editoriallinks

Office Hours With Shonda Rhimes: Inspiring Women

strong

Lifestyle & Entertainment

Video

Standard Article

Hearst Editorial

- Is a hot dog, a sandwich? (upbeat music) I would want the ability to fly just because man, sailing through the air just sounds interesting. I think the biggest fear I've ever conquered is just being able to stand in my own skin and be comfortable like speaking for myself as opposed to letting a character speak for me. In the midst of all of this, all of the stress, all of this pain, the pandemic that wearing of masks, that scary stuff that's going on on out there. The protests, the worries we have, the fears, the taking care of other people all of it, the best piece of advice that someone has given me is that I have to take care of myself first. And that's for me that's really hard to do. It's really hard to just go like I'm gonna prioritize myself over other people. God, I can't remember the last thing I said yes to. I mean, it's, there's a pandemic here. I mean, it's hard to find things to say yes to. I guess the last thing I said yes to was learning to cook. I mean, I've always been able to cook but it's been a really long time since I've really spent time in the kitchen cooking. And so about five months ago six months ago when this whole thing started I started cooking every single day. So that's the last thing I said yes to was learning how to cook again. I say no to all kinds of things all the time. I say no to, I just say no a lot. So I can't even tell you the last thing I said no to. It is very easy for me to say no. I have learned the power of saying no. And I have learned the self protection that comes with saying no. And I also have learned that you can say no and have that be it. You don't have to explain why you're saying no you don't have to give excuses for saying no you can just say no or no, but thank you for asking or no I don't wanna do that with a smile on your face but you don't have to get explanations for why you are not serving somebody else's purposes. Right now, I don't have a favorite comfort food. Right now, food is not my source of comfort. And I say that's extraordinary because for my entire life food has always been my source of comfort. There has never been a time when I have not found my comfort and my love and my heaven in food. I don't have comfort food right now. Food is just food. It does not hold any sway over me. I just, I don't know why. I don't know what it is going on right there but food's fine, but it's not my comfort anymore. I started making all my own cleaning products. I figured out that you could make all of these natural DIY home cleaning products yourself. But pretty much baking soda and vinegar clean almost everything and maybe a little borax but I've started making all my home cleaning products because I like the smells of essential oils. I didn't like some of the ingredients that I noticed were in the cleaning products in the house. And so I started making all these home cleaning products. I started making all this soap and I've become like this odd little chemist in my house, like making cleaning, cleaning products and making soap and like body butters and slathering my children in strange things but it's been great. And I've really enjoyed it. And my house is really clean now because I spend a lot of time cleaning with that stuff so. Is a hot dog, a sandwich? I don't even know what to do with that question. I don't think I've ever eaten a hot dog 'cause I think they're gross and I always have ever since I was a child like my sister loved them and I was always just like they are, I don't know what they are. Now, this is coming from somebody who eats Spam. Like I used to love to eat Spam. So it's not like I had like hoity-toity tastes hot dogs just freaked me out for some reason. When you're in the shower the acoustics are amazing. So it doesn't matter what you're singing, you just sound so good. So I sing a lot of Aretha Franklin in the shower because even though I can't carry a tune when I'm in the shower, I sound fantastic and I could pretend like I'm Aretha or Jennifer Hudson or somebody with like a really big voice. I also sing Sara Bareilles in the shower because it's also a good way to sing like soulful songs. I sing a lot of Adele in the shower because I also can sort of put a little, I don't know like I always say like a little stank on it when I'm in the shower and make myself sound good. I cannot sing to the point where my children say, "Please mommy, don't sing to us." But I love to sing. So the shower is the one place I get my singing done. The last great love story I've heard about or read or seen really is something small. I saw a video of a woman who had, I think she had dementia and she was in an old folks home and her, she must've been like 90. And her husband would come every day and stand outside her window because of COVID. And he would sing to her and it would be kinda the only thing she'd recognize. And so she'd like he would come and he would sing and that was when she would like sort of light up and sort of, sort of remember who she was and she would sing back or sing with him. And that to me, felt so beautiful like that commitment and that love and that joy of he was just gonna come and he was gonna sing with her every day standing in the dirt in the garden outside of her bedroom window at the nursing home. That's love man. That's 70 years of love. (keyboard clicking)

10 Questions with Shonda Rhimes

By Shonda