Zachary Levi - Radical Love: Learning to Accept Yourself and Others

Radical Love

Copyright 2022 Middle Man Productions

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

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The information in this book has been carefully researched by the author, and is intended to be a source of information only. Readers are urged to consult with their physicians or other professional advisors to address specific medical or other issues. The author and the publisher assume no responsibility for any injuries suffered or damages incurred during or as a result of the use or application of the information contained herein.

ISBN 978-0-7852-3676-4 (Ebook)

ISBN 978-0-7852-3675-7 (HC)

Epub Edition April 2022 9780785236764

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022930124

Printed in the United States of America

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I dedicate this book to my mom, Susy,

and all those like her, who left us before knowing

how truly loved they really were.

In telling my story, my deepest desire is

to encourage you to tell your own.

Then, perhaps, we can finally learn to radically

love, radically accept, and radically forgive

ourselves and each other, at last.

T he book you have in your hand was supposed to have been in your hand a year ago. It was written. All but finished. Just a few final tweaks and I was ready to hit send. It was, I hoped, a powerful and compelling tale of my mental health journey from the depths of despair and depression to recovery, culminating in my greatestor, at the very least, best-knownprofessional achievement: being cast in the title role of the movie Shazam!

At that point, the subtitle of the book was going to be From Suicide to Superhero. Because that was my story. I had reached the point where I didnt want to go on living, and then a month later I was back to work with a new lease on life. Id been to hell and back and come through, more or less, in one piece. I wasnt magically cured; I still had issues to work on and I was working on them. But I had an uplifting tale to tell about hope, perseverance, acceptance, and, above all, radical love. Wanting to share my experience to help others, I started doing interviews with various podcasts and publications, and a very kind editor at HarperCollins reached out to inquire if Id be interested in putting my thoughts and experiences down in a book.

Id never once imagined my life story being important enough to take up a whole book that other human beings would pay actual money for. Still, given how vital and important it is for our society to address the subject of mental health, I felt that if I could use my story and whatever platform Ive been given to help anyone out there whos struggling, it would be a worthwhile thing to do. I think vulnerability is important. I think its a superpower. It feels awkward and scary to be open and real with people, but it has only ever brought positive things into my life. Plus, I genuinely feel its a part of my responsibility to talk about the struggles Ive had. Maybe I can write something informative and illuminating, I thought, and hopefully even a little entertaining as well. So I sat down and poured my heart out and wrote the book. It was pretty much ready to go and the sequel to Shazam! was just about ready to film, and then: Boom.

The whole world shut down.

Then it exploded.

In the spring and summer of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic hit and sociopolitical unrest exploded nationwide in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. My work and my life ground to a halt, and my mental health cratered along with them. The relative stability and peace of mind Id fought so hard to build proved to be far more fragile than Id allowed myself to believe.

The manuscript for this book sat and sat on my desk, waiting for my final edits. I was so crippled by anxiety and depression I couldnt even bring myself to look at it. And besides, did anyone out there want to read From Suicide to Superhero and Back to Suicide Again? I didnt imagine they would. I picked up the phone, called my editor, and explained where I was and how I didnt think I could make my deadline.

But thats not even the biggest problem, I said.

What is it? he asked.

The ending, I replied. It doesnt work anymore. Because I didnt come through it, and Im definitely not okay.

So the book went on hold along with the rest of my life, a rough year went by, and now here I am back at the keyboard, typing again. Not merely because Im in a better place, though I feel that I am, but because that rough year brought me to a place where I finally understood the ending. I came to the very, very, very hard realization that my mental health journey doesnt have an ending. Im not fixed. I may never be fixed. But its okay that Im not. I may never be able to repair all of my brokenness, but I can love myself in spite of my brokenness. I understand that now. So even though my journey hasnt come to an end, I have come to the end of the story I want to share with you.

Which leaves us only one question: Where to begin?

Honestly, we could pick any number of points. We could start with me throwing myself onto a community theater stage to get the love and approval of strangers that I never got at home. We could start with my Grandma Pat chasing my naked mom out of the house with a butcher knife. Given what we know about how generational trauma works, we could start in Civil Warera Missouri with my maternal great-great-great grandfathers drinking problem. Or maybe try my dads side in Colonial New England and start with my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother being put on trial for witchcraft. That could be fun. But I dont know that we need to go back that far. This story, the one I want to tell here, starts out the same way a lot of stories do nowadays.

It starts with a ping.

AUSTIN, TEXAS

AUGUST 2017

M y phone let out a ping! I reached into my pocket, pulled my phone out, and clicked on the notification to see an email from my agents back in Los Angeles. It was about an audition for the lead role in the new DC superhero movie, Shazam!

It looked interesting, but I immediately saw a problem. I knew the Shazam character a bit. As a kid, Id always been more of a Marvel comic book fan than a DC comic book fan, but even among DC fans, Shazamor Captain Marvel, as he was originally knownis a bit of a niche character. Hes Billy Batson, the fifteen-year-old kid who only has to say a magic word, Shazam!, and hes instantly transformed into a superhero, which is pretty much every kids dream. I also knew that Shazam has an archnemesis, Black Adam, whos basically Shazams Bizarro-World twin. The role of Black Adam had already been cast, and he was going to be played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson, former WWE world champion and current Biggest Action Movie Star in the World. Obviously, it was not lost on me that The Rock and I do not look like twins. It seemed to me like they were probably looking for a John Cena type of guy.