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I'd gotten away from my Buddhism. And I quit meditating.

I knew I could live no other way, that the one thing I wanted was to act and do it well.

I'd done all the things I thought a person had to do in order to be successful and fulfilled, like getting a great education and becoming a lawyer, and yet there was zero spark in my life. But there was no light-bulb moment. It was gradual. In the early 1990s, I decided to experiment and try some new ways of living.

I stopped living according to my core values. I knew what I was doing was wrong but thought only about myself and thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to.

I'd just come through cancer in 1995. Which really changed my soul. It really did. It changed me... It made my faith alive - and real. God's real.

The expectation was I would get married and become a mother and settle down. We didn't have any role models. We saw teachers and doctors and nurses, but I'm not a teacher, and there was no possibility of being a doctor or a nurse. I had to work and find my own way.

I don't know what I would have done without believing in God. His support gives me power and energy to continue to be optimistic, to smile, not to be depressed. Sometimes, if things are not going so well, I don't cry. I say maybe it's meant to be.

And I think that when I finally decided to let go and let God and allow that to happen, I became a lot more successful than I could have done if I had planned it all myself.

I'd never just want to do what everybody else did. I'd be contributing to the sameness of everything.

If I had to do my life over, I would change every single thing I have done.