A lot of exercise is mindless; you can have music or the radio on and not be aware. But if you're aware in anything you do - and it doesn't have to be yoga - it changes you. Being present changes you.
But the experience that I had, which was basically just feeling loved and taken care of in a room full of thousands of people I didn't know, seemed to be a pretty strong sign that what I was doing was a good thing.
Cancer came back into my life twice in order for me to understand something, and I guess I still wasn't getting it. And my husband wasn't getting it, either.
Everybody needs a way out of that pain. Many people choose drugs and alcohol. Some people obsessively exercise or develop strange dietary habits, which is what I did. At least it got me toward a path of healthier living.
For me, first, it's finding quiet in my life - and I do that through yoga and meditation. It's also been a matter of changing the way I eat, because I think what we eat can inform who we are; food is a chemical and a drug to a certain extent.
I began by doing physical yoga, initially just for the workout, as exercise. I would get peaceful and calm at the end of it, and I was curious about that.
I did Star 80, which was a magnificent experience as well, but still, I was at the height of my career at the beginning. Then I had to jump down the ladder and climb back up again, which I didn't understand. That was very hard.
I felt I had to share Idaho with my friend from New York because he'd shared New York with me, so I was going to share the beauty of nature with a man who went to museums and clubs late at night. But there was nothing to do where I lived at night.
I got back into the position of taking care of my husband, which is what I'd learned that I couldn't really do: you can love and make things okay to a certain extent, but you can't fix. I didn't quite learn that until the kayaking incident. It became so clear then.
I loved acting when I was doing it, but getting the jobs I didn't understand because I'd never had to do it. That was a difficult lesson for me. It was very humbling and very bizarre.
I wanted out of my pain and that silliness, but I wanted an easy out. That's before realizing that there is no easy out. Before accepting that you just have to do the work.
I wanted to share the experience of how yoga and meditation have transformed my life, how they have enabled me to observe who I am, first in my body, and then emotionally, and on to a kind of spiritual path.
