Sarah Drew has finally revealed how her father Charles Drew’s advice helped calm her nervous system during panic attacks.
The 45-year-old actress and director, who rose to fame with her portrayal of surgeon Dr. April Kepner in Grey’s anatomy, indicated an interview Fox Newswhich was published on Saturday, May 23.
Sarah told the outlet that she started having panic attacks when she was pregnant with her first child and that she would have lost herself if her father hadn’t given her some life-changing advice.
The Everwood star said: “One of the biggest and scariest risks I took was choosing to become a mother. I took the risk and was pregnant. I was probably about six months pregnant and having panic attacks.”
“I was so worried about all of this. I was afraid that I was going to mess up. I was afraid for my children that I wouldn’t have the necessary selflessness that is needed. I was afraid that I was too self-centered to do this well. [I was worried that] I would resent that being the case [my kids] were…demanding things of me,” she explained.
Sarah admitted that she embraced motherhood with ‘so many big fears’ which caused her to keep having panic attacks and when she couldn’t handle the situation herself, she asked for help from her father.
She recalled, “I remember writing to my dad and just saying, ‘Do you have any advice, any wisdom, or any Scripture that you can point me to that might help combat this fear? Because it’s really overwhelming.'”
Her father didn’t give her a lecture; rather, he advised her to sit with “aggressive gratitude.”
“I thought, ‘Tell me more.’ He calls it ‘aggressive’ because it’s not always easy when you first start practicing gratitude, because sometimes you’re just in a mind spiral and all you can see is the scary and the dark,” she noted.
It is pertinent to mention that Sarah Drew shares two sons, Micah Emmanuel and daughter Hannah Mali Rose, with her husband, Dr. Peter Lanfer.
