Kerry Washington ON: How To Shift Anger Into Compassion, Shame Into Strength and Break Generational Trauma

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And if you don't want the spoiler, then turn off
the podcast now. My parents sat me down and told
me that.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Please get on that.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
For Kerry Washington, I am not a fantasy. You want
me earn me Behind the mask of these characters, I
actually started being able to express more of my truth.
My characters became this safe space for me to both
hide behind but also secretly reveal myself.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
you to join this community to hear more interviews that
will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed. All
I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
I love your support. It's incredible to see all your comments,
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on this journey with you. Thank you so much for subscribing.

(00:51):
It means the world to me.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
The best selling authoring host.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
The number one health and wellness podcast On Purpose with
Jay Shetty. Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm
so grateful that you lend me your ears every single day,
every single week, some of you multiple times a day,
multiple times a week. It means the world to me
that you show up here because you know this is
a place of happiness, healthiness, and healing, and I try

(01:16):
and have conversations here with individuals who are happy to
be open, be vulnerable, to share the journey that they've
been on. Some of it's full of successes and also failures.
Some of it's full of identity reflections and introspection, and
a lot of it goes into what the experience growing
up and how that's different from where they are now.
My goal is to get as close to the human

(01:38):
experience as possible so that each one of you who's
listening and watching feels seen, feels heard, feels understood, and
maybe you can find a bit of yourself and these
stories so that you can think about how you're going
to make that next decision, that next choice, that next conversation,
or that next interaction in your life. Today's guest is
someone that I met very recently, but we started talking

(02:00):
a couple of months ago, and from the moment I
spoke to her on the phone, her voice carried the
energy of her presence, and then when I got to
meet her in person just a few days ago, it
was like meeting someone who just oozes positive, good, sincere,
genuine energy. I really mean that. I felt it from
the moment I connected with her, and so I'm so

(02:21):
excited today to introduce you, of course to someone who
doesn't need an introduction, but Kerry Washington and any. Award
winning SAG and Golden Globe nominated actor, director, producer, and activist.
Kerry Washington has received widespread recognition for her role as
Olivia Pope on ABC's hit trama Scandal. In twenty sixteen,

(02:41):
Kerry launched her production company, Simpson Street, whose projects include
HBO's Confirmation, Netflix's American son Emmy Award winning ABC special
Live in front of a studio audience, The Fight, and
HU Lose Little Fires Everywhere. In twenty twenty two, Kerry
starred in digital interviews series Street You Grew Up on

(03:02):
YouTube which I just got to be a guest and
I'm so excited, and scripted podcast The Prophecy with Audible.
And now today we're talking about Kerry's new book, her
memoir Thicker Than Water. I've had the fortune of having
this book for the last couple of months and I
cannot wait for you to read it. I highly recommend
you go and grab it right now. Please, welcome to

(03:23):
the show. Kerry Washington, Hi, Carrie, thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
What an introduction.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, you had to live it all, you had to
do it all.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I'm so honored to be here. I feel like I've
heard you do that introduction for so many guests on
the show. I'm like, he's talking about me now.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I mean it. It's just you know. The reason I
do it and I think it's so important is I
think when you're living it, you often forget it.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's so true and it goes so fast.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
And I think that you're recognizable for so many different
things and so many incredible parts of your career and
your activism, your production, your acting. And I'm glad that
today we get to know the human behind all of
that which we do in this memoir so deeply, and
I want to dive straight in. I want to ask
you a question. What would you say is a childed

(04:18):
memory that stands out to you in that it defines
a lot of who you are today?

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh wow, what a great question. I feel like there
are a lot of them in here, but one. I
have a lot of pride about being the first girl
in my neighborhood to play all Sharks under Which is
that game? We played at the pool in my neighborhood.
Because I don't know. I think I come from a

(04:46):
line of really brave women. You know, when I think
about my grandmother being an immigrant and coming to this
country from Jamaica, and you know, being a young woman
looking at that statue of liberty and what it must
have meant for her to take on that adventure. And
I think about my mom and you know, the career
that she built, and you know, the education that she pursued,

(05:06):
and the risks that she took, even you know, in
terms of what I talk about in the book and
how she how I came to be in the world.
And so I think, you know, being a little girl
who was like willing to be one of the sharks,
you know, willing to play with the guys, willing to
jump into the deep end and challenge myself and be

(05:29):
one of the big kids and not be limited by
my gender or my age, or by the fear of
what the game was or the depths of the water.
I think that says a lot about kind of how
I've lived my life, that willingness to swim in the
deep end.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know. Wow, Yeah, what do you think gave the
women who came before you, that courage, that strength, because
I feel like a lot of the conversation around that
has of course developed more recently, sadly. But you see
these women who just always had this strength and resilience
and power despite it not being given to them or

(06:07):
opportunities not being shown to them. What do you think
brought them through all of that.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
It's funny because I think in a lot of ways,
like for women of color and Black women in particular,
we haven't had the you know, dare I say, privilege
of being like damsels in distress. No one was saving us,
no one was rescuing us. As Black women, particularly, you know,
with the diaspora and the history of slavery, We've always

(06:36):
been working women. We've always been resilient and strong out
of necessity, and I think there's something about that that
lives deep in my genetics, deep in my family history.
I think we talk a lot about generational trauma, and
there's definitely some of that in my story and some
of it I talk about, But there's also generational courage

(06:58):
and strength, and I think it's important for me to
embrace both, to see both as being part of who
I am.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, and it's almost like in a general sense, one
can't live without the other.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
That's right, And they kind of give birth to each
other a little bit too, right, Like the trauma causes
strength and that it's you become a survivor and then
you apply that wisdom. And I know that's true for me.
That you know, there's things I know that I am
who I am because of the things that I've had
to walk through. You know, I am as much who
I am because of all the extra hugs and love

(07:32):
and encouragement I got and because of the adversity. You know,
it's all, it's all part of it.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, it's so beautiful to hear it like that too,
to look at it as non binary.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. It's funny. When I
was coming here to talk to you, I was like, oh,
this is so different for me because I'm used to
doing interviews to talk about like a television show or
a movie, and I know, like I know what that
narrative is and I know what I'm selling, right, But
this is like I'm not really selling anything. I'm really
sharing and I don't have like an agenda for like

(08:08):
a piece of content. I'm really just like offering myself,
and so it's different. It's a very different process and
experience for me because I'm not translating my experience into
a character's journey like I'm the I'm the character. So

(08:30):
I bring that up to say, I've been thinking a
lot about the fact that there's a lot of complexity
and it's not binary. There's a lot of gray area.
There's not like there's no clear villain and there are
no clear heroes. And it's real life, you know. And
so I think i'm in talking about the book, I'm
gonna have to get really comfortable talking about those kind

(08:51):
of complexities because it's just not it's just not simple.
Nobody's life is simple.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah. Well, I think you do a really wonderful job
in the book elegantly and you know, gently share it
with everyone, the complexities of it. And what I did
is I have a few lines from the book that
really stood out to me, and I'd love to discuss those.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Okay, yes, of course, let me let me get comfortable
him and take my shoes off.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Ye's comfortables you like.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
You want to do it the book.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
I always find that the words that someone chooses and
the vocabulary they have and the language they used to
define experiences. And of course I want everyone to know
that we're only skimming the surface of what's in the
book or all the details in the book, and I
highly recommend you you turn to the book for more
of the context. But I think this will give people

(09:45):
a glimpse into the kind of places you go to
and you allow yourself to go to. So one of
the things that stood out to me in the book,
and I'm reading here only to make sure I don't misquote,
so you talk about how you suffered from panic attacks
at age seven, and in your words, you say, I
would force myself to try to have good thoughts. And

(10:07):
I was just thinking, did you know what a panic
attack was at seven? Were you aware? What did it
feel like? And why did you try to say good thoughts?
Like why was that dissolution and all those thoughts?

Speaker 1 (10:22):
No, I didn't know. I didn't have the language when
I was seven that it was a panic attack. It
was later in life, in my early twenties, when I
started having panic attacks again that I recognized that this
was something that's been with me for a long time,
on and off through the years, and I realized I
had been having them since I was that little kid,
and it felt like dread pulsing through my body, Like

(10:47):
I know, I described it as like this whirling, like
a spinning, like a rhythm I couldn't control, like a
rising heat, like a clenching in my throat, a fear
that felt like it was small enough to be in
every little cell, but big enough to drown in, you know.
And I just like, as I say that to you,

(11:08):
I have so much love for that little girl lying
in that bed, without the language to describe it as
I'm describing it to you, but still having to hold
space for the experience of it, the good thoughts, you know,
I think I sort of I think I describe it
that way in that moment as good thoughts because I
was seven and there was good and bad right. There

(11:29):
wasn't the nuance of like this is an opportunity or that.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
It just was like like this feels bad, right, Like
this feels really bad, and I want to feel good.
And I didn't, you know, I didn't know Louise Hay
at that time. I didn't I didn't know that. I
didn't know about affirmations, but I just would I knew
the sound of music. I knew the that you could
like think about your favorite things and maybe feel all right,

(11:56):
And so I just tried to think about things that
made me happy, things that brought me joy or a
sense of peace, and I would try to kind of
shut out the panic and make the volume of the
good things louder in my head.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
And at seven, where were those negative or bad thoughts
coming from? Like, where was that panic coming from? What
was the source of it?

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, I think a lot of it was, you know,
I talk about hearing my parents arguing in the other room,
but in general, there was this this sense of it's
a big word, and I'm going to say it and
then contextualize it. I think I felt unsafe. I was

(12:40):
safe in a lot of ways, and I was very loved.
We were you know, I was provided for materially. I
was wanted, I was appreciated, I was encouraged. But I
also knew, as I talk about in the memoir, that
there were things, there was information that was being kept
from me. I didn't know it consciously, but unconsciously I

(13:02):
felt like like I wasn't being given the full truth,
and that created in me this like a sense of
distrust and of longing for wholeness, like something felt incomplete
and unhold, it's not It's probably not the right way
to say it, but so I think the panic was

(13:24):
me trying to navigate the fear of like, what don't
I know? I don't even know what I don't know.
I just know I don't have everything I need to
feel safe.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I'm really glad you gave that context, because I think
that today when we hear the word unsafe, we think
it means physically right, and we think it means materially. Yeah,
but it's so interesting that those things can be taken
care of and you still feel an internal unease.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, yes, a disease like it was an emotion. I
wasn't emotionally safe. I knew that that's that's that's what
I knew somewhere deep down, and I didn't have a
way to confirm it, and I didn't even have a
way to ask about it. It just was this feeling,
and I didn't even know if I should trust the feeling, right,
because everyone was saying it's all good, everything's fine. So

(14:14):
I think that maybe a lot of the panic was
that I was, from early on being asked to disconnect
from my own sense of knowing. You know, I was
being taught from the moment I got to this planet,
from the moment that I was born, I was being
taught that I had to act as if the lie

(14:36):
was true, the lie of who my family was and
how we came to be. So I didn't really I
didn't know. I didn't know what I didn't know, but
I knew I didn't know something.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, And it's so interesting, right, I think that so
many of us feel that way, that our feelings when
we were younger were not validated or acknowledged, and we
weren't trained to do that, if anything, like in yours,
we were taught to reject or abandon, deny, and then
they don't just go away because of that. They often
come back in the future and we'll get to that,

(15:09):
but they come back in so many different ways in
our lives when you abandon your own truth. Yeah, at
the beginning of your life, and it's did you ever
feel that you were able to reconnect What helped you
reconnect with that sense of knowing again in the future internally? Yeah,

(15:30):
because I feel like that's something that you can remember
having knowing and then you can remember how you let
it go. Most people I speak to feel like they
never felt like they knew. And I don't think it's
because they never knew. It's because they let it go
of it so early that we forgot that we knew.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, it does, it does. I don't remember. I don't
remember knowing and then not knowing, but I remember learning
that it was more important to play along then to
fight for what I thought I knew. And then it
was like, Okay, it's the script that matters. It's like
this performance of this perfect family, like that's the priority,

(16:13):
and their feelings are more important than mine. Whoever the
day is. And then the day was like lots of
different people throughout my life. But I think one of
the first things, one of the first tools that helped
to bring me back to myself was yoga. It was
like the first, one of the first times that I
remember being still in my body in Shivasna at the

(16:36):
end of that first yoga class that I took in
high school and weeping because I felt really like present
in my body, like I wasn't trying to escape or
deny or quiet or I was just like fully present
in my body and it was terrifying because I was like,
I don't know if this is okay. It was different

(16:59):
from how I was taught to be, not like didactically taught,
but it was different from how I learned to be
to survive emotionally.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
How did that feeling transpire in other areas of your life,
that desire of like I'm going to perform, I'm going
to put up what people need me to do. Like,
did you find that manifesting in other areas of your
life or were you able to kind of go No,
that was just with my family, And.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
No, I mean I got really I got really lucky
because I found a career where I could perform, where
I could like this superpower that I had to kind
of shape shift and be whoever you needed me to be.
I started knowing how to do that in an audition
room and on a set and on a stage, and
I realized there actually was this place in life where

(17:47):
performing was the true goal and it was okay to
want to be somebody other than myself and to want
to step away from my truth to another person's truth.
Like that actually led me to a really exciting, adventurous,
abundant life. And then this weird thing happened where behind

(18:11):
the mask of these characters, I actually started being able
to express more of my truth. Right Like, in my
life with my family at home, I couldn't necessarily be
angry or express fear or insecurity. But if I was
playing a character, I could have all of those big,
intense feelings and it wasn't threatening to anyone. It was

(18:32):
actually rewarded. So my characters became like this safe space
for me to both hide behind but also secretly reveal myself.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
It's incredible how like something so stressful and uncomfortable turns
into a talent but also a healing Yes.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Right, it's really I'm so grateful that that acting led
me to be able to have more emotion vocabulary, more
willingness to actually feel my feelings and express them. And
I'm even grateful. I mean, it was how I stumbled
upon acting is that, you know, my mother is a
very stoic She's so elegant and like she's really somebody

(19:16):
who is not very expressive of her emotions because she's
she operates from here and is very dignified and stoic,
and so you know, because God has an enormous sense
of humor, she had this child, and I was just
like a walking id, just like feelings all over the place.
And God bless her because she's an educator. Rather than

(19:37):
just say like, stop having feelings, she was like, you're
gonna go to this children's theater company because I imagine,
you know, she was thinking, I don't know what to
do with all these feelings. You know as well as
I know my mother. She was kind of like, I
don't know what to do with you, but they'll know
what to do with you. And so she the amazing
educator that she is, she led me to spaces where

(19:59):
I could be expressive and energetic and emotional and she
could applaud from over here and not have to wrangle. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Absolutely, Yeah. And it's what I find so interesting when
I was reading the book too, is just recently I
saw that you mentioned how you have always been trying
to get away from acting there, yes, and that these
amazing opportunities keep coming your way. Explain that to us,
because I think what I love about this is kind
of what we're talking about since the beginning of this interview,

(20:28):
which is this texture and this complexity, which what appears
to be a paradox, Yeah, but actually that's the human
experience where you're like, I had this pain, acting was
healing me, but now acting something I've been trying to
move away from, but it's okay that that. So walk
me through the depths of that or the texture behind

(20:48):
that of like, why is it something that, despite it
being so healing and powerful and a safe space to
feel all of this, does it not feel like a
forever home.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Sometimes I'm super interested to hear what you think about this,
because some of this is the tension between the pure
art and craft of the work, the creative craft of
acting and storytelling and narrative. And I love that work.
I always love that work, even when it's really really hard.

(21:19):
I feel like, what a privilege, what a gift. It
feels like a true calling. I don't always love the
business stuff, you know. I don't always love the rejection
and the competition and the how hard it is to
get something off the ground I get something produced and
get something greenlit, or like, I don't always love I

(21:42):
love the making of it. I don't always love the
vulnerability of when it hits the airwaves and like the
criticism and the ratings and the reviews and so that
it's like the when I want to leave is when
it feels like the business parts of it, the kind
of worldly material parts of it, become too expensive to

(22:05):
my soul. It just feels like I don't I don't
want to have to navigate all that stuff, so I'm
gonna go find something else. It's like that great, you know,
the the Winston Churchill Brene Brown quote about like being
in the ring and you know what it is to
be in the ring, and that's that beautiful vulnerability. And
sometimes I'm like, I don't want to be in the ring,
like you know what, God like you can have the

(22:25):
ring like I'm good. I think I want to be
an observer and like, you know, be booing from the
crowd for once. Like not really, I'm not a very
generous viewer usually, but sometimes it's that It's like, sometimes
the vulnerability on the business side feels like too much.
Not the vulnerability on stage, not the vulnerability in front
of the camera, but the the stuff outside of the

(22:47):
creative craft. So that's when when that stuff feels like, oh,
it's taking over and I'm spending more time thinking about
how to win than I am about how to create.
Then I feel like I'm gonna go do something else,
something that feels purer, like teaching kids, or teaching yoga
or you know something, all the other things I've tried
to do. And then and then inevitably, you know, I'll

(23:11):
read and right when like I remember, I had I mean,
I really did not have money to burn. It was
early in my career, and I was like, I'm done,
I'm done, I'm done. I'm done. And I signed up
for a yoga teacher training. I got certified to teach
yoga when I was living in India, but this I
didn't have a certification in the States, and so I
signed up for this very fanciege of a yoga in
New York. Yeah, and so I was going to do

(23:33):
their teacher training. I just made my last payment and
then I read the script for Rey, and I was like, holy,
I have to do this movie. So that's what That's
what happens always is I get to the edge of
like eh, and then something beautiful calls me in, something

(23:53):
that feels like it's worth the work of the material
off the bs, the or just like the adulting, like
all that, you know, all that stuff, it's worth that
to be able to go back to that play and
that creativity and that that stuff where I feel like
my soul gets to be of service in a narrative.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
I think you're speaking the language of every true artist
and creative who feels that in a way that they
may not even have tried to push as far as
you have. Like you're someone who's achieved the peak of
your creative endeavors, right, You've made incredible box office films
like TV, like you've you've won in that sense in

(24:37):
your arty sort of and I mean in the in
the external material, like in the sense of like you're someone.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Who's but you see what I mean. Like when I
say sort of, it's because like there are awards I
haven't won. There are awards I haven't been nominated for.
There are like certain people who've made more money at
the box office the whole different records, Like and that's
a little bit of the part of what I do
that I don't love. I remember, in acting to you're
saying to me once, no matter what he does, Tom

(25:05):
Cruise is never gonna be Tom Hanks. He's never gonna
have like three years in a row back to back
Oscar nominations. He's never gonna have that, like he can
have born on the fourth of July, but he's not
gonna be He's not gonna have Tom Hanks's career. And
guess what, no matter what Tom Hanks does, he's never
gonna have Tom Cruise's career. He's never gonna have back
to back mission Impossibles and like hold all the box

(25:26):
off records and thirty years later be able to make
another Top Gun and have it be the nominator for
a Best Picture. Like they have different careers, but neither
is less valid, Like they're both winning. They've both won.
And that's part of the challenge for me is like
how to accept that this journey, my journey, is the journey.
It doesn't have to look like anybody else's, It doesn't
have to measure up according to anybody else's standard. And

(25:49):
I think for a long time because I wasn't comfortable
with myself, because I didn't really know my story, and
so I wasn't really living my story. I always like
I was the co star in somebody else's story, whether
it's at work or at home or whatever. That writing
this memoir was a little bit about like I got
that missing puzzle piece that helped me put myself at

(26:11):
the center of my story, and then I was like,
I want to do the work to write that. I
want to do the work to know what it feels
like to center myself so that I can make sure
that in this lifetime, I'm living my story and not
chasing somebody else's.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
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(27:53):
soul right now. Everything you're saying, I'm like, it's and
it shows right. I think when we feel like we
can really understand someone we don't know, or someone we
haven't spent a lot of time with, it means that
they understand themselves, because you know, when you're just at.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
That like humanity, that like naked truth of just what
it means to be human.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Exactly Like I'm listening to you, going, Wow, I think
everything you just said, Like, I think every creative person
I know has expressed some part of that to me.
I think there's parts of me that have grappled with that.
If you if you don't mind, I'd love to offer
you what you asked for earlier. And you were saying
you have to hear my thoughts.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Well, Yes, both as a coach, but also as somebody
who because I feel like I'm here, I should get
free coaching, but also as somebody who who is navigating
the combination of the material world and the spiritual world
and you know, living in both of those spaces.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, so from a from a coaching or even spiritual
perspective too, because all my coaching is of that type.
So the Sanskrit word for this is dharma, and dharma
very loosely can be put to purpose. But really what
dharma is is almost like an inherent calling that you
can't separate from yourself. It is so in deep alignment

(29:10):
and centered with who you are at the core that
even if you try and push it away, it just
keeps pulling you back. No matter what that is. And
that isn't an activity like It isn't a title like
I think today we think of like purpose or passion
as a job or a like CEO.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Is not a dharmae.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Exactly exactly CEO or actor or actress or podcaster or
author is that's not your dharma. It's like, you're an
artist who expresses yourself through many different ways. You've written
an amazing memoir, You've done TV, you produce, you tell stories,
you know, you have a you have two interview shows, podcasting,

(29:49):
scripted like those are just mediums. And but what I'm
getting to is that there's a part of you where
performance and the expression of emotion through performance is so
core to what helps you heal and live and breath
in whatever way it is. It doesn't always have to

(30:11):
be in a TV or a film. There's some part
of you that loves to express and loves to feel
in that way, and you can probably define it better
than me. And what I've found is that we're always
trying to escape that because usually in the same way
as you're saying, because of the business aspects that make

(30:32):
it seem dirtier, murkier, less pure, because it comes from
such a pure place. It's not coming from the place
of wanting to win, right, it's not coming from the
place of wanting to be the best. It's coming from
the place of like service service. Yeah, this just needs
to get out. And that's something that I've found that

(30:53):
it's really hard to shake that because it's almost like God,
the universe wants you to use that in the service
of others. And so I've rarely found so I've not
found anyone I think that's been able to extract their
durma from themselves because it is inextractable. Like it's it's

(31:16):
it's you, and it's.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
What your spiritual identity.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, it's your It's almost like what would be considered
your spiritual offering in the material world. It's what connects
you to that spiritual world in the material world because
without it, and again, by the way, this is not it.
I'm just calling it out. This is specific to carry
and this is different for everyone. If you did give

(31:41):
that up and you went off and tried all the
other things, which you've obviously tried, so you already know this,
I don't even need to tell you. You can try it.
And it's not that that isn't fulfilling. It's just that
there's this thing that just keeps pulling you back.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
The boyfriend you can't quear, boyfriend, you can't quear. That's
my drama.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, I think for me it might be some sort
of there's something about the expression of emotional truth. It
feels like my dharma is connected to holding space for
emotional vulnerability or emotional truth. And I think in some

(32:24):
ways that's why I grew up in a family where
truth was kept from me, because it's like I developed
like a heat seeking missile for like, I'm going to
find the truth. I'm going to know what it looks like.
If I can't express it here, I have to express
it here. It was like it was kept from me
so that I would learn to cultivate it and honor

(32:46):
it and hold space for it. And I like I
think about even when I'm working as a director, often
my note to an actor in a scene is like,
I just I don't believe you yet, right, Like I
want to believe you more. And I think there's something
about like I survived a childhood where I learned what

(33:06):
truth doesn't look like, and so I'm really aware of
what it does look like now, and I it's it's
so important to me.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah, that's no, that's so powerful. And it's it's almost
like that that's the acceptance that you know, even I've
had to make like I think for me it was
on a very deep level, the business or the systematic

(33:37):
approach to art, which you have to take if you
want your work to scale or you want your work.
Like you're saying the discipline, the discipline of it, or
the business the business of it. As you're saying the
parts that we don't enjoy, like there is actually what,
at least from a very Eastern spiritual perspective, would be
like that's the stuff that purifies you of the ego

(34:01):
that comes from art.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Ah. Yes, of course, of course it's I mean it's
funny because then when you say it, it's like, yes,
this is what you learn in the ashram, right, Like
this is what you learn in a yoga practice that like,
you don't get to have the transcendent moment at the
end of practice city and meditation until you do the
twenty sun salutations, Like they get you there, they open

(34:25):
you up, they they get you closer. It's that it
is the discipline that makes room for the the goodness.
If we just like woke up out of bed and
were immediately transcendent without any discipline, we probably I would
probably be a pretty horrible person to be around. I'd
be like, I'm amazing, everything comes so easily for me.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, or the opposite, where we end up in complete
like dullness and ruin, where we're like it doesn't work
and I can't do anything and I and it's it's
either all. And I've find that when you have to
reflect on the competitive aspect and purify that desire to
be competitive, it gets you closer to your truth when

(35:09):
you have to sit in it and go I don't
care if I'm not Tom Cruise. I'm happy being Tom Hanks.
I don't care if I'm not Tom Hanks. I'm happy
being Tom Cruise. That is the purification of getting you
closer to your truth. Whereas if you never had to
do that activity, you almost could live in ignorance, and
ignorance is bliss. Well, if that makes sense. Again, I'm
not saying I agree with how it's all done or run.

(35:31):
I'm saying that's how I think you're trying to operate
as a as a warrior on a war field, as
you know, like you're relishing the battle of it because
you notice that the battle is actually forcing you to
go more inward, because if you lived it outwardly, it's
just too much. Yeah, if that makes any sense. It

(35:52):
does anyway, So we got lost of that. Yeah, but no,
I really appreciate where we're going with this conversation because
I do think that that I think all of us
are caught within that battle for the truth and our
own lives and our own truth in different ways. Yeah,
this was interesting to me because I'm also picking out
things that I think a lot of our community and

(36:14):
audience can be. So there's one thing that said, being
busy is one of the ways I create a sense
of safety and control during times when I feel there
is none. Whenever that I was like, wow, the amount
of people that I.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Know to every workahol account there.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Litually and it's hard to even become aware of that
because there's joy in that and the how have you
allowed yourself to become less busy? Have you allowed yourself
to become less busy or what has that awareness led to?

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah? I do. I feel like it was this was
the period that I wrote this book. You know what
happened was about five years ago. My parents gave me
some new information, Yeah, about kind of about me and
our family and how I came to be, and it
that new information kind of turned my world upside down.
And it came at a really interesting time in my

(37:06):
life because I was just ending seven seasons on this
like crazy successful hit show playing an iconic character, and
I was in many ways asking like who am I now?
But I did have this fantasy that when that show ended,
I would suddenly have a lot of free time because

(37:27):
that show I was filming sixteen hours a day, you know,
I don't know, nine ten months out of the year,
and I was, you know, within the life of that show,
I got married and had two children, and now I
had three children, and my husband came with one, and
it was just like there was no downtime, and I thought,
when the show ends, I'll have some downtime. And I remember,
like a year after the show ending, I was like, oh,

(37:50):
I might be the problem. Like I don't think the
show is the problem, because I still have no downtime
and I am not the number one on the call
sheet of a hit primetime drama. But I was fine
other ways to fill my time and still finding moments
where I was feeling overwhelmed and overworked. And so I
really started to think about how I if I was

(38:13):
the problem, if I was the common denominator. If I
was the issue, then how could I also maybe be
the solution? And I think the truth is, I do
love to be busy, but I'm trying to check the
intention of what that busyness is about, so making sure
that I'm not saying yes to things because i just

(38:33):
want to be in a constant state of cortisol spikes
and you know, not getting enough sleep and just feeling
like I'm on a hamster wheel because then I don't
have to deal with some other stuff. I'm trying to
have the yeses come from purpose and passion and to
have more nose to say no more often so that

(38:54):
there's room to say yes for things that make me
feel not busy, but driven and generous and like I'm contributing,
you know, not just accomplishing, but really contributing, giving of myself.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
And I think that that feels like a tough, tough
thing to do when you've been such a high performing
person for a long long time and all of a
sudden you have to reevaluate what performance means yeah, and
what high performance.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Means yes, and even start to redefine what success means right,
Like I think it's like we say that these corporations,
like your success can't just be about the bottom line,
Like are you also thinking about diversity and inclusion? Are
you also thinking about the environment in your bottom you know,
and your definition of success? And I feel like I'm
trying to do that personally also, like think about success
in the material world, but factor into that success. My

(39:49):
life is a wife, my life is a mother, my
life as a daughter, And I think that too was
part of what made me want to write the book,
was to kind of be able to have the narrative
of my life really reflect on all of it. Because
when I sold a book Idea a few rite when
the show ended, I sold this book Idea that was like,
here are the ten things I learned about life from

(40:10):
this character. And my parents had just given me this
information about myself. But I was like, I'm not going
to deal with that. I'm going to go sell this
other book Idea. And that felt like a book I
could write because it was not really about me. It
was about the character and it was like very sticky,
cute life lessons kind of a book. But every time
I sat down to write that didn't feel honest. It

(40:32):
was like I have this new information, I have this
new curiosity, I have this new awareness, and if I'm
going to write something about myself, then it has to
be that. And I was like, well, I'm not writing that.
So I tried to give the money back to the
publisher and was like, I'm definitely not writing that. But
eventually I did. Eventually I was like, what if I
just try to write that? If I try to write

(40:54):
what the story is not just in terms of the
movies and the TV shows and the even not just
the activism and the leadership, but really like what it
might mean to feel like a successful human, like somebody
who's living in truth.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
You know, do you want to share and I know
the book goes into this in depth. Do you want
to share because you've referred to it a few times? Yeah,
the news that you received forty three Yeah, yeah, and
obviously you talk about it at length in a book,
but I'd love to give that to people so that
they have a context.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yes, And if you don't want the spoiler, then turn
off the podcast.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yes, this is the moment, it's a reveal.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
If you don't want it, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
And that's and I recommend that too, Like, yeah, don't
if you don't want to go over the next, skip
over the next minutes.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
As a fan, I know that, like you have those
time cads at the bottom, So just skip to the next.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
We'll put that on the time came skip now if yes? Okay.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
So so my parents sat me down and told me
that that my dad is not my biological father, that
I was from a sperm donor. And this was shocking
to me and also not right, like it was that
thing of like I was shocked because it was not

(42:13):
the story I had been told and not the story
we had been living. But also it made so much
sense to me because there had been this sense of
like I felt like I didn't know myself, and I
felt a disconnect with my parents, and I felt a
disconnect with myself, and I never knew what to ascribe

(42:34):
that to. I never knew why. And suddenly it was
like the pieces all fell into place. It was actually
like it was like there had been this beautiful puzzle
on the wall of our home that had this one
wrong piece in it, but it was close enough that
everybody just pretended that the painting was perfect, and everybody
was like, it's gorgeous, it's beautiful. If you got close enough,

(42:56):
you could see that there was a missing puzzle piece.
But since we all ignored, we all kind of forgot
about it. And when my parents told me, it was
like somebody finally took that wrong puzzle piece that had
been like jammed into place and pulled it out, and
we got to all be honest about like that piece
was wrong. And we don't even know what the missing

(43:16):
piece is because I don't know who the donor is.
But at least now the honest the painting is honest,
and I can maybe try to find that missing puzzle piece.
But even just to know that the painting now is
honest felt like a gift.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
And why did they wait till forty three? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (43:34):
I was younger than forty three, even I was like,
I was, yeah, like forty one.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Maybe.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
I mean my dad, if he had his brothers would
have never told me, which is in many ways like
infuriating but also so beautiful because to my dad I
am his and he is mine, and there's no point
in acknowledging any other truth. I mean, even to today,

(43:59):
he acknowledges it. He's had to come to terms with it,
but it doesn't matter. And in a really beautiful way,
like I am his and he is mine. He is
my dad, he will always be my dad. But if
he had his choice, we would You and I would
not be having this conversation, This book would not be
written like this would be We would just be living
in this other reality that which is you know I'm

(44:23):
his and that we belong to each other, which is true.
It's just there's more complexity, right, there's more nuance. It's
not a binary. It happens to be that like, yes,
we belong to each other, and there is this other
figure that is fifty percent of my genetics. They waited
to tell me. My mom said that she was going
to write a note for me and leave it in

(44:45):
a safe deposit box so that eventually, when they were gone,
I would have this truth. I'm so glad that that's
not what happened. I also wonder like when she was
going to do that, because at the point that we
were having this conversation, she had had cancer three times
and was like knocking on eighty So I was like,
exactly when was this note going to happen? Right? So

(45:07):
think I think it was hard. I think they didn't
intend to be duplicitous. Or they weren't trying to lie
to me. I think they It happened at a time.
I mean, my parents were way ahead of the curve.
There were no you know, when I was conceived in
seventy seven, seventy six, there were no sperm banks. This
was not something that people did. It was like a
highly experimental, very secretive thing. There was no frozen sperm.

(45:31):
It was like, you know, it was all very very
cutting edge, and they were innovators and ahead of their
time and risk takers, and nobody knew that forty years
later you'd be able to take a DNA test and
know where you come from. It just was like, this
is a secret we will take to our graves. There's
no point in telling her. We need to keep our

(45:53):
family unit together and we don't need to upset her,
and we don't need to embarrass our family. And they
eventually told me because I was going to do a show.
Skip Gates has a show on PBS called Finding Your
Roots where they research your family background and they do
it a lot through recordkeeping and census reports, but they
also do DNA tests, And so I told my parents

(46:14):
I was going to do the show, and they were
really excited, and then I handed them one of these
commercial DNA kits and my dad started having panic attacks,
and I was like, what's happening? And so eventually they
had to tell me why they didn't want to do
the show and what the truth of our family histor
it is.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Yeah, yeah, how have you trained yourself to be able
to I love what you said Earlier you were like,
he wouldn't have told me if it wasn't you know,
for this, but you would have found it infuriating but
also the most sweet and beautiful thing. And how have
you allowed yourself to accept two things existing at the
same time. Because there's a beautiful statement by f. Scott

(46:55):
Fitzgerald where he says that the paraphrase version is that,
you know, one of the greatest skills or talents of
the human mind is the ability to hold two seemingly
opposite ideas and allow them to coexist. Yeah, and that's
such a I feel like that's the art that's missing

(47:16):
in the world today, the ability to accept that something
can be painful and beautiful, something can be true and
untrue in certain ways. That and it feels like even
though you were like looking for this truth and this
puzzle piece, and you have every reason because you've known
it for your whole like it's so deep, like you
make it look so elegant, but inside your heart from

(47:36):
what you struggle. It's such a struggle to be like
what is this one?

Speaker 1 (47:39):
What is wrong with me? And what's wrong with my life?
And what is the secret?

Speaker 2 (47:43):
And yeah, and then you find it, but then you
still go. You have the grace to say, I understand,
like he is he is me and I am his,
like that beautiful statement that you just repeated twice there.
I'm just what has allowed you? How have you developed
that ability to let two truths coexist?

Speaker 1 (47:58):
I don't know where it comes. It comes throughout the book.
I see it interesting. I don't know where it was born.
I mean I do know. I think maybe one of
the first places that I started to think about it
consciously again weirdly, was in my yoga practice, right, because
you learn in yoga practice that you must have this
combination of being steady and strong but also flexible and yielding.

(48:24):
That that's the very practice of yoga only works if
you can tap into the surrender of each pose, combined
with the commitment and strength for each pose. So That's
one of the places where I think I started to
learn what that feels like in my body and think
about it. But you know, as I'm sitting here, even

(48:48):
just my commitment to say and to help my dad say,
it's okay for me to have two energies in my
life that represent father, right like that this donor this stranger.
I have no idea who this person is. There's a
whole team of people on the search, but I don't
know who this donor is. That that, but that person

(49:11):
because of the amount of genetic material that they've poured
into me and therefore all kind of coding, that person
represents some of the father energy in my story and
in my life. But my dad is my dad, right
like he's also he represents the father energy in my life.
He is the man who raised me and he has

(49:34):
loved me like a father, and he is also father.
So you know, even just like there's no way for
me to live my life without embracing those truths. It
just is the fact of my life. Maybe there's something
about also like giving myself to these characters and like
any one time having to be like one hundred percent

(49:56):
that character and also one hundred percent me that dance
between like losing myself and coming back to myself and
having space to be carry but also Olivia or whoever
that might be part of it too. I don't know,
but I do I know that at times I've seen
this as a weakness, that I that I'm not more

(50:18):
decisive or more have more critical thinking skills. But I
do think it's it is just a part of me
that I hold on to multiple truths.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Yeah. I would say that my humble observation, just from
our conversation and reading your work, is that your quest
for the truth has actually ended in finding truths.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Oh yes, right, right, because that's right right, Like I
feel like I'm finally able to tell my truth. But
there's also this awareness as I sit across from my
parents that like, this is not the book they would
have written, and their book is no less true. It's
just that's their truth and this is mine. Yeah. That's oh,

(51:03):
that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Yeah, And it's like that core of just being it.
I don't know, there's something beautiful in seeing you find
your truths and being like, oh, there's actually so many
more and there's so many versions, and that almost is
more comforting and kind of reassuring that the version you
have is not untrue. As you were saying earlier. At

(51:25):
the beginning, you were like, I was taught to abandon
my truth. That's right because again someone had said this
is the truth.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
It's right because the other truths were too threatening. It's funny.
I talk in the book about how when my parents
told me, you know, I had spent my whole life
saying I love you to my dad, and it was true.
I loved my dad before this revelation. But when I
got this information, in that moment, I understood that this

(51:51):
was an opportunity for a different kind of love between us,
because he had only heard me say I love you
on the condition of a lie up until that point.
Up until that point, every time I said I love you,
it was passing through this veil of pretending. And so
there was a part of his unconscious that was made

(52:13):
to believe because she thinks I am her biological father,
she loves me. And once I had this truth, I
knew I now have the opportunity to show my father
what it feels like to actually be loved unconditionally. From
this point on, every time I say I love you,
it's despite this truth that you thought was too horrible

(52:33):
to bear.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
That just that.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
It felt like such an opportunity for healing. You know,
for us to be in the messy truth and still
say I love you is so much better than to
be in the pretending and to be loved, because when
you're pretending and you're loved, then you're loved for your pretense.
You're not loved for your humanity.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
And you can just imagine what that felt like to him. Yeah,
it's had Wow that everyone's just going to replay that
part again and again and again because no, that's the party,
no spoilers in that part, just listen because that is
such a that is such a beautiful point gerry, like
that is that is so powerful.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
What we all deserve, It's like we it's what we
all crave, I think is to be able to like
be our true selves and for that version of us
to be loved, not the version where we put on
the fancy clothes or it's like me at my most naked,
most honest, most vulnerable. If I'm still loved, then then

(53:35):
that's real love. If I have to work or to
deserve the love, then it's it's not based on me
you know.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, because you said in the book before we got
onto that I was going to read these parts where
you talked about when I started talking about my family
and therapy for the first time in college, my concerns
and complaints were exclusively about my dad, and you talk
about how different we were, how often we disconnected, and
you said, like many eighteen year olds, I thought I
knew everything and my dad do nothing, which is so true.

(54:10):
And then you go on to say, even as a
young child, I felt that I was never who my
dad needed me to be. I knew he really wanted
a son and that they weren't having any more children.
I got the sense that I could soften the blow
somehow by being a daughter, was prettier or smarter, or
braver or more successful. But even that didn't work. What
do you think that wasn't working? What's that part? Like?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
I think what I was picking up and interpreting as
me not being enough was really the disconnect between us
caused by lack of truth. There was always like a moat,
an emotional moat, between who I was and who my
parents were. Like I would watch my mother interact with

(54:51):
girlfriends of mine friends, I would being home from school,
and people would tell my mother everything. People were so
close to my parents, and I always felt like there
was a little bit of arm's length, and so, you know,
as a kid, I thought that must be me. It
must be that I'm not good enough or pretty enough,
or successful enough, or thin enough or whatever it is

(55:13):
accomplished enough. And so I thought, maybe if I'm better,
if I do more, if I accomplish more, if I'm busier,
then maybe I'll be able to cross the moat. But
the moat had nothing to do with me. The moat
was their own protection. Because you know, I realize now
in hindsight, I would say, like so many people are
like best friends with their mothers, They talk to their

(55:33):
mothers every day, my mother could never afford to be
best friends with me because there was a secret that
she was never going to reveal to me. You can't
be intimate best friends with somebody who your fundamental truth
of who they are. You're keeping that from them. So
I was interpreting this emotional distance as being my fault,
as being me not being good enough, But really it

(55:56):
had to do with them trying to manage the relationship
so that they could protect me from something that they
thought I wouldn't be able to handle or just that
would kind of destroy my sense of self or our
sense of family. So it was this loving act on
their part of trying to keep me okay and keep
our family okay. But it did cause this break and
this schism between us and I just I thought I

(56:20):
could fix it. I thought if I could be better,
I could fix it. And it was in learning the
truth of this revelation that I was able to say, like, no,
I'm okay, I'm enough. It wasn't about me. And now
now I talk to my parents every day, like now
it's a different The greatest gift of these few years

(56:40):
and even writing this book is that I am so
much closer to my parents than I have ever been before,
because now there's nothing to hide from each other, there's
nothing to there's nothing we're trying to protect each other
from anymore. There's no more performance, there's no more pretending,
and so now the intimacy is so real.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Yeah, and it's almost like you want that for everyone,
but you know how hard it is, it works.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
It was it was you know, we went into family
therapy for a while. Yeah, all four of us, my parents,
my husband and I we would we like unpacked a
lot of this together, and to be on the other
side of that, it's extraordinary, you know. I talk in
the book about how during the pandemic my mom was
diagnosed with cancer again and this time around, how I

(57:30):
was able to be present for her and with her
because there was no longer in arm's length, there was
no longer this moat between us. It was the greatest
gift to really be able to feel like I now
in this moment when we're faced with mortality, like I
really know her and she really knows me, and I

(57:51):
know myself now. To bring myself to this relationship fully,
it just it was the greatest gift.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
And it must feels now that if you are to
continue playing roles and performances, that you know who you
are already, so you couldn't lose yourself in a role.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Or Yeah, I think they'll be. I'm excited I've had
I've taken on different characters since getting this information, and
it feels like I'm able to go deeper. It feels
like I'm able to bring more of myself and my truth.
I'm more connected to myself, and it's been it's allowed

(58:31):
me to really have a deeper level of emotional truth.
That's what I think about when I watch certain performances.
You know, in the last five years, I think I'm
able to bring more courage, more more personal knowing, more
vulnerability because I'm not operating out of fear anymore. I'm
not looking to these characters to fix me or to
teach me about myself. I'm actually able to devote myself

(58:55):
to them fully. And I've thought a lot about It's
so funny because when you're interviewing, you'll see eventually, when
you're interviewing for all these schools with your kids, they'll
ask you like how the kid was born, or like
the circumstances of their birth. Like to enter into like
a preschool, You're like, what are you talking about? And

(59:17):
why is that any of your business? They're here to
learn their ABC's right. But there's so much imprinting that
happens to us in utero, and I do think it's
so powerful for us to go back and uncover the
story of who we are and how we came to be.
It's why you know street you grew up on. It's

(59:37):
like that, like what is your once upon a time
and I thought about it a lot in thinking about
my story, because I think I've thought, like, how afraid
my mother must have been here. This woman was like
carrying a baby that she had no idea. She had
no idea where the sperm came from. Back then, there

(59:58):
was no fancy catalog to tell you what college they
went to or what, like nothing. The two things they
said to her doctor were like, we'd love him to
be healthy, and we'd love him to be black, because
if he was black, then they wouldn't have to tell people.
It could remain a secret. But she must have been terrified,
and she knew also, like as she was carrying me,

(01:00:21):
she began carrying a secret that she was going to
carry for four decades. And so I was like, my
twin was shame, Like I was in utero with shame.
We were growing together like in this pact of secrecy.
And she literally never told a soul my parents, she's
she has four sisters. She just told them this year,

(01:00:42):
this spring. She never told her best friend. She never
told anyone. They are literally telling people now because they're like, listen,
this book is coming out, and I want you to
hear this thing from me, so that fear and shame
that was growing inside her. That was the soup that
I was stewing in, you know that I was cooking in.
And I think we get born with those with that

(01:01:03):
identity and we get to navigate it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Yeah, you know, thank you for sharing that part too,
because it makes sense with when you said you wish
you were not an only child and your parents responded,
you were long wished for a child. You are not
easy to conceive, and like that idea of just it's
that beauty if they wanted you so bad.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Even when I joke about my dad's you know, his
unwillingness to deal with the truth of how I came
to be right, Like, it's so beautiful, not just because
it's a testament of how much he loves me. But
when my parents sat down across from that doctor, they said,
you have two options. Looking at my dad's firm, you
have two options. You can either adopt or you can

(01:01:47):
try this new thing, artificial insummination. Right, And it was
my dad's ego, It was their desire to keep a
secret that made them che artificial insemination over adoption. So
if my parents hadn't had that ego, if my dad
hadn't been navigating his pride, I literally wouldn't be here.

(01:02:10):
There'd be some lucky kid who would have been adopted
by them and raised by this beautiful couple and all
the stuff they were navigating. But it was actually their
pride and secrecy that put me on this earth. So
I have to be grateful for it. I have to
be grateful for their stuff, their you know, the the
emotional stuff that they're navigating, because it was my pathway

(01:02:31):
to being on this planet.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Well, I find that I said this to you when
we met the other day, when we did the street
you grew up on, which I really felt was such
a gift. And if anyone who's listening or watching, I'm
sure you wretch you already, but if you haven't, go
and subscribed to Carrie's YouTube show, because I found it
to be such a gift to go back there. You've

(01:02:54):
written a memoir now, so you've come back. Yeah, I've
never written one, but I find that of going back
there like you reminded me of so many things that
I completely forgot.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Yeah, it was so fun to watch you have these
revelations about where you come from.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
So many things that you just your memory is such
a fascinating thing in and of itself. But I said
this to you that day when I saw you, and
I'm repeating it now because I want my I said
it offline to you, but I want my community to
hear it. I found your take on your challenges so
refreshing and unique because you'd be valid in just being upset,

(01:03:36):
and there's nothing wrong with that, And if it was
someone else who was I it's so valid. But then
when you hear someone who's seeing it from multiple perspectives,
And there was also this the most challenging part of
this book to read was when you talked about the
encounters you were having while you were sleeping, and even
in this and I'll let you explain it, but even

(01:03:58):
when I was reading through that, I was just like,
how I always carry even explaining this, with so much
compassion and so much grace, And I was like, you
just have this capacity to hold pain and compassion at
the same time. And I think that that is so rare,
and I just want to acknowledge it and honor it.
That's not a weakness at all. I think it's really powerful,

(01:04:20):
like to be able to do that. And when I
was reading that, I was just you were blowing my mind.
I was just like, how is a human? I really
find that? You know, you read about people who've gone
through some of the most horrific things in the world
and they live that way, and then yeah, I was
in awe of reading that, honestly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Like, yeah, I think when I'm as I'm listening to,
I think the danger for me has always been in
not having the anger part right right that That's It's funny.
It's like the compassion comes more easily, Weirdly. I don't
know if it's the people pleasing or the being an
only child or whatever it is. The maybe it's being

(01:05:01):
an artist, but the compassion part comes first. The journey
for me has been allowing myself to have the anger,
allowing myself to create healthy boundaries for myself, to allow
for the pain and the grief at times, and then
to still make room for the compassion. That's what I felt, Yeah,

(01:05:24):
to be able to like hold space for both. And
I think a lot of it is selfish. I don't
want to be a person who operates from toxicity. You know,
when I'm carrying when I'm only operating from resentment, it's
poisoned for me to hold space for loving myself and
loving other people in all of our imperfection is for

(01:05:48):
me what feels doable. It actually helps me have more
grace for myself when I'm able to have grace for
other people. And I talk about that pemicial idea of
like the person that causes you the most pain, that's
the person that sat with you in heaven before you
came to earth and said, like, I love you so much,

(01:06:09):
I'm going to be the one that hurts you, that
forces you to grow. I love you so much, I'm
going to be your enemy that teaches you what love
looks like. And I think, I think we are really
really all doing the best we can. And when I'm
not able to have compassion, my life is like this hose, right,
and the emotions are coming through the hose. If I

(01:06:30):
choke the hose from compassion for somebody else, I choke
it from myself too, And I just I want to
let it run free. I want to let the goodness
go through so that I'm able to give it to
myself and others because we're all really just doing the
best we can. And that looks like a lot of
different ways for a lot of different people, and it
doesn't mean that in my compassion and forgivesness that I

(01:06:54):
have to engage with everybody all the time, right, Like
having healthy boundaries is also important, but I want to
I always want to leave myself open to grace because
I need it for me too.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
I love that idea of how when we're choking a
life or someone else with compassion, you're actually blocking it
from yourself. That's and that's what I meant. It was
not a naive compassion I was reading of. It wasn't
a It didn't come across as a people pleasing or
oh I'm just protecting and you know, it didn't. It

(01:07:29):
didn't feel like that. It just really felt like a
realized version of that, and that's even harder.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
I think some of that, too, honestly comes from the acting,
because you're taught early on that you to play a character.
You can't judge your character, like when you're playing a
bad guy, you can't think of it as a bad guy.
It's some of my favorite stories and my favorite narratives
are these like origin stories for the villains, you know,

(01:07:54):
like Kruella and the Joker, like these these. I love
that because I feel like it's really true that hurt people,
hurt people, and villains come from somewhere, And so as
an actor, you learn that when you're playing a character
who does something awful, you better figure out why. You
better figure out what it is that caused this person

(01:08:16):
to make those choices, because it's not going to be
real if you don't do that, you're just going to
be like some arch stereotype of a bad guy. If
you want to be a human being who's doing something awful,
figure out the why, what's at stake, What is that
person afraid of, what is that person needing, what is
that person longing for? How was that person abused? And

(01:08:37):
so I've I've had to learn compassion even just for
my characters. Or maybe I'm drawn to playing complicated characters
because I really love to cultivate compassion. I don't know,
but it's definitely a part of kind of the culture
of how I approach my life and my work.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
It sounds that you're you're such a seeker of the
truth in spiritually in your life and you work what
is it that you're seeking now at this point in
your life, Like, what is it that you're trying to learn?
Or be curious about.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
I think this next little chapter, which is like beginning
right now, I'm learning to be in my truth publicly
and to see what that feels like and what impact
it has on me and my family. Because it's so
new for me. I've been so private, as you know,

(01:09:28):
a person in the public eye. I've really not talked
a lot about myself. So I'm really trying to be
curious about what this experience feels like and how it
changes me. I'm curious about who my donor is, so
that's it feels like another part of the quest. But

(01:09:50):
I'm also aware that that lack of information also feels
like information, like the fact that they universe hasn't given
me this answer of like this is who he is?
This is It feels like an invitation to move into
deeper relationship with the family I come from, my family

(01:10:12):
of origin, right like that I have this new kind
of truth with my parents, a different kind of truth
with my kids, like telling my kids about you know,
my parents and how I came to be all of that,
but also into a deeper relationship with like like a
spirit father, you know, like father time, like the archetype

(01:10:33):
of father, like a heavenly Father like to lean into
my connection to a higher power as bringing me those
fatherly things, that sense of belonging and safety and being
cared for that I'm I'm interested in this opportunity to
cultivate that in my spirit world because I don't have

(01:10:56):
it in the material world. I have it, but I
don't have it fully. I have these you know. I
have my Dad who was incredible and wonderful, and I
have this mystery Donor. So I have father energy, but
there's a deeper security that I can seek, I think
in my spiritual practice.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
So beautiful, What was your intention in your career to
be Was it intentional to be private? And what are
you hoping that the public aspect that you said you
were seeking to figure out? How it's what was the
intention behind going in that direction.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
It's funny because it feels accidental. I mean, really, I've
always I decided at a certain point in my career
I had been in a very public relationship. It was
very public engagement, and when that ended, I was like,
I don't think I want to give this much information
to the press ever again. And my husband and I
were of the same feeling when we met. We were

(01:11:56):
very private the whole time we were dating. When we
got married, people were like, what, Like we didn't even
know they knew each other, like very And this was
at the height of both of our careers. He was
like on the cover of Sports Illustrated and I was
on this hit show, and we wound up somehow having
this very secret, private courting and marriage. It was so beautiful.

(01:12:16):
I remember when I called my parents to tell them
I was pregnant. They were like, so you'll tell people
like when the kids in college, like they were. I
was like, probably so. It just it has felt like
a way to protect the people that matter most to me.
But my parents have always been a part of my
public identity because you know, I don't I didn't need

(01:12:37):
to protect my relationship with my parents, and they're not children,
you know. I keep my kids off social media because
I feel like they should make decisions about how they
and there are a lot of ways to do it.
There's no right or wrong, but for us, I feel
like my kids should be of an age where they
know how they want to enter that social media space.
I don't want to make those decisions for them, but
my parents are old enough to make those decisions. So
I kind of started posting more with my parents because

(01:12:59):
I was like, I got to post something, right, So
I would post my dog and post my parents, and
I was doing these dad jokes with my dad, and
my dad became a bit of a celebrity on my Instagram.
And so then when I got this information, I was
suddenly like, oh, I am complicit now in a lie
because I'm out here perpetuating this truth that's not my

(01:13:21):
whole truth. And so suddenly I was like, I didn't
want to keep a secret the way my parents had
kept a secret, because I don't feel like there's anything
shameful about this. I don't feel like there's any reason
to not talk about it. So part of the telling
of the story was like, this is a way for
me to be corrective and just not feel like I'm

(01:13:42):
perpetuating a lie that I didn't even know I was
lying when I was doing it. But now I want
to just be transparent, so we'll see. I don't know,
it's very new for me to be this open, but
I guess I also just there's a saying that we're
as sick as our secrets, and I want to offer

(01:14:03):
healing to my parents and to our relationship by not
having it be in the dark, by speaking the truth
of our journey and of my journey in particular. One
of the things that's been really wonderful about as I've
shared the book with people is that people immediately tell
me their family secrets, like immediately. It's so funny, and

(01:14:25):
so I've realized, like all families have them, and people
feel less alone when they read the book because this
person who has been so private and I really have
kind of maintained a certain level of Hollywood, like this
is who I am, and I'll let you in only

(01:14:45):
this much, and to let people in more, to allow
that level of vulnerability helps me feel less alone. But
I think also is helping readers feel less alone.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
Yeah, I believe that for sure. And I love that
that's what's happening as a response to the book, because
how beautiful it would it be if every friend who
picks up this book and shares it with their friend
is now able to open up about something that they've
been holding on.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
To let go of shame and to let go of secrets.
And that's what I want for people to And also
I think it's important to see to see where we
are as a family, right to know that we're closer
than ever, that this revelation actually wasn't the fracturing of
my family, that it actually was the birth of our

(01:15:33):
true intimacy and closeness with each other. And for me,
like a real beginning of a sense of like I
don't have to hide. I can now really do and
be anything.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
So empowering to hear that, Yeah, it's very.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Liberating, very liberating, liberating. Yeah, I think that's part of
it too, is like if people find out that this
is the real deal of how I came to be
in the story of my family, I wanted to own
the narrative. I didn't want anybody else to be able
to tell my story. I wanted to be able to
tell my own story, to claim it and to have it,

(01:16:10):
to know that it was mine, that it is mine.
I'm still living it. This is definitely like Act one,
there's more to do and B, but it's mine.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Yeah. There's this beautiful line that you say you're talking
to a therapist about it, and then you explain it,
and it says, when you teach a person to believe
that their internal truth is a lie, you take from
them the very thing that is most important to each
of us, our ability to know and trust ourselves. And
I can only imagine how much you trust yourself now

(01:16:43):
so much more.

Speaker 1 (01:16:45):
It's true that I guess that's why I keep saying
like I'm so curious about who I'll be on the
other side of this chapter, like once this is out there,
because I do feel like I trust myself more now,
I understand myself more, I try myself. I feel stronger,
I feel liberated. I feel like I have more capacity
for compassion, more capacity to love myself, more understanding of myself,

(01:17:09):
more capacity to understand and love my parents, and therefore
more capacity to understand and love friends and other family
members and my kids. If we are as sick as
our secrets, then I am getting healthier and healthier every day,
you know. So I'm grateful for that because I want
to offer that to my kids and to myself and

(01:17:31):
to my parents. We deserve that, you know. That's what
this community is about. It's about health and happiness. And
that's like to be able to know that truth can
lead to that, because sometimes the truth seems so scary.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
It's not that my parents were being mean. They were afraid,
but that you can walk through that fear toward a
deeper healing in truth is really what I want people
to know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Can I ask a practical question, basically what you just said,
how did you talk about this to your kids? Because
I can imagine that that's scary because it's a lot
for them. Yeah, they're still young.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
But you know what, it's a lot. It's a lot
less scary for them because my kids have grown up
in a world where half of their friends are born
from surrogate moms or donor eggs or donor sperm or
like they have friends with two dads, friends with two moms,
Like they're not up against some of the like constricting
conservative ideas of who families are and how they come

(01:18:28):
to be that my parents were battling forty years ago,
forty plus years ago. So it's a different conversation with
my kids. It's kind of much more normal. I'm like,
I'm just like ahead of the curve. But it's also
very different. Like the conversation we had with our seventeen
year old was very different than the conversation with my
six year old, right, like super different. And that's part

(01:18:50):
of it is I and in general, and when it
comes to this kind of like advanced information, we try
to be led by their questions, offer them a little
bit of information, and then ask them what questions they have,
because I don't want to overwhelm them with information, but
I always want them to know that they can ask
me anything, anything, anything, anything, There's no bad answers, no

(01:19:13):
wrong answers, nothing you can't ask, and that the door's
always open, so you know, like my seventeen year old
had more questions, my six year old had zero questions.
My nine year old had a couple of questions and
then was onto the next thing. But they for them,
it's not a huge deal. And also it's not a

(01:19:34):
huge deal because fundamentally, my dad is my dad. Like
that's the big thing is that nothing has changed. There
there's more information and I'm going to learn more about
who I am, and therefore they're going to learn more
about who they are. But the bottom line is my
dad is my dad and that's not changing, So they
have that security.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
I love that. That's beautiful, Kerrie. We end every on
Purpose episode with a final five. Yeah, I want to
ask you before we do that, is there anything I
haven't asked you about that's on your heart, that's on
your mind, that you really want to share, that you
want to dive into, that you want to talk about
that we haven't covered today for whatever reason, And so
I just want to give you the floor and ask
you if there's anything that you've really wanted to share

(01:20:16):
that doesn't have to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
Be Was it surprising to you how much time I
spent in India?

Speaker 2 (01:20:21):
Yes, we should talk about that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Yeah, yeah, sure, I.

Speaker 2 (01:20:26):
Had no idea, uh huh. And I was like, yeah,
You've definitely been private because I feel like India is
such a big part of my work and my heart
and my spiritual home that I love when people have
spent time in India.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
It's such a special place. Yeah, it lives so deeply
in me. I really want to go back, and I
want to bring my family, and even my husband is like,
I have to go because it's so much a part
of you. I do feel like, you know, when I
talk about the street I grew up on, it's Pugsley
Avenue in the Bronx. But I also feel like Carola

(01:21:00):
raised me. You know, it was the first place I
lived when I left the cocoon of college, right when
I was really into like college is over, You're like
for real and adult. Now you're on your own. And
I walked into that in India, which is like the
most magical of places. So I'm really really grateful for

(01:21:23):
that place and I hope that I can spend more
time there.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
How many times have you been back only that the.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
Yeah, yeah, I would love to go back. Do you
go back often?

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
I go back every year? You do?

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
And where are you?

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
So I'll go to the ushroom that I spent time in,
which is in Mumbai, and then two hours outside of Mumbai.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
How long do you stay there?

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
I'll be there for It varies, like this time I'm
going for I'm going to another pilgrimage this year in
West India and that's for around a week to ten days.
And then in January, I'm going back to the ushroom
that I was in for like two weeks. Wow, And
so it varies. Sometimes I go back for three weeks,
sometimes it's been a month.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
And do you just like set aside that time a
year ahead on your calendar?

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
I try to, Yeah, I try to make it a
time that's always in and that it's a time to
completely disconnect. So I won't be on my phone. We
prep content in advance so that I don't have to
think about the podcast or social media. I just want
to be fully disconnected.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
With your wife.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Yeah, she comes with me. Yeah, and it's really fun.
We love doing it together. That's a really beautiful way
of just both of us getting a reset, and if anything,
she makes us do it even more than I do
now where she's like, you know, she loves it and
it's such a We sometimes take our family, We take
our parents. Yeah, it's really beautiful for them as well.
We just feel like doing more spiritual things together as

(01:22:47):
a family is just so deeply bonding in a different ways,
so important for our connection. Yeah, we find that taking
her parents and mine is a big part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
Is it hard are you to transition in and out
of Like when you get there, do you miss the
secular life? And when when you're leaving, are you like, okay,
I'm done? Are you like, oh I wish I could
stay longer.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
I think one of the greatest, greatest, greatest skills that
Monk training gave to me was the ability to just
be where I am and be okay with it and
then move when it's done. And so I find that
as long as I know why I am where I am,
and as long as I know it's intentional, then I

(01:23:31):
feel very grateful that I can wake up and just
feel and where I'm meant to be. And I think
that was all because of the way we were trained
where you weren't nowhere was more home than anywhere else.
And that's like a really interesting training because most of
the time were trained to be like, no where your
home is, no where your roots are. But this was

(01:23:52):
almost like, well, if your roots were here, then you
were always at home. That if you were aligned here,
then you were always centered and ground You didn't you
didn't need an external thing. Now that doesn't mean today
that I don't like having I love my home here
and I love feeling grounded here. And yes, do I
feel more happy when I'm here than in a hotel room. Sure,

(01:24:12):
But I don't feel I wake up without purpose in
a hotel room if I'm there for a reason or
when I was touring this year, or whatever it may be.
And so I think I look at purpose as my home,
or at least at least as a mindset and an approach.
So I feel like I can kind of switch back
on and off.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
I've never done a book tour before. Do you have
any advice for me?

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Well, I'm excited watching your book jog. I was trying
to join you. My schedule is nuts, and I was
it looks amazing. You've got so many amazing guests or
any yore like. I can't wait to hear the conversations
that come out of it and the things that other
people share. You should ask every person to share a secret.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
Family secret, because that'd be amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
You can't imagine the healing. But my my only advice,
which I mean you've done, You've been on set for
months and you've tried. I mean you don't need my advice,
but for whatever it's worth, I there were two things
the first and one's external. One's intern. Okay, the external
is my health was my number one priority because it's
so easy to for sick when you're traveling.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Down Practically what did that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
And practically that meant having a routine, even though it
wasn't my routine.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
Here tour routine.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Yes, so I slept at two am because I'd get
off stage at like ten thirty. I'd do a meet
and gree I'd be amped. I'd eat at midnight and
then i'd sleep at two am. I'd wake up at
nine am, so I'd get seven hours of sleep. I
didn't go on a walk around the city that I
was in with my te yeah, with my tour manager
or with my team, whoever's with me. Would just go

(01:25:40):
on a long walk, get like ten to twenty thousand
steps sometimes, like just really get active, yeah, and be
in the place, because we weren't really in a place
for longer than a night. So I was like, not
that I wanted to see the city, but I was like,
I want to be outdoors. I don't want to be
in a gym or you know, I don't want to
get lost in that sit That was really great. And
then I would eat breakfast at nine and then lunch

(01:26:01):
at twelve, and then I wouldn't eat again and I
would just I was allowing myself to just be on
stage at night, and in the sense of like I
was like, I don't need to achieve more because I
was starting off like being on stage. We'd start a
meditation at three at three pm, and then I wouldn't
get off stage until ten thirty and finished till midnight.
So it was just like my nine hour work day

(01:26:22):
started at three pm, and so allowing myself in the morning,
I don't need to rush to meetings, I don't need
to be on a million phone calls. I just need
to focus on being present because then I can give
people the best experience and honor that experience. So it
was a very like disciplined approach and really to take
it all in, like, I'm sure there's going to be tears.

(01:26:43):
I'm sure there's going to be laughs. I'm sure people
are going to want to hug you after this and
share this story. And it's like I look back and
I think of like when, and it's what you were
saying that as your life becomes more public, there's, as
you know better than anyone, there's there's scrutiny, there's criticism,
there's whatever. I found that the love I got from
my community when I was traveling was enough to keep

(01:27:05):
me afloat for all the times and all well, it
feels the well of all the other stuff that comes
and goes. You get to see people's eyes, and you
get to see someone look into your eyes and say
this book chang change your life whatever, and people are
going to say that to you, like people are gonna
have their stories of what you've discovered, and just getting
to hear that from people and see people say it.
People have been fans of yours for so long and

(01:27:26):
you've probably never heard them say in this intimate way.
People have loved your characters, not you. Yeah, And so
just taking it all in and allowing yourself to be
present with it. So the external thing is the discipline
of your health, and the internal thing is allowing yourself.
I think sometimes we're so aware of like ego and

(01:27:49):
worrying about whatever it may be and being modest. And
I was just like, you know what, I'm just going
to soak up all the love, just taking all the love,
Like whenever I allow myself to just really receive the love.
And I need it too. I need to be nurtured
by love. Yeah, why am I deflecting it or whatever?
Just just take the love.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Like it's so funny when you say that, because when
I was reading your book, which is just like a
full on study of love in all of its forms,
I felt like in so many ways it was like
my memoir is like your book in the wild, Like
it's so many concepts that you talk about in terms
of forgiveness or partnership or vulnerability, Like it's it's it's

(01:28:32):
what I'm expressing of how I was grappling with that,
Like if only I had had your book when I
was like twelve to help me walk through life. But
it's really fun to see how usable your book is,
so like it it's so spot on and giving people
what we need in life.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
That's so reassuring. Thank you. I mean that I could
only dream of having it connect with a real life
story as much as that, because yeah, thank you, that
that means the word to me. Thank you. I really
received that. That's so special. Yeah, I you know, just
I mean I think that's that's kind of like the

(01:29:12):
perfect match in the world where we need where it's
like the we need the human story of what it
really looks like because it's messy and it's uncomfortable, and
then hopefully we can all extrapolate lessons from you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
And get a toolbox. It's like like, if you get
triggered reading this book, get Jay's book to help you
grow and know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
And I would say the other way around. I feel
like people need to see the messiness of what it
looks like. And I don't shy away from that, but
I think when you read about it and you see like, oh,
this is what the uncomfortable conversation looks like, It's what
the revelation looks like, this is what the work looks
like like. I think we need both sides because sometimes
we have a romantic view of what growth looks like

(01:29:55):
and what having the revelation conversation with your family looks like,
and we know that that's not true, right right, And
I would love to I love how much time you
spent in India, for sure, I was. I was definitely
a surprised What would you say? What would you say then?
In that regard was like, obviously you talked about the
gift of your yoga training, you talked about the gift
of You've referred to it many many times. What was

(01:30:17):
what was the what surprised you about India?

Speaker 1 (01:30:22):
I think the thing that was most surprising and impactful
for me about India was how drenched in God everything is.
You know, Like I grew up in communities where there's
like a liquor store on every corner, but in India
there's a an altar on every corner. There's just you know,

(01:30:44):
when you walk into someone's house, there's an altar, there's
a poosia room, there's a there's like you can't escape
God if you wanted. The very way you say hello
is like an acknowledgment of the God in each other.
So that was really powerful for me in a time
when I was really seeking God in my healing. And yeah,

(01:31:08):
I just I found it impossible to escape a sense
of spirituality in India. And it's not an easy place, right,
Like people are not It's not like everywhere you turn,
everybody's comfortable and things are easy. So it is this
combination of like life is hard, life is vibrant and chaotic,
and like the everything's so pungent, right like the sense

(01:31:32):
and the colors and the it's it's so filled with life,
like real material life, and yet every single inch of
that is also connected to God. And that I feel
like is something that I try to live in my life,
like to live life fully like out loud and big
and in truth, and to go after whatever it is

(01:31:54):
that the Dharma is leading you toward. But to not
have it just be for self or for material all
this life, to have it be about God, and with
God and for God, and that it feels like that's
so much of what I learned there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Well, I mean I don't think I don't think there's
any greater gift of that's pretty spectaci.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
Yeah, so special.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
Yeah, and it's I'd love to show you my temper
from after.

Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
I would love that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
I would love that beautiful to show it to you.
But no, I hope Gary, this has been a serving
and an offering to your offering to the world. I
really mean that, because I really believe that this book
for you is not a it's not a celebrity memoir
like it it's so much, it's so it's so human,

(01:32:47):
and it's so it's so truth seeking, and so I
really hope that this has served you and served your
offering in the world. And you know, I'm excited for
everyone to read it, to connect with it, to share
with their families, share with their friends, and and hopefully uncovered,
discover and recover from family secrets that may be holding

(01:33:09):
you back in whatever way, and being able to have
the grace to hold the supposed paradox with that, you know,
compassionate and Amen. Amen, thank you My hope and intention
for you and your book tour, and I wish you
nothing but so much impact and can already see everyone

(01:33:31):
smiling and the faces and their lives being impacted and
changed based on the work you've done.

Speaker 1 (01:33:37):
So thank you so much. It's such a privilege to
be here, so grateful.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
I still have to ask you the final five.

Speaker 1 (01:33:44):
Yes, Okay, I know you.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
Tried to dodge them.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
I should have prepared, you know, I should have prepared.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
But yeah, I hope we got If there was anything
else that you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
Want, this amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
I wanted to be honest with me anytime. Okay, So
all right. Question one, carry what is the best advice
you've ever received or had?

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
The best advice I've ever received or heard is to pray.
When I learned to pray and meditate. To me, there
are sort of two sides of the same coin, you know,
Like it's the talking to God and listening to God.
You know, whenever in my life I'm reminded to pray,

(01:34:27):
it's never a bad thing. It's always a path to
goodness because it's always an act of surrender and an
invitation to help. And the act of prayer for me
and of meditation is really for me about picking up
a tool of humility, because when I'm not making room

(01:34:50):
for spiritual practice, it's like I think I'm in charge.
And so the prayer helps me remember and the meditation
helps me remember to be part of something greater, to
not be trying to control and run everything, but to
connect myself to something bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:35:06):
What a great answer. We've never had that before. In
the show did how did you learn how to pray?
And for anyone who struggles with prayer because they think
they have to have the perfect words or they didn't
know where to start, like what would you suggest for someone?

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
It was part of My first time I ever got
on my knees really to ask something greater than me
for help was when I was really struggling with my
eating disorder stuff which I talk about, and that was
that was the first time in my life that I
was like, I can't fix this, Like I don't know,
I do not have the tools, and I don't know
where to go, and I don't know what to do,

(01:35:41):
and I'm going to need somebody or something to step
in and help me out. That was my first experience
with prayer. And then there's a really beautiful book that
I think is one of the most important books that
I've read in my life called The Artist Way by
Julia Cameron, and that book taught me a lot about
bringing spiritual practice into my creative and into my life

(01:36:01):
as creative practice, but prayer through journaling, and I think
there's no wrong way to pray, And honestly, my prayer
looks like all different kinds of ways, Like I think,
like any relationship, my relationship with spirit is always evolving
and changing according to where I am. And you know,
sometimes it's like sitting on the pillow with the candle
and the incense is like that's it. Just like sometimes

(01:36:23):
date night is like that perfect elegant five star you're
dressed up, he's in a suit. It's a hole, right, Like,
Sometimes the ritual is that. And sometimes it's like I'm
in my car, I'm at the red light. I'm like
all right, God, like I'm gonna need you to step
in and you know, take this day on. You know,
sometimes it's just singing gospel music. Sometimes it's doing some
sun salutation. Sometimes it's like just saying God, God, only God,

(01:36:47):
one hundred and seven times in a row. Like whatever
it is, it can be. It can be so many
different things. Sometimes it's just swimming, but that just making
room for seeking other something greater than me.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
Beautiful, what wonderful? Do you pray with the kids and
we do at night?

Speaker 1 (01:37:03):
We do at night we do prayer requests and gratitude
together as a family.

Speaker 2 (01:37:08):
I love.

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
That's so special. Yeah, it is really special. It's really
fun to watch the kids. It's great, you know, you
never know. I mean sometimes it's like they're sometimes their
gratitude is really profound. I'm grateful that a grandparent is
feeling better, or I'm grateful for this family trip and
time with cousins. And sometimes it's like I'm really grateful

(01:37:30):
for pickles, you know what. Okay, you know that's cool.
That too is God right, So like it's really it's fun.
And also the prayer request, it's it's just our kind
of family way of remembering to think outside yourself. And
sometimes the prayer can be for yourself. I really hope
my ankle feels better. I really, but it's also a

(01:37:50):
way to remember to include other people in your seeking,
you know, beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
I love that. All right, Well that was just question one, okay,
I question number two, what is the worst advice you've
ever heard or received.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
I think about this book that I talk about in
my book that I like stole from the library when
I was a kid, that was called A Knew You.
You missed the Yes, I missed the again and again
and again and again. You know this idea that it
appears in like magazines for young women, and there's this
messaging out there that to be loved you must be

(01:38:29):
something other than who you are. You know that to
be loved you have to be prettier, and you have
to know what colors are right for you, and you
have to know how to sit and how to walk
and how to stand. And I'm all about being having
good manners and being appropriate to a situation. But the
idea that you have to be on somebody other than
who you are to be deserving of love is messaging

(01:38:51):
that is damaging. I think it was definitely damaging for me,
and I think for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
Yeah. And that's and it gets so ingrained. Yes, and
it sounds so obvious, but it's it's not, and it's
so subtle and so easy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
Yeah. I mean, even from a young age, when you
hear kids saying like I need those sneakers or else,
I'm not going to be cool. Like it's these messages.
These I think consumerism has a lot to do with it.
This idea that you must have that lipstick or that
mas scare or that facelift or those pair of genes
or whatever it is in order to be good enough.

(01:39:28):
And it's just not true. It's just not true. You
are lovable. And by the way, love sneakers, love lipstick,
love mascaa, like, you can have those things, you can
play with those things. But the idea that to do
the you must do those things to be lovable, to
be worthy, that's where the wrong messaging, yeah gets implanted.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Yeah to quote TikTok, I don't know if you've seen
this new TikTok, which I love, and it's and that
the sound is telling you how to dress to impress
a man.

Speaker 1 (01:40:04):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
Yeah, everyone's like doing the opposite.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
Yes, it's so great, so great. Yeah, I haven't done
that one.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
I should do that. Yeah someone I saw someone do
it with their door to the other day. It was
so cute. It's really cool. So anyway, but that that idea, definitely,
I love that. Great answer all right. Question number three
is how would you define your current purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
My current purpose is to hold space for my scary
truths and other people's scary truths, and to create community
in that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:46):
Mm hmm. That's really powerful. That's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
I think that's it for now.

Speaker 2 (01:40:52):
It sounds like a good one.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
For Q four. That's the purpose. I'll care back to
love that.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
I love that. It's so nice to put into words, though,
even to think about it, it's like, yeah, yeah, that's great.
I love to answer, all right. Question number four. We
talked about what you're trying to learn now. Is there
anything you're trying to unlearn? Is there any beliefs that
you're trying to unlearn or values or ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:41:17):
I think I'm working to unlearn the belief that I
am not enough, and I think I'm working to unlearn
the belief that I am less important and less deserving.

Speaker 2 (01:41:38):
Where does that still come from? Where's that? Where's that hiding?

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):
I think there is. You know, when I think about
the words sacrifice, and that sacrifice does come from sacred right,
And I think for some reason, as an only child,
as a as a young person, I understood that there

(01:42:03):
was something sacred about sacrificing my own need or desire
or truth, even to make space for someone else's journey.
I've placed so much value on other people's sense of
joy and goodness and safety that I've been willing to

(01:42:24):
sacrifice my own sense of joy and goodness and safety.
And I don't regret it. I think it's not wrong
to care about how other people feel and want to
do what's right for other people. I'm just learning to
let myself be one of those people, to include myself.

(01:42:47):
It's not like now I want to do whatever I
want to do and to hell with whoever it hurts,
but it's like I need to be as important as
the other people I'm considering that I deserve that. That's
new for me.

Speaker 2 (01:43:03):
Yeah. One of the greatest lessons I think I've tried
to learn is that, again, the world is trying to
do either raw. So some of us think the answer
is just take care of yourself, who cares about what
anyone else thanks? And the opposite is, well, just sacrifice,
just serve, Just surrender and give yourself over to everyone.

(01:43:24):
That's the greatest gift. And something that I've learned that
has really helped me is that actually taking care of
myself in order to serve others is the complete picture
that taking care of myself is not selfish. If my
intention and reasoning is so, I can go out and

(01:43:44):
do more, give more, be more for others. But I
can't do more, give more, and be more for others
if I'm giving everyone the leftovers of.

Speaker 1 (01:43:53):
That's right, I have to give from my overflow.

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:43:56):
Yeah, And similarly, I've also learned that sometimes giving to
others is a way that I can be giving to myself,
because I can like my giving to others can be
how I build hope and community and belonging for myself.
There can be this dialogue between the two. So just

(01:44:16):
to not forget myself and the equation is so important.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
Yeah, and that when you give to someone, I also
notice it this way that when I give something to someone,
often I feel like I'm the one doing the giving,
but actually the fact that there's someone there to receive.

Speaker 1 (01:44:35):
It is such a gift.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
It's a gift because if there was no one for
you to give your gift to, then it would feel incomplete.
And so the fact that even someone has a challenge,
an opportunity, a moment that you get to give something
to someone, we have to see that good for ourselves
as opposed to this feeling of like, oh I did
this for all of.

Speaker 1 (01:44:57):
This, right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
So yeah, that's beautiful. I love that, all right. Fifth
and final question, which we asked every guest, you should
have practiced carrier. But if you could create one law
that everyone in the world had to follow, what would
it be? Take your time? One law fantastic, A plus
plus for everything got so much pressure.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
One law that everyone in the world had to follow.
I think it would be required compassion and empathy training.
When I think about all of the ills of society,
all of our kind of social evils come from us
not being able to care for each other. When you

(01:45:42):
even when you think of like really mentally ill folks,
that it that there there is I don't want to
say that because some of it is biological, but there.
I feel like there could be so much pain that's avoided.
We could stop so much transfer generational pain and suffering.

(01:46:02):
We could prevent so much abuse. If we could just
give people empathy and compassion training, it would impact how
we legislate, how we interact with one another, how we
care for each other in society. I think we need
that so badly right now in our families and our schools,

(01:46:26):
and our businesses and our government bodies, we just need
so much more empathy and compassion.

Speaker 2 (01:46:34):
I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
And there would have to be a special chapter on
having it for yourself too, yes, yes, yeah, for sure, yeah,
for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
Everyone. The book is called Thicker than Water. Have it
right here. Kerry Washington a memoir. Make sure you go
an order your copy. Will have the link in the
comments and the caption, so you can go and grab
your copy right now. Kerry is also going on tours
if you don't have your tickets, Yeah, make sure you're
going and grab your tickets to see her live. She's
got phenomenal guests joining her as well, so make sure

(01:47:06):
you're go and check that out. And of course, please
please please tag Kerry and I with moments of this
episode that resonated with you on and.

Speaker 1 (01:47:14):
We'll repost and respond.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
Yeah. Please let us know what really stood out to you,
what you're going to practice. Maybe you've been inspired to
share something with your family member, maybe to ask questions
to your family as well, to understand more about your
origins and where you came from and who you are,
so I hope you're leaving this feeling empowered, liberated, and
strengthened in your pursuit for truths. And again, I want

(01:47:38):
to thank you Kerry for your generosity, your openness to
share your vulnerability, and this new friendship that we're building.

Speaker 1 (01:47:45):
I'm so excited, very.

Speaker 2 (01:47:47):
Grateful for sir.

Speaker 1 (01:47:48):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:51):
What a treat.

Speaker 2 (01:47:52):
If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with
doctor Julie Smith on unblocking negative emotions and how to
embrace difficult feelings. You've just got to be motivated every day,
and if you're not, then what are you doing? And actually,
humans don't work that way. Motivation. You have to treat
it like any other emotion. Some days it will be there,
some days it won't

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Jay Shetty

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Kerry Washington ON: How To Shift Anger Into Compassion, Shame Into Strength and Break Generational Trauma