I think that anytime that you can open your eyes and see all that you have and all that you've been blessed with, it's the greatest way to connect you with God, just being grateful rather than always wanting more, wanting to be different, wanting to be better.
My personality is a personality where I get really, really nervous and doubtful about almost everything, which is always a work in progress to build up my confidence a little bit more.
Meditation is really good. I do that a lot with my bass player Bob, and we do TM: transcendental meditation.
'Better Than Home,' the song, is about getting out of your hiding place and having the courage to live as loud as possible. It is about feeling the life that has been given and has been waiting for you all along.
I really love Dinah Washington and anything live from her - she had some of the greatest jazz musicians in the whole world, and sometimes she would be with a big band, and sometimes she'd just be on stage with a muted trumpet, upright bass, and a piano.
If I ever had to choose between having a good mind and good health with having big success, then there's no contest: I'd put my health first every time.
At first, I was using my sister Susan's lyrics, as I could not write myself, only the music. And then one day, she and I had a fight, and she threatened to take away the lyrics from all the songs that I put the lyrics to, so it was that day that I began writing my first lyric to the music.
I'm a Bipolar 1, Rapid Cycler. So really easily, if I'm around people that are sick and are not medicated, and there's a lot of people going to AA that should be medicated that are really, truly mentally ill, then I end up being triggered.
Before I was on medication, the mania was so bad that I couldn't concentrate, so although I'd feel very creative, I could never really finish a piece of work because my mind was moving so fast.
I should be writing songs about happiness all day long, but a lot of my songs get inspired from that place of unworthiness and shame, which really goes with mental illness.
If I love Etta James, it's not just the voice, and it's not just the song, but it's the energy that connects me to her, so if she is strong, I can be strong, too, and if she is sad, I know I am not alone, or if she is joyous, I can connect with that joy.
I think that's always the hope - I mean, I can't speak for others, but I think other artists, no matter what type of medium they are using - whether it be from painting to acting to dancing, songwriting, or anything like that - I believe the desire is to get to the truth, and I think it's really hard to tell the truth.
It's very important for me to do things like talk therapy. That's where you begin to see the walls that your illness has put up as a way to protect yourself... but of course, those walls also keep us from getting to the truth of things.
To me, I don't care if I co-write or if I write alone. If it's a great song and it makes it to the record, then that's what is supposed to come, you know what I mean.
What I look at, success is about really being grateful. You wake up in the morning, and you're thankful that you could breathe because it's a beautiful planet we live on, and I know there is a lot of struggle and pain, but there is more joy.
I cook stuff that I picked up from my husband's mother. I thought that would be a good way to his heart, you know. I love to cook Italian and French, also.
I learned about forgiveness, and I've reached out to others to make amends.
I'd be a liar if I said I didn't care what people think, but I would rather have less people who like or approve of me for who I really am than a bunch more people who like or approve me for what I'm not.
,what saved my life was my husband. He nursed me back to health, and he continues to do that to this day. It's not easy to be married and to have a relationship with someone with mental illness.
Sometimes, the songs that really affected me were not from the artist catalogue of their music, like the song 'Thunder Road' by Bruce Springsteen. I never got into any of his other music, but that song, to this day, is in my top three lyrical masterpieces of all time.
