# Redefining "Selfish": Choosing a Life That Feels Like Yours | Kerry Docherty (Going Deeper)

An episode of [Minimalist Moms Podcast | Purposeful Life & Parenting Tips](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1159498258), 21 Apr 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://prefix.up.audio/s/pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/mgln.ai/e/35/audio2.redcircle.com/episodes/eb1379b1-cedb-436d-8530-3d569aa43b2e/stream.mp3

Going Deeper episodes will be less structured with a more conversational tone. These conversations will focus on interesting people I've come across that share similar values, perspectives and intentions expressed on the Minimalist Moms Podcast. In this episode, Diane sits down with author and Faherty Brand co-founder Kerry Docherty to talk about her memoir, Selfish, and the idea of redefining what it means to choose yourself. Kerry shares how the concept of “selfishness” emerged during couples therapy, when she realized how much of her life had been shaped by prioritizing others - often at the expense of her own voice and desires. We talk about what it looks like to reconnect with yourself, make choices that feel aligned (even when they’re uncomfortable), and allow every part of who you are to have a place at the table. ------------------------------------------------- Previous Going Deeper Episodes: Buzzing with Purpose: Teaching Kids to Protect Pollinators Building Fount: Business, Family, & the Balance In Between Ironman Battling Brain Cancer Unschooling My Parent is a Hoarder Links Discussed in This Episode | • Checkout the podcast storefront for recommendations from Diane. • Connect with Kerry: • Website • Instagram • Book: Selfish: Unlearning, Reclaiming, and Telling the Truth About Kerry| Kerry Docherty is the author of her memoir SELFISH: Unlearning, Reclaiming, and Telling the Truth and her children's book SOMEWHERE, RIGHT NOW (featured on Dolly Parton's Imagination Library). She is the cofounder of the lifestyle clothing company Faherty Brand and is passionate about community building, sustainability, and creativity. She lives with her husband and two children on the New Jersey shore, where she is constantly looking for sea glass. Episode Sponsors | The Minimalist Moms Podcast would not be possible without the support of weekly sponsors. Choosing brands that I believe in is important to me. I only want to recommend brands that I believe may help you in your daily life. As always, never feel pressured into buying anything. Remember: if you don't need it, it's not a good deal! Enjoy the Podcast? Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning into this podcast, then do not hesitate to write a review. You can also share this with your fellow mothers so that they can be inspired to think more and do with less. Order (or review) my book, Minimalist Moms: Living & Parenting With Simplicity. You can contact me through my website, find me on Instagram, Pinterest or like The Minimalist Moms Page on Facebook. Our Sponsors: * Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com * Check out Cure Hydration and use my code MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://www.curehydration.com * Check out DeleteMe and use my code joindeleteme.com/MINIMALIST for a great deal: https://joindeleteme.com * Check out Wayfair: https://www.wayfair.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

## Transcript

[0:00] \[SPEAKER_02\]: For those of you that are new around here, I released bonus episodes that serve a niche part of my audience, so if this content is something that doesn't fit what you're looking for, check out the other episodes that drop this week, or join me back here next week for episodes that you don't want to miss.
[0:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: For me, the act of being selfish is this constant decisions to do and choosing that make me feel alive.
[0:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: doesn't always make me feel good.
[0:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It doesn't mean that it doesn't cost me pain, but these decisions took proclaim something for myself and all of my competing needs and desires.
[0:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This makes me feel more alive.
[0:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah.
[0:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And a lot of, you know, a lot of when we think about the self, there are so many different parts of ourselves.
[0:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and they all deserve a seed at the table and they all have different competing needs and interest.
[0:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But when I think about the self I think about wholeness, what does it mean to have everyone have a seed at the table and have the most spiritual part of ourselves to side what's passed?
[0:56] \[SPEAKER_02\]: This is Diane Bowden, and you're listening to the minimalist mom's podcast.
[1:00] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Today's guest invites us to rethink a word that many of us have been taught to avoid, being selfish because what if selfish isn't about taking from others but about finally listening to yourself?
[1:11] \[SPEAKER_02\]: In this episode, I'm joined by Carrie Dockerty, co-founder of Fairity Brand, an author of the new memoir, self-ish, to talk about what it looks like to reconnect with your own voice after years of prioritizing everyone else.
[1:23] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Kerry shares how this realization began during couple therapy when she recognized just how disconnected she had become from her own desires and how that led her to start making small, intentional choices that felt more aligned with who she really is.
[1:35] \[SPEAKER_02\]: We talk about the tension of navigating that kind of personal shift within a marriage and a shared business.
[1:40] \[SPEAKER_02\]: The impact of telling the truth publicly and how honesty, while sometimes uncomfortable, can actually lead to deeper connection.
[1:46] \[SPEAKER_02\]: These going deeper episodes are more of a conversation as opposed to a specific strategic interview.
[1:52] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'll be sure to link the other ones in the show notes.
[1:54] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I have topics such as unschooling.
[1:56] \[SPEAKER_02\]: My parent is a hoarder.
[1:58] \[SPEAKER_02\]: An Iron Man battling brain cancer.
[2:00] \[SPEAKER_02\]: These have been some of my favorite interviews to record, so I hope that you're enjoying them as well.
[2:04] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And if you've been enjoying the episodes, now is a great time to pause to leave a rating interview.
[2:08] \[SPEAKER_02\]: If you've enjoyed the content here on the minimalist mom's podcast, whether it's a regular episode, a bonus episode, or these going deeper episodes, this is the best way to show the show some love so that it continues to succeed and grow.
[2:19] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So thank you in advance to those of you who have left a rating interview.
[2:21] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And with that, let's get into this episode with Carrie.
[2:29] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm so thrilled to talk to you today.
[2:31] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I absolutely have loved your memoir.
[2:32] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm about 78% done as Kendall tells me.
[2:36] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So thanks so much for joining me.
[2:38] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Oh, so happy to be here.
[2:39] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Okay, well, I guess I'll let you start here.
[2:41] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Why don't you just briefly introduce yourself to the listeners and tell them a little bit more about what it is that you do.
[2:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My name is Carrie Dockerty, I am the co-founder of Ferry Brand, which is a lifestyle clothing company.
[2:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I'm also an author.
[2:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And for me to be able to own that identity is so, like, I'm not used to introducing myself as that.
[3:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And a kid's book, we'm out in 2022.
[3:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But having this memoir, Selfish, the title of it, out in the world, feels like a profoundly new chapter for me, in terms of identity.
[3:16] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[3:17] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And I think listeners that choose to read that will see, especially at the beginning, why that might be crazy for you to say, because we're so long.
[3:25] \[SPEAKER_02\]: You were so heavily invested in not being selfish and supporting charity and your husband and not that you didn't want to do that.
[3:33] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But I think that, yeah, I sang this is something that I've done on my own is probably super empowering.
[3:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Absolutely.
[3:39] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, okay, so I want to start here with the title, self-ish.
[3:43] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I guess why I did you call it self-ish?
[3:45] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Why did you decide to name it?
[3:46] \[SPEAKER_02\]: You remember that.
[3:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, the word is so activating to sin and the book opens with my husband and I and couple of therapy negotiating our salary and my husband saying, I should make more than you because Ferry Brown was my brother and I's dream, I work harder and I'm just more committed and you do what you want.
[4:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I ask back, well, why don't you do what you want?
[4:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's how the book opens and the book is really an excavation of all the different ways in my life.
[4:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have prioritized other people and then a well groomed woman carrying about everyone else, but not carrying about myself.
[4:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: In a journey into prioritizing myself and being willing to be called selfish.
[4:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and what that word means.
[4:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's a controversial book.
[4:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like there are conversations, this will activate a lot of conversations.
[4:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that's my hope is that we start to think about what that definition of selfishness says and whether or not we're willing to proclaim it for ourselves.
[4:58] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[4:59] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, I know.
[4:59] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I really appreciated your authenticity and the various stories that you shared throughout, like a bit of coming of age there prior to having children, like I said, it really spoke to me personally, but I think with the word selfish.
[5:12] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm having this conversation with a lot of my friends now, now that I'm in my late 30s of this selfish versus selflessness.
[5:19] \[SPEAKER_02\]: When do we fall on this word?
[5:20] \[SPEAKER_02\]: When do we choose this self?
[5:22] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So was it in that moment and therapy
[5:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it was slow in steady decisions over and over again to see that I had whittled myself down, need to do a form that I didn't recognize anymore.
[5:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And the way I, you know, I don't clearly define selfish the word selfish in the book.
[5:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is not a self-help book, this is not a how to change your life and become selfish.
[5:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But I do think what you start to see is, for me, the act of being selfish is the the consent decisions to do and choose things that make me feel alive.
[6:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It doesn't always make me feel good.
[6:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It doesn't mean that it doesn't cost me pain.
[6:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But these decisions took proclaim something for myself and all of my competing needs and desires, like this makes me feel more alive.
[6:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, and a lot of, you know, a lot of when we think about the self, there are so many different parts of ourselves, and they all deserve a seed at the table, and they all have different competing needs and interest, but when I think about the self, I think about wholeness, and what does it mean to have everyone have a seed at the table and have the most spiritual part of ourselves, decide what's best.
[6:44] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[6:45] \[SPEAKER_02\]: It's so curious.
[6:46] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I don't know if this is just, again, maybe people just hit this, this whole idea of like midlife crisis, or like when you hit a certain age, you start reflecting in a different way.
[6:54] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But even though the words that you're using, like wholeness, like being a whole person, we have these parts, like parts or another term that if you like keep coming up.
[7:01] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But yeah, I so many women feel like they lose a part of their identity when they become mothers.
[7:07] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And you had a moment with your therapist where she asked you about abandoning yourself and you said I didn't.
[7:13] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And that was a challenging thing for you.
[7:15] \[SPEAKER_02\]: What does my question here?
[7:16] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I guess what encouragement you have to listeners that find themselves in that position and how do they dig their way back to self?
[7:25] \[SPEAKER_02\]: How do they become whole again?
[7:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, I, it's a process and I don't have the answer.
[7:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't think any of us has the answer.
[7:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We have to find our own North Star.
[7:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think my encouragement to people who read this book is really becoming a cutely aware of how things to make us feel.
[7:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And to do that, we have to slow down.
[7:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We have to be honest.
[7:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We have to sit with our feelings.
[7:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We have to sit with our bodies, how things feel in our bodies.
[7:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And once we have enough spaciousness to do that, then we can make the next best decision for us.
[8:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's circuitous, spiralic, messy process.
[8:06] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[8:07] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I think for people that are familiar with the brand and I always say it around to you.
[8:11] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Very, very, very.
[8:12] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[8:13] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[8:14] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I think people would look at that and feel like, wow, you built the successful brand with your husband and yet you still felt disconnected.
[8:21] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So why do you think you felt disconnected between your ambition and the fulfillment?
[8:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Ferry was really my husband and his identical twin brothers dream from childhood.
[8:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And
[8:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It was an incredible dream, and I loved joining it and helping.
[8:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it was all hands on deck, and I'm so proud of what we built.
[8:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's our first baby as we joke about.
[8:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And also it wasn't my dream, which doesn't mean I can't contribute to it.
[8:55] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But I think in a process of building something and seeing the team that we've formed, and it's the impact it's made in the world, there was this quiet whisper of like, what about your dreams?
[9:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I did do the best I could to infuse a lot of my talents and passions into the brand through impact work, sustainability, our partnership with Native artists.
[9:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: For so long, I had a deep desire to be an artist and to be a creative, and I just pushed that down.
[9:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you see that process in the book of me starting to be like, wait a minute.
[9:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There's a part of myself that is on a weekend that I want to start to bring forth.
[9:40] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Another thing I want to make sure I touch on is the relationship with your husband.
[9:43] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Like you said, when you're working with your spouse, I mean, God bless you for being able to do that.
[9:49] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I don't know if I could possibly do that for very different.
[9:51] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Which it seems like you and your husband have like your good young, but like supportive of that.
[9:56] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But yeah, I mean, the marriage dynamic.
[9:58] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Again, I think a lot of us lose ourselves not only in motherhood, but in our marriages.
[10:03] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And it's like, I'm Diane.
[10:05] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm a mother.
[10:05] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm away from a friend and a sister of a daughter.
[10:07] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm all of these things.
[10:10] \[SPEAKER_02\]: When did you start to realize that you may have lost your stuff a little bit in the marriage as well?
[10:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We, you know, working with your husband can make your break the relationship and you're going to find out either way.
[10:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think building a company can make your break people, complicated family dynamics can make your break people.
[10:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And working with Alex, it was so intellectually stimulating for so long because we were all like, you know, I'd say in the book, our bed was our conference table.
[10:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We eat, drink, like this brand was everything.
[10:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, but at some point, I felt like he was my business partner and he might still be my best friend, but I didn't feel like we, the two of us were husband and wife that our family was a unit, there wasn't a story, and because of that, I felt an increasing disconnect.
[11:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm not able to find him like where are you and where am I in this marriage and there were some years and I talk about them in my book that I feel like we lost each other.
[11:24] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[11:25] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[11:26] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Well, and then you were having this personal awakening during this time.
[11:29] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm just curious to know, I guess two questions here.
[11:32] \[SPEAKER_02\]: How to navigate a personal awakening when maybe the other person is not necessarily on the same page.
[11:38] \[SPEAKER_02\]: You describe in the book your mom and dad that your mom said your dad was across the river from her.
[11:44] \[SPEAKER_02\]: You can say it more eloquently than me.
[11:46] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So yeah, I'm curious to know how you would encourage listeners to handle the awakening that isn't quite reciprocated and then too I'd be curious to know maybe I'll ask this later, but how your husband handled this book coming out which we'll go we'll go to that next let's see first question.
[12:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I share in this story about my mom growing up.
[12:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If things were going awry, there were two people she went to.
[12:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oprah, she would turn on Oprah, more like, and she saw psychic and she once described her marital relationship, the psychic did that you have, you are on the river and you are back and in your husband to join you, and he's saying I can't swim.
[12:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that was a dynamic that I modeled in my relationship with my husband for many years.
[12:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I felt like I was, you know, obsessed with spiritual evolution and growth, and I had crossed the river, and I was back in a hand like calm enjoying me.
[12:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And two things can be true.
[12:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Number one, I think we cannot pit stop for other people, even the people we love.
[12:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I personally have a mountain that I am climbing.
[12:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's my personal mountain and I want to get to the top and I want to expand and grow and become the best version of myself.
[12:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that might mean that I can't be dragging people up a mountain that don't want to climb that mountain with me.
[13:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[13:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And also relationships are a mirror for us.
[13:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it has been doesn't have to be on the same mountain with me.
[13:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think I am so much more evolved than him.
[13:16] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then he reflects something back about one of my wounds that I haven't healed.
[13:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I actually need that friction to become the best version of myself.
[13:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so yeah, for me, marriage has been an evolution and it's
[13:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Alex and I always say, you know, we wanted to keep choosing each other.
[13:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[13:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if it ever stops working, like this, this is a daily act of choosing each other.
[13:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we believe that we're better together.
[13:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And you also see how some couples just get stuck for get that they might have agency, that they're not stuck in that spider web of their marriage, that they can have agency.
[13:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and decisions to make that can free themselves.
[14:04] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[14:05] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So yes, the second part of my question would be, your book is incredibly honest.
[14:10] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And do you feel like it has not cost you anything to share honestly in your of your relationship, but it has your husband been comfortable with you putting this on such a, like, it's public now.
[14:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There is the act of writing the book and there are the consequences of publishing.
[14:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Did the book?
[14:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah.
[14:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And your question, I think, goes to the heart of a lot of memoirs.
[14:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't think share, like this book has had profound consequences for me.
[14:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it was very untraditional, but I included, I love that you're 78% and I included in the final chapter.
[14:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh no, no, don't worry, Alex is response to reading this book, and his dismay.
[14:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: He's like, can you imagine if I wrote a 300 page book on what it's like to be married to you?
[15:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Hmm, same.
[15:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Not only to be married to you, but some of the hardest parts of our life.
[15:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And even when you read the book, I'm a complicated character in this book.
[15:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Sure.
[15:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we have a public facing brand and I have had so many people read this book and say, why did you do this?
[15:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I've had to deal with the consequences of it.
[15:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I will say if you want to know if your marriage is going to make it right above the marriage and then see what happens.
[15:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: There has been such depth of intimacy and honesty and trust that Alex and I have formed into with him reading the book.
[15:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Maybe on a deep subconscious level, I was pushing the marriage to the
[15:58] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, no, I love that and I think that I've gotten to that point with marriage to how beautiful to say like this is difficult or this is a season or this is this is whatever it is we're going to continue to say yes and show up and I think through all of those things through all the baggage that we collect throughout the years that were together.
[16:17] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, I think I don't know.
[16:19] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I find it like way more romantic to be fully transparent with one another and then continue to say yes.
[16:25] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, I find that so beautiful, which oh my gosh, I can't wait to get to that.
[16:28] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'll probably finish it tonight.
[16:32] \[SPEAKER_02\]: All that to say, why did you choose what is your answer to those people?
[16:36] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And they say, why did you put this out there?
[16:38] \[SPEAKER_02\]: What's your answer?
[16:39] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, the most selfish thing I could have done was to write this book, and also this has been my dream to write your writer, and at the end of the day, there's nothing I have more expertise on than what it's like to be me every day, I'm experiencing what it's like to be me.
[16:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I believe that people who step into their purpose, into their honesty, it doesn't have to necessarily be in the form of art, but that it does end up being an act of service to people.
[17:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I love to have read a book like this.
[17:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Eight years ago, when I was in the thralls of so much uncertainty and pain and fear, and so I'm not always that if I'm honest with my life, it will be a gift to other people.
[17:30] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So the listeners, they're not necessarily publishing a memoir or going through some of the circumstances that you have.
[17:38] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But on a regular like Tuesday, what would it look like for a listener to choose themselves first and foremost?
[17:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's the smallest acts throughout the day of you waking up, noticing how you want to feel, and then small acts to pursue that.
[17:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that doesn't meet, you don't have a job that you don't have obligation that there's not systems of oppression that are working against you.
[18:08] \[SPEAKER_01\]: All of that can exist.
[18:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And also am I going to stretch my body?
[18:14] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Am I going to do my spiritual practice?
[18:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Am I going to do both?
[18:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Am I going to be in community with people who make me feel alive?
[18:25] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You know, I think self, not necessarily just what brings us, what makes us feel good, what product we buy, it's not tied to consumerism.
[18:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's tied to like spiritual, this is.
[18:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: that we can do in this small, well, man, it's these small decisions to be like, you know what, I am going to sneak up right now.
[18:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[18:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because I'm mad or enough, I am going to say no to that.
[18:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it's tied to the external outcomes of like what might happen.
[18:51] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Were there boundaries that you started to put up at first that felt uncomfortable?
[18:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm someone that has someone to disagree with.
[19:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's, I really don't my conflict.
[19:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't.
[19:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am a middle child.
[19:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm at anyogram nine.
[19:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm a peacemaker.
[19:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I felt like I spent most of my life not speaking my truth for fear that it would make someone feel uncomfortable.
[19:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think over the past couple of decades, I think law school was helpful for me in like honing my boys and wanting to have feeling my own rage about certain things.
[19:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And then being able to share my truth about things that made me feel uncomfortable.
[19:37] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So I think there are probably people listening that are uncomfortable with this conversation that we're having.
[19:43] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Some things are so programmed into us that we think we can't choose self and that no, it's always martyrdom.
[19:49] \[SPEAKER_02\]: It's always selflessness.
[19:50] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And so I guess how would you gently encourage the women that are feeling a little bit apprehensive to some of these conversations?
[19:56] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Like how would you encourage them to like tiptoe into the water?
[20:01] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I don't know if you can answer that, but I would love for you to speak.
[20:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think it's, I mean, this is this book is activating and this is this book is not a self-help book.
[20:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am not a spiritual teacher.
[20:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am not a religious teacher.
[20:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is just a messiness of for me being human.
[20:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Hmm, I think we're very, I'm not as interested as I used to be about what is right and wrong, as much as what are the consequences for what we do and how are we tied to other and there's an amazing quote by a print to sample it opens the book, which is the self is not an individual.
[20:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are not other than each other.
[20:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am who I am because of my upbringing, because of my parents, because of my friends, because of my faith, because of my relationship with God.
[20:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I am not other than God.
[20:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We are not other than God.
[20:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so when I think about the self, it's so expansive.
[20:54] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So when we talk about being self-lasts, who are we kicking out of the selves?
[21:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if God can hold it all, certainly there are parts of ourselves,
[21:09] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I just don't want particularly women to give up the parts of themselves that make them who they are and all of their messiness and contradictions to benefit someone else because we don't know if it actually is benefiting someone else.
[21:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: A lot of math, a lot of the life is math.
[21:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Simple, I can give based on how much I have.
[21:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if I'm giving and giving and giving and I'm slowly whittling myself away, I mean, this is the book that we read as kids, the giving tree, the giving, you know, the tree kept giving and giving and giving and giving and all that was left of the tree was a stump.
[21:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I would love us to be huge trees at bare fruit because we are being nourished.
[22:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: then cutting parts of ourselves away and all that stuff is a stump.
[22:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Then old man can sit on.
[22:05] \[SPEAKER_02\]: You know?
[22:06] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Absolutely.
[22:08] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Okay.
[22:10] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Just a few more things before we wrap up.
[22:12] \[SPEAKER_02\]: What is life feel like now compared to before you made these shifts?
[22:17] \[SPEAKER_02\]: What does it feel like for you?
[22:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Life feels so much more expansive to me.
[22:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I feel like I have a wilder imagination of what's
[22:27] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I feel like life is not as black and white as it used to be and that there is more room for gray, but again feels like it feels roomier and I also feel like I really believe in myself.
[22:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I'm starting to trust what my body tells me, what my heart tells me, what my spirit telling me because I feel like in the process of writing this book of who I am and actually allowing all the different parts of me to come to the table.
[22:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't have as much fear anymore about my shadow self.
[23:01] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I know my shadow self, and I'm not afraid of her.
[23:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: She is a part of me, whether I want her to be or not, and allowing myself to have all parts in me come to fruition.
[23:11] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It makes life less scary, and I feel more whole, and I actually feel more in charge.
[23:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It was scarier to me when I was pushing down parts of myself that I didn't want to admit.
[23:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because as we know, and I sure this in the book, nothing goes away, nothing goes.
[23:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So we can push it down and we can hide it, but it will come out, and it might come out in ways we don't want.
[23:39] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[23:40] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[23:40] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And you say, I think you were just saying this, it is a gift to others when we become whole.
[23:45] \[SPEAKER_02\]: It is a gift to your husband.
[23:46] \[SPEAKER_02\]: It is a gift to your children.
[23:47] \[SPEAKER_02\]: We are doing those around us a disservice when we think that we're just again these martyrs for other people.
[23:53] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I'm having these conversations in my own life with some people around me.
[23:56] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Just if you're not a whole person and you're right, if you keep pushing these things down,
[24:02] \[SPEAKER_02\]: You're just going to be incomplete and flailing in all these ways and you're just yeah I just want to show up in the best self that I possibly can and yeah I might have to hit certain mile markers on that mountain to get to that point would you say you've arrived do you feel like you've arrived?
[24:18] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I don't even know what that means, you know?
[24:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I don't know either.
[24:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I know.
[24:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: No, I think we create these very like, we create these boxes or these ladders for ourselves of thinking like, if I do this, I will be blank.
[24:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: If I don't offend everyone, if I serve everyone, then I will be safe from feeling suffering.
[24:40] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's just not for me, you know, like wins.
[24:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And life is life.
[24:48] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And there is hardship and there is pain and there is healing.
[24:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think what my husband and I have decided is like, we are going to wound each other.
[24:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We just fell.
[25:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: My bigger question is, and we also heal with each other.
[25:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Hmm, and there's no end that healing doesn't stop in the wounding doesn't stop.
[25:11] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, one thing I didn't ask you about, I might go put this back in somewhere, but where you are are you nervous about your children's response to this?
[25:21] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I know that they're not necessarily, well, I guess they're not necessarily of age to read it yet or just your thoughts around that.
[25:30] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I grew up in a household that didn't talk about hard things.
[25:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They were minimized.
[25:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They passed.
[25:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They were spiritualized away.
[25:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so I learned at a young age that there were certain things that were shameworthy that you don't share.
[25:46] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And that manifested in my body.
[25:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I want to grow up in a household where everyone feels safe to talk about the things that they've done wrong, the things that make them afraid, the parts of themselves that they're worried about.
[26:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And...
[26:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: This is not a parenting book, but I love that my kids are seeing models, parents who sometimes disagree, parents who can say, I'm sorry, you know, every night I go to sleep when my one son's like mom tell me a story about when you did something bad.
[26:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Or I think it's because even at a young age kids start to feel afraid that they're bad.
[26:29] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, and I like to normalize the fact that he has parents that have made mistakes, and that we can talk about them, and we can heal together.
[26:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, and we can get that for goods.
[26:42] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, and it's going to be okay.
[26:45] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, absolutely.
[26:46] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I think I want my kids to know that as well.
[26:48] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I mean, that's a great take away and that yeah, we're all so messy.
[26:52] \[SPEAKER_02\]: We're all going to make mistakes and sharing those mistakes with our kids may help them not make some of those certain mistakes, but also when they do, just knowing that we are there to walk through with them.
[27:03] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, well kind of as we wrap things up here, do you have a final word that you want to leave with listeners just a final encouragement that you hope the listeners take away when they choose to read your book?
[27:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I think just allow, you know, this, like I said, this was not, this is not a self-help book.
[27:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I don't have an agenda in writing this stuff except to say, this is what it's like for me to navigate life and marriage and motherhood and creativity and longing and healing.
[27:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And this is my process in trying to reclaim myself,
[27:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And if that, if there are parts of the book that feel helpful or activating, that's the gift of art.
[27:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Is it makes us think about our own life?
[27:50] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and like I said at the beginning, I absolutely was introspective when I was reading your book.
[27:56] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I was did a lot of processing there.
[27:59] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So I'm really grateful that you chose to be transparent and vulnerable and putting it out there for listeners.
[28:04] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But if listeners want to connect with you, where can they find a copy of your book and connect with you online?
[28:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They can find selfish, it comes out April 21st.
[28:13] \[SPEAKER_01\]: They can find it on bookshops.org to great website that supports independent bookstores.
[28:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But it's also an Amazon target all of our faces.
[28:22] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Well, I don't think you know this, but I always ask my guests to final rapid-fire questions here at the end.
[28:27] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And the first one is, what has been a beneficial resource in your life that you want to share with the listeners?
[28:33] \[SPEAKER_02\]: contemplation.
[28:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I love long walks on the beach, just allowing myself to be in my in my thoughts in a nature.
[28:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Like a contemplative practice for me, I think is a cornerstone of my life.
[28:48] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah, without all the input from other things for sure.
[28:52] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Last question is what is something you can't stop talking about?
[28:56] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, what is my, I can't stop talking about?
[28:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I just love family when ice cream bars.
[29:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, every night before I go to sleep, I bought them for my kids and now I just love them.
[29:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I will have too many other more serious things I can't start talking about, but let's let's end the conversation with a little bit of brevity, levity, I should say, and Van Lewin's ice cream bars.
[29:19] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Okay.
[29:19] \[SPEAKER_02\]: No, that looks yummy.
[29:20] \[SPEAKER_02\]: It looks like they do have them.
[29:21] \[SPEAKER_02\]: It looks like there's a shop maybe in New York, is that there's a shop in New York.
[29:27] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[29:27] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Okay.
[29:28] \[SPEAKER_02\]: But I can also get it here in Ohio.
[29:30] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Yeah.
[29:30] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Pretty cool.
[29:31] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Well, again, I just appreciate
[29:33] \[SPEAKER_02\]: so much your vulnerability and sharing these stories.
[29:35] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So many of us have them.
[29:36] \[SPEAKER_02\]: We might not want to share them and we might want to deny them, but it doesn't deny the truth that this is real for a lot of us.
[29:42] \[SPEAKER_02\]: So I just appreciate you taking a step and putting it out there and for joining me today.
[29:47] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Thanks, Diane.
[29:50] \[SPEAKER_02\]: What did you think of the episode?
[29:51] \[SPEAKER_02\]: I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
[29:53] \[SPEAKER_02\]: To learn more about today's guest, including links, resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at minimalismomspodcast.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as my book Minimalismoms Living and Parenting with Simplicity, or other ways to connect or work with me online.
[30:12] \[SPEAKER_02\]: If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
[30:21] \[SPEAKER_02\]: And leave a rating or review of your favorite episode.
[30:24] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Lastly, sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends and social media is very helpful and will encourage others on their journey to think more and do with less.

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