Joanna Gaines on her ‘obsession’ with making things go 'perfectly’

When Joanna Gaines began writing her newly-released memoir “The Stories We Tell,” the Magnolia co-founder and author said she was initially in an “unhealthier place” and seeking to “tuck away and hide.”

“As I started writing, I told (my husband) Chip, I just want to take a moment to re-catch my breath and really evaluate the story that we’re telling. And I just want to be a little more private,” Gaines told TODAY in an interview at the luncheon timed to her book launch.

By the time she finished the book, however, Gaines said she discovered that in opening up about the experiences that shaped her – as opposed to hiding them – she found healing.

“When you’re open to share your story, hopefully that inspires other people to feel open, to be vulnerable. I think that’s where healing is, that’s where connection is, that’s where community is,” she said. “When you want to hide, that’s where isolation is, that’s where loneliness is."

'I looked different from all the other kids'

Raised in rural Kansas for part of her life, Gaines said she was a shy, self-conscious child and the target of teasing and racism due to her mother being Korean and father, American.

"I tried my best to fit in, acting as though I didn't get their jokes about my slanted eyes or hear their whispers when I'd opt for rice instead of fries in the cafeteria line," she wrote in "The Stories We Tell."

“I watched it play out with my mom as well, in how she pretended not to notice the slow glances at the grocery store or hear the quiet insults under someone’s breath,” Gaines wrote. “So I pretended too.”

As she grew older, Gaines thought she'd shed the feelings of shame and insecurity resulting from those childhood incidents, but in reality, Gaines said she hadn’t.

“I think a lot of people can relate to the idea of being teased,” Gaines told TODAY about that period of her life. “The biggest thing for me was because it wasn’t dealt with, it resurfaced in different ways."

Among them was a drive for perfectionism that Gaines said really equated to control, especially in the early years of Magnolia, a home and lifestyle brand.

“I was fearing a whole lot of things; failure, our future, what people would think,” she wrote in the memoir. “I was exhausted by my own obsession with trying to hide our reality and keeping all the balls in the air.”

And because she couldn't fix the way she felt, Gaines wrote she that she "controlled the way our life looked" instead, which only made things harder.

"I realized that I'd never felt so isolated, so alone, than when I was obsessing over making something go perfectly," she wrote.

It wasn’t until she processed her experiences writing the book that Gaines said she realized just how much they were still affecting her life and decisions. “It always went back to those days of the initial seed that was planted, that I decided not to weed out."

Not so much a tell-all memoir as a personal journey, Gaines said the new book has been a way to meaningfully connect with not only her own past, but also to encourage others to be open about theirs.

“There’s something about that openness that leads to connection, which I feel like we’re all wanting," she said.

"And in that, you have to be open, and you have to share the ugly parts, the beautiful parts, all of it. Not just the facade that you’re wanting to present."

'Hanging out in the laundry room'

In the memoir, Gaines writes that while some people find refuge in nature or in a garden, her happy place is the laundry room because it's where she feels most free to be herself.

"Wife, child, mom, designer, cook, friend, sister, laundry folder, sure – but also TBD," she wrote.

Gaines said that she often journals in her laundry room and contemplates there, especially when she feels like she's been seen too long as just one thing, "The boss, the designer, the lady on TV, the decision maker," she wrote, saying that recently she's had a "stirring."

"I'm longing to have a seat at my own crowded table of expectations," she wrote, and to "know myself a little better than I did before."

And it's sitting peacefully in the laundry room where she tries to make sense of it all.

"(It) feels like neutral ground in the battle of who I'm growing into and who others perceive me to be," Gaines wrote.

Even though it's pretty unlikely at this point, Gaines said that in another lifetime, she might have been an accountant because she likes numbers and they also represents control to her, something she's learned to manage, even if she has yet to completely let go.

It's a daily practice, she said, not to slip back into old habits and feelings of insecurity and fear.

"That is the journey to me, that has brought healing," said Gaines. "Going back, revisiting it, feeling it, but then rewriting it with truth. Sometimes I'll carry a lie with me for years, but realize it's something that is coming out of a place of insecurity that started back when I was 6, 7 or 8."

Advice for their children

When it comes to their five kids, Gaines said that she hopes, unlike her own desire to grow up quickly, that her children learn the importance of loving the life they currently have.

"As their mother, I think my biggest job is how do I keep them where youth and innocence is something that they relish in, that they love it," she said.

And instead of always thinking about what they want to be someday or what to do with their lives, Gaines said she tries to foster being present in the moment.

"Life is coming and it is what it is," she said. "But right now, these moments are the best moments of your life. And remember these moments – they will one day be healing for you when you're older."

It's not only her advice to kids Drake, Ella Rose, Emmie Kay, Duke and Crew (ranging in age from preschool to college), but also what she'd like for herself.

"I want to be more childlike in my thinking and be lighthearted and free," Gaines said. "I think that as a mother, if I can foster that in them, these will be the richest moments of their life ... I hope."