Jennifer Beals: There is this incredible, indelible community that has...

For me, running is about freedom. I find that the freer I feel, the faster I am.

Jennifer Beals

freedom running sports

Love is large; love defies limits. People talk about the sanctity of love -- love is by definition sacred. Not some love between some people, but all love between all people.

Jennifer Beals

definitions love-is people

Whether it's that moment in acting when everything is suspended and you're not yourself, or breaking through the veil of a very long run or swim, or hearing my daughter laugh they are all pathways to what I think God must be.

Jennifer Beals

daughter running thinking

Love is the greatest light, the brightest torch, and will always be the greatest instrument of change.

Jennifer Beals

torches light love-is

My husband does so many romantic things for me, it's absurd.

Jennifer Beals

my-husband husband doe

For some people, they may categorize it as "gay love". And for me, I simply see it as love. And there's no corner of the universe where love cannot abide and grow.

Jennifer Beals

gay may people

Being part of The L Word made me realize how much more television can be that what I had experienced in my lifetime in terms of being able to be of service to people. I had so many fans come up to me who were really deeply appreciative of the show and what it had meant for them and their own sense of identity and their own sense of inclusion in our society and in our culture.

Jennifer Beals

identity culture people

You can have the 'golden rule' - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. But then you take it one step farther - where you just do good unto others, period. Just for the sake of it.

Jennifer Beals

golden compassion sake

Giving feels good. It is a form of healing. Not just for you as an individual, but for everyone.

Jennifer Beals

feel-good healing giving

I hope through The L Word to become an honorary member of the gay tribe. I cherish the thought that some young girl or woman somewhere may one night turn on the television and for the first time ever see her life represented - not as an isolated incident but as a multiplicity. Her overwhelming fear may have been that she might never find her tribe, she might never find love and now she knows that they are both out there waiting for her.

Jennifer Beals

gay girl night

In North America, people get a sense that something is really wrong in government and in our culture. There is a corruption, not only in politics, but of spirit as well, when people are so quick to be violent with one another. I think everybody would like to be able to find a solution to make things better. We have the desire to reform inside of us, and we get frustrated because we don't know how to change things, even if it comes to our own behavior. Sometimes you get frustrated because you don't know how to stop that thing that you know is either hurtful to yourself or someone else.

Jennifer Beals

government america thinking

Of course, the surest way to free yourself from an existential crisis is through comedy.

Jennifer Beals

free-yourself comedy way

I would recommend meditating. I think that's the single most important thing that I do. More than stretching, more than the way I eat, there's something about understanding who you truly are. The essence of everyone is so beautiful that it's startling.

Jennifer Beals

meditation essence beautiful

When you start projecting on the future - "Oh my God, I gotta do this and I'm not there yet" - well, of course you're not there yet because you're here now. That time will come. I try to stay in the moment as much as I can and find whatever joy I can in that moment, no matter what it is. Then it doesn't feel as stressful.

Jennifer Beals

stress joy trying

When I was younger, I enjoyed being strong, and I loved it when my heart was very strong, but I think it was also about submitting to the cultural idea that if you're a 22-year-old woman, you have to look a certain way. I'm not into that anymore. But I do appreciate it when my clothes fit.

Jennifer Beals

strong heart thinking

Women are so often segregated to their sexuality, and how they appear. In fact, there's a lot of talk, even now, I think in most jobs this is true... people will say, when a woman rises to power, they ask, 'who did she sleep with?' You know, it couldn't possibly be about her acumen, it couldn't possibly be about her intelligence. It's got to be about her body, because that's how women get ahead.

Jennifer Beals

sleep jobs thinking

I think science and spirituality are one and the same, I don't think they're really different. The film makes pretty clear that quantum physics is validating all kinds of spiritual teachings.

Jennifer Beals

teaching spiritual thinking

Inside every woman there is a Kali. [Hindu goddess who morphed into seven hidden beings to win a battle] Do not mistake the exterior for the interior.

Jennifer Beals

battle winning mistake

It has been said, "History is written by the victors." I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history.

Jennifer Beals

mean believe country

The ways in which we are similar are far more numerous than the ways in which we are different.

Jennifer Beals

different way

There is this incredible, indelible community that has sprung up around the show, a community that gathers in homes and clubs, from Los Angeles to Topeka, Kansas and around the world. A community that, in some places, meets quietly in a lesbian bar that doesn't even exist depending on whom you ask.