No matter what kind of challenges or difficulties or painful situations you go through in your life, we all have something deep within us that we can reach down and find the inner strength to get through them.
Through a long and painful process, I've learned that happiness is an inside job - not based on anything or anyone in the outer material world. I've become a different and better person - not perfect, but still a work in progress.
Our thoughts really do create our lives. They've done a lot of research showing if you're an optimistic, positive person you will be a healthier person than if you're a sad, depressed, negative person.
Bitterness and resentment only hurt one person, and it's not the person we're resenting - it's us.
I wish I had been a better mother and a more compassionate and understanding wife in both of my marriages.
I first got sick after I had my daughter, Kimberly, 21 years ago. I'd always been energetic and never had any serious medical problems. Then I got very sick with a high fever. They told me I had mononucleosis. I became pregnant right away with Sean, and after he was born, I never seemed to recover.
For anyone going through a divorce or any other painful challenge, the first and most important recommendation I can make is to find some kind of spiritual and emotional support.
One hopes, of course, that a relationship grows and becomes a deep and wonderful marriage and friendship that lasts forever. But that's not always the case.
I went to one doctor who told me I wasn't exercising enough. I was so exhausted, I couldn't raise my arm. When this doctor called it psychosomatic, I was enraged. To think the constant sore throat and swollen glands were all in my head was infuriating.
I grew up in Nacogdoches, Texas... raised by my grandmother. We were very poor and had no indoor plumbing. My grandmother was a very religious woman, though, and she gave me a lot of faith and inner strength.
Divorce is never easy, but it's even more painful when you find out your husband is having an affair with a beautiful model fifteen years younger than you.