Me

played with other people’s time. I remember once I was doing a tour through Germany and I had an event at nine in the morning, and I showed up very late in the afternoon. Maybe for other artists that’s no big deal, but for me it is. Everyone has their own standards. To me, not showing up at rehearsals or for an event, that’s when I can’t sink any lower.
    So I stopped working. I went back home and isolated myself from the world. I moped around my house and had very little sense of humor and no patience. I would spend entire days at home in my pajamas—which for me is totally out of character, as I have always been quite active, energetic, and wide-awake early in the morning, always ready for the day ahead. But at that moment I wanted nothing to do with schedules, obligations, or appointments. All I wanted was silence.
    Now that I look at it, I see that time as the beginning of my metamorphosis. I began to evaluate what I wanted out of my life, what I needed and what I did not. It was like a rebirth. And within that rebirth it was as if I was also going through a process of spiritual detoxification in order to come back to the basics, to return to the calm. I was ceasing to be the person I had been for those last few years, to become a new me. I found it to be a very interesting process, but those who knew me best, my closest friends, simply could not understand what was going on.
    One day a close friend came to see me, and shocked to see what was happening, she yelled at me, as if wanting to wake me up from the stupor I was in.
    “You’re screwed up.”
    “No!” I yelled back. “This is how I am! If you don’t like it, leave!”
    “I’m not going anywhere,” she replied.
    At that, I hurled a glass that crashed against the wall and shattered into tiny little pieces. It sounds silly, a single act of desperation, but the effect it had at that moment in my life was totally unexpected. Instead of scaring my friend into leaving, I was the one who was shocked: The explosion gave me an emotional jolt. In the shards of glass I saw scattered on the floor, I saw what was happening in my life. If I did not do what was necessary to fix this right away, I too would end up shattered in a million little pieces. I didn’t recognize myself in such a violent gesture, and I understood that the problem was even more serious than what I was willing to admit. It’s one thing to be famous and another thing to be totally controlled by fame. Being famous can be a very positive thing, but being controlled by it is not in the least bit positive. Even though I thought I was escaping it all to be myself, my erratic behavior was proof that fame was still controlling my life.
    I don’t have any regrets because everything that happened was meant to happen. Did it hurt? Definitely. But I learned a lot. And that’s what is important.

ROAD TRIP
    TODAY I CAN Say I have forgiven myself for allowing myself to sink so low. There are still moments when I think about how I let my life become so out of control, how I allowed myself to be seduced by the fame. Maybe I could have acted and done things differently, but that was the lesson. I needed to face all the challenges that came my way in order to move forward on my spiritual path. I arrived where I did to learn a lesson and not make the same mistakes in the future.
    But to come to this understanding I had to hit the bottom of the barrel, according to my standards. This is where I began to look inside to find the path that brought me to my awakening. When that glass shattered against the wall, I saw it all. I immediately began to repair all the damage I had done to myself. It was time to make some major changes. I stopped seeing the people who were a negative influence on me, I got back to the gym, and I meditated a lot. I did a thorough cleanse and embarked further on my spiritual quest. I needed to leave all of the material stuff behind—the cars, the houses, and the private jet I had bought myself—and walk on foot where no one knew who I was, and if they happened to recognize me it wouldn’t mean a thing. I had to reconnect with that six-year-old boy inside of me and, as a matter of priority, make him happy again.
    I asked myself: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my mission? My happiest memories in life are from my childhood. The time I spent with my father. Going for coffee with my grandparents in the afternoons. Being with my grandmother in her living room as she worked on one