Elizabeth Smart’s life took a dramatic turn in 2002 when she was kidnapped from her home, altering the path she once envisioned for herself.

Reflecting on her journey, Smart, now a survivor and activist, remarked, “I once saw a peaceful and straightforward future,” during an interview with Oxygen.

For Smart, healing involved reconnecting with her family, reestablishing her daily routines, and spending time horseback riding at her grandfather’s ranch. Music also played a crucial role, particularly her harp.

“Music is a universal language that allows you to express emotions that words sometimes cannot,” she explained. “It was incredibly therapeutic for me.”

How Elizabeth Smart became an activist and advocate

Smart also emphasized the importance of immersing herself in new experiences. “Living life to the fullest gave me more memories to focus on beyond the trauma of my abduction,” she said.

In more than a decade of seeking justice for survivors, she’s been encouraged by how the public is “beginning to have more understanding of how common abuse and sexual violence are.”

“I feel like many of us are developing more compassion, more patience,” she said. “It’s becoming something that is talked about more, which I think is a major victory, because there has been so much shame and embarrassment attached to it in the past. The more we talk about, I think the more it allows people to heal.”

Smart hopes that in the future, it becomes an even bigger conversation.

“The national average of people who are sexually abused is about one in five,” she said. “In my home state of Utah, it’s about one in three––and these are cases that are reported. I actually think it is much higher than that. So, let’s put this in perspective. Let’s talk about sexual violence. Let’s talk about what your options are. Let’s create a world where we support our survivors.”

How Elizabeth Smart embraced resilience during and after her abduction

In Detours, Smart wrote, “There was nothing good about my trauma … The only good of my situation was the good that came from inside of me — from the things I learned about myself while in captivity and the choices I made after my rescue.”

“What Mitchell and Barzee did to me was terrible,” she added, “and in all that terrible I found that I was more resilient than I ever could have imagined.”

While speaking to Oxygen, Smart spoke about resilience, reflecting on how her past self might have seen things.

“If you had told me what was going to happen to me before it happened to me,” she said, “I would have said, ‘I can’t go through that. That’s too hard. That is asking way too much of me. I won’t survive that.’ But then when I actually was kidnapped, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t say, ‘I’m done. I tap out.’”

As Smart continued, “I had to keep on going, and I just think that is proof that we are all so much stronger than we think we are. We think of these experiences, and you think, ‘I could never go through that.’ But when you are forced to face that situation, you make it through each day, and then you realize: you are strong. You can keep going.”

Detours: Hope & Growth After Life’s Hardest Turns is available now wherever books are sold.