We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 247. Kerry Washington on the Family Secret that Shaped Her

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

Kerry Washington shares the deeply personal story of what happened when her parents finally told her the truth about a long-held and shocking family secret: How uncovering the truth – as painful as it was – led Kerry to reclaim her self trust;  How the revelation made her the lead character of her own life for the first time; Walking the line between protection and deception; Breaking the cycle of gaslighting within families; and  How defying her father freed both of them. About Kerry:  Kerry Washington is an Emmy-winning, SAG, and Golden Globe-nominated actor, director, producer, and activist. Washington received widespread recognition for her role as Olivia Pope in the hit drama Scandal. In 2016, Washington launched her production company Simpson Street, whose projects include Confirmation, “American Son”, Emmy award-winning, “Live in Front of a Studio Audience”, The Fight, and Little Fires Everywhere. Washington is a lifelong activist and founder of Influence Change (IC21), an initiative that partners with nonprofits to increase voter turnout. For her efforts, Washington has been honored as one of TIME Magazine’s 2022 Women of The Year. Washington released her first memoir, Thicker Than Water, which is on sale now! TW: @kerrywashington IG: @kerrywashington To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And to be loved we need to be known. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are going to waste no time today because we have one of my favorite people in all of the land. And her name is Carrie Washington. Carrie Washington is an Emmy-winning, SAG and Golden Globe nominated actor, director, producer, and activist. She received widespread recognition for her role as Olivia Pope in the Hit Drama Scandal.

In 2016, Washington launched her production company Simpson Street whose projects include confirmation, American Sun, Emmy award-winning Live in Front of a Studio audience, the fight, and little fires everywhere. Washington is a lifelong activist and founder of Influence Change, IC-21. She has been honored as one of Time Magazine's 2022 Women of the Year. She has just released her memoir,

Thicker Than Water, and it's on sale now. Pod Squad, during this interview, you're gonna hear us talking a lot about a family secret that was revealed to Carrie just recently in her life. And we're not going to tell you exactly what that secret is because it's a spoiler for the whole book. And we really don't want to ruin the story for you. And also, it doesn't really matter because when you hear us talk about Carrie's family secret, just know we're

talking about every family secret that every family has ever had. Okay, enjoy. Carrie, Washington, I've been really looking forward to this hour for a very, very long time. Yes. Me too. I love you. I love you. I Haven't gotten to spend a ton of time with you, but I feel so connected to you. You're one of the few people that, no matter what they're doing, I'm like, okay, yes, I'll do whatever she's doing. I trust you so deeply.

I just wanted to ask you a quick question that I thought of this morning, which is, did you see me fall down the stairs at Tracey Ellis Ross it's perfect for you. No! Did you really not? I missed that. You missed that.

Was it before dinner or after dinner? Oh my God, Carrie, it was before dinner, and I fell down the stairs, like completely, like my shoes flew, my purse flew, my dress was up my ass. In front of Diana Ross. Okay. This morning I thought I wonder if she saw that, but she's too kind to ever bring it up and

she'll never bring it up. No, I really, I missed that. I was so happy to see you both there and also sad that we didn't have more time to talk there, but I missed your stunts. Okay, I'm so glad. You're stunned. She does her own stunts people. It factually just exclusively does stunts. That's exactly so true. Exactly. I'm really sad I missed that. We might have to recreate it. The one sure I will, Kelly. I'm sure I will. Just stick around.

I'm a... Also, I promise going forward that if we are in a space and I witness you doing a stunt, I promise to not pretend I didn't. Oh, that's me. So you have that transparency for me. Okay.

That's right. I don't know if I like that role, but I'll circle back. I feel like it's a theme for carries. Most recent work. Yeah, I know. It's like we're not pretending not to see. We're going to see the falls.

We're going to see the falls. We're going to see the stumbles. We're going to see it all. Yeah. So as you know, I have read thicker than water twice all the way through. Which is amazing and very generous of you. Thank you so much. I think it's so beautiful and it like shook me in a way that I think it's going to shake

a lot of people because it's about something so applicable to every single family in terms of what we think parenting is and how sometimes what we think parenting is is like, well it's traumatic. In the book you said about growing up, you said, all of the adults in my life were saying, everything is fine and it wasn't. Can you talk to us about what wasn't fine for you as a kid? Mmm, mmm, God, wow. Oh, what a great way to start. I feel like there are so many ways I can answer that question.

The primary way that I felt that things weren't fine is that my parents loved me very, they still do. They loved me very, very much. I knew I was very wanted, longed for. And yet, in that container of loving me, there was this disconnect. And I didn't understand it. I couldn't really describe it. It was this, this sense within me that there was something they were keeping from me, protecting me from. There was a level of arms lengthness. I don't think that's a word, but I'm going to pretend it is today. There was an arms lengthness that were they just, they were holding me across this light emotional

moat. And again, it wasn't like my parents were absent. They were present and not fully there. And I didn't know how to wrap my head around it. And I didn't know why it was. And like most of us, especially kids, but even me today, I made up stories for like, what was the reason for this disconnect? And I decided it was me, you know, that I wasn't enough, I wasn't smart enough for good enough or kind enough or thin enough or whatever it was.

And so that was one way that things weren't fine. There was this distance within the love between my parents and I. This like inauthenticity within a very true love. So it was so confusing because obviously as a kid I didn't have any of this language. And even as an adult I'm like struggling for the right language. But also my parents were having their own struggles in their marriage. And because in the daytime, everything between them seemed perfect and beautiful.

And these arguments would come through at night. And it almost felt like not that they were monsters in the night, but it felt like monsters would seep into their relationship, like into the walls of our apartment and turn them into something else and that energy would seep through the wall. So that also felt like it wasn't fine. It was scary to have this like underbelly, this other version of my parents at night that

I that I didn't know and that I didn't want to know, but I had no choice but knowing because we were in a tiny, two bedroom apartment with thin walls. And then there was, that I also write about, there was this abuse that was happening during a section of my childhood, this one season of my childhood, something was happening to me at night from like a child that was in a clatance of the family.

And I didn't know, again, it was like this. I knew something was happening, but I didn't know what it was. And so as I'm talking to you, I feel like this thread, this theme is that I had a sense that things weren't as I was told they were. I had a sense that the reality was different from the performance that we were all engaged in,

but I was told that that sense was wrong or that sense was to be ignored or that sense made me crazy. And so that's what wasn't fine is that I learned very early on to not trust myself. And I was navigating spaces that felt unsafe while also losing a connection to my own inner clarity. You guys, that was exhausting. Can we go home now?

Yeah. So no, I feel like that was like, you'll ask you some questions that are easier. No, I love it. I love it. I love it. No, it's so amazing. So I love it, I love it. No, it's so amazing. So when someone in your home, when you're hearing, you're hearing the noise, you're hearing the fighting, your senses are hearing it, and you're feeling in your body that some things off. And then you wake up in the morning over and over again, which so many people have had the experience of what it's fine. It's fine.

Or you can walk into a room even if it's not night and morning free. You walk into a room, you can feel the tension between your parents. You say, what's wrong? Your parents say, it's fine. It's fine. I mean, it's fine. So here's what's fascinating to me. That is our parents' attempt to protect us.

100%. Why didn't you tell your parents about the abuse that you were experiencing from this boy? Because I was protecting them, right? Like they taught me that the way you love is to keep the hard stuff from people and to pretend everything's okay. And so that was my script. When I finally figured out what was happening with this kid, I thought, oh, the most loving thing I can do is to protect these people from this truth

and to just proceed as if nothing's going on. And I thought, for some reason I felt like I have the strength to do that. It's better for me to hold on to the pain and figure out how I can metabolize it than make everybody else around me feel bad. And it's funny, you know, as we're talking, when you relate it to parenting now, I feel like one of the greatest gifts of the process of writing this work is my reminder, or maybe my learning of how rich the emotional lives of children are, right? Like how much kids know and how much they feel and see and what an amazing acknowledgement to take into my home because we want our kids, we're like push it, get

dressed for school and eat your breakfast and do the things. Like you just want to like shepherd them through life and check off the boxes and just to be reminded of how much these moments matter in their young emotional lives is I just feel so lucky to be really grounded in that at this point in my parenting. Yeah. When you are growing up and you're talking about this dissonance between being totally, quote unquote, present there actively involved versus being kind of immersed in you. You were able to see that distinction even then because that's quite a mature, they weren't

emotionally immersed in you, but they were very much there and I feel like that Doesn't just apply to parents. I mean people have entire marriages, so they're like that people have Every relationship in their life like that and you can't quantify it Can't point to it and say that is what's wrong So were you able to identify that even early? And if so, did you replicate that in later relationships? So I wouldn't have had the language for it.

But as you're asking me that, what's bubbling up in me is this awareness of how sensitive of a child I was. Yeah. And so I was a deeply feeling child and I had big feelings and maybe I was born with more emotional availability and awareness, but also as I grew up,

I had more and more hypervigilance. And so I grew up, I had more and more hypervigilance. And so I just knew, I wouldn't have been able to say, they're here, but they're not present. I wouldn't have had that language, but I guess if I try to put myself in my little kid body, how would my little girl describe it? There was something missing. There just was something missing.

There was a there there that wasn't there. And sometimes I would see it relative, right? Like I would watch my mom in the way that she interacted with my friends. And like my friends always felt like they could tell my mother everything. And you could tell her anything and she would be there for you.

And I knew that my mother was there for me, but I always felt like I had to pretend a little bit with her and that she was pretending a little bit with me in a way that was different than with like another kid in my neighborhood. And now I understand it right now I get like that. When I would hear girlfriends of mine say like, oh, I'm best friends with my mom and we talk every day three times a day, I'd be like, what? My mother and I could never be that close

because you don't keep your biggest secret from your best friend. And there was always this secret that my mother was holding. And so there was a danger in getting too close to me. There was a danger in breaking down all the walls because then she might have to tell me this thing that she had promised herself she wasn't going to tell me. So it makes sense now.

Back then it just felt like, I mean, at the risk of calling myself a princess, it was like a princess and a pea thing. I'm in this bed. It's really beautiful. It's everything's fine. But like, there's this thing. There's some itch. There's something, something's off.

And I don't know what it is, but I can't sleep. You know? Yes. Yes. And for pod squatters, while you're listening, there is a big secret in the family that you'll learn about in the book and it's so incredible. And also, it doesn't matter, it's every family has some kind of big and secret. Well, that's been the biggest thing for me that, like, the number one response to the book when people read it is that they start to tell me their families. See the other two? Okay.

That will happen for the rest of your family. I was going to say that must happen to you too, right? So, and I actually feel so blessed. When people do that, this saying that we are as sick as our secrets, for me, it comes up in, it's part of why I felt like I had to write this book and it's part of, for me, the healing that, like if somebody reads this book

and then they get inspired to tell me their secret, there's, I know there's healing in that and I get to hold space, which feels really lucky. Let me tell you why I think this book is so important. I mean, there's a lot of of reasons but here's one reason. We all women, I maybe it could just be everyone I know but I think maybe it's everyone. Is we're all getting to this point in our life where we figure out we don't know what we want, we don't know anything. Like

we don't know who we want to be, we don't know who we love, we don't know what we want to do, we don't know what we want for dinner, we don't know what we don't know who we want to be, we don't know who we love, we don't know what we want to do, we don't know what we want for dinner, we don't know what we don't know anything about what we want. And we keep wondering why, like wait, let's look back on my life, when did I stop knowing myself? Like when did I stop? Yes. Yes.

When did I lose any connection with myself? I know we both share share recovery from eating disorder. It's like we're looking back on our life I think there's lots of reasons and moments that we lose ourselves, but one of them is being gassed lit in our families when we are children and We have a princess in a peace situation Everyone tells us no, no, no a princess in a peace situation, but everyone tells us, no, no, no. We stop believing ourselves. So, Carrie, when your parents finally told you the big secret of your family, how did you feel? So I felt a lot of things, but the first thing I felt was revelatory clarity.

It felt like in there telling me they took my glasses off and cleaned them and handed them back to me. And I was like, oh, so, so much makes sense now. And I would say the second biggest thing I felt was curious because I felt like now, like now, I want to go learn some shit. Like now I am seeing the world more clearly. I understand the dynamics.

I feel like I can actually maybe learn to know myself again, because this was the beginning of the reconnection of myself with my intuitive knowingness. I knew something was up. I knew something was up. And then you telling me that I was right that something was up means I'm not crazy. And now I want to go find out some more stuff about myself and my life and who I am and who we are. And it was empowering and terrifying.

And also I was angry that they waited so long to tell me, but that all came much later. I mean, the first thing I felt was like, excited. And then because I'm a good people, please are codependent, then I felt worried for, excited. And then, because I'm a good people, please, are codependent, then I felt worried for my parents. I learned a lot. I want to make sure that they're OK. I immediately went into taking care of them mode. So I didn't say to them, because my dad,

I don't know if I, I, I, I, it's in the book. I can't remember right now if my mom or dad asked me how I felt. I think it was my dad. And I think I said, I'm curious. I didn't say like, I'm so excited. But I just was like, oh, you know, I tried to like be measured about it. But yeah, but I did, I really wanted to make sure,

I still want to make sure that they're okay in this process as I look for More and more information about who I am It's like the moment of ungaslighting. It's I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I'm a goddamn cheater You're like I'm not there was a pee there was a pee the whole time under all the mattresses Mm-hmm And do you think about that in your parenting? Because I think we protect them, everybody's protecting each other to death.

Everybody's protecting each other to insanity. Yep. They were saying, no, no, no, life isn't hard and scary. You're crazy. And what you learned at the end was, I'm not crazy, life is just hard and scary. So isn't it? Yeah. Better for us just to tell the children, the messiness in the beginning so that they learn

that life isn't easy, but that they know. Well, this is why I think, like even just the name of this podcast is so powerful because I think that in some ways, they didn't believe that they could do hard things. And so they raised me with so much love trying to keep me from the hard things so that I wouldn't have to do the hard things that they didn't maybe know how to do or that they didn't like to do or that they didn't want to do. I then believed that I couldn't do the hard things because the hard things had been kept from me. And so it becomes this like generational learning and then unlearning of like, no, no, no, it's hard.

So being in life means you gotta do the hard things and you can, but you only learn you can when you get a chance to try. And I do think about that in my parenting, like even last night we had this situation where like, we asked the kids to do something, they didn't do thing, my husband held them accountable and I was like, oh, I feel so terrible. And he was like, don't feel terrible. They didn't do the thing. They got it, you know, these are the consequences. And that's when I have to remind myself that like,

the feeling terrible is actually the contrary indicator. Like sometimes in parenting, if I feel terrible, it means I'm doing something right. Sometimes in life, if I feel terrible, it means I'm doing something right. Sometimes in life, if I feel guilty, like number one sign I'm making the right choice, because I feel shitty. Like sometimes that's what happens when I'm when I'm unlearning old bad patterns, you know, I do know. That's so important. It's so important because we are told over and over if anyone feels bad or if you make anyone else feel bad,

there has been a grave transgression as opposed to that being a natural consequence of a lot of decisions that are healthiest and best to make. And in fact, our definitive of good living and good parenting. It's like I'm not safe. Everyone from the consequences of everything. When I tell you, like this process walking through this with my family has not been easy. We have done some hard things.

We went into family therapy together. All of us, my parents, my husband and I, like in this like four people sessions altogether. It's so crazy. And so wonderful and hard at times and wonderful at times. And when I tell you like there have been moments along this journey that if it were not for me, having this book in my hands and being like,

I am untamed, I'm a goddamn cheetah. Like there's no way I would have done some of it, you know? There were times when I'm pretty sure I write this in the book that my dad was like If you walk this path, it will kill me in those words. I know it will kill me And underlined and underlined in the book underlined. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it's that moment of saying like I can betray myself or I can betray him And I've and I've got to make a. And I and that realization that I've spent. Well, two things that realization that I've spent so much of my life being the supporting

character in my parents story, and that it was time for me to be the lead character in my story. And that by the way, in doing that, my dad has gotten to learn that he can do hard things, that he's not dead, that he can do hard things and that we can do hard things together is like the greatest gift my family has been given. We're so much closer than we were before the revelation of this family secret, which is the opposite reaction that they thought would happen, you know. And don't you think that goes for

so cool though, because you had this whole file folder growing up, like if your brain is like a file system. Yes, which in many ways it is. Yes. Then we'll have a different visual for that. then we'll have a different visual for that. But you had filed this entire thing into, I'm really sensitive. I feel a lot of things that other people don't feel, you had built a whole identity that you filed in here about everything about you that was too much, that couldn't make this thing work,

that was working for the other people in your house. But then when you get revealed the secret, you take off the label from that file folder and put on like fucking brilliant, intuitive, receptive, human. I want to make that sign. The human receptive, human. Because all of that data that was pointing I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign.

I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign.

I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign.

I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make that sign. I want to make kill me. You get to go back to the data set and say, no, I know. And to have faith in him to say, like, I know you didn't think I could do hard things, but now I'm here to repair it me and help guide us to say, like, you can do hard things. We can.

And, you know, God bless my husband. He was very, very supportive in that, and helping me like see that. Yeah, I think so much of the point of this book for me is about belonging, but first belonging to myself, and then how that belonging can allow me to belong to the family I was born in and the family I'm creating and my chosen family is in,

but it's like the first belonging to myself so that I can really bring myself into these other relationships like you're saying. I wanna talk about embodiment because, yes. To me that's like the opposite of gaslighting. It's like, okay, I can't trust any of this stuff that's telling me something's wrong, so I'm gone. And so then life becomes a process of coming back into your body and starting to trust yourself again,

giving yourself another chance, maybe, to trust yourself. And I think it's so interesting, your story, because with acting, it's like you were practicing embodiment, right? You were like, I mean, the scenes in the book were talking about how you experience acting. I'm like, oh my god, she's doing it. She's not doing it herself yet. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Is that what it is? Yes.'s such a beautiful way to put it. I, acting saved me because I felt like all the things I couldn't do as Carrie be like big and bold

and emotional and no stuff and express stuff and do stunts, all the things that I didn't that I didn't have feel like I had rumor permission to be and do, I could do it through my characters. I could say what I was feeling. I could have a feeling even. I could be loud and be expressive and all of that. I could be in my body. I could actually like be fully present in my body as a character on a stage or on a set. And originally, I fell in love with acting because I was trying to escape myself. I didn't want to be in my life or in my body.

So I wanted to escape into these characters and live their lives and have their feelings and that felt safer because I could do and be anything. And then at some point, I started to realize that through them, I could express some of my own truth. To actually be a character and be authentically angry, I might have to pour some of my authentic carry anger into the character.

And then I was like, well, this is amazing because I don't really know how to be angry in my life. I don't really know how to ask for help in my life. But this character is asking for help. And this character is angry. And this character is sexy or this character is badass or afraid or whatever it is. And so the characters then became a place where I could like express and experience some of my truth because I had the safety of the mask to hide behind. And it's almost as if I'm now in this kind of third iteration of my relationship with the characters. I've been able to bring so much of my truth and express it through the characters

that they've given me the permission to allow Carrie to be a character, to let the narrative of Carrie be worthy of its own moment in our canon, in my canon. And so it's like they've taught me how to write this book. They taught me how to craft a beginning, a middle, and an end to the arc of this revelation, because I've done it for them and with them for so long that I could borrow from them

and give that gift to myself so that I could be at the center of my own story for the first time in my life. Whew. And if you're listening and you're thinking, that's just about acting. When I hear that story from Carrie, I think, oh, this is what being a workaholic is. You're comfortable with that character, who you are at the office. You know, like what that character is. But then you get home and you take off your like costume. And you're just yourself. And you don't have to worry. Now we're in the ranks. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's true. Even like, listen, as women, we are so programmed to play the supporting character, the wife, the mother. And by the way, those roles are extraordinary for me. I get so much joy out of those roles. But we have to make the choice to have moments where we put on the hat of like, now I'm a supporting character. We have to start or we have to have places where we're cultivating the idea

that we are the lead character in the story, that it's my life. And I can choose to be supportive in the life that belongs to my children because they deserve to be the lead characters in their lives too, but there have to be times when I'm the lead character in my life. My husband, lead character of his life, love that I get to be a supporting character in his story. Also, he should be a supporting character in mind, right?

Like, we have to have places where at work, even when I think of employees, I want every employee to feel like they are the lead character of the story of their lives. My job as their boss is to create an environment where they can flourish and feel like they're stepping into the fullness of what they have to contribute. But also, it's my company, right? So that dance of like, I'm able to be supporting and I'm able to be the lead is so important. And I feel like for women, we're often taught that we are only supporting characters and that we don't have our own story. And for me, I know that's how I spent most of my life is feeling like

I've always been the supporting character. It's the biggest thing that I learned being, you know, the lead character on a network drama was she was the lead character on that show. And that was the beginning of me being like, oh, maybe I'm the lead character. If I'm the lead character at work, what would it mean to be the lead character in life? So I'm really grateful that I got to play her before stepping into this kind of revelatory process of unfolding in my family and in my identity because she helped me know what it was like to be the lead, to be the team captain. And when you think about that, it's so wild because no one would ever say like, man, you know what, Carrie, that was so selfish of you to be the lead character there. You talk from all those supporting actors. But in our lives, we want everyone

to be selfless and to be putting yourself last, but it doesn't work that way. And in fact, when you try to do it, when you try to be just a supporting actor and pour into your kids or whatever, you don't get away with it. It's obvious. You're either letting them not be the lead character. That's right. Because you're siphoning your leadness through them

and making sure that they end up being what you want them to be. You're like, this is the script. You can be the lead character, but I'm writing it. I'm producing it. I'm directing it. Your kids are like, uh-uh. I'm over here making an independent movie and I'm like, no! So yeah. Exactly. No one gets out of life. You either be the lead of you, or you just really mess up everybody else's script. Amen. When I was considering living honestly,

or I considered it for like 30 years, and and then and then said something true. Don't want to do anything in Pulsant. I want to say in your defense, one of the things that I love so much about you and how you live this life of yours is that at every stage you're living your most honest. It's just this like acceptance that when we can do more, we do more, right? Like there's more and more honesty and that dig for me is what matters that you're like, what else? What more? Am I being my most honest now?

So I don't feel like, but anyway, that's my take. That's my hot take. Thank you, Kari. And it's like life, we get stronger. And I think stronger usually just means wider. Like we get a wider perspective and then a wider perspective. I don't think it really has to do with resilience. Or I think it's just like we see things wider.

And then life just shows us what we're ready to know. Yeah. And when we're not ready to know it, it doesn't show it to us yet. That's right. What my friend Liz used to always say is like, don't forget, there's no such thing as one way liberation. And I thought that so much as I was reading your book that like, when you demanded, no, even though you're saying this is going to kill you, I'm still going to live my, the truth. You were liberating yourself,

but since you can't liberate yourself without liberating the person you're tied to, it just felt like when you did the thing, when you caused the destruction, suddenly your parents were both free in such an uncomfortable but beautiful way. This story is going to show people that it's not truth or love. You're not making the decision between truth and love.

Yes, that's right. That's right. First of all, also, I always want to say like, I didn't start this problem. I wasn't the first person to lie. Okay, so let's just put that out there. Like, all the sudden we're having accountability. Okay, I didn't ask to be born into this lie, but I was. I also want to say, I feel like it's going to take me to him at his answer this question because when you ask me a question, it sets off like fireworks of answers. I love when you say my friend Liz, because I feel like you're talking about Liz Gilbert.

And that's just like the most fun name drop ever. And there was an interview during the pandemic. I can't remember, this is what a serious fan I am of you people. I can't remember if it was your conversation with Liz Gilbert or if it was your conversation with Bernie Brown talking about Liz Gilbert, but in some conversation, you talked about writing untamed and that I think Liz challenged you on having it be messier.

And that was so much permission for me because I kept feeling like, I'm writing this memoir, I'm attempting to write this memoir, but I don't want it to be linear. I kept having these themes of like water and superheroes and food and family. Like there were these themes and I was like,

I think this is crazy, but I think I need to write this around themes and not around like, and this happened and then this happened and then this happened. So thank you for like this literary permission. And I love that. I do that. I do, it's true.

Liberation goes both ways. What I say to my parents when they give me this news is that I'm just gonna say this and it might be a little bit of a spoiler. So if you don't want any spoilers, like just stop it and go read the book and come back. But my dad gives me this information where I say to him, up until this moment, every time that I have said, I love you, it's been on the condition of a lie kind of. Even deep down somewhere in you, you think, well, she loves me because of this lie. And so when they told me, I thought and said to them, now you get a chance to feel what

it feels like to be loved unconditionally because I know what I know and I'm not going anywhere. I know what I know and I love you. So now you get to see, right? You get to feel really what unconditional love is. And I don't think that ever occurred to them that that could be a product of truth, that it could mean deeper love. I think they were so concerned that I would be upset that I would, that I would walk away, that I would be abandoned. And by the way, I was upset and I did have moments

where I had to walk away. And I did have times where I felt abandoned and they had times where they felt that too. But through all of that, like the fundamental takeaway is this deeper, truer love and deeper, truer, truer-dess. It's choice. And is that the distance?

Is that the distance that was created originally between your your mom? It wasn't that I can't get there. It's my withholding of this truth means that I can't even accept you, Carrie's love. Yeah, because I can't believe you love me. I can't believe we can be this close because you don't yet know this thing. You don't know. What's amazing to me about that? If that's true, because I don't want to answer for her, but if if that's true, there's this greater gift and I actually see this in my mom. I mean, listen, I learned if you if you have a secret and you don't want anybody to know,

you can tell Valerie Washington, like that woman, she can keep a secret. She didn't tell, she didn't tell her sisters, she has four sisters, just told them this may. Didn't tell her best friends, like literally didn't tell a soul and didn't really talk about it with my dad because he just like had an alternate reality in his head and so he wasn't even keeping a secret. He was just like living this other truth that wasn't truth and like so be it. So she was really alone with this

information holding it not being able to get that close to anybody. There was nobody in her life who knew her full truth. Yeah. And it makes me so sad for her to like not, to not for decades to have this secret that not a see not a therapist, not anybody. I see the change in her to be able to like tell people, like to change in us, the moment I knew things shifted for my mother and I, the moment I knew she became a different kind of open vault. And we became a different kind of connected. It was a little bit more of a unfolding process with my dad, but for my mom and I, I mean, and she knew that it was gonna be different for my dad.

So it was like these conversations of like, what do you wanna know? I'll tell you whatever you wanna know, right? Like, but also as she's told other people, I just see this kind of like blooming woman who is more free and more herself. It's beautiful because she can accept their love because it's like, wait, you can know this

and still love me. Yeah. Then you must really love me. But if you don't know it and love me, then maybe you don't really love me. Yeah, and also maybe like a, I can't love you because I'll be tempted to tell you. To say something that I can't love you because I'll be tempted to tell you to say something that I can't say. So I have to I have to stand over here and be loving but not really dive deep with you because I'm always going to be withholding something.

I think about that in terms of some version of what you say all the time, but it's if everything is about being known and all connection is based on being known, then the secret is, well, what you call the veil, the secret is the veil between you and me all the time. I think about this with queer kids all the time or it's like that thing that you know that no one else knows is your block of love. It's like it's your unlovable ability. I mean, when we think about secrets and we use like blame or bad and good in lots of ways, in a less judgmental way, it's like that person's that unloved ability, like this thing that threatens my connection to you, my attachment. And so it's so beautiful in the story when it comes out.

And immediately you see that veil gone between you and your mother. How do you do it differently with your kids? I try to be aware of the itch to mask. I try to be aware of it when it comes up and to put it down. Even if it's like the next day, like, you know, I said this thing yesterday, it's not exactly what I meant. And I try to be age appropriate, you know,

I try to give them the information, give them the truth. And it's not really like I'm trying not to over share, you know, I want to, again, be age appropriate. And sort of this thing, you just said, Glenn, in about like, when you're ready to ask the questions, the universe answers them, like I'm trying to kind of be like a little bit of an embodiment of the universe for them. Like any question you have, I'm going to answer you.

There's nothing you can't ask me, and I'm going to be as honest as I can. Like, even in telling them about the secret, you know, telling a 17 year old, this information is very different than telling a six-year-old this information. So separate conversations and to be led by the questions, but there's nothing you can't ask. There's nothing you can't ask. To be led by the questions. Yeah, because it's tricky, right?

It's like, I was thinking about even the word transparent. Let's be transparent. It's like, we're just gonna tell them everything There's a line there too Yeah, so being led by their questions is a beautiful thing But also the thing about that is at the same time we have to build Like a culture where questions are welcome. Yeah, right? So like building and environment We're like do you have any questions?

Do you want to talk about that? Anything you want to talk about? Boy, this is hard to talk about, but I think we should talk about this. There's something I don't really want to say, but I think I'm going to say it because I kind of want to know what you think. Like building that environment where we talk about things that are uncomfortable, so that if they have uncomfortable questions, there's some modeling around it. And when they tell us that we've hurt their feelings, like I just read somewhere somebody said, if there's one thing you can do to break generational trauma, it's when your kid says,

well, it's creating an environment where your kid can say, that hurts my feelings, or you did this thing that I didn't like, and then not shutting it down by being like, why didn't mean to? Why not? So hard. So't? So hard.

So hard. So hard. It's so hard. It was so cool. Yeah, it was just so cool. We were actually on a family vacation a couple months ago. And Glennon and one of our kids got into a tense moment where there could have been feelings and

Disagreement in some way the princess in the pee got in arguing with the other princess in the pee Yeah, in our understood. Yeah, cuz there's more than one pee. There's a lot of these We were sitting at the dinner table that night. It's a few hours later. They both had some time and One of our kids friends was there on the vacation with us. And Tish just said, are we going to talk about what happened today at the dinner table with all of us there? Wow. God damn Cheetah, you're raising a god damn Cheetah. It was just so beautiful because like I'm a people pleaser, I come from a huge family. We don't talk about this stuff. We just pretend it never happened and just go on about our lives. But then what this, what this was so cool is like we talked about it and then her friend

just goes, wow, you guys do things so differently. And I just love that so much. And truly when they said it was wow, but then they go, that was a lot. But the the opening of the door, like, I feel like you just being so brave. And I'm sure it took you a long time, not just to write this book, but to decide to write this book. Like, I just want to say thank you because not many people have the life that you have and open themselves up in this way. Nobody. It's just rare as rare can be and I'm just so grateful to have been sitting here and I just didn't even want to talk. I just want you to keep

talking forever. I was like, what's Abby thinking? Because that's my, I was like, Abby's quiet. What's she thinking? I just feel so amazed. And honestly, your book touched me. You, the way that you operate and the privacy that you keep for you and your family and your husband. Yeah. And to come out with this book, I'm just like, fuck, yes. Like I've got my family, my family've got my family origin is going down. Yes, you can tell you what. Yeah, you're giving me permission because I have a big family secret. I have something that I feel like

is really not talked about or dealt with and you're just getting a little bit closer. So thank you. Mm-mm-mm-mm. Yeah. When you lose yourself again, because we know this's not just like, oh, and now I'm done.

Yeah. Now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm, now I'm But your hair looks really good like that. You should do half-op half-dance sometimes. That's really, your hair looks good like that. Thanks, you're okay. I'm also paying attention. Why are you holding your hair now? Because I still look so excited when I'm telling her.

I'm pulling my hair to a turn. Because you guys, because I, this is- Putting her self-care. Okay, honestly, why is because I feel like I have never written honestly or thought truly honestly about my family of origin stuff. And also this last layer of recovery for me with anorexia is all about coming to terms with 100%. The real stuff.

And so what I think is true is that we don't get away with it. Nobody gets away with it. And what you're doing is like, you're doing the hardest thing, which is lovingly bringing everybody to the table and laying it all out in front of everybody, um, to free everybody. And I think that's what it takes to get back into your own body. I think those two things are totally connected. I think bringing it all to the table in your family of origin is directly connected for women to embodiment, to living your one wild and precious

life in a true way. Because when we keep secrets for everybody else, we don't allow ourselves to be in our body because there's too much truth there. So when you start to people please or you don't trust yourself or you lose yourself again, for the feedback that you're giving. I feel really, really moved. But also I want to say it is really hard and I don't want to act like like bringing family secrets forward is always going to be rosy and go great. Like, it's not a joke that we had to do family therapy all four of us. And there have, and I had to to write stuff that could have really made my parents, I don't know, much angrier than they are. I'm really lucky that I have parents who are like, we're proud of you. Not the book we would have written. She would have been a little shorter, maybe. Much shorter, much rosier, maybe. And even like there was a point when I asked my mom to read it,

she was so beautiful. She came over to my house and she gave me a big hug and she was like, I'm so proud of you. It's so beautifully written. It's so beautiful. And then because she's a retired professor of education I'm so proud of you. It's so beautifully written. It's so beautiful. And then because she's a retired professor of education, handed it to me with like post-its and red markings.

And was like, I have some notes. Ha ha. That's not the best metaphor ever. Your mother editing your family memoir. Amazing. But she challenged me in places where I made some adjustments that she was writing on. Like that story I tell

about being in college where my professor told me to press address, meaning iron address, and I just like pushed down on the dress because I hadn't been taught what pressing was. And, um, and she was like, you know, you say that I didn't think that you could, um, however, I had originally written it like that she just didn't teach me to be an adult. And she was like, I was giving you space to think about other things. Like I didn't want you thinking about ironing because I wanted you to be thinking about Shakespeare

and to be like, have time for these other pursuits that were beyond what I was allowed to do at your age. And I was like, oh, she's right. And it took me back to the manuscript. And I wrote, like, my mother's goal was to provide me space where I could have a bigger life and think about other things. And then I added, maybe I could have done both. Like, she didn't think there was room for both, right?

So like, that, I was really grateful because I felt like, this is more balanced. Her insight was more balanced. And she had other little things like, you got the beat wrong. It was a different beat. And I was like, great. So really grateful that my parents engagement with this material and with this moment is so loving. Because it is a testament that every single step along the way, they have had the most loving intentions and that they are learning to love in new ways as I'm learning to love in new ways. But I don't want anybody to think it's all easy and rosy all the time and that you tell a family

secret and there's no, that there's no consequences. There are. And when I lose myself, 10 times a day, not two times a day, I think it's really simple stuff that we all talk about. Like going for walks really big for me to getting back in my body, prayer and meditation really big, which is breathing, drinking water, which I don't like to do. I don't like to drink water if there's nothing in it. Water is so unsexy.

It needs a bubble. It needs a tea bag. It needs a, like, I need my water to be sexy. Yes, it just, like, yes, it needs accessories. But I try to drink, I've, like, you know, electrolyte powder. Like anything to make the water. You know, I'm sorry water that I don't just let you be. But um, so, but water's really big hydrations, really big. I love a massage. I really think about every time I get body work,

for me, it's not just like a spa appointment. For me, it's like healthy, loving, sane touch puts me back in my body because I feel like I have been so against my body so much of my life and there's been abuse, but just even my own relationship with my body. Body work, massage work is kind of part of my amends to this body, to say, I'm just going to let you be loved and cared for. Wow. Amends to your body. Yeah. Right that down, y'all. That's my sign. Amends to your body. Carrie Marissa washing. I just want to say one more thing. What you just did, it actually made me cry.

She's crying twice. She's crying twice. I have a couple books out in the world and my mom hasn't read one of them. Not even the commencement. Well, she probably read that one. She didn't read the one that was like about my family and her. Because I think so much of our individual journeys, we create the narratives of our lives. And what you just said that I think is really important and it was really emotional for

me is because like your mom was able to co-write your narrative. It wasn't just from your side. Like she was able to correct some of the stuff that and give more context around some of that stuff that I think that we don't let our parents in on in terms of this narrative we're creating for our journeys here. So that was a big deal for me. And I think not everybody's going to write a book, but I do think that there is a time where we have to get brave enough to have those conversations with our parents so that they can bring some context to at least the narrative that we're taking.

And you're just amazing. I love you very much. And I'll follow you anywhere you go. I love that. We'll just be following each other and say both. Well, I feel like we should call this Carrie Washington's family can do hard things. No. I mean, I love my parents. I love my parents. It's true. And my husband and my beautiful children.

Yeah, we're all doing hard stuff. You've proven there's a third way. It's not just do we keep the family secrets to keep the peace or do we free ourselves? It's like we gently share the family's secret so that we can all free ourselves. It's very and both. It's like Kerry said, maybe I could have done both. Yeah, I could have done both. You know, it's funny because again, that's part of it is like, I learned some of this from Trevor Noah because when Trevor wrote his book, he actually went to his mom because he felt like when you write a memoir, you should be writing your story and only your story

not anybody else's. But his mom is like the major hero of his memoir. And so he got permission from his mom. Like, can I write your story in my story? And I feel like I didn't wanna drag my parents into my story, but they wrote a story that I had to correct. They wrote this story. And then I, because I was protecting my children

from the public eye and protecting my children from public media, I used to post, so I still do. I post my parents a lot. I used to post my dog and my parents a lot, because I was like, let me keep my husband and kids off the social media. So now we're like perpetuating this lie together that I didn't even know I was telling this narrative.

So in order to correct my story, I had to correct their story. And I'm grateful that they let me, that they get, that they now are supporting characters in my story, that they've had 40 years of me upholding their story. And it's time for it to be my story now. And I do want them to be supporting characters. I need them. I love them so much.

I'm so lucky to have both of my parents still and their great-grandparents and their great-parents. And I think in a lot of ways they've become, as great parents as they've been, the real, like, gold of our relationship has been in these years of me knowing and the truth. So I feel really lucky. And I hope that people, I can't control how people read it, but I do hope that they, in the same way that I love my parents

and understand them more, having lived this and having written it, I hope that other people feel that way about them too. They will, they deserve that. I love them so much. I love both of your too. They will. I love the shit out of that. I love them so much. I love both of your parents. They will. Everyone who reads this book, they'll get it how hard.

They'll get it. They'll get it. Yeah. And they'll get themselves. So, Kerry Washington, we love you. Thank you so much. I love you guys. Thank you for having me on.

What a joy. It was everything that I dreamed it would be. Hot squad. We'll see you back, but never better than that Yeah, that's it y'all We retired Thank you, guys. Thank you, Carrie I hope I see you soon I know and I'm gonna concentrate. You'll be falling at a location near you. Yes, I'll be standing by.

If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things first, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you, because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us, because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts,

and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Keynes 13 Studios. I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlyle. I walked through fire, I came out the other side. I chased as I er, I made sure I got once mine

And I continue to believe, I want the line Cause we're adventurous and heartbreak So man, a final destination And man, we stopped asking directions Some places they've never been And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home Through the joy and pain that our lives bring, we can do a heartache.

I hid rock bottom, it felt like a brand new star I'm not the problem, sometimes things fall apart And I continue to believe the best people are free And it took some time, but I'm finally fine Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on matter A final destination with light We stopped asking directions So places they've never been Can to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home

And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do our thing Can do hard Those perfect charers and heart breaks on my mind We might get lost but we're only in that Stopped asking directions Some places never been And to be loved we need to be long We'll finally find our way back home

And through the joy and pain That our lives breathe We can do hard things Yeah we can do hard things Yeah, we can do hard things Yeah, we can do hard things you