8. Opray Winfrey
Even if you’re basically the Queen of All Things Media, that doesn’t mean you’re impervious to the occasional anxiety attack. That’s what Oprah taught us when she described what it was like to have a panic attack back in 2012, on the set of Lee Daniels’ The Butler.
“In the beginning, it was just sort of speeding and a kind of numbness and going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing,” she told Access Hollywood. “I will tell you when I realized that I thought, ‘All right, if I don’t calm down I’m gonna be in serious trouble.’ I was in the middle of doing voiceovers, you know? And I remember closing my eyes in between each page because looking at the page and the words at the same time was too much stimulation for my brain.”
So, how did she come through? By practicing a little gratitude. “That’s when the gratitude practice became really strong for me,” she told Vogue, while admitting she’d buy up blocks of tickets to Beloved to boost box office sales. “Because, it’s hard to remain sad if you’re focused on what you have instead of what you don’t have.”
She added, “It taught me to never again — never again, ever — put all of your hopes, expectations, eggs in the basket of box office. Do the work as an offering, and then whatever happens, happens.”