AUTHOR CHAT: Kerry Docherty's "Selfish"

Are you selfish?

“Selfish” is supposed to be the insult that ends the conversation, especially for women who were raised to be helpful, agreeable, and endlessly available. We sit down with author Kerry Docherty to pull that word apart and rebuild it into something sharper and more useful: self-awareness, honest boundaries, and the courage to admit what you want before you burn out trying to be “good.” Her memoir, Selfish, becomes the jumping-off point for a raw talk about what it costs to keep giving yourself away and why telling the truth can be both selfish and deeply generous.

We dig into the trap of likability and the ways girls learn early to smooth everything over, including their own anger and ambition. Kerry reflects on privilege and what she has learned from people who have had to live more openly because the world already judges them. We also get practical about modern “self-care,” from doomscrolling dopamine to the quieter work of choosing what actually makes you feel alive, plus what it looks like to model emotional language and bodily autonomy for your kids.

Then the conversation turns toward marriage, work, and longing. Kerry shares what it was like to build the Faherty clothing brand with her husband and his twin brother, how business can strain intimacy, and why writing a memoir is an “act of betrayal” even when it is also an act of love. She opens up about “Beau,” an emotional entanglement that exposes dormant creativity and desire, and we explore a reframe of partnership as something you choose every day rather than a life sentence you simply endure.

If this conversation makes you uncomfortable, we think that is the point. Subscribe for more author interviews, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with the one boundary you are ready to set next.

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Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex

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Transcript

Birthday Welcome And The Book

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Hi Carrie, thank you so much for being with me today. So happy to be here. Happy birthday. How are you feeling?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Oh my gosh, sweaty. Yeah. Sweating. I mean, so, so excited. Yeah. The buildup of it, it really is like giving birth. And it's like, get this baby out of me. I just want the world to have it.

Why Publish The Story Now

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah. And we need it, I think. I feel like your memoir is so provocative. So I imagine a lot of people might get a little uncomfortable as they read it because selfish is a word that a lot of us, women, have been conditioned to fear, to run far away from. This memoir is your reclamation of that word. It's beautifully written, honest, very raw, an exploration of what it costs to keep giving yourself away. And ultimately, it challenges us all to reflect on what it means to be good, especially a good woman, good mother, good wife. And who gets to decide what is selfish? What happens when you dare to put yourself first? Thank you for asking us those questions, Carrie. And thank you for reminding us that our feelings matter, that they are worthy of being shared. And the act of sharing them is a way of honoring ourselves as human beings. I am so excited to chat with you. Oh, you're so good at your job. Thank you. That was a great summary. Thank you. That's very sweet. Okay, so before we get into the meat of the memoir, let's talk about why now. Why did you decide to sit down and finally honor yourself this way? It's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

So much of the, so many of the questions I've gotten in the people who have read it is why did you do this? Because I had reached a point in my life where our business that we co-founded is stable. My children are out of the thralls of like the intense young childhood years. There was a lot of stability. And also my dream has been to be a writer. And women who tell the truth have changed my life. And there was still a lot that needed to be excavated in me of looking back over the past five years, 10 years since childhood, and wondering who am I? How did I become who I am? And who what type of woman do I want to continue to be? And there is no better way to figure out who you are and what your needs are and what's been important to you than by writing down your life. Right. But then publishing that is also another story.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

And honestly, I don't recommend it to everyone.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

There are real consequences to sharing our stories.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

But what are the consequences of not sharing our stories? Correct.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Correct. And I think in a lot of ways, the most selfish thing I could have done to some people around me was to publish this book. And also the most selfless thing I could have done is to publish this book because I do think women who share their stories is a gift to other women. And in that way, it balances out.

Naming Selfish And Owning Truth

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah. And I like I said, I think that this book is a challenge for a lot of people in a really good way. I think, I think it's good when people are uncomfortable when they're confronted with something that I think they understand and feel connected to, but like maybe don't want to feel connected to. And so I think that your book is really unique in that way. Talk to me about finding this title, though, selfish. It's was it always that? It was close to that. It was the selfish wife.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Okay. So I started working on a collection of essays. Well, first it was called The Lazy Wife. Then it progressed to the selfish wife. And actually, my editor and I went back and forward a lot because I really wanted the word wife in it because of how activating that was. Like the word selfish wife together, I thought was really activating. Ultimately, she convinced me and a few other friends I have who are authors really encouraged just the word itself to stand on its own. It also, other characters in this book are very selfish and so, or selfless at different times. And so I think it's a word that transcends being a wife. And so ultimately that's how we decided on the title.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

It's interesting because maybe the wife part is what sparked this exploration for you in your relationship and in your life. But it's it is so much bigger than that. So sometimes people have really good advice and it's good to listen to that. Agreed, agreed. Also, and this might just be me still trying to impress my 11th grade English teacher, but there's something about ish. Yes, it's self-ish, which the word we all know, but it's also like you figuring out who Carrie is herself-ish.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Yes, the word self-ish, exactly. It can also just be the embodiment of self versus a descriptive word that shows extreme self-prioritization at the expense of others.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Right. And it's a reminder that like who we are is always shifting and we can always continue shaping ourselves-ish. Was there anything that surprised you as you were crafting the memoir?

SPEAKER_02 5:08

I learned so much about myself. I mean, I've always been someone who's been a student of self-awareness and intrigued by my patterns, my family of origin, why I am the way I am. What was interesting though is in order to write this book, I had to disassociate from the fact that people would read it. Every page I would write, I would say, what am I not saying? What needs to be said here that I'm afraid to say? And I would write it down. Some of that ended up in the book, some of it didn't. But that practice of being like, Am I telling the truth? And am I owning my own complicated nature? This is not a self-help book. This is not how to become more self-prioritized and get everything you want. I am a complicated character in the book that you my hope is that you trust me as a narrator because I really show you all of my flaws, all of my inner thoughts. The first draft I sent, my editor said to me, Carrie, I need you to be more likable. And I remember being so honored because I have been likable my entire I am literally the most likable person I know. Yeah. And you bring that up in the book. It meant I was doing my job because I was actually pulling back the veil of what it means to occupy my inner landscape. And sometimes it's really messy in there.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah. All of us can take that look in our own lives. And, you know, we'll get into likabilities when we get into the meat of the memoir. But by you exposing yourself in such a raw, vulnerable, messy way, unlikable way, you give us all permission to realize that like that's what being a human is. And why are we pretending that it's anything else? Right. And and what does that pretending do for our children, for this society that we're trying to shape?

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I know. I know.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

There are some things that didn't make the final round of edits. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Some stories I loved that my editor was like, I don't know if the reader will relate to this. Or chapters that I went on and on that I was like, if my daughter reads this one day, I want her to know about this vignette. But that didn't necessarily like propel the memoir forward. I tried to write it like a novel in the fact that it's propulsive, it's very plot-driven, and it's very character-driven. So sometimes there were things I took out just because it didn't further the story. Didn't further the story. Yes. And then there were things I took out, there were conversations I had, there were characters I took out that I knew would be damaging. It would damage the relationship. And I had people read the book and say, I don't, I don't want to be in this scene. And I think when you have a memoir that's fact-checked, you know, there's a there's a quote, I think it's Esther Perell said, that every memoir is an act of betrayal.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

By me writing my story, this Prentice Hempel says the self is not an individual. So I implicate people in this book who do not want to be in this book. And I'm very cognizant of that. And so there were some things I took out based on their privacy that might have been helpful to the story, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. And I did that to protect my relationship with them. There were some things that you were willing to concede. Yes, 100%. And I have like real compassion for them as well.

Breaking The Spell Of Likability

SPEAKER_01 8:14

And it is this really tricky thing where like your memoir is your truth, but other people are involved in our lives and they also sort of have their own truths. Yes. So how do we how do we put it all together? But we'll we'll get there, dear listeners. Let's let's start at the beginning. I love that you call attention to this pressure of and fabrication of likability. Like you've already mentioned today. What the hell is likability? What like you understand, right? On some like societal level. Of course, we all want to be like we want to fit in. It's an evolutionary pack mentality situation, right? You write that you felt like as women, we were being made for men's consumption, which was one of the many times that I sort of had to pause, put your memoir down, and be like, ooh, that's a good line. And also, what do I feel about that, right? You even say, even sunshine burns the skin. Talk to me about your relationship with likability and how that's transformed. Maybe through your writing the memoir, or one of the reasons why you decided, hey, I need to sit down and write this.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Likeability is its own form of it's a constriction. I think growing up, I had every privilege offered the whiteness of my skin, my religion, a safe home, an intact family. And within that privilege, I never really crossed the threshold or boundaries of what it was like to have some form of suffering based on my identity. I've never suffered because of my identity in certain racial constructs, mental health constructs. And because of that, I became very comfortable in this self-confined. I don't even like to use the word prison because it's too that that word is way too dramatic, but of my own little prison. And I would see other people who didn't feel so inclined to have to be likable because they have been used to being discriminated against or whatnot. And I I felt like they were living a freer life than me. My sister is queer, my sister is now sober, struggled through addiction. And she made the choice that her health and her life that was outside of certain constructs was more important for her to be an authentic human being and live the way that she was born to live, even if it caused other people discomfort or they couldn't understand it. And she just always seemed more free to me. So much of what I've learned about truth telling and identity, I've really learned from women of color, people who have struggled with mental health, people who are not straight. The queerness of being fully embodied in a body that is not granted all the privilege is such an education to me. I I'm not afraid of now not being likable because I've seen other people do it. And the cost-benefit analysis of that, which is they can be more free because they've already been discriminated against, they've already been ostracized, they've already been excluded, and yet still they are there living their life in a way that is more authentic than mine.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Would you almost agree that because they don't care about being likable, they're able to love themselves easier?

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yes, I think the cost that they choose loving themselves over the cost of likability. And I think so many people are choosing likability over the cost of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I agree. And I think that we almost condition young girls, especially, to do that. And I think even a lot of black women in the world would say, we've got to be extra good and perfect to be likable. Right. So yeah, there's there's a lot to unpack there. You have children. How are you teaching them to not be likable?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

I notice in the smallest moments when I am inclined to say something that I have been groomed towards, like telling my daughter to smile more and hugging people that she might not want to hug. And so I have to check myself too about the way that I parent based on how I've been groomed. I think the best education I can give my daughter on how to live her life is by me living my best life and me owning my messiness, me telling her when I'm aware of something that I've done, both to myself or to others that have caused harm. I do think they understand non-dualities about things not being necessarily good or bad, but things having consequences and just talking about what those consequences could be.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Right. As children, we do think that life is good or bad or life is black and white, and you kind of have to learn that living in the gray is actually the better place to exist. There are consequences to all of our choices. Sometimes it's just about living with those choices, making that choice and living with it and realizing you'll just do your best, whatever it comes next. Speaking of this duality, I love this wolf story that you include. I had never heard that before. The two, can you just give our listeners a brief? Obviously, we want them all to pick up your book. So we're not going to give away, you know, all of our cards, but I just loved this story so much.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

I attribute it to Cherokee tradition. I could be wrong. Um, but uh the lore is that a grandfather is talking to his grandson, and he said that there are two wolves. One is good and selfless and compassionate and loving, and the other is angry and vengeful and mad, and they're at odds with each other. But grandfather says both of these wolves are inside you, and the grandson says, Who wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. In our self, there are multiple selves, and sometimes they are at odds with each other. And the one that we pay attention to, the one we listen to, that is the one that will end up winning. And so it's a way of us being accountable of our actions and our thoughts and our emotions and making sure that we are feeding the wolf that we want to win within us.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, but while also acknowledging that this other wolf exists. And I think that that's where a lot of people can go, not wrong, um, but that's where it gets tricky for people.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Things need to be brought to the light to deal with it. And you know, I also put talk in the book about there is no way. There's no, there's no hiding things from the mind or the body. It always comes out and might manifest and come out in different ways. But um we self-awareness and turning the lights on into our inner landscape, even the messy parts, the end of the day, when the lights are on, then we can deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

And when we deal with it and we externalize it, it can shape shift and alchemize into something positive. But if we just keep it in that dark basement, like things get moldy down there. And that mold is gonna spread throughout the house.

Selfishness Means Feeling Alive

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Right. And it'll make you sick, and then you'll be like, why am I sick? Oh, it's because of the mold in my basement. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, so let's talk about being selfish, Carrie. What is so wrong with it?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's just the way that people perceive it. For me, selfish, the being selfish is really being acutely aware of the things that make us feel alive and choosing them. It doesn't necessarily mean doing things that feel good or pleasurable, because there are many things that we can do that feel pleasurable or good, but they don't make us feel alive. And so this act of becoming aware of choices, I know that when I doom scroll, I'm getting dopamine hits, but I know it's ultimately gonna make me feel bad. I know that when I'm around negative people at a party and I'm there because I feel like I should be there. And I I notice the way that it makes me feel, it doesn't make me feel good. And so it's these small acts of becoming aware of what depletes us and what energizes us and doing more things that energize us. That's a gift to the self.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

And some of it is math, like selfishness is math, right? So I can only give you two spoons if I have two spoons within me. I can only quench your thirst if I have enough water within me to give to you. It is this the idea of self-prioritization, knowing that it will eventually be an act of service to the people around you.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Right. But it's been something that I think in many aspects of our lives. I mean, I person I recently have set some very strong boundaries with my parents. And I don't feel guilty about that, but it does feel selfish in a way. But I had to choose myself and my family instead of them. But it's hard what society expects us. Like they're your parents. How can you not be have a want a relationship with them? And it's like, well, because that doesn't serve me, me anymore. Yeah. And they can make different choices. And then what you know what I'm saying? There's obviously the door could still be open, but it was hard. And I feel really lucky because the people in my life have been extremely supportive of that, extremely supportive. But I I I also have friends who don't feel they can do that. Right. No matter how kind of toxic their parental relationships are. Right. I see what it costs them.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

I know. Cost-benefit analysis in the time ways every day of the decisions we make. Right. Where it's not about being right or wrong. It's how things are making me feel and what do I need to do to continue to survive in the best way possible for myself and for the people around me that I'm investing so much time and energy in.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Right. Were there ways that you feel like your parents modeled this to you as you were growing up? You're right, that your family had a lot of secrets, kept a lot of things close to their chest, even like medical diagnosis where you were like, excuse me, I would have loved to have known that and been able to support you through that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

I grew up in a household that was very kind, and I'm so grateful for that. There was a feeling of no matter what we did wrong or what we were going through, there was a language of kindness. I also grew up with a mom who, and I share this in the book, most of my life I had seen her only as a mother and a mother that was so focused on her family. She cooked for us every night, our laundry was always clean and folded, the house was organized. And when I was in high school, she decided one day she wanted to become a yoga teacher. And this was this is way before I feel like yoga came to like white American culture. And she was like, I'm gonna become a yoga teacher. And she moved to India for a month. And I remember being so aghast and almost feeling like it was a betrayal. And the first thing I asked is, What is dad gonna do? How will he survive? How will he survive? As if her act of the first time I had seen her choose herself, it was so shocking to me that I asked, What will dad do? Because I had seen her relationally. I hadn't seen her as in her own womanhood. I had seen her in relation to her husband or in relation to us as her children. I've seen her continue to choose herself over the years, but that was definitely an aha moment of my childhood of being able to discern someone putting themselves first, even if it was gonna inconvenience her husband.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Okay, and then you might know what's next, but how do you model selfishness for your children?

SPEAKER_02 19:11

My kids, it's sweet. I think they know I need a lot, a lot of alone time. And even the other day, I said to my daughter, like, I'm feeling stressed and anxious. I'm gonna go for a walk. And my daughter said, Do you want me to come with you or do you just want to be by yourself? And she was able to know that me taking this alone time, it wasn't about me leaving her or not wanting to be around her. She was able to discern the differences, Mama is doing this for herself. I can ask to come, but I also don't care if I come. And I understand, I would love for you to come. But I think by me sharing what my emotions are in the moment and then what I want to do to help move through that emotion, has given her cues as to when I'm having a certain feeling, it's okay to say, I need to take a walk, I need alone time, I need to go to my room. Even with things like screen time, I notice how activated my kids get when they have screen time and just naming things like, huh, do you feel like you want screen time right now because you're having a hard emotion and you want to distract your emotion? You don't want to feel it. And my son will be like, Yes. Yeah. And so just using language to talk about feel the feeling state and then how we choose to move through it is helpful.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

That sounds amazing. It's you're giving them the tools to be able to emotionally regulate so that they don't feel burdened by their emotions, but have the confidence that they can move through them in the best way that serves them on their timeline, which is really the best way that we can be selfish. It's crazy how the women in our lives have shape what they do shape us so much. And my mom is a very selfless person in the worst way. What have been the consequences for you of her constant selflessness? Someone who was choosing to be selfless because they felt that that's what being a mom was and being a wife was. If I sacrifice myself and my needs and I put my children first and my husband first, then my life will be perfect, my life will be happy. It's like a whole thing. I understand why she thought that was the key to happiness.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah, but we realize it's a shtick, right? Like if I just act this way, if I just please these people, if I just look this way, and then the rope just keeps getting pulled out from under you and you realize that there's no end to it. Yeah. And then you've been the fed a lie of if I only do this, if I only stay good, if I only stay likable, if I only that I will not be happy, have grief, be happy. And I think a lot of women get to that crossroad and feel like it's a lie and say, I'm not doing this anymore.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

This is a game I can't win.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah. I do feel like I look around to my friends, and a lot of us are in that younger kid situation. And there's this saying that goes around like you have to fill your own cup in order to fill other people's. It was very similar to your analogy of the spoons in the water earlier. You know, we'll kind of look at each other and laugh and be like, well, how the hell am I supposed to fill my cup though when I've got the, you know, a two-year-old? And you look around and there's piles of laundry, and you're just like, at a certain point, it does sort of feel like things are your responsibility. So, how do we navigate responsibility and being selfish?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Responsibility meaning job responsibility, domestic duty responsibility. All of the above, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

This is my question to you, Carrie.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

This is why this is a memoir, not a self-help book. I mean, this is why I feed my kids like half nod carrots and like three chicken, you know, chicken nuggets and like two cucumbers, and feel like, all right, this is the best that I can do. I don't know. I think it's a constant struggle. And for me, and I talk about this in the book, I don't know if I'm a good mom. I don't know if my domestic duties are being met in the way. I mean, my husband and I fight all the time. He signs up them, my kids up for sports activities. Of course, I'm usually the one that has to take them.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Some days I just don't take them to practice. The whole entire team is there, and I just cannot bear the thought of getting my kids in their cleats, driving 20 minutes, standing on the sideline, like I just can't bear it. And Alex, my husband gets so mad at me. And so I cannot give any self-help around how to balance this because I still on a day-to-day basis struggle with it.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

I do think though, I want to increase my resiliency and self-compassion that when the house is still a mess or I do mess something up or my kids aren't eating the best food, that that doesn't translate into shame.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

And I think that's where women are so hard on themselves in a way that men aren't. I mean, I talk about in the book me looking at Alex and saying, at the end of each day, do you count up all the good things you do and then subtract all the bad things you do and hopefully come to a positive number? And he goes, No, I don't think like that. And so there's a gift in just being like, I just am how I am, and I am trying the best I can for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

And that is enough.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Because the second you layer on shame, that's when that's when life can start to feel like too much.

Building Faraday With Husband And Twin

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yeah. And for our listeners, Carrie's husband is also named Alex. So it's confusing. That part in the book, I asked my husband the same thing. And he was like, What are you talking about? And I was like, Why do we do this? Right, right. Why are we doing this? I I know, I know that it it starts so early for girls and women. I know it does. Books like yours existing is is a small crack in that. And conversations like this is a small crack in that. But like we have to keep chipping away at that because sitting across from your partner in bed at night and one of you is just like la la la. And the other one is like, okay, so I fucked up this way. And I don't know. Like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I know. I do that too. I do that too. It's releasing that shame. Yeah. And your book encourages us all to do that too. It's it's uh it's such a tricky thing to navigate. And I do want to say your book is not a self-help book, but it is helpful exploring the self. Okay, y'all. That's just what we're gonna say. Yeah. It it is interesting though that you talk about how you're still navigating this, even in you know, a corporate work environment, because that was a big through line of your book. You your experience starting this clothing brand, which wrapping okay. I was looking at you, I was like, is Alex wearing Farody brand right now?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Alex Sony.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I bought this a couple years ago. I got Instagram, so good for you guys with the ads. We spam like, I have to, I don't care if it's cheesy, I have to wear her clothing brand. It looks so good. I feel seen. Thank you. Thank you. It's very comfortable. I highly recommend. So talk to me about navigating being selfish. Yeah. In this very, I mean, and it's it's complicated, right? Because it's a family brand. It's with your husband. His twin brother is living with you constantly. That whole thing gave me so much anxiety. I was like, you're like, we're like trying to make a baby, but his brother is like five feet away.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Mike, can you stop mouth breathing over there? We can hear you. And now it's being like, come on, we can do it. I'm like, we're not right now.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Talk to me about writing about that.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

You know, I fell into starting the brand with them. I met Alex the first day of college, and I remember him saying in Spanish class, I want to have a clothing company one day with my twin brother. And me being like, Great, cool dude, good luck with that. Fast forward 13 years, and Alex and I are married. Alex and Mike quit their jobs and they start the brand. I had been a lawyer, I'd been focused on social justice and mindfulness, and I would make them lunch before they went to work, but I just saw how all-encompassing building a brand is. It takes a village. And so I decided to help them out. I mean, I saw a psychic that's in the book. You can hear what the psychic says. And I decided to join them. And so this is about less than a year of Alex and I being married, and it was just all hands on deck for years. And it was so fun in so many ways. And it was also so stressful. We really needed each other. I joke that each of us only has a third of a brain, like Mike, creative director and the designer. Alex is business and finance. I am impact and brand and culture. And I think the reason we've been so successful is because of our different gifts. And also working with your family is hard. Working with your husband is hard. I mean, we had to go to couples therapy to negotiate my salary.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

We fought about equity, we fought about living situations, we fought about when I should have a baby versus not have a baby based on the financial stability of the company. And so it was a lot on a new, newly married couple. Even though we had been together for so many years, um, when people ask, what's it like working with your husband? I always say it's either gonna make or break you, break the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

And it did almost break us. Yeah. And I chronicle that in the book.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah. And we're gonna get to that in one second. But it's interesting because as you were speaking, and I definitely felt this as I read the book, like we've sort of touched on it, but you still have to navigate other people's needs in your life when you choose them. We choose to have children if we can. We choose our partners, we choose our friends. How can we navigate being selfish and allowing other people to be selfish?

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Right. And for me, I think it was starting to awaken to the ways that I have been had been being selfless, and that was making me feel so burned out. Yeah. And I felt like some of my gifts, my spiritual gifts, the things that again make me feel alive and passionate about were falling by the wayside. And so even though it was not asked of me or required of me, and at times at odds with the profitability of the brand, I started to choose to integrate certain things into the business, certain events, mindfulness, nonprofit partnerships, working with native designers. And I know that those things ultimately added value to the brand. But at the time, it wasn't always, I wouldn't say it wasn't supported, but it just wasn't a priority. But I made it a priority because it helped those decisions helped me feel like I could continue to work at the company and to continue to exist in the fashion industry.

Bo And The Cost Of Longing

SPEAKER_01 29:30

It's time to talk about what I think is maybe one of the consequences. Do you know where we're going? Well, I know where we're going. Starting to sweat. Let's let's talk about Bo. Give our listeners a little overview of who Bo is and why you think this relationship became what it became for you.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Without giving too many spoiler alerts to the reader, Bo has definitely been the most painful part of my story in terms of my relationship with my husband. And when we were at the pinnacle of starting the brand, I met Bo. He's a musician. I met him at Coachella, he's one of our favorite bands. And I started a years-long entanglement, emotional entanglement with him. And for me, Bo was almost a mirror of my unawakened creativity. And I think so much of my longing for Bo and my escape into fantasy around what my life could be like with Bo was around here was an artist who was fully communicating the depth of his soul and his pain and alchemizing it into art. And I have always wanted to be able to do that. I have always deep down wanted to be an artist. I've never I never admitted that to myself. So Bo is a character in this book. He's a person in real life, but that really helped awaken a part of me that was dormant. And also, I do some very controversial and boundary-crossing things in the book that are really activating and are still activating to my husband.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

And now it's been memorialized in a book. And I think that has been something that is selfish that I chose to tell this part of the story. And also, I think a lot of women struggle with longing. I think a lot of women have unawakened parts in them that feel activated by other people. And so this book does explore longing. And whether it's for another person and for a part of themselves, um, I wanted to bring that theme into the book.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Did you ever consider leaving Alec to pursue a physical relationship with Bo? Or did you feel pressure to make it work with Alex because your lives were so intertwined? We also don't have to answer these questions. If you feel like I know when you sent me that, I was like, do I want to answer that?

SPEAKER_02 31:51

I think it's important to be honest that I am someone who very much is always thinking about what's how my life could be different.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

And what choices I could make to have my life be different. And I think I do that as a survival mechanism to feel like I'm never stuck. Like I always can have an escape route. I always can have a plan B. If Faraday goes bankrupt, I could go back to teaching mindfulness. I could be a writer. If Alex were to die or Alex and I were to get divorced, I'd be able to find someone else. I think it's a gift I have. I also think it's a survival mechanism of wanting to always feel like there's an escape. At the end of the day, I feel so confident that Alex is and has always been my true lifelong partner. We keep choosing each other every day. And I think sometimes when we're in marriages, we start to feel like we are stuck. And that's one reframe. I signed a contract for life. Marriage is a contract for life, which any lawyer would say never sign a contract for life. But if you shift that to we are stuck together, no matter how hard it gets, and you reframe it to we get to keep choosing each other if we think we make each other better, if we think our life is better with each other in it, it's a different paradigm. And this book, and over the past 10 years, Alex and I have awakened like we want to be in this marriage together because we're just better together. So I will say, have there been depths of despair at times for both of us where we've hated each other and felt betrayed? Yes. And we keep choosing each other.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Oh, that's such a beautiful way to frame marriage. That's it. You do. You wake up every day and you choose that person, even when it's hard. Yes. I'm gonna cut this out, but like, who the hell is Bo? I know.

unknown 33:37

I know.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

I know.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

I'm sure I'm sure if enough people read this book, they'll be a red, oh, they'll be a red-it thread.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Thank you for being so unafraid to expose these parts of yourself that felt dangerous, felt unlikable. I think that your your memoir just it's like you've ripped your heart out of your body and you've said, like, I'm not perfect. We're not perfect. Let's all stop pretending we're so perfect. We have both wolves inside of us. And even when you feed one most of the time, the other one can still rage. And we all have to just admit that. And like, how can we choose to be happier? What can we choose to be happier? And I think this book will help set so many people free. I really do. If they can get past the things that make them uncomfortable and reflect on why they make them uncomfortable. Because that's hard for people.

unknown 34:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

We don't like discomfort. This is an uncomfortable book.

Privilege Wellness And Community Care

SPEAKER_01 34:36

It's a very uncomfortable book, but it's it's a good one. Let's talk about the intersectionality of selfishness and privilege. Are there certain people who don't have the privilege of being selfish? Or in what ways can we minimize being selfish from these like big acts of like being selfish to these small daily ways that we can choose ourselves first?

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Such an important question because I can say I can go for a walk because for an hour walk at the end of the day, because I'm not balancing three jobs. Yeah. And I am in a community where I feel like I can leave my kid alone for an hour, or I have a husband here, I have a partner here who can watch. I can pay a babysitter. The wellness industry has so, particularly the white wellness industry, has so whitewashed what self-care looks like. And it's usually in consumerism, more of things, this, these superficialities. The selfishness that I am talking about is again, it's it's a shift in thinking about prioritizing the things that make us feel alive. And that is a community that can be acts of service. And I have a lot of friends in the native community, and they have built their businesses around ensuring that the business, their business serves their community. And they're always sinking in the collective. Whereas individual capitalism is how wealthy can I get.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

And these native communities, some of them still don't have running water infrastructure, for example, on the Navajo reservation. And so the self in some cultures is so focused on the collective. And so sometimes the act of being selfish is actually becoming out of the individual and into the collective. And you'll start to notice that actually serves you too. Being in community with people who care about each other is such a gift and will make us feel more alive. And I think so much of what we suffer from with loneliness right now and a sense of not of belonging is because we are so individualized. The self is not an individual. Again, Prentice Hempel says that all the time. The self is not an individual. And we remember that the self is all of us. We are all interconnected. I quite literally breathe other people's air every single day and then exhale it out. When we realize how connected we are, it changes the idea of what it means to be an individual and what it means to be selfish.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

I mean, I think this is the beauty of your memoir is that, like we've already said, this isn't Carrie saying, hey, this is the way to be selfish. These are the ways that you have explored through your own life and what can that release, trigger, help other people question in their lives. But going back to that analogy that me and my mom friends joke about, it's it's true, you can only fill up other people's cups when you fill up your own. But like you talking about the doomsday scrolling, you have to be able to understand which things feel like a fix and which things are the actual fix. Just everyone pick up her memoir. And I'm so curious to see like what people get out of it. Have you had any interesting feedback?

SPEAKER_02 37:43

I've had so much feedback. It's been incredible. I think overwhelmingly the two things that people say are I devoured this book. So it's a it's a quick read. You can get through it fast. And that it feels brave. And when I hear people say it feels brave, I either interpret that as I can't believe you just said the things that you said. I would never say the things that you just said. And also, thank you for saying the things that you said. And I think I've had so many discussions of people wanting to share in their own life, but they're struggling about. My hope is that a good book, someone isn't left thinking about me. They're thinking about their own life. And I think this book activates a lot in people that help them think about their own life. That is all I that is the reason why I wrote this book.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

That's what your memoir is activating. And I've never, I don't think I've ever read a memoir that I would be like, it's activating.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Let's talk a little bit about Alex. How are things, you know, your memoir doesn't necessarily paint him in the most flattering light from time to time. Doesn't paint you in the, you know, it doesn't paint anyone in the most flattering light from time to time. How did you navigate his story versus your story?

SPEAKER_02 38:55

I mean, Alex has been an effing hero in this journey. And I share at the end him being, you know, saying to me, Can you imagine if I wrote a 300-put page book of what it's like to be married to you? This is insane, Care. I think, and I think he feels this too. I think he feels like it was a really fair book about the different ways that we have hurt each other. And there are ways I clearly hurt him in the book, and there are ways that he clearly hurt me in the book. Also, I think he wishes there were more stories about all the amazing parts of our lives. And I do mention that at the end. Um, because over the course of our 25 years together, we met in when we were 19, there are have been so many amazing memories. There is a learning in writing a memoir and sharing the truth of who we are, who we really are in all of our messiness. And at the end of this process with Alex, he's been able to look at the book, he's been able to look at our life. And for me to be like, this is who I am. And that level of exposure, even if uncomfortable, has been a conduit for such profound intimacy because we really know who each other is now in all of our messiness and flaws. And I think we thought we did before, but we didn't. And it's forced us to have conversations that we had been avoiding for years or thought we had gone. Thought we had passed, but we hadn't passed. There was there were still things that we need to heal from. So yeah, if someone wants to see what their relationship's made of, write a book about your partner and see how they respond. See they're gonna be able to do it. You too can have a level of intimacy or both.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

No, it there's a selfishness to that that is so beautiful. It's see me, see all of me and still love me. Yeah. And that's what you guys did. I definitely did appreciate that you gave his blessing at the end. It that felt right to me that that you acknowledged. That's what I loved about this. It wasn't it wasn't you pretending that everything is this perfect little thing and look at me, and I'm self, I'm selfish now, and yay, my life's amazing. It's like I've I've hurt people, I've been hurt, I've been hurting. I understand that releasing this into the wild is gonna be difficult for some people in my life, but my husband understands that too. So it gives the reader a little bit of like an exhale. It does.

Hopeful Rituals And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_02 41:16

And as we say, like this is a happy ending. Like we are still together and we are stronger than we've been. Does this book make him want to throw up? Yes. Does he support me fully? Yeah. Yes. Again, non-dualities. Yeah. So there's a question I ask all of my authors. These, how do you stay hopeful? There is just so much beauty every day that I get to witness when I allow myself to witness it. In the smallest, sometimes most mundane moments, whether it's finding sea glass on the beach or giving my kid a hug in the morning or a smile from a stranger on the street. And there's always, I don't know whoever said it, but either everything's a miracle or nothing is a miracle. And I think when you you believe everything is a miracle, despite how much pain there is, there's just more beauty.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Thank you for that. I've heard that quote too. And I I needed to be reminded of that. So thank you. I have this jar of questions. Ooh, what's your emotional support bad habit? And maybe we won't call it a bad habit, we'll call it a selfish habit today.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

I'm gonna be a little darker and be honest. I love taking beach walks and I love finding dead things on the beach. Okay. It is like walking through a cemetery. There is something so reverent about it. This time of year, there are always dead birds washed on the shores of the Jersey Shore. And I put a little heart around their bodies. And there's just something like I feel so privileged to see. It's very rare we see dead animals, but when you walk the beach, things are always washing up. And it feels like a sacred act to be able to honor an animal that has passed on my walk. And I take photos of them. And I mean, maybe one day I'm gonna have a photo book of dead things, dead animals. But there's something to me that it really reminds me of the interconnectedness of nature and myself. And it's it's it's as if when you walk through a cemetery, things, oh, you you it's something happens in the heart chakra of knowing you're with people or animals that have passed away. And so that's my emotional support habit.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

That's wild, and I love that animals. I love it. No, there is something really fascinating. I mean, I actually I enjoy a cemetery walk because I love to be reminded that like people have existed, like they were here, you know, and like these animals are here with us. They matter exist. We we have to just remember that. Okay, Carrie, where can we find you? What are your social handles?

SPEAKER_02 43:44

You can find me at at Carrie Dockerty, K-E-R-R-Y, D-O-C-A-E-R-T-Y. Um, I have a Substack that I have not written on yet, but I'm sure these are the things that authors have to do. So you can follow me on Substack and maybe we'll One day, maybe I'll actually do it. Post the pictures of the dead bird. Exactly. People were like, what the fuck? I did not sign up for this. Those are the two best places.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Great. And we will link those and how to buy her book through bookshop.org in our show notes. Carrie, thank you so much for going to the uncomfortable place with me today and having this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Oh, I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Great interview. Thanks, Alex.