Just as young people absorb all kinds of messages from the media, young girls learn what it means to be a woman by watching the older women in their lives.

I'm proud that today, at 43 years old, I've come to value the aging process and focus on inner rather than outer beauty.

Motherhood has brought me many joys and insights, but the new perspective it granted me on the role I had inadvertently played in young women's lives for the 2 decades I spent in the modeling industry was downright sobering.

Anorexia was there for me before I got into modeling, but because of the arena and the demands, the disease really got out of control for me. It's like being an alcoholic and going and being a bartender.

But I would assert that despite the wide variety of yoga options and individual preferences, there is one universal element: the union of consciousness and movement, breath and awareness.

I've learned to surround myself with women who lift me up and leave me feeling nurtured rather than drained.

In the past, I often found that when I reached out for a fast cure it led me down a slippery slope of more medications, hopeful dependence on the next prescription and ultimately a much longer drawn-out illness.