Here is the full transcript of Lara Love Hardin’s talk titled “Thieves of Hope: Moving Past Your Worst Mistakes” at TEDxSantaCruz conference.
Lara Love Hardin’s talk, “Thieves of Hope: Moving Past Your Worst Mistakes,” is a powerful narrative of personal downfall, redemption, and the transformative power of hope. She shares her harrowing journey from being arrested on election night 2008, facing the loss of her children, and grappling with addiction and despair, to her eventual path to redemption.
Hardin emphasizes the importance of not defining ourselves or others by our worst moments, highlighting the societal tendency to label and judge people based on their mistakes. She discusses the long-lasting consequences of these judgments, not just for individuals but for families and communities, and the barriers they create to reintegration and healing.
Hardin’s own turnaround story includes becoming a successful collaborative writer and contributing to notable works, showcasing the potential for change when given support and opportunity. She advocates for a shift in perspective, urging us to see people as more than their past actions and to become champions of hope for others. Hardin’s message is a call to action to reject the “thieves of hope” and embrace the possibility of renewal and forgiveness, both for ourselves and for those around us.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Historical Moment
November 4th, 2008, it’s election night. It’s one of those moments in history that people always remember. For my mother’s generation, it was where you were when Kennedy was shot. And for my generation, it was where you were when 9-11 happened, and also where you were when this country elected its first black president. And he gave a speech that was about hope more than it was about winning a presidential race. Regardless of your politics, it’s a monumental day in our history. That day was 11 years, 1 month, and 3 days ago. I remember that day.
Not for politics, I actually didn’t even get to vote that day. On November 4th, 2008, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department came to my home. They knocked on the door, they came in, and they told me I was under arrest. The youngest of my four boys was home at the time. He was 3 years old. I asked the deputies to let me call someone to take him, but they refused.
And I remember he was watching a show called “The Wonder Pets,” and he had all his stuffed animals in a circle around him when Child Protective Services came to take him away. He was crying, and he ran to me for comfort, but I could not comfort him because my hands were handcuffed behind my back.
A Mother’s Nightmare
All I could do in his care was tell him that these strangers were friends and that everything was going to be okay. I was taken outside where police cars lined the street, and my neighbors were gathered in front of their homes watching the spectacle.
You see, I lived in a place where people didn’t get arrested. It was Aptos. It was a cul-de-sac in Aptos, and it was my home. I haven’t been back to that street in 11 years, 1 month, and 3 days. I was taken to the Santa Cruz County Jail, and I was sobbing, and I was asking the deputy over and over again to tell me where he had taken my son. And he finally stopped, and he turned to me, and he said, “You will never see him again. You should not be anyone’s mother. He is better off without you.”
And I hung my head because in my heart and in my mind and in my soul, I believed that he was right. I was bad. And I was put in a cold holding cell while Obama gave a speech about unyielding hope. And he said “the road will be long, our climb will be steep, and we will get there. Maybe not 1 year, but we will get there.” But I didn’t hear any of that.
Two nights later, I wrapped a sheet around my neck and tied it in what I hope was 6 strong knots. And I wrote a letter to my children telling them of 3 things. I said that I prayed that addiction never got a hold of them. I told them that I loved them. And I told them that I was sorry. You see, I truly believed in that moment that I had just failed at life. That there would be no redemption for me, but even more so, I didn’t believe that. That there would be no redemption for me, but even more so, I didn’t believe that I deserved redemption.
The Path to Redemption
I believed that I would never see my children again. I believed that hope was a thing reserved for the good and the worthy. And so I hung my head in shame, and then I tried to hang myself. That was 11 years, 1 month, and 1 day ago.
Today, finally, I am lifting my head back up. So I’m going to ask you guys to do something. I’d like all of you to close your eyes right now. And I’d like you to think about the worst thing you’ve ever done. Maybe it’s something big. Maybe it’s something small. Maybe it’s a crime or just something that went against your personal values. Maybe you lied or stole or betrayed someone you love.
Whatever makes you feel this worst thing you’ve done, just feel it. Shame, remorse, regret, anger, grief, sadness. Just feel it. Feel the weight of it. Shame is a heavy coat to wear. And regret isn’t that comfortable either. So now I want you to open your eyes, and I want you to turn to the person to your right. And I want you to tell them the worst thing you’ve ever done. I’m kidding. I’m not going to ask you to do that.
I saw someone visibly gasp. You know that feeling you just had?
Overcoming Labels
You know that fear? That shame? Imagine feeling that way all the time. Imagine building a whole identity out of the worst thing you’ve ever done. Imagine that when people talked about you, that’s all they talked about. When people thought about you, that’s all they thought about. And we all do it when we label people. Jerk. Criminal. Tweaker. Junkie. Drunk. Whatever it is.
What I want to say is this. When we label, categorize, and reduce people to the worst thing they’ve ever done, we are nothing less than the thieves of hope. We are hope robbers. And it’s even worse when we do it to ourselves.
So as part of a plea deal, I pled guilty to a number of crimes, some of which I did and some of which I didn’t. That’s the nature of plea deals. But I was guilty. I’d become addicted to opiates, I’d committed crimes, and I hurt a lot of people, my family, my community. I spent a year in the Santa Cruz County Jail. And when I was released, I was jobless, homeless, carless, friendless, childless. The only thing I had in abundance was shame.
You see, when I was sentenced, the Santa Cruz Sentinel ran a front-page article with this picture and a headline calling me the neighbor from hell. It’s a catchy headline. And then while I was incarcerated, someone printed out that article and the hundreds of comments that people had written in response to it, and they mailed it to me anonymously in the jail. And there’s not a lot to read in jail or do, so I read them over and over and over again.
And I carried those comments and that article around with me, both figuratively and literally, for a really long time, years. So yes, I was once publicly called the neighbor from hell, but now I’d really like today to share with you some other people I have been. Because what I’ve learned is if you don’t believe everything people say about you, you can pretty much do anything.
So here’s a picture of me from 18 months ago. So unlike that headline here, I’m smiling so big it looks like my head is going to explode. Oprah Winfrey picked a book I co-authored for her book club, and we got to go to New York City and go to CBS for the announcement. And here’s a picture of me from four years ago. Oh, first she took us out to lunch. Way better than jail food.
Here’s a picture from four years ago, also smiling so big my head is going to pop off. I was lucky enough to be part of a team that got to go to Dharamsala, India and work on a book called “The Book of Joy” with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Then the Dalai Lama did my hair. It was a lot of work. Still working. And I’m showing you these pictures.
Well, first let me tell you that for the past nine years I’ve been a collaborative writer, which is sort of like a ghost writer, but different. I’ve written 12 nonfiction books, four New York Times bestsellers, one number one New York Times bestseller. And I’m telling you this and sharing this not to prove to you that I’m good or even that I’m Oprah good, and not even to prove it to myself anymore because I spent a lot of time doing that, but just to make the point that we don’t know what people are capable of. And when we reduce them and name them and judge them by the worst thing they’ve ever done, we hurt ourselves, we hurt our community, and we hurt our world. Look, I was guilty and I should have paid for my crimes and I did.
Hope and Redemption
I believe that people should pay for their crimes. I believe this strongly, but I also believe that we should let them. There’s over 12 million people arrested and jailed every year. There’s over 2 million people sitting in prison right now who believe that they are paying for their crimes. What many of them don’t realize is that they will pay for those crimes for a lifetime, and so will their families and their children, and sometimes generations pay for those crimes.
So what happens when they get out and they think they’ve paid for a crime? As a condition of their release, they have to get a job. If you get a job, you’ve got to check a box that says you’re the worst thing you’ve ever done and so you get excluded from that job. You can’t rent a house because of a background check. And if you can’t rent a house and get a job, well then you’re homeless. If you’re homeless, you’re 11 times more likely to be incarcerated, and if you’re incarcerated, you’re 10 times more likely to be homeless. You can’t get financial aid if you want to further your education.
You can’t get professional licenses, vocational licenses. I can write a book with Stanford professors, but the state of California won’t let me homeschool my child because of my criminal background. And these restrictions disproportionately burden women who are incarcerated. You can’t get food stamps, social services, childcare subsidies.
We stack up the obstacles and the barriers to reentry, and then we sit in our living rooms and our board rooms and our committee rooms and we talk about recidivism rates. We talk about the bad people who keep going in and out of jail. And we all have a part in this. We all do this. We do it in our laws, but we do it in our judgment and in our gossip. We don’t need to make it harder, make it impossible for people to become who they really are or who they were.
Look, I was lucky. I had a family that loved me, that supported me, that forgave me, but I had something else. I had someone in the community, a man by the name of Doug Abrams, who made the conscious decision to see me as the sum total of my life, not as an addict or a criminal. And he saw all of my life, not just a season of my life. He was able to see my intelligence and my creativity and my work ethic, and he invited me to build with him what is now one of the most successful nonfiction literary agencies in the world. He believed in me until I could believe in myself.
And when I worried about my reputation staining his reputation, and I worried about this years ago, and I worried about it again giving this talk, and he said to me what he has always said to me: “If people don’t want to work with us because of your past, Lara, then we don’t want to work with those people.” Everyone needs a champion. And don’t we all aspire to be that kind of champion?
Doug’s here tonight, so if you see him, give him a hug. Because he’s someone who walks his talk, who lives his ideals. Look, hope can be fragile and brief and fleeting, or it can be something solid. It can be a life preserver we tie around ourselves, we toss to others, or we just share it when people need it most.
Eleven years, one month, and three days ago, President Barack Obama said that we have been cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve. And he asked us all to put our hands on the arc of history and bend it toward the hope of a better day. Look, I’ve learned that hope and shame cannot coexist. One always has to win.
And shame multiplies in isolation. It heals slowly in community, but it multiplies in isolation. Who are we to say that who someone is at their worst is who they are forever? And none of us, individually or as a community, can afford to surrender to the thieves of hope. Thank you.