Advice from a therapist that Sheryl Crow received during a difficult period nearly 20 years ago has sustained her to this day.
The nine-time Grammy winner spoke to TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin on Oct. 1 about a way of looking at life that she has used as a guide over the years. She received the advice in 2006, when she had split with cyclist Lance Armstrong and was diagnosed with breast cancer only weeks later.
“I went to a therapist when it felt like everything was crashing,” Crow said. “I was out of a relationship, I had gotten diagnosed with cancer, I just was like, ‘What has happened to my life?’ And from that, one of the things he said to me is, ‘Walk through your life and say thank you for infinite possibility.’ And I would say my life is a beautiful illustration of that.”
Crow, 63, is a mom of two with a music career that continues to flourish. April 2026 will mark 20 years since she had breast cancer.
“I have two wonderful children,” she said. “Maybe it didn’t pan out exactly the way my parents’s (lives did), where they fell in love, they got married in their 20s, they had babies, all that. Life does not have to be tailored to the story you tell yourself. You limit yourself when you tell yourself the story of what your life is supposed to look like.”
Crow instead has reflected on a life that began in tiny Kennett, Missouri, and blossomed into a music career that has taken her around the world.
“So I would say for a kid from a town of three stoplights in the middle of nowhere to have gotten to play in Russia, Tokyo, everywhere, South America, I couldn’t even envision it,” she said. “To be able to tell people, ‘Look, don’t limit yourself. If you can imagine it, it can happen,'” she said.
Crow performed on the TODAY Plaza as part of TODAY’s Pink Power event on Oct. 1 to shine a light on the importance of genetic testing for cancer.
“I think advocating for yourself — it gives you a lot of confidence,” Crow said. “It only takes literally 30 minutes to go in, and it could be something that changes the trajectory of your life. Take care of yourself, put yourself first and go and do the yearly exam.”
Crow also stressed the importance of women listening to their bodies.
“If we really took the time and slowed our lives down, we would know a lot more about ourselves intrinsically, spiritually and physically,” she said.
“These are things that if you listen to your body, and you have an intuition about something, nine times out of 10 you’re going to be right,” she added.
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