Cover Girl: Sheryl Crow on Self Magazine

Rocker and cancer survivor Sheryl Crow brightens up the March issue of Self magazine. Inside, she talks about her battle with cancer and the end to her engagement with Lance Armstrong, and why she's happier than ever before. Below is part of her interview with SELF senior staff writer Erin Bried.

SELF: When this issue hits newsstands, it will be the one-year anniversary of your cancer diagnosis.
Sheryl Crow: Yeah.

Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give yourself?
I'd give myself a lot of advice. I'd tell myself not to be so hard on myself, to try to put myself at the top of my list instead of down in the lower ranks, and to give my desires the attention they deserve.

What desires?
I've always been so conscious about being understood and taking care of everybody around me. I think that sometimes you have to use the word no. You should surround yourself with people who lift you up and hear you and not with people who put you in the position of always coming second.

How would you characterize this past year?
It was actually a very fruitful year for me. A year of transformation and self-enlightenment. Although it was really challenging and in some ways a painful year, I think what's come out of it for me is a deepness that I didn't have before.

Knowing that you can get through tough times?
Yeah, and just knowing how to show up for myself, listen to myself, recognize things that aren't serving me and do something about them.

The painful parts of the year being your health, relationship. Anything else? [Laughs]
Wow, well... [Laughs] um, no, that pretty much covers it.

You said recently in USA Today: "I've felt the best I've felt in a long time, mainly because I've changed the way I treat my life."
Yeah.

So by this you're referring to what you just told me? Was last February the fulcrum for you?
I think that was definitely an epiphany for me. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to be productive all the time and to always be accomplishing. Ultimately if you connect your self-worth to that, you set yourself up for failure and an immense amount of pressure. I was on this frantic horse to always be doing and producing, and now I find that the real growth comes from being yourself, spending time with yourself and surrounding yourself with people who are conscious. I think a lot of that self-realization came from being diagnosed and from having the relationship end. It was all right and it was all perfect.

You said your life isn't what you thought it would be. What did you think it would be?
My life certainly isn't what I thought it would be. I had no idea that I'd be able to make music at this level and I'd be as visible as I am. I didn't know I'd have the opportunity to change the way people see things in some ways—and I don't take that lightly. That's a huge responsibility and also a huge gift. Also, you grow up and think "OK, I'm going to get married in my 20s and have babies." My life didn't follow that course. And I'm grateful for where I am. And I don't think that my life is over or that I'm not going to have kids or get married. I don't know what my life is going to be like, but I'm really happy now that I've let myself off the hook in the expectation area.

You said last year to me, "I do have a sense that I'm completely invincible. I always think I'm totally healthy because I'm active." Has that changed for you?
That's another interesting thing that came from my cancer diagnosis. You think you have control over your life, but then you realize, with a diagnosis, that you are helpless in some ways. It brings out the fragility of life. And that was a good lesson for me. When I talk to women with breast cancer, most will attest to the correlation between breasts and nourishment or nurturing. Their stories usually have some sort of link to not receiving nourishment, or not allowing people to nourish them. The women who I've spoken to about this believe that there is a metaphysical correlation there. I would never say that that is why I got breast cancer, but it has certainly raised my consciousness regarding that area of my life. I've spent so much time nourishing other people that I wind up not allowing people to nourish me.

Did you also discover you were stronger than you knew?
I'm a lot more fragile than I knew, and stronger in a different way. One of the lessons I learned is how to really sit with emotion and not find something for yourself to do instead of feeling the pain.

When did you decide to move to Nashville?
I bought my farm down there right after I was diagnosed. My life was thrown such a curveball that I couldn't figure out where I should be or where my home was. And so I thought, I'm going to go where my family is. My family is there. My horses are there. My dogs. It's quiet. I'm surrounded by land. I'm sort of easing into a place in my life where I need a more peaceful surrounding.

Vanity Fair characterized your February of last year as "the cruelest month of your life so far." Would you agree?
I don't think it was cruel. I think it was a gift. Everything didn't go wrong. I think everything went right, and I'm grateful that things went the way they went. I think if they'd gone any other way, my life would be very different and not necessarily better.

I'm sure you've been asked this a million times, but what was the first thing that went through your mind when you were diagnosed? Did you burst into tears?
Yeah, it was a catastrophic moment for me. When you hear the word cancer, all kinds of things go through your head, the first thing being, "Am I going to die?" It was a moment where I felt my life come to a screeching halt and the first thing I could think of was, Who do I call first and what do I do next?

And you called your parents.
I called my parents, yeah.

And how soon where they out here?
The next morning. And they were great. All my family came out. The whole experience was a blessing in that it even changed the dynamic of my relationships with my family and friends. Giving people the opportunity to really show up for you is a blessing for them as well as for yourself. If you're always self-sufficient, you miss out on the opportunity to let people show up.

Were you ever worried after your breakup and diagnosis that, knowing your potential to go into a dark place, that you'd go back there?
No, because I think we all have that potential. I think most people have experienced being depressed or overwhelmed. I think being depressed is, as much as anything, being overwhelmed and fragmented. I wasn't worried about that. I really wanted to feel the pain of all this because I didn't want to have to deal with it again. I didn't want to have to come back and readdress it at another point. I think these things, if you don't deal with them, can cause a quagmire and ultimately take a toll on all your relationships. I really wanted to get through it. I wanted to experience all the pain, sadness, anger, fear and lessons I needed to learn from the diagnosis—I just wanted to be awake. I'm not afraid of being down. I know that everything in life is so momentary. And time is so elastic that I'm never afraid I'm ever going to be stuck in one thing.

You've said in the past that you think finding joy is a decision. Still think that?
I do. I think that we get used to being cynical and looking at things a certain way. That's why I've really tried to encourage people to not buy the tabloid magazines. They're mean and I think it exacerbates the condition that we want to see bad things happen to people—it's not healthy. It's like eating fast food. It's very bad for the spirit and it certainly doesn't propagate any compassion in the universe. And we seem to love that and feed off that. It seems to make us feel better about our own lives. One of my messages for 2007 is to really encourage people to not go into that world.

What gets better with age? What gets worse?
I think most things get better with age. I love how much more I know. I love how much more I know about myself. The tender moments become more tender as you get older. You acquire the softer edges and things become more gray than black and white. The bad thing about getting older is you lose people along the way. More deaths, more family deaths. I've been lucky. I haven't had a lot of that but I've lost some friends along the way.

What are you celebrating now?
Right now? Well, I'm celebrating being in a happy, successful relationship. I think you're at your best when truly your first love is for yourself and all other love stems from that. I've been really good at loving other people, but you get a little shortchanged when that comes above yourself.

Are you in love now?
Mmm...yeah. ... Maybe.

You also said to me, "I look better than I've looked in years because I have let go of so much angst."
Little did I know what was ahead of me! I inherited good genes, but I also think so much of how you look is tied into how you feel about yourself. The fact that I'm embracing getting older keeps me young. It makes me feel at peace about everything. I know how I feel best. I feel best when I'm rested, when my mind is clear and I'm on a joyful path. What goes into that is exercise, eating right and meditating. I think that that really shows up in your body and in your face, in your skin. It all becomes a part of your natural beauty. It's not really about having toned muscles, it's about having physical, mental and emotional health. And a lot of grace. I obviously don't wear a lot of makeup. But I think so much is tied into how you feel about yourself and how you live your life.

You had some songs ready for your next album, but now you're scrapping them?
I don't know. I think I'll go ahead and do a couple of them, because they still pertain, but I don't feel like the rest are in line anymore with where I'm at.

2006 was the year of firsts. You had LASIK surgery. You performed in your bikini.
That was actually the second time I did that. I did that with The Wallflowers once. Yes. That was the second. I got my scuba. That was a big thing. What else did I do for the first time?

Did you learn to cook?
That's been a process, but I have been cooking. That was kind of necessary when I changed my diet. What else was new? Um, I guess having a farm. That was definitely a big thing. I've always wanted one.

If 2006 was your year of firsts, what will 2007 be?
I think it's going to be a year of unadulterated joy. I'm looking forward to it. I'm already easing into it.

If you were to give a toast to the future, what would it be?
Well, I'm stealing this from my mom. It was during the week when my whole family was out here and I'd gotten my diagnosis back that my cancer was not in my lymph nodes. My mom ended this toast with, "Here's to having all the joy we could possibly stomach!" I loved that. To be that engorged with joy, like you've just eaten the biggest meal of your life. I told my mom I was going to rip that off, but I am giving her credit for it.