Think about how long it took for the mountains to get there and look so beautiful. Think about how long it takes for this tree over us to grow. We're so impatient. Think about it. This leaf here took forever to become that perfect leaf. We're that. We're work in progress. That's actually being alive.

I get really excited when I have moments where my head - my mind - disappears, and I get this moment where I start to tingle, and maybe sweat a little bit, when I'm in that space of feeling real connected with everything, every living thing. I first started feeling this probably as a child, but again when I started meditating.

Early on, my emotional work had to do with feeling unheard and invisible. My parents divorce at six, when I was six, really affected me. We moved around and I was with my mom and my sister. I have learned, by the way, there were amazing gifts that came out of that. For one, I'm living my childhood dream. I feel very fortunate.

I've been acting since I was a little kid. It was my escape from my day which had to do with a father leaving, and a mother not being home, and her struggling and doing her best and all that. But it wasn't fun. I would go into theater class. If she were a stay-at-home mom, I wouldn't have that discomfort inside that kept me pushing.

If you just sit and spend time with yourself - you were born as you, just you, and that's how you're gonna die. Why do we spend the time in between trying to not be ourselves? That's what meditation is. You just sit with yourself. Through all of it. It's like John Patrick Shanley said: "Where the terror is, you must go." Where the terror is, is where you must go.

Telling the truth. I finally have that with my boyfriend, and that makes me vulnerable constantly. Without vulnerability, you're not really alive. Your vulnerability is your power. Sitting in your house alone, breathing through it. Calling a friend when you need to cry. Being really honest in your therapist's office. Whatever it is. Bringing it into a role, for me. It is your power.

The one that I really call love is when I feel like everything's okay. That state of, it's all right here. I spent most of my adult life looking for romantic love. I've been in therapy since '87. What I learned was, that connection that I was looking for that I thought was really romantic love, my therapist literally said, "Well, when you feel that next, you probably shouldn't go towards that for a partner."

There's a feeling that feels like what I've been told is love. It has to do with what Louis Schwartzberg said today about beauty, love, whether it's squirrels outside my door, the rabbits, or the birds. They're not trying to impress me or anything, and me watching them isn't getting me or advancing me in anything. It's just beautiful. When I think of the relationship I'm in, there's a feeling that comes over me sometimes.

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