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GIVEAWAY + Interview with best selling author, Jillian Lauren

May 19, 2017

Summer 2015, I read Everything You Ever Wanted and loved it. After reading it, I decided it was time to write my book and I began. Jillian wrote she knew she wanted to be a writer and a mom, so she was determined to do it. I didn’t have kids yet, was in the adoption process, but knew to my core that was who I also wanted to be.

Everything You Ever Wanted is Jillian Lauren's memoir about her journey to motherhood. Jillian was a college drop out, a drug addict, and an international concubine (TRUE STORY) in the Prince of Brunei's harem. She wrote about this in Some Girls.

She and her husband adopted an Ethiopian child with special needs; she writes about the journey to him and working hard to make him (and everyone around him) feel safe in the world.

Jillian is now mama to two children, both high needs. Her life is filled with doctors and therapy appointments - it's a good day when she only has the f-word thrown at her five times.

It is my privilege to share with you my interview with her as well as a giveaway of both her books.


NB: Jillian, you touched a bit in Everything You Ever Wanted about the struggle for finding the best OT and learning how to best love your son through his deep attachment disorders. How are things now and do you have any words for parents currently in the thick of this?

JL: I now have two; Jovi was adopted out of foster care when he was 3.5 years old. And Tariku. Jovi has a more complex trauma we are dealing with in a very immediate way. It seems as though we are learning the same lesson we learned with Tariku, over and over again: there are so many different treatment modalities and there is not one definitive solution for every child.

Everyone providing treatments (whether it be books, occupational therapists, the school district, etc) present their solution as the definitive solution as a response to us casting the line out asking for help. We find ourselves feeling so isolated.

In my experience, there is no definitive solution. Each kid responses differently to different people administering different tests and therapies.

You have to keep trying and keep clinging to the faith, believing there is a potential for healing and love and family and permanency; there is no guarantee but we all have the potential to heal in time.

There is no miracle pill: the doctor’s don’t have it, church doesn’t have it, OT’s don’t have it. It takes time. A lot of time. You are not doing something wrong just because it’s hard.

People like the idea of us adopting, the idea of us dealing with trauma; they are often unable to relate to us and know what it actually looks like to deal with trauma in their space around their kids or community. So those of us who are in it, we need each other. We are in this together.

It is very hard to understand what the cumulative effect of trauma in your home is like: that is why I write what I write. To reach out, share a connection, remind other parents in this journey that it takes time. We see a kind of healing experience through connection, it is unique and precious.

NB: Do people ever talk to you like you are a savior? Do people ever say to you, “I could never do that, I could never parent a child like that,” etc?

JL: I have heard moms in many different situations (special needs is a wide group of people) hear the, “I could never do that.”

It’s meant to be a compliment. But it is a very backhanded compliment.

There is some kind of implication that, “Oh you are more sensitive, like Mother Theresa.” I am not. I am a writer, I am an artist. I essentially like to spend my days by myself thinking about big ideas. Spend my nights talking about existentialism at a bar downtown. I am not Mother Theresa.

I tell people all the time, “You don’t have to be perfect to parent trauma, you just have to stay.”

When people respond to our family with, “I could never do that,” I want to ask, “Then what would you do? Fake your own death? Move to Cabo? What would you do? The ground would open up and swallow you whole? You would do this. You would because you love your children and would do anything for them; anyone would do this.”

I have to remind myself everyone’s suffering feels the same: hard and impossible. I find myself rolling my eyes when my mom friends complain about car seat tantrums when my kid wouldn’t put his shoes on for six hours straight, told me to f**** off, and I had to restrain him while at Target. I have to remind myself their hard is the same as my hard. When we say things like, “I could never do that,” we are raising the bar.

We are survivors. We love our children. I still get angry at my children, I get frustrated and have really hard days. But then there is that one delicious moment in a day where we are drawing together, we are laughing, and I look at their smiling faces and it is a precious moment. Just last night my son couldn’t sleep so I laid in bed with him and we wrote in his journal together. We were writing and he was asking me questions like who my best friend is, and I couldn’t help but think, “I could never imagine, in my wildest dreams, being happier than this.” With dishes in the sink, the worst day, fighting all day, and then sitting together in his bed writing in our journals.

I want to remember these moments when I’m on my death bed.

So to the, “I could never do that” I say: “Really? Pretty sure you could. It’s just as hard and just as awesome.”

NB: I don’t believe balance is achievable, BUT as a mom and writer, how do you manage to write, meet deadlines, be a mom, and not feel like you are constantly failing your son or falling behind?

JL: I don’t balance it.

I don’t balance, I don’t feel balanced, that conversation is not productive.

People use that conversation to sell you stuff: their new simplicity thing or decluttering thing.

This idea of balance has been releasing itself entirely: I have been learning to say no a lot. I am really good at over committing. I take a lot of pride in keeping a million balls in the air, doing a million things like: going to Africa, writing books, volunteering with charitable foundations, raising two kids with special needs. People often talk about how I do it all, but I don’t.

In the last year I have started to say “no” to many things and do not feel bad about it. I get up at 4 am to write; that’s how I do it. There is a tremendous sacrifice to write. I sacrifice my nights, my cuddly television time with my husband - it sucks. I would love my marriage back. But we know that in the long game, together, sometimes all you have is to stand side by side with one another.

There is no such thing as balance. There is only a thing as sacrifice.

NB: Do you have thoughts to share as a white mom to a black son?

JL: I don’t know how to encapsulate the experience.

Being a transracial family certainly has its challenges; it really needs to be addressed in a mindful and conscious way.

I think the key to it for me is curiosity. The willingness to be wrong. The willingness to have difficult conversations.

I make sure that I call my black friends and have difficult, uncomfortable conversations pretty often.

Living a diverse life. To me that is the most important thing because I can’t know everything and I don’t know everything. I will never have the experience of walking around this world as a black person. Especially not as a black man. I obviously fear for my black boys.

There are things I have to think about like having nerf gun fights in the front yards; I don’t let my boys do that, it’s a safety decision for my children of not having anything look like a gun in public.  When I tell white people this, they think I am crazy or overreacting. But then I watch this calibration in their eyes happen as they process it and say, “I never thought of that.”

My children are bodily endangered in this country. Unarmed black men are murdered in the streets of this country.

It is not something that’s on my mind 24 hours a day. A lot of time my mind is consumed with things like, “Why don’t you put your shoes on and get out the door so we can go to school?”

But we must be in the conversation. My black friends are really willing to talk about it. My [white] husband has reached out to his black male friends saying, “I know that I don’t know what it’s like to be you and what’s going to make my children safe. I need your help.”

We have had nothing but love as a response to that.

It is important to ask the hard questions. And have difficult conversations.

Please watch this video: #$%@ People Say To Transracial Families 


Connect with Jillian Lauren
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
Website
YouTube


Purchase her books
Everything You Ever Wanted
Some Girls: My Life In A Harem


GIVEAWAY:

EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED: A MEMOIR

+

SOME GIRLS: MY LIFE IN A HAREM

 

Enter to win both of Lauren's books: comment below with what your favorite part of this interview was/if you learned anything AND/OR if you watched her YouTube video I linked above.

Giveaway begins Friday May 19 and ends Tuesday May 30.

In Author Interviews
← May 31: Ready to Conquer Labor [The Onset Of Labor]To My Son's Birth Mom on Birth Mother's Day →
natalie brenner, foster mom, adoptive mom, transracial family, author, photographer
hi there.

Welcome to my small corner of the world! This is the sacred space I pour my heart out into words, written for you to hopefully inch a bit towards fullness. 

I'm a photographer, writer, and mom. I write about: Jesus and justice, adoption, foster care, and the sanctifying mess of grief. 

I'm the #1 New Release author of This Undeserved Life, which is the story of me surrendering my sorrow by grabbing ahold of it.

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Trauma, Dysregulation, and the Brain — What All Foster + Adoptive Parents Should Know

Saying Yes to Kids From Hard Places

Saying Yes to Kids From Hard Places

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I Knew I Loved You Before I Knew You

I Knew I Loved You Before I Knew You

Adoption. It made me mama + it made me his — I have the best side of the situation. Adoption. It wrecks me and remakes me and humbles me and stirs up wells of passion in me. Adoption. Without the brokenness and not-meant-to-be-ness of it, I wouldn’t be the one to kiss him and support him him and be his safe person. Without tragedy and loss and trauma, he wouldn’t be my son or Ira’s brother. Adoption. One of life’s greatest opportunities for redemption and healing, but so often only deeper pain perpetuated. May I honor adoption and all the people it has wrecked and remade. May I listen to all the voices, especially the ones that make me uncomfortable.
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Sage chose a :) on one hand and a ❤️ on the other. My hand has a ♥️ and Ira’s is a smiley. Thank you @kindredand.co and @lifetimehealingllc and @adoptwell for expanding the marks of World Adoption Day.
Took my four kids to the county elections office this morning before school and talked about voting. I told them that I think + vote differently than a lot of my family, and as I have grown up I have learned to form my own opinions about the world (and our country) and how I see it operating and in what ways I want to see change happen. I told them why I am voting the way I vote, but also that as they live their own experiences and form their own belief system, they get to choose how to use their voice...their vote. 75% of my kids are of color.  50% of them are first generation Americans. May my vote serve them and their whole identity, honoring them as full human beings with the same rights and dignity + work towards true freedom that I as a straight, white, American-born woman have. It doesn’t feel as much political as it feels personal. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
🗳🗳 🗳 🇺🇸 🇸🇴 🗳 🗳 🗳 🗳 🇺🇸 🇸🇴 🗳 🗳🗳
#elections2018 #ivoted #thebrennersfoster #multiculturalfamily #momoffour
With my story. With my kids’s story. With her story. With his story. With their story. With our story. You’re not finished yet. My heart after your heart first, I will trust you here and now. My Hope always set in who You are, even when I can’t see every part, I will trust You. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
For you, friend, barely holding on...He’s not finished yet. For you, feeling trapped and imprisoned with no sign of a way out...He’s not finished yet. For you, wondering when motherhood will crash down your door...He’s not finished yet. For you, seeing loss and brokenness every way you turn...He’s not finished yet. For you, wondering if you’re worth more than this...He’s not finished yet. For you, grieving your life as you hoped it to be and it just so isn’t...He’s not finished yet. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
You don’t play games, it’s not who You are...You’re not the type to mislead my heart. I’ve only known You to keep your word, I’ve found love at every turn. I can trust you here. One day at a time. One breath at a time. You’re not finished yet.
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Who needs the daily reminder that He’s not finished yet? 🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️
#thebelongingco #yourenotfinishedyet #speaktruth #letterfolk #letterboard #letterboardquotes #lampandlight
We’ve been walking through worlds of transitions, so I have been diligent in having more intentional hours clocked at home with these two when sisters are at school. Sometimes I hear them giggling together while playing, their little voices raspy and sweet. It can feel like life is lived in slow motion when I stop whatever I’m doing to watch them play together. When Sage is regulated, he is the sweetest kid I have ever known in my whole existence. I could not have foreseen the incredible source of joy these two would bring this home, even as they bring their own challenges and imperfections too. They’re their own kinda magic, these two. Built in buddies for life. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
#adventureswithsageandira #brennerbuds #virtualtwins #biracialtwins #brothers #gratefulmama #twoyearsold #toddlersofinstagram #siblinghoodlove
Spider-Man, Elena, Unshowered Mom With All The Kids, Lady Bug, and Horse Man. We dont match much or have extraordinary costumes...but it doesn’t matter; grateful we are together. Hair cuts and new-to-us shoes and pizza and apple cobbler-crisp with sugary Dino eggs because it’s the only oatmeal I had. Hot cocoa and hot cider and trick or treating with the best kids ever. Grateful to be theirs even when holidays are weird. Love this crew.
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#adventureswithsageandira #brennerbuds #halloween #halloweenwithkids #thebrennersfoster #fostercare #momoffour #happyhalloween #gratefulmom
I didn’t know a heart could experience so many blows as mine has and also be as full as mine is. They are my world and my heart overflows. Full hands, waaaaay fuller heart. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
#adventureswithsageandira #brennerbuds #thebrennersfoster #momoffour #pumpkinpatch #falladventures #fostercare #fostercareadventures #fullhandsfullheart
Just really, really, really grateful this morning.
#adventureswithsageandira
You know, it seems like such a life altering painful blip in my journey, being a mom to five kids. It feels like I handed her over ages ago and yesterday all at once. The moments of buckling her into her car seat and crying thru goodbye, then wobbly walking as quickly as possibly back into my house to swallow a Xanax + wail in my bed will never leave me. A tsunami of grief. I was sure I was going to split down my middle and shatter across my Portland neighborhood. It was a death of many sorts. Only darkness consumed me leading up to and through that day. Sorrow invaded every piece of my body and days, loss touching all aspects of the life I was and am living. The future I hoped for and was creating suddenly dismantled. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
During a recording with Mike Berry today, we talked about grief and the holiday season approaching. We talked about our losses and the losses of our kids. Our kids have so. much. loss. We can’t walk them thru their losses and grief unless we deal with ours. How can I give my kids space and permission to grieve if I haven’t even given it to myself? The other day in an interview I was asked to share about my motherhood journey...and all I could seem to think was how it was forged through loss and grief. But motherhood is the most natural part of my life, even if birthed through tragedy. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
As we head into this season of giving thanks and spending time with family and having all our agony + traumas shoved right up into our faces...I am going to take it one day at a time. I am going to walk the tension of both loss and gain, joy and sorrow, woundedness and healing. I am going to be sad and grateful, as I typically tend to be. And I hope you find the space to do the same.
#chroniclesofAB
It only took reading two books, taking official the test 4 times, and listening to a million and one podcast episodes to finally discover that I am a...FOUR. I’m a four: the individualist + romantic. One of the most complicated + misunderstood personality types. I‘m so messed up and misunderstood I couldn’t even figure myself out 😂
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I deeply identified with multiple numbers and towards the end of my discovery was bouncing between thinking I was a 2 or 8. THEN low and behold, I realized I am absolutely a 4. I can see that I’m healthy and maturing in some ways but I am also seeing that I have some unfortunate areas in my life where the unhealthiness of disintegrating to the stress of type two have hurt me and others over the years. Holy dang you guys. Repression is for real.
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I’m not as self aware as I thought. It’s difficult for me to see exactly how envy is my passion or sin, playing into my instincts or struggles, so I’m digging and trying to see myself more clearly. FOURS, how does envy play itself out in your life? In what ways do you experience it most? Also, who is a four in my little IG community!? Tag a four or tell meeeeee 🤘🏼
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#enneagram #typefour #enneagram4 #typology #personalitytypes #emotionalwellness #healingjourney #theroadbacktoyou
My life has been shaken to its core over the last two months, flipped upside down, tossed around and thrown into the fire. Shedding all the things I thought I knew, all the ways I assumed I knew myself and the life I worked so hard to create and live and make real. But when we wake up to the Truth we’ve been working so hard to avoid for so long — lying to even ourselves —, and everything comes crashing down to reveal itself in raw form, there is then a real chance to fully live, to wholly heal, to heal holy. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
My darkest days were darker than I knew could be possible and there are still very dark days ahead... part of me doesn’t wish the all consuming fire on anyone...but another part of me wishes it on everyone because I’m already starting to see there is true wholeness and hope and good on the other side. The other side isn’t half living half dying: the other side is whole. The other side isn’t here for me yet but I get small tastes of the peace and the safety of His goodness, through being honest and facing my painful Truths.
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Im finding I don’t really trust myself anymore, after waking up to my full reality. But one thing I keep in the foresight is: I am still in His hands. Great is His faithfulness. His promise still stands. His wisdom is available to anyone who seeks it and is wholesome, good, more valuable than rubies. The fire is still here, but I can see more than just fire for the first time in two months. I can see Hope.
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#nataliebrennerwrites #grief #loss #lampandlight #mendingthesoul #healingjourney #claimingcourage  #beingbrave #healing #spiritualjourney #spiritualhealinh #healingmyself #wholeness #heal #wakeup #theundoing #proverbs #wisdom #warrior #survivor
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This Undeserved Life   — memoir

This Undeserved Life — memoir

Wholeness Despite the Brokenness   — download a free grief guide

Wholeness Despite the Brokenness — download a free grief guide

Wholeness Despite the Brokenness   — paperback workbook on Amazon

Wholeness Despite the Brokenness — paperback workbook on Amazon

If I Can Write A Book So Can You   – download a free writing and publishing guide

If I Can Write A Book So Can You – download a free writing and publishing guide

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What I Learned About Loss with NB on Honestly Speaking

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Blossoming Mommy + Baby Show

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Raising Two Sons + Navigating Two Races on NPR

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Join Me on the Rocky Road to Real Forgiveness: Church Trauma

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A Letter to My Real Son

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How to Answer Ignorant Questions About Your Adoptive Family

Your Hard and My Hard Are Both Absolutely Hard

Your Hard and My Hard Are Both Absolutely Hard

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