Wife, mother, attorney shares hardships to inspire others

SHREVEPORT, La. ( KTAL/KMSS ) – Hilary Wooley is an Ivy League-educated corporate attorney, married to Oscar-award-winning filmmaker William Joyce . She's also the mother of thriving teenage twins. She's living what some may call a real-life fairytale.

But it wasn't always this way.

"You can think of everything, every horrible thing that somebody could go through, through divorce, and I went through it," Wooley shared. "And it can happen to anybody."

It happened to her twice.

"After my second divorce I was a million dollars in debt, not kidding. It wasn't necessarily my debt, but you know community property, they have to come after somebody and it was me and I had to find my way out of that," Wooley explained. "I had to dig my way out of that, fighting with the IRS, trying to sell property and I was really grateful to have a career and education to help me."

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The importance of education was instilled in her and her three siblings throughout their childhood. Her father grew up in Mexico City, was well-educated and moved to the United States to further his education and career as a chemical and petroleum engineer.

"He just knew that education was important and he would always tell us 'La escuela te liberará', which means school will free you."

And it did. The single mom, with two young twins at the time, started over and eventually began sharing her story with others.

"I can't have gone through all of that just to have gone through all of that and say that was a really bad time. No, I learned something and I want to share it."

She has started sharing advice, wisdom and motivation on her Instagram account, Hilary Vanessa , Wooley is using her past not just to help others, but to also motivate herself.

"As I come across new hard things, you just use that to remind yourself, 'Oh, I did it before. Look at all those things I did before. This is going to be okay. I'm going to do it again."

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Through perseverance, prioritizing mental health and using hardship to serve others, Hilary has found happy endings are possible.

"My husband has been through incredibly hard times, losing a wife he loved very much, losing a daughter. When you go through those times and you find each other, you know that things can get better," Wooley said. "Even despite some of these hard times, life is still good."