Walking my dogs twice a day provides me with an opening and closing of my day, and I've learned to use those walks for a walking meditation, which had never occurred to me until a friend gave me Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn years ago. It helped me take advantage of moments that already existed in my day and turn them into something more expansive.

The notion that "this too shall pass" is comforting, both in knowing that whatever pain I'm in will change into something else and allowing myself to experience the pain, not trying to blunt it or brush it aside. It's important to feel and to be connected to your emotions, whichever way they play out.

As much as I'd like to pretend that I'm not performing, I think any actor sometimes has themselves outside of themselves and is trying to direct themselves and control what you're seeing and thinking.

Just so we're clear, I'm not zen by any stretch of the imagination. However, what I've read about change being the only constant is a concept that I can grab onto and have used quite a lot.

Wouldn't it be great if we could be a little less judgmental and a little more forgiving of each other's humanness? We're only here a short time. Let's pay more attention to the good and not the bad in one another.

I think 20 years of experience really came to fruition and enabled me to be able to play Cotton Marcus.

I am not the center of the universe. And it's a lesson that I keep having to learn; it's my ongoing work, I'd say. And being in a career that is predicated on a degree of self-absorption, that is a tricky thing to negotiate sometimes.