My own approach has always been to push intense emotions down and attempt to deal with them later.
I am a firm believer that one way to become enlightened is to be so relaxed, as relaxed as you possibly can be.
But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.
At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I'm being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.
Fame is hollow. It amplifies what is there. If there is any self-doubt, or hatred, or lack of ability to connect with people, fame will magnify it.
I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person.
Do I appreciate the idea of jealousy, revenge and all these so-called dark qualities? Yes. Do I write these songs in order to engage in some public war with someone? No.
My brother says that I was writing songs about fate while he was off playing soccer. Now I tell him he's 33 and being a professional while I'm playing soccer with my friends. Ha!
I'm excited about there being more of a sisterhood these days. Back in the '90s there was a lot of hate - the women I looked up to as artists were dissing me! It's not so patriarchal these days - there's more love and a lot less hate!
I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change.
I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question.
Making a movie requires 20 to 500 people to make and a lot of money and the stakes are a lot higher.
They're different kinds of challenges depending upon what phase of life I'm in.
When I was producing on my own, I was doing it in order to - in a very patriarchal entertainment industry, let alone planet - very much hell-bent on trying to prove to myself, if nothing else, that I could do it as a woman.
And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.
And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they're here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.
It's when someone has an agenda of their own for the record that it doesn't work for me.
And I always laugh at that, because I think I've always been doing what I want to do since Day 1.
Well, as a kid I did not get Shakespeare. I just never understood it.
When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.
