right, Jamie. And I just came to a place in my life where I realized that there's this idea that we think secrets keep us safe and really they keep us stuck.
And I do, I have the most incredible life. I have a beautiful life.
I've built a beautiful family and a career. I get to support these founders every day who I'm learning from and growing with on their teams.
And it's been extraordinary. And the thing I'm most grateful for is the friendships that I have in my life.
But when I turned in the last few years to really recognize, I built this life where I was supporting others in their journeys. And the time finally came where I recognized that it was time to tell my story.
And I think one of the most interesting things about this process is that I started writing five years ago. But this story is not a story that I was trying to tell anyone else.
It was a story that I wanted myself to believe. So it was this idea that I had to get the words on the page for myself.
And I never knew, I had no idea actually that anyone was ever going to see my words. I wrote this book for me.
I wrote it first for me without knowing that it would ever be seen by another person. And that simple step was the greatest act of love for myself.
And I look at it now, it feels vulnerable. But in that vulnerability, I feel gratitude and power and grace and, I mean, all kinds of things.
I feel all the feelings. When you say you wrote it for yourself, because, you know, I believe every one of us, we have a story.
We have a story. And, you know, sometimes we feel like we want to share it or we feel like we don't, but the act of writing it out for yourself was the, what was the intention behind that when you first did it? And I think, I think the stories we have in our lives, that's the fabric of our lives.
The stories of our lives are what make us who we are and the relationships that we have. The stories of our life are what our lives are built on.
And I realized that, you know, also in the work that I do, it's all about the stories of the brands that are being built and how they're being built and the stories behind the scenes. And I think my intention when I sat down to write, I knew, first of all, my mother told me I was a writer.
So you have to believe everything that your mother says. And I think after I heard her say it enough times after I graduated from college, you're going to write a book, you're going to write a book, you're going to write a book.
And she didn't know what was going to come out in that book. Like a mother's intuition for my mother to say, I know you have this in you.
I know you have this power within you. She told me when I graduated from college, I should try out for TV shows when I got to New York City.
I said, Mom, I don't know that that's my calling, but she knew that I was going to write a book. And I think that might've been somewhere in the back of my head.
Really, I'm saying that for the first time now, to think about that. I have one of my best friends always made the joke that she was writing my novel in her head and writing chapters, my dearest friend, Rachel.
But really, when I sat down to write for the first time and I pulled out a journal and would write starting at four in the morning until the sun came up, it was this idea that when I put the words on the page, that I couldn't take them back. They were my truth.
And they were my truth to myself. And I owe those words to myself.

I want to ask you how this all started, because I want to talk about a moment

where your daughter said to you, you're here, but you're not here. And I think those words

are going to resonate with so many people listening right now, because we've all, so many of us have had feelings like we're here, but we're not here. And your own daughter says, you're here, but you're not here.
Where are you, mom? And can you explain that moment, how you are feeling and then what happened after that? You know, when those words were said, they were so hard as a mother because I thought I was doing and tried to do everything that a mother thinks they're supposed to do. I think I can realize how important now the idea of doing for your children, like all the things we do for our children in their daily lives from everything, from whatever it is, from packing the lunch to signing the report card to get into practice.
Those are the doing. And we get, I know I can get so caught up in the daily lives of just getting them to and from places that sometimes the being and the being with them can get lost.
And I look back at that time and while those words were so hard for me to hear and actually so difficult for me to write, to even

write, to write those words down. I realized what a gift, what a gift those words were that my

daughter and my daughters could be a reflection to me to say, mom, you know, where are you? And

I love you. I want you to participate in our relationship in a way that maybe that I wasn't.

And I think what's so powerful about that

is she was seeing something and able to share with me, which meant we already had a relationship, a close relationship, but to call me out and say, mom, I want you to see, to see me in a different way. And I think that being so close to, um, I couldn't step outside of what had happened to me to actually really recognize why I had that wall up.

And so, I mean, my children are my teachers. I couldn't step outside of what had happened to me to actually really recognize why I had that

wall up. And so, I mean, my children are my teachers, but in this moment, for sure.
When you started on a journey, you began to solve a mystery that was trapped deep in the recesses of your own memory. This quest started with MDMA, a form of psychedelic therapy.
And I think that this is something a lot of people are hearing about for the first time. And it's also something a lot of people are doing.
It's a big topic of conversation, of debate, of all of those things. And I just want to zoom out for a minute because you talk about the human doing and you and I have so much in common.
I, for so much of my life, thought if I do all the things, that's like, that's what I need to do. And, you know, all, you know, I struggled with perfectionism, people pleasing.
I mean, so much of it.

And I know what it feels like to work so hard to do all the right things. And then inside feel like, why do I feel a little disconnected or feel a little unfulfilled or whatever it might be.
In this moment, when you decided to go on this journey and to try a psychedelic therapy, what were you feeling? Why did you make that decision? And then I cannot wait to dive in to your experience with it, to what memories surfaced out of it. But where were you when you made that decision? And, you know, I get so many emails, Amy, and DMs and messages.
There's a lot of people out there that are either considering it or they're on a healing journey. Where were you at when you made that decision, like, I'm going to try this? Well, I think the MDMA piece is really interesting because one of the things I've worked really hard to make sure that I accept is the idea that the MDMA was only one very small part of what was going on in my life.
And yet I think it was very crucial in terms of the timing. but I've worked really hard also and that's I talk about that in the writing the idea that

in the timing in the place where I'd gotten to in my life was a place where I thought

things were really lining up such that I was coming to a place of being able to be honest with myself about the memories. And it's not to say that none of the memories weren't there, but the ability of my brain anyway, I am not a scientist in any way, shape or form, but my individual story, I knew I had tucked fabric, the fabric of my life in the back of my brain in many instances and pieces were starting to come forward.
And then I would tuck it, I'd tuck it back in. And I think a combination of things at the time was I had, you know, I had children that were of the ages that I was when what happened to me.
And I also was of an age where my children were a little bit older. I wasn't having to worry about making sure they didn't fall in the swimming pool.
And I wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, hand to hand, like making sure that they didn't fall down the stairs. So my brain had maybe a bit more space.
And I think that I also can definitely pinpoint the relationships in my life. I have an incredible partner and had been a partner husband of 20 years who made me feel safe every day for 20 years.
And I think that that relationship really allowed me to unwind and to say, okay, you know, I have all these pieces in my life that feel secure. And so I'm able to go in and really acknowledge what went on.
And so the decision to use psychedelics and to use MDMA was something that was a simple decision, but I realized what a big moment it was for me to take that pill and swallow the pill. Because by the way, for everyone in my life, it's a huge deal once every six months when I, when I might have a margarita or a glass of wine, I just don't really like alcohol.
I don't even like coffee. I don't like alcohol.
You know, maybe it's the part of my life in trying to be in control. But, but so it was really a big step.
It was sort of the idea of taking a pill was this idea that so many factors in my life had come around to give myself permission. So I think the psychedelic piece, and I am so grateful for it, and I do want to talk about that.
I want to talk about what that looked like. But for me, it was this combination of factors that I've worked really hard to recognize that I'm the one that got myself to this place to do, to do the work and to, um, use the psychedelic assisted therapy to help me get to a new place that I don't know, um, in other conditions, what I have gotten to, had I not gone ahead and said, okay, I'm ready to put the eye shades on, to go inward and to say, you know, you talked about these feelings of control and perfection that we all have as women and as humans.
And those are all external factors. Those are all factors we feel when we want others to see us.
We want to be loved. We want them to reciprocate by saying, I see you.

You're important.

You've done this.

You've done that.

But this was a moment where none of that mattered.

I went completely inward, and I made the decision that I was going to first work on myself without recognizing the processes, which I'm sure we'll talk about, of what that would entail after in my life to then pick up the pieces to better all of my relationships in my life. I want to say one piece on the MDMA that I think is really important, and that is, and I hadn't thought about this when I went in to experience it, is that I realized I didn't know how significant the unwinding would be for me in terms of all that I would remember and allow myself to have compassion with MDMA to experience such that, you know, the MDMA experience is one thing in my case, but the, on the other end of it, the, what you need to make sure that you're taken care of and that you, and that you have the resources, um, whether it's a friend who can listen or the time to process it is something that you really have to, to know what you're getting into.
You know, I've talked to a number of therapists about it and there's so many different, you know, from plant medicine journeys to psychedelics, to MDMA, which is a form of ecstasy. There's different modalities that so many people are turning to and so many doctors are turning to and so many therapists are turning to.
And I know a lot of the therapists I've spoken to, they won't even let any of their clients do it without, you know, six months of pre-work going

deep into things and then making sure the practitioner or the guide with them is just

like top notch and then the plan after. And so, um, and so you made the decision to do MDMA.

And I just want to say, I, I'm an, I'm living through you in this experience. When I read the

tell, which everyone needs to grab the tell Amy's brand new book, it is out now. It is phenomenal.
And I feel like you're going to go on this journey through Amy of almost thinking about your own story, your own hero's journey in your life, your own, you know, for me, I really thought back even to some memories I think maybe I've suppressed in different parts of my life, or maybe I don't even know happened. And just thinking about, you know, how perfectionism shows up in our life, how, you know, everything, you know, I remember, um, I didn't even drink until I was 30 because I didn't want to be out of control.
I mean, there's so many layers to this and I connect with you on that. And so I just, I want to, I want to just frame that because for you, someone who has on the outside and you're someone that doesn't need to write a book, you don't need to share all of this deep vulnerable stuff.
And I just want to give everyone context. There's gonna be a lot of people watching this and listening that know who you are that are already, you know, fans or, um, love, you know, everything you're doing out there in the business world and to empower women.
And, uh, you know, for everyone who's, who's discovering Amy for the first time, uh, this is, this is so powerful because the, what is on what the vulnerability of sharing this part of your life to the outside world, everyone knows you for your incredible philanthropy, for all of the things that you and your husband do in New York and beyond. and also for all of the companies you've invested in for helping take Bumble public for an

IPO, for being on the board of all these businesses, for investing in founders. You know, everything is

just sort of like, you know, looks like the most, I'm not going to use the word perfect, but the most

ideal, amazing fairy tale. And everyone sees you online with every celebrity under the sun, you know, who all just adore you and love you.
You know, I had the gift of speaking at G9 Summit, at your summit. I remember being on stage, looking out into the audience and being like, oh, and I don't ever get fazed by this, but I was just, I was admiring how many incredible women who are iconic in our culture and in our history were there for you and to be in this group.
So my point in sharing all this is to say everything is as picture perfect, aspirational ideal as it could be. And you are choosing, and this is so powerful, you guys.
I believe why Oprah was able to shift culture and to help heal humanity through love is because she shared the parts of herself that we all can connect to, we all can relate to.

You're sharing parts of your journey and your story that you could have so easily kept secret that I think are going to inspire so many people today.

There's no other way you would do this unless it was something greater than yourself,

unless it was to be an offering and help beyond yourself yourself because it's the most vulnerable thing you can do. What's so beautiful is this recognition that I didn't know I was going to come to throughout the book of the telling of the permission that first I gave myself.
I gave myself permission to tell. So I know everyone's on the edge of their seats right now because they want to know and live vicariously through you in the start of what this looks like and then sort of like go through your story along with you.
So you decide to, after doing a whole lot of work, to then weave in MDMA and psychedelics into your journey. And so can you explain what happens? You mentioned you put the pill in.
So you walk in and can you sort of set the stage for us on what this is like and what your experience was like as you experienced it the first time? Emotional, very emotional. I use that.
I have to go back to that word permission again, because going in and making this decision that I was going to go in and address things that I knew I needed to address. And I said to this amazing woman, and I want to just also say, when I said that so many things in my life were lining up, you know, we sit here and we talk about this relationship of trust that you have with one other person, how important the telling is that there was an inherent trust, not also in the medicine.
I didn't know the medicine. I didn't understand psychedelic assisted therapy.
I understood what it was. I knew it was a burgeoning field and I felt compelled to go and do this.
I do think that there was sort of divine intervention around me as I went in for this process. And I had a very good friend who I'd seen, who I said to her, what is going on with you? You're very, like, something's different.
And it was right around the time where I decided to go in. And I think that that was one of the catalysts to say, oh, you know what? I see a change in her and I can have that change for myself too.
I can have that same inner peace or whatever it is that she has. And so that sort of set me over the edge to go in and have the experience.
But I want to say the woman that I worked with also set the stage. And that trust again in the telling was knowing that I had the safety of someone who, when I went in, I took the pill, I put the, I put the eyeshades on, I took the pill and I had this inherent trust in the woman that was in the room with me.
And, you know, it's something that it's, it's the story and the story that I go through in the book is this crazy up and down. I feel like it's this thriller.
But then I look back and it's my life. And it's really hard because it's this story that goes all over the place, sideways sometimes, up and down.
But that's what it was. And within, you know, five, ten minutes of taking the pill, I turned to the woman I was sitting with and I said,

you know, why, why is he here? And I said, I'm ready to tell you everything. And that was the beginning of telling myself and being honest about my life.
And even as I sit here with you right now, it's so freeing, it's still hard. but the minute that I said it, the minute I said this is what went on, I was no longer beholden to the secret.
And the secret was never mine to begin with. And I, it was like I felt that in that exact moment when I said this is what happened.
So you're laying down and you have an eye shade on. You take the pill, you lay down, you have an eye shade on.
Is there music? There was music playing. There was flamenco music playing in the background.
I remember exactly what it was. And I remember the speaker in the side of the room and I knew where the music was coming from.
What did it feel like? Like, what did it feel? It felt like a release. It felt like I was finally coming home to myself.
Wow. And you just started having memories of things that you never had before.
It was all there. It was all there.
And what I said was, I said to the woman I was working with, how long does this take before it works? Because

before I said anything, how long does this whole thing take? I wanted control. I wanted to know, tell me what's going to happen.
Give me a playbook. I'll play by the rules.
I'll make it perfect. I'll do this.
And that was the moment where I realized there was no perfect. This was about me.
And I got to have this moment for myself. And I turned inwards and I just said, she said, it'll take a while.
Just settle in and relax and take some deep breaths. And I said, you know, no, I'm ready to go.
And I think that was also really powerful for me. I've done a lot of work around the idea that this was five minutes in and I've been told by my doctor that I've worked with for many years, Amy, this wasn't the drug.
This wasn't the drug. This was you.
And I think I've tried very hard to make sure that I don't give the drug too much credit because that would be doing myself a disservice. I can say I was really

vulnerable then. It was very vulnerable.
And I'm so proud of that word. I think vulnerable is,

vulnerable should be the new word for power, right? Think about our world that we're living

in right now. If everything was a bit more vulnerable, what would it look like?

When you said to the woman, the practitioner with you, so you have the blindfold on and you say to her, he's here. Share with us that moment.
Who is he? What's happening? It was every fiber of my being knew the movements of this person, the arm fold, the way this person walked, the way that I both trusted and was fearful of this person. And I was able to both be in my adult brain and recognize how I had missed and not connected the dots of what had gone on in my childhood.
Because as a child, those things were too difficult to comprehend. Those things were actions and words and body parts that I had never heard of, and they were too complex.
And so I recognized and immediately had such deep compassion for that other me, for that younger me. Like right in that moment, it was almost like I'd split myself in two halves and I connected myself again.
I reconnected to myself. And sometimes I think of it like a Mr.
Potato Head, I guess you could say.

I think of like a piece of my brain snapping in and reconnecting. And then there was this immense feeling of power within myself, not power from anyone else, this gratitude and power that I was doing something that was the most authentic kernel of who I was.
And also this reason for knowing why I'm here. When you said he's here, the he is a teacher.
and that first moment, that first memory, was that when you were about 11 or 12? You say, he's here. And was the first memory that resurfaced that you're remembering for the first time, was that in the school bathroom on the floor

with the teacher, your teacher, raping you?

Yes, and then I very quickly had,

not to gloss over that, yes.

Just take that in.

But then I had so many memories of that I have, I had daily, every day of my life,

of this person telling me I was a leader.

And I think it's really interesting, the life that I've built,

that inherently, I am a leader.

And I look back when I turn to my friend, my best friend,

and I said, I'm going to run for student council president.

And I said, but girls don't win.

I know that.

Maybe I should run for secretary because I'm a good worker bee.

I can take the notes.

And I didn't win.

Thank you. I know that.
Maybe I should run for secretary because I'm a good worker bee. I can take the notes.
And I didn't win. But to then be told, I'm sorry, Amy, you didn't win, but you are the real leader of this school.
By this teacher? Yeah. Yeah.
He says to you, Amy, we know who the real, you're the real leader of the school. We know who the real leader is of the school.
But don't you see he played into the most authentic part of myself? And it was only in me being able to go back in time and recognize that reconnection with, that's okay. I am a leader.
I know that about myself. And now I can really be the leader that the world that I need to go out and be for others.
And so that's where there's this joy, compassion, gratitude, all the feelings that I keep going back to that I have now in that there is purpose in this. I don't know why it happened.
I wish it hadn't happened. There are so many people who I know have probably suffered far worse than I have.
And there are people that have suffered things that I don't think that they will think matter. And I want to say it does.
Not what happened to me, but there are little things. And that's where, I mean, hundreds of people in my life, before the book has even come out, have come to me to say, you know, I never really acknowledged X thing happening in any capacity in their life.
And saying, I really reframed that and I thought about it and now I processed it and I either went to the person or I decided I didn't need to go to the person, but I dealt with it. You, you know, you talk about in the tell, the journey, your brand new book, everyone's got to go get it right now.
Thank you, Jenny, the biggest cheerleader. Thank you for making me feel worthy.
Oh my gosh. It's just, it's, yeah.
It's vulnerable and it's powerful and I'm excited for everyone to read it. You talk about, you know, this journey of, of these resurfaced, these memories surfing, surfacing for the first time of, of repeated abuse from this same teacher growing up and, and, and all of the ages as a child, you know, and this happening over and over.
And, you know, the moment that, you know, you're, you're 16 pulling into, and you see him in the parking lot and he says, let's do it again for old time's sake. And you're in the tennis pavilion and, or the tennis closet.
And, and what I want to call out here is that all of these memories were suppressed your whole life as you've built this entire life. You come from a family where you had, as you share, incredible parents and incredible.
And everything, again, in your childhood was so supportive and rock solid.

And from all outside looking in, the perfect family, the perfect child, everything. He threatened you, what he would do if you ever told anybody.
And you never did. You never did.
And then as an adult, building everything that you've built and doing everything that you've done, you know, didn't remember these things until you did. And I want to ask you, Amy, you know, how you feel, because I know you're sharing and connecting all the dots on what this means in your life now.
But how do you think never telling anyone about these parts of your life to the point where you didn't remember them yourself, right? And how do you think that showed up in your life before these memories surfaced? Like, how did it impact your life? Because, and I'm asking because you look at the data, you look at the statistics, you look at how many people.

One in three women. One in three women.
One in three women. And how many people sharing this moment with you and me right now who know that they've never told anyone.
And I just want to ask you from your personal experience, leading up to the moment where you told yourself, how did, you've had the author, The Body Keeps the Score, write a beautiful testimonial for your book. How did this impact you and your life leading up to it that probably made you want to embark on this journey to begin with? Because it can impact all of us.
Well, let me just also have a gratitude moment for my parents. Because you're right, my life could have turned out very differently.
There's so much more coming up in this episode. You are not going to want to miss it.
But first, I wanted to share this with you. In life, you don't soar to the level of your hopes and dreams.
You stay stuck at the level of your self-worth. When you build your self-worth, you change your entire life.
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And now more of this incredible conversation together. How did this impact you and your life leading up to it that probably made you want to embark on this journey to begin with? Because it can impact all of us.
Well, let me just also have a gratitude moment for my parents. Because you're right, my life could have turned out very differently.
And I think it's so important as parents, for every parent watching this and listening to this, that my parents did everything right. Everything right.
They were incredible humans. The telling of this to them, which is part of the story, in some ways, again, the secret of all of this from the people that are closest to you is the hardest part of the story, right? The memories of everything that happened to me are one thing.
I am so proud of myself for the fact that I just survived it and lived it. So you say, how did it impact me? There are moments when I think about how I was driving recently and

I was driving in the countryside and I kind of got lost. And then I realized I wasn't in GPS rate.
I mean, my phone wasn't working. And I, so I was taking a picture of a mailbox to try to find my way home.
And I, for the first time started laughing and I kind of was turning the car around. I was getting lost.
And then I looked out and I kept driving and I thought, you know, I'm visiting, I'm doing all the things in my life. I'm going to the places that I think I escaped to in my brain when everything was happening to me.
Because inherently I wanted to go on and be and see and do and create and be a part of things. And I realized, oh, that these vistas, these views, these places that I'm seeing now and this life that I built, these, this is the manifestation of all the things that I was doing in my brain when horrible things were happening to me that I just, I had to leave.
And the profound gratitude I have for my parents in saying like, which path could I have taken a divergent path to, you know, so many different divergent paths, but to go home and have a very loving, supportive place where it just, it's everything. I've tried to tell my parents that because there's no one, there's no parent who wishes more than anything that they couldn't take this away.
Yeah. And I didn't want, I think that a lot of the withholding was the love that I have for my parents.
I didn't know if I could put this on them, especially as a 12 year old child. You know, you don't have the skills, the coping skills to actually go and tell someone this.
This is like, one thing I love this idea of telling, that telling is the easiest thing in the world. Telling is the simplest form of you tell someone when you're hungry, you tell someone, you know, you tell someone, you just tell them, everything happens in the telling every day.
But yet this simple form of communication can be the most difficult thing that we all do. And it has to be so intentional in our lives.
And the intention we put behind it is what we get out of it. So that's the relationship piece we get back.
Can I just touch on one thing about Bessel? And I think it's really important. I was talking about the resources that after I had my first session, you know, my world was turned upside down.
Yes. It turned upside down.
I write about memory that I have this memory of a coffee cup with the straw and the, I've always seen myself a hundred percent as a glass half full of, okay, let's top it up. Let's just keep going.
Let's live on the top half. But in this moment, I looked across and I saw the straw and I saw the glass, the coffee cup half full.
And I thought, I'm definitely down in the dark part right now with the coffee. I don't know where, I don't know what's up and what's down.
And, you know, is everything in my life a lie? Am I going to have to rebuild my life? And I was going to say that one of the things I did was take a stack of books and I just retreated inward. And Bessel's book was the first book that I picked up.
The Body Keeps the Score. The Body Keeps the Score.
And I mean, I just like inhaled it. And then I inhaled it again.
And I took notes and made notes. And that was- Can you talk about that? Because you have done so much work to be in this place where you're able to talk about the joy and the gratitude and the through line and all the things.
But you go deep into this in the tell, in your brand new book that's out now, you go deep into it where you say your life was turned upside down. Because for anybody to have a memory like this that's been suppressed, that surfaces, obviously impacts every single area and relationship of your life, your relationship with yourself.
When these memories surfaced and you're like, oh, I was abused by my teacher for all of these years, endured all of these things, haven't told a soul. And now all of a sudden this is there and it surfaces in your life.
And how, two things I want to ask you. And one is, and I know you talk about this in the tell, did you ever go, is this real? Of course.
Right? I didn't want it to be real. You didn't want it to be real.
I wanted it to go away.

Yeah.

I wanted to put it back in my brain. Yes.
But really, once I said it, and then once I said it to myself, and then once I wrote it down a thousand times, I never wanted it to go away. And I accepted it for what it was.
and I would be lying if I said that I'm all done

and I wrote the book and the book is good here

and I've told for what it was. And I would be lying if I said that I'm all done, and I wrote the book, and the book is good here, and I've told the world my story, and now it's all good, and I never think about it again.
But that's never going to be the case. I'm never going to be.
But the acknowledgement of it, the telling of it, in that first act of just being honest with myself, it's just wildly liberating. I literally live now for that experience to hear other people, whatever it is, just that whether you only tell yourself or whether you go and you share it with your best friend and then that best friend shares it with someone else, and then it just shows you.
And that's why when I talk about my experience of writing, it's only from my experience. You said your life's turned upside down when these memories resurface.
And other people, they do remember things in their life and they know that if they were to even acknowledge them, let alone tell anyone, their life will be turned upside down. And this is a really big decision.
And what I wonder is with everything that happened, and I want everyone to get the book, so I'm not going to give it all away, but just the weight of deciding to share this with your parents and what happens when you do that. Because we can break someone else's heart so easily.
The weight of sharing it with your husband, the weight of sharing it with your kids, the weight of all of that, and then everything you go through and you talk so vulnerably, you share so vulnerably in this book about the things, how you've reacted, how it came out in other areas of your life, on the bike ride with your husband, how just the things that, you know, maybe you wish you could take back, but everyone's going to relate to you. And just how heavy a journey like this is before, before deciding to, to, to do all of this work and to give yourself permission and to do the psychedelics and to do the therapy.
And before deciding to do all that, you didn't even know. You didn't consciously, you weren't consciously aware of these memories of being abused by your teacher for all these years.
But I did. You did because it was in your body.
So much of it. But when I look back, I think the process as someone, as a business person, as someone who's a competitive athlete is the things that I've talked about sorting out over these years of the things that I wanted to, and we can all go through this cleaning, this cleaning your closet phase of yourself.
I could throw everything out that happened to me and say, this was all bad. And it was, that was bad.
But I was also able to sort out the parts of myself that I really like, or the resilient parts, or the parts that were, you know, as I went through this process, as this all unfolded, you know, I recognize this, that at one part in the book, I'm trying to do the perfect thing, which is having gone from finding this out to, oh no, no, no, I'm going to do what I normally do in my life, which is build up castles around me. I'm going to build whatever that perfect word is.
And it's all going to be around me so that then no one can touch me. Because if I can just do that, then I don't need anyone.
I can only just, I can give to others. I can make them look good and it doesn't have to be about me.
And that's where there was another, you know, it was one process into the next. It went from one, you know, phase into the next.
And I only can take it all in now that I've looked back at this process. I mean, it still continues.
The process has continued outside of the book. But there was this place, and you talk about this bike ride with my husband, where I say to him, you know, John, why do you not have more information about this? You're supposed to be leading the investigation and doing all of this.
And he turned to me, and again, he's always right. He's like my mother, that there's this, you know, he said, Amy, I can't be your husband and love you the way that I do and also conduct this investigation.
And here I was putting this on him to say, go do this, this, this, this, and this for me so I can be perfect and build all this up around me so we can get to a conclusion. I can hold this person accountable.
I can make sure this person never does this again. And then we'll all just move on with our lives.
And once again, I've done the thing the right way I was supposed to. I'm the good girl.
And I have achieved. And that was the moment where I realized I can't do that.
I can't go inward and take care of myself and all that's gone on and really acknowledge it and have compassion at the same time, which is what the book is about, because the book is not the book of my trauma journey. The book is this, you know, it goes all over the place from being this crazy ride of an investigation to the things that happened and to come out the other end and realize, oh, I couldn't do all of that.
I couldn't, I couldn't go forward. I couldn't, the perfect piece of that, like solving this was maybe not what I needed.
That's not the aftermath of what I needed. I needed to be, I needed to go in for me.
Right. Right.
And the journey, I was on the edge of my seat. I won't give all of it away.
Okay. you guys have got to read this.
It's called The Tell. It's out now.
But the journey of reaching out to others

that were in the school at the same time, the journey of the legal process, the journey of

people who knew this teacher, there's so many layers, you know, but how it affected also,

you know, when we go through hard things, as you said, your life was turned upside down, you know, moments where you and your husband had to decide, you know, how is this going to work in our marriage? How is, you know, you're on such a, such a journey. And, you know, what I want to ask you, because I think this is a question so many people struggle with in their own lives.

Are you glad, you know, because let me preface this.

So many people, they don't want to go to the doctor and do a preventative test because

they don't want to know anything's wrong with them.

They don't, I mean, I have family members, Amy, that they'll go do their annual physical

maybe, but if there's like so many medical advances where, oh, we can do a test that checks for 50 types of cancer, they won't do it. They don't wanna know.
And I don't get that I'm different. I wanna know.
I wanna know everything. But now in hindsight, I think so many of us value certainty, we value control.
And I think that's why a lot of people are scared to even acknowledge parts of their story, let alone share them. So having this experience where everything that was suppressed in terms of what you share in the towel surfaced and the aftermath of that, all of it, right now as you sit here, are you, do you ever wish you didn't know? Are you 100% glad that you know? I've never, ever said, I wish I didn't know.
Because I know that I knew. I write about the tells that various people call me out throughout the book of, wait, why did you just do that? So to be able to know yourself, know why you do the things you do, to have compassion for myself when I am in a very crowded elevator and I say, I'm going to have to get out and take the next one.
You know, that is so, that is healing. That's true growth.
And I feel that everything stems from that. So when you're so worried about the outside perspective of who have I left out, who did I not invite to this? By the way, I still do all this.
So how have I offended someone or hopefully I've included them? Until you turn inward and you really focus on yourself, you actually can't be there for all those people in the way that you could show up in so many, in a better way, in a more authentic way, in a way where once you know your worthiness, you show that to others. And now this worthiness that I have for myself around knowing my story and never wavering on wanting to know the truth, I can now show up even more for the people

in my life, for my children and my husband. And, or I can also laugh at myself and say, sorry, it's why I had to run out of the elevator.
But, and they know that about me and that, and that, that relationship piece, I talk about, you know, as I've searched my memory, My memory, memory and relationships are all we have.

It's all we have in this life. Aren't we building towards the two? Like what else do we have? I'd like to know what happens when we go and what do we take with us, but we're creating memories and we're creating relationships.
Yeah. And, and I've done that.
And so to be honest about the memories in my life, it makes everything come full circle. You know, in the talks with your daughters where comments from mom, where are you? To like, who are you? And do I really know you? And all the things you talk a lot about through sharing your story, through this whole journey in the tell,

the power of deepening connections and deepening the relationships that you always hold so close.

How has this journey impacted the depth of connection you have with your daughters and your kids? It's been everything. I'd like to say I don't sweat the small stuff anymore.
I can still get mad when they spill spaghetti sauce in their bed. And I said, don't eat in your room.
But there's just a difference. There's a softening.
There's no longer a pacing of, I said, you need to be home at exactly this time and you're one minute late. That softening of understanding where they're coming from, this letting go of control in realizing that we as parents are really not in control.
We can hold their hands across the street and make sure they're safe, but really that's all we can do is love them. And to try to control them, to morph them into these beings, to go to a certain school or have a certain career or do the things they need to do, they see that.
I talk about that. We live in New York City.
My children know that they, what is expected of them for me to reinforce it around grades or the other piece of it, you know, that's, they already know it. So I don't have to be on them for that.
And also I'm not going to take one of my children who could be a, if they make a B to say, you need to be an A student. I don't know what that solves for the relationship.
So a lot has changed around me as an extension of myself trying to control my children. Right? And that is a big, that really creates that bond that I have with them in that it's a relationship.
It's not a dictatorship. Do you feel that they, or have they expressed to you that they feel a deeper sense of knowing who you are and connecting to you when you share something that's just so vulnerable with them? They've been amazing.
A lot of times it comes off as jokes now. Oh my gosh, mom would have done X before.
Now, mom, you were so chill. Mom, look, mom didn't even care.
And I can laugh at it rather than the tension that I see would have been there around control for their safety. And also in this knowing of the conversations I've had with my children, you know, my husband has said to me, he says to me every day as I step into this new realm of, why am I doing this? I know why I'm doing this.
Why am I doing this? Amy, you are safe and you are loved. And then I try to repeat that to my children.
You are safe and you are loved. And everything else we do, we can figure out together.
But it's a closeness rather than a questioning. Yeah.
That's so beautiful. Do you think your kids are more...
By the way, I'm not perfect anymore. I don't like it when stuff is left on the floor.
They know I now scoop it up and it disappears. They have to come find me for it.
Keep your stuff off the floor. It is not an accident.
You are so successful. You'll text me if you're going to be one minute late somewhere.
So I know you. But I think, you know, listen, it's so funny that those kind of traits sure are helpful in business and in making things happen and all the other things.
But I have to say that, can I go back to my mom again? I mean, both my parents, like I look at this combination of my parents are the things I say I don't want to throw away with what happened to me. And I grew up, you know, with this incredible entrepreneur as a grandmother who was a single mother who started these businesses like you, Jamie, in a small town where she just saw this need.
But I didn't know that there was, that people didn't always have a grandmother who worked all the time and followed her around to hear about the businesses she was building and the needs she was filling. But with my parents, you know, I had this very ambitious, hardworking father who taught me the value of hard work and he's an incredible businessman.
And then my mom taught me the value of a thank you note and someone else's time. You send the best thank yous, I have to say.
I love to write a thank you note. Thanks, mom.
I love to write a thank you note. It really, because when you sit down to write a thank you note, you get to remember I get more from it because I get to remember how grateful I feel for the relationship I have with you.
I don't know if you can read my handwriting anymore. My handwriting looks like my grandmother's and it's going on by the wayside, but, but I really enjoy that moment to then remember, capture the memory of what we did together and the gratitude I have for the, what you showed me, the effort you showed me to be in my life.
So I love that. I love a thank you note.
I think that's my second book. I'm gonna write a book about thank you notes.
We should. Yes.
I'm like, we, you should write a book. No, I agree with that.
Uh, not to sidebar, but like, there's so much beauty and just, um, in a great thank you note, like a handwritten thank you note, especially in 2025 when it's so much faster to send a text or to send an audio or this or that. And you are someone who writes a great thank you note.
And what's interesting just to share this, like when I look at patterns of the women who I just love and adore and admire most, you know who else writes really incredible handwritten thank you notes, Oprah, Maria Shriver. And I just like, and I, and I save them.
I save them. There's so many friends and oh my gosh, there's something so special about it.
And when I take the time to write someone a thank you note, I feel this sense of like. Connectedness.
Yeah. Connectedness, fulfillment.
You know that they took time, you know, someone took time for you when they wrote out a thank you note. It's beautiful.
Think about that idea too, that like in the writing of my book, you know, I was having a memory as I rewrote the memories and I was able to capture them and remember that's like the telling for me is it's just like me telling. It's the same thing in a thank you note.
You're going to one person. You're saying thank you.
And then you're taking that memory and whatever the brain does with the brain signs, it's doing something where you're then reconnecting again to say, oh, that time we just spent together on that hike. Thank you for that.
Like you get to remembered again. Yes.
Yes. Uh, Amy, what, what do you say to a woman listening right now who is, you know, wanting to share her story, whether it's writing it to herself or to someone else? What do you want to say to her? that maybe, because I think that when we all share our own experiences, you know, we can all rise higher together.

I've learned so much through other people's experiences that has inspired my own.

What do you say to the person listening right now who's like, huh, I want to share my story.

I feel like I've been on a hero's journey and part of that might be sharing my story, but I'm scared. Well, I think being scared is good because it means you're doing something important.
If I didn't say I was scared to come sit down, if I didn't say I was scared to tell this story, every time I said it, then it wouldn't be important.

So I think that's really important. And I would say, take out a piece of paper and write it down in your handwriting.
So you're connected to it. You can either put it in a drawer and you can, or you can look at it every day until you're ready.
So just tell yourself. And then I would say back to that idea of forming a memory that we all have to have that person in our life that you can look in the eye and it really doesn't even matter what you're saying.
It's not really even necessarily the words because I have distinct memory of all of my closest friends. I can go through the 20 friends in the last, in the year after the aftermath of what I was going through.
And I can tell you not even what was said, but

the mannerisms of the human connection that I had with the way that they looked me in the eye,

or they held my hand, or in the case of my best friend, Rachel, I was with her two weekends ago,

and I said, you know, still trying to maybe doubt my memory a little bit. And I said, you know,

Thank you. my best friend Rachel, I was with her two weekends ago and I said, you know, still trying to maybe doubt my memory a little bit.
And I said, you know, it's funny. I remember writing in the book that that when I told you my story, you held my feet.
And I said, is that right? But you've never held my feet before. Why would you hold my feet? And she said, I did hold your feet because it was the only part of you that I could reach because you were curled up in a ball and I reached for you and that was what I got.
And so that's my memory. And so to anyone that has that story to tell, find that person that you can create that connection with.
I loved your book so much.

I'm excited for everyone to get it home.

For the person listening right now who's about to add the tell into their Amazon cart or

head to their local bookstore or grab it on Audible, What do you want them to know about this book? I hope that every person that picks up this book finds a little piece of themselves and that they find a little thread of themselves the way that I found myself. and in knowing that, if I hear those stories, I will feel so much joy.
I will feel so much joy. I don't know that I'm going to know all the stories, but I had something happen two weeks ago when I got back from break and I'd given an early reader copy to a friend.
And then someone

else came to me and said, I read your book. And I kind of looked over and I thought, but I didn't

give you my book. And then I realized, and she said, oh, so-and-so gave it to me after the

holiday. She read it and she passed it on.
And I thought, oh, that's it. That's just it right there.

Yes. And I was scared, by the way.
I was really scared. And I went into protection mode as I say this because I thought, no, no, wait a minute.
I don't have control. I'm not in control.
I didn't give that person the book. Right.
And then I went to a new place of joy of this is exactly what was supposed to be happening. Yes.
Right? Yes. because as an author, when your book hasn't come out yet, you're like, oh, no, no, no, it can't get out yet.
So I get all that too. And yet someone felt so passionate about it that they gave it to someone else.
Right. Right.
Someone else cared enough about my words that it didn't come from me. That they said, I want to share this with you because maybe they had a story to tell.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's going to be happening a whole lot. It's going to be, you're going to be getting a whole lot of stories, even more coming back to you.
So everyone go grab your copy of The Tell by Amy Griffin, a memoir. It is out now everywhere.
Books are sold. Amy, thank you so much.
Thank you. If you loved today's episode, my only ask is that you please click on the follow or subscribe button for the show on your app and give it a five-star rating or review.
And then share this episode with everyone you believe in. Share it with another person in your life who could benefit from it.
Post it and share it with others online or in your community who just might need the words and tools and lessons in this episode today. You never know whose life you're meant to change today by sharing this episode.
And thank you so much for joining me today. And before you go, I wanna to share some words with you that couldn't be more true.
You right now, exactly as you are, are enough and fully worthy. You're worthy of your greatest hopes, your wildest dreams, and all the unconditional love in the world.
And it is an honor to welcome you to each episode of the Jamie Kern Lima show here. I hope you'll come as you are.
Heal where you need, blossom what you choose, journey toward your calling and stay as long as you'd like because you belong here. You are worthy.
You are loved. You are loved.
And I love you. And I cannot wait to join you on the next episode of the Jamie Kern Lima Show.
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