I spent a lifetime giving my power away, assuming that everybody knew better what was right for me than me. And then there comes a point in your life you go, Oh, wait a second! There's an a-ha moment when you realize that the only person that can delegate your future is you.

There's no doctor in a white coat that's going to save you, or a system or a pill - it's always going to be you and the choices that you make.

The experience of getting my Kriya, which is the meditation process that I do, was very powerful for me - though, as I explain in the book, I was really suspect of that kind of thing.

Manhattan, though, was an entirely different ballgame in a whole different kind of world, with a man who was brilliant and at the same time terribly charismatic.

Sometimes you can't see your way out. The "dark night of the soul" - it's a reality for many, many people.

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.

Number one, we have to talk about mental illnesses. Number two, you can actually address things from a purer and honest direct line to what's been going on in your life and how you've been feeling and why you think the way you think. I do think there is a genetic predisposition for mental illness, for depression, for suicide, but I also think that lifestyle can change things. If you're an addict, if you drink and you're putting a depressant into your body, it's going to cause serious problems.