YouSaid · the spoken record

Kerry Washington

lines on the record: 62
first: 2023-12-25
most recent: 2023-12-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I would be honored I have always felt in my relationship with my parents and in life in general, that I haven't trusted what I'm looking at, never fully believing what I'm seeing. It's true for sound too. I can still hear things while underwater, but there's a chamber of silence, of the unknown, between the world above the surface and me. I find healing when I'm in water because the one voice I hear clearly is my own. Now, I didn't end that with the word own just for you. But that's pretty amazing. Better ending. Thank you, Carrie Washington. Thank you so much.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But he's been willing to walk this journey with me. And I think it's so generous. It's so generous. He'll say, I trust you.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. It's a piece that comes from I'm going to give you space to be you, and you're going to give me space to be me, and we can be in this together with love. And what my father has said to me, what my dad has said that is so meaningful, is that he always says, I trust you. That has been the big thing that he has said, you know, since the revelation. There's been so many things that have made him he didn't want me to take a DNA test. He was like, why do we need a DNA test? I don't want to know that information. You're mine. I'm yours. End of story. And I was like, I'm yours end of mine, not end of story, right? There's more to it”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but we've agreed to disagree about certain things. We've agreed to hold hands and support each other. We've agreed to walk this path with love and respect. So I think we are at peace. And it's not the kind of fake piece where everybody has to think the same and look the same and be the same.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but peace is not always simple. Right. Like when people ask my dad about the book, he'll tell you, this is not the book he would have written, right? I can see why. This is not the book my mother would have written necessarily. You know, my mom just told some of her closest friends recently in the last couple of months, knowing that the book was going to come out.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That growth. Yes Know this journey of figuring out, I mean, my dad is my dad, my dad will always be my dad, but realizing that there is this other figure, this sperm donor, that I don't know who he is, that gap, that space, that question mark around my fatherhood, I think in some ways has created more room for me to build more of a relationship with a heavenly father. And it's something that I think I really have always respected about Namdi's journey because he lost his dad when he was a teenager. And he has a really strong relationship with his Heavenly Father. And so I think that also has been a real gift.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I called him right after that text. What is this about? What is it? And then said to him, you know, he's the first person I told, of course. So I'm just grateful to have a partner. And you know Namdi's such an extraordinary person. Yes.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In some ways, I don't talk enough in the book about how important Namdi has been in this process that he really has, he's been in those family therapy sessions with me and my parents. He's been my partner through all of”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Thank you for saying that. I feel it too. I've been at tables with you before where I feel like, do I deserve to be here? Is it okay to be here? Am I going to say the right thing and not feeling comfortable just in my being?”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think whenever I'm able to capture a glimpse of the best of myself, it's because I'm actually not focused on myself. It's because I'm focused on service and how I can be of service in a moment, whether it's in service to my scene partner, in service to the community around voting, in service to in whatever way. That for me is when I'm finding my best self. Which I think is why it's tricky, that balance between stepping into being the lead character of your own life, but then also letting that not become narcissism, right? That you're the lead character of your own life because you get to live the life of your calling. But let that calling be of service as well.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so she was so strong. She always could walk into a situation and find her way out. She never gave up and she always felt like she had what it took to be the solution to any problem. And I feel like she helped me feel more capable.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a tricky thing. It is a tricky thing. And it for me triggered a lot of those feelings of not being safe in the world.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was just, you know, it's a tricky thing when you lose your anonymity and you lose your privacy and your life doesn't belong to you, it comes with so many blessings. It comes with so many blessings complained, well...”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Children's life, but that has to be a choice. It cannot be because I don't know how to be the lead of my own life. So this book is kind of me attempting to step into the lead role as the character and the story of my life. And I think Olivia Pope taught me that I could do that because she was number one on the call sheet. She was the lead character on that show.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I couldn't connect it. When my parents gave me this information, I realized, oh, this is my call to adventure. This is my story. Up until now, up until 40, I have been the supporting character in the story of my parents' lives. This has been their narrative, and I've been the co-star. It's time for me to step into the role as protagonist in my life. I need to be the lead character in my life and let them be supporting characters. I need to figure out what my story is. Where do I come from? How did I get here? What does it mean? Where do I go from here? Because it's not enough for me to just be a supporting character in their life. Every single one of us deserves to be the lead character in the story of our lives. And I can choose to be a supporting character. I love that. I love being a supporting character in the story of Nomdi's life. I love being a supportive character in the story of my child.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And what you gave to her. Where do we start? I feel like Olivia Pope in many ways helped me write this book. And that might sound crazy, but I'm going to tell you how because one of the things I realized was that I needed to go on this journey of discovery once my parents gave me this information because I never understood my story. I didn't really feel like I Understood my calling, my mission, my passion, my life didn't really make sense to me because I felt like there was more and I didn't know what the more was.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If it were not for my dad and my mom's pride of wanting to keep this a secret, I wouldn't be here. Because they would have adopted.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what I think to have taken on this incredibly experimental procedure. At that time, it is proof of how wanted. Yes, that's the big, right? I am sure he had less than five black patients in his whole upper East practice in New York”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were just a handful of doctors in Manhattan who would do this procedure, and she found one. And then when I was a toddler, she went to the office and said, burn all the records.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going to find him. But I just, it is an interesting place to be in, to be now at the end of writing this book, kind of at the beginning of a new adventure. And I don't know if I'll find him. And I don't know if he's alive. I don't know what it'll mean. I don't know if he has family. I don't know the two things my parents said to the doctor were, please let him be black and please let him be healthy. Because my parents were such innovators, right? This wasn't now. I have so many girlfriends who have babies where they've gone to a sperm bank and they look through a catalog and you can pick the color of the eyes and what Ivy League school they went to. But my parents had no idea who this was. This is in the 70s. It was a very experimental procedure. Nobody talked about it. There were no details. And when I was”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Writing this book. I did not imagine that I could write it. I didn't imagine that my family would let me write it. That we would together stand in truth publicly in this way. It was interesting because when my parents told me, I, of course, started to do a deep dive into all the articles and there was actually a big summit at the UN because internationally there are no rules of And we have no rights, right? Like it's interesting. There's no sort of legal rights that I have in terms of figuring out who my sperm donor is. I'm on a search and I know that I'll find that person because I have the best together.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I still love ritual But it meant it grounded the ritual in belief. It meant that the ritual was not just, I'm lighting a candle because you're supposed to light a candle. I was lighting a candle to take the time to make the space for a relationship that was important to me and that relationship was with God. Shifted that dynamic. And I started really leaning into God in my recovery and asking for that help.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To step in and help me. And I didn't know what it was, but I knew I needed something. I knew I needed help. And that is when I started. The next morning, something did shift because I started asking for help. Like that moment of humility gave me the willingness to call the college clinic and make an appointment with a therapist for the first time and to reach out about group therapy situations and to just seek help outside myself.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is something about that posture of submission that humbled me, that made me realize that even though I was the only child who thought I could fix everything, and even though I thought I was the solution to all my parents' problems, even though I thought I could be perfect in order to make everything better, that I actually was not in charge. That I needed something bigger than me.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But if I wasn't on stage, if I wasn't in rehearsal, my whole world consisted of trying to perfect my body and then trying to sabotage myself with food, hurt myself with food or exercise.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was consumed. I was maintaining a GPA to keep my scholarship. I was starring in all the college plays. So I had these places that required my focus. And again, that's why theater saved my life. Because being on stage gave me a place to be human.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right That's right. And I think that was part of my loneliness also, that I hadn't ever had an intimate relationship with spirit to fill those spaces when I needed them filled. So the first time I got on my knees in that room, in that dorm room, I just asked for help. I just wanted my life to be about something other than my body and food. I wanted to wake up and be able to have bigger thoughts, to have more on my heart and my mind.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we prayed, but I didn't have, my heart was never in it. It was rituals tradition and ritual. It was ritual. That's right. It was ritual. We said grace”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, up until that point, you know, we were a good West Indian family, you know, so we went to an episcopal church. We went to our Anglican Episcopal Church on holidays, you know, and occasionally on Sundays. I didn't have an intimate relationship with God. Church was an institution for me and prayers were music. It was culture. It was culture, but it wasn't belief.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that compulsion to kind of eat in order to escape and in order to numb was coupled with this perfectionism of needing to look perfect and be perfect. And so it was this cycle of eat too much and then exercise too much or eat too much and then starve too much. And as if there's a starve enough, just starve, period. So it was, it was a really toxic cycle”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Out of boredom, out of loneliness, out of discomfort. I just remember going back to the refrigerator again and again and again.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it was an escape. You know, I think about, I was a latchkey kid, so a lot of times I would come home alone or with my cousins, but there were no parents there. And we would have food in the refrigerator, especially if I was alone. There would be food in the refrigerator with a little love note from my mom. And that became, food became my friend. It became a way for me”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And as my career, even just a hobby evolved, I also got to express real feelings, you know, my feelings of sadness, my feelings of rage. It gave me a container to pour myself into so that I wasn't shut down and alone.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“on him and letting It was. And again, because I really put. Somebody else's Life ahead of my own. So I don't regret that decision in the time because it was a complicated decision. But I do regret that little girl feeling like it was her fault and feeling alone in that for so long and feeling like. It had to be a secret for as long as it was.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I catch this person in the act of attempting to touch me because he thinks that I'm sleeping. Know as I'm saying it to you, one of the things that happened in that moment, and I know I write about this, is that It was a glimpse of that idea that happened later for me with my parents of I was right because I had approached him earlier and said, is something happening at night? And he told me I was crazy. And so when I caught him I knew I wasn't crazy. But I made the decision to not tell anyone. And so that for me was the beginning of a whole new journey. It was the growth of this idea that it's up to me to make things okay. That was, I think, the first time that I really put somebody else's life or wellness”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are dynamics I don't understand that are bigger than me, and I can't control them. And I stayed up late one night. We used to have these big sleepovers with neighborhood kids. I stayed up to catch this kid in the neighborhood who was touching me at night.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, because you've been. I had this sense that something was happening at night, but I didn't know what it was. So it was again this kind of repetition of this pattern of.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was at night, and I know I describe it as kind of a whirling, swirling. It was like a rhythm that lived inside me and it was. Like this nagging, consistent, constant pattern. It was very hard to describe, but it was small enough that it felt like it was in every cell of my being and big enough that I felt like it could swallow me whole. Yeah.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I know I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't learned to navigate that pressure early on. I mean, in some ways, Olivia Pope is that little girl. She thinks she can fix every situation. She's the fixer. It's up to her to save everything. Yes, yes, yes. So there was something about that character and that world that.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's the only thing they, it's the only thing you, I was going to say it's the only thing you can control. But as a child, it's the only thing you think you can control. That's right. Yourself. You know you can't fix the marriage, but you think if I can fix me, other things will get better too.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. Yes. And I think I was, as you point out, I was safe in so many ways. I was taking care of materially. We had enough money, basically. I was fed well. You know, I was safe in many ways, but emotionally. Spiritually, I didn't feel safe. And I think that's important for us to think about. I think about it as a parent. I think about it for myself today. You know, you can have lots of things, but it's the work, the emotional work, the spiritual work that really defines my existence”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I love that phrase, you know, don't compare your insides with other people's outsides, that idea that we just don't know. We don't know what other people are going through. And I felt that pressure. And I think now as I look back on it, in some ways, When we, especially as black women, as women of color, when we learn to navigate that pressure early on, it does in some ways serve us because that pressure doesn't lessen as we get older. But I think what I've learned is that the need to be exceptional, that I can have a different kind of relationship with it, right? That it doesn't have to be a perfectionism, that debilitates me, that now I can try to channel it into ambition, but still be kind to myself along the way.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This looks like American dream. I mean, it's the We did. We had a neighborhood pool and we had a neighborhood. We had two cars. And you had two cars, cabin and up New York.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the implication was this family can't handle the truth. And by them sharing this information, we've all gotten to see that we actually can do hard things, we can handle the truth.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gave me back a pathway to believe my thoughts and to trust myself and to know that I actually can manage the truth. Like there was a part of them that thought this family can't handle the truth. We're going to keep it, it was very loving. You know, my parents made this choice to keep this information for me out of love. They weren't trying to be cruel.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I couldn't articulate as a small child. You know, you fill in the gaps with it, it must have been me, right? So I have to do better, be better, be smarter, get better grades, achieve more, be prettier, be thinner. I was always trying to twist myself into a pretzel. Because I thought that I was the problem. And meanwhile, everyone was saying, nothing's wrong where this picture book family, everything's great. And so I think one of the things that my parents gave to me when they shared this truth with me was they gave me back a relationship with my intuitive self.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think one of the most important things I learned was to trust myself again. Because I did feel that there was a space. I felt that there was something being withheld from me. I felt that there was something going on that I didn't understand. And because I didn't know what I didn't know. I always blamed myself. I thought”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I said, Dad, you are going to have a chance now to know what it feels like to be loved unconditionally. That has been the experience. Know that I have been able to My dad loves me so much. And I have been able to now return that love because it hasn't changed. If anything, it's deeper. My love for my parents is so much deeper in truth. Than it ever was before this revelation.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, my immediate reaction was actually excitement and curiosity, but I also could read the room and I knew that they were feeling really distraught and afraid. And I looked at my dad. He seemed terrified that me learning that he wasn't my biological father was going to mean that he wasn't my dad. And I knew that that wasn't the case. I knew that my dad is always going to be my dad because I have tremendous parents. Despite the fact that in that moment, I knew that they had. This truth from me for decades, for my whole life. Said to my dad. I guess I realized sitting across from him that up until that moment, every time I had said, I love you to my father, it had been on the condition of a lie. It had been, there must have been some part of him that thought she loves me because she doesn't know.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's no opportunity to reconcile, to make peace. There's more unknowns and more difficulty emotionally. And so that's what happened. I walked into the apartment where my parents were and they sat me down and my mom said, I know that you know it took us a long time to have you because that was part of the narrative of how I came to be. She said, but we used a sperm donor, basically.”
2023-12-25 · Oprah's Super Soul · Kerry Washington · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source