Chrissy Metz thanks God for her move to Nashville and getting into the music industry.
The “This is Us” actress said she found herself talking to Kelly Clarkson’s doctor at one point while she was going back and forth between there and Los Angeles, and he told her, “’You don’t know me, but God literally told me to ask you about music.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, what?’” she told Fox News Digital about how she ended up in Music City.
She continued, “And he’s like, ‘Do you want to write music? Do you sing? I don’t even know that about you.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, yes. Music was my first love.’ And he was like, ‘Well, I live in Nashville. If you want to come out to song-write, I’ll set you up with meetings.’ I was like, ‘Are you joking? OK, thank you, God.’ And then I came out to start just songwriting with incredible songwriters.”
The 44-year-old said she’s originally from Florida, “so, the South is very familiar to me,” and during the coronavirus pandemic her family lived there for eight months.
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“And it just sort of became like a very comforting place, and you can go anywhere, 10, 15 minutes,” she said. “You can have the best food, see three different shows in one night and then write a song. Like, it’s just… It’s such a special place, and it feels very communal.”
She still owns a home in Los Angeles — before the move she had been going back and forth during hiatuses from “This is Us” — and when she was there recently, “my friends of 20 years are like, ‘What are you doing?’ So, I don’t know that I’ll ever completely give that up, but from what I’m doing now, I’m just, I am so happy here.”
Comparing L.A. to Nashville, Metz said that just running an errand is vastly different.
WATCH: ‘This is Us’ star says she didn’t really feel ‘seen or heard’ growing up
“It took two hours and 15 minutes in L.A. It took me seven minutes here,” she told Fox News Digital, adding that she feels like it gives her a better “quality of life” in Nashville, not having to sit in traffic for hours.
“I hate to say quality of life, because for me, spending time in traffic is about quality of life. And listen, I’m grateful I have a car, I am able to drive, all those things, but I’m like, how much more productive could I be if I was doing something with that time? Not to say I don’t roll calls or whatever, listen to music, rehearse, but it’s just, I don’t know, for right now in my life, in this season, it just feels good and comfortable and right.”
Along with working on music, the actress has also written a children’s book called “When I Talk to God I Talk About Feelings.” It is a follow-up to her first book, “When I Talk to God, I Talk About You.”
“I know as a kid, I had a hard time expressing my feelings,” she explained. “And I think our world would be a very different place if we treated the soil and every kid felt like they were heard and seen from a very early age, that they could name their feelings, they could then express them, feel validated in them.”
She said she talks to God about her feelings “every single day, sometimes every single minute,” which became the impetus for the book.
While reading the first book to children at churches and schools, “they always wanted to talk about their feelings,” she said. “We would ask about specific questions, and they would always want to talk about how they were feeling or something that made them scared or happy or nervous, and it certainly was a through line and a thread every single time, and I was like, ‘Oh, I think the kids just completely created the second book for me,’ you know?”
WATCH: ‘This is Us’ star talks inspiration behind her children’s book ‘When I Talk to God, I Talk About Feelings’
With 10 nieces and nephews and experience of having taught preschool, Metz remembered talking to children about a “particular toy or something that happened at home, but the underlining is, ‘Hey, you know, I’m feeling a certain way. Will you listen to me?’ And that just kept coming up, and it keeps coming up in any sort of conversation.”
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She added, “If you really listen, you can hear what the kid, the adult, whomever you are talking to is really saying.”
Metz said she didn’t really feel “seen or heard as a kid. I was a middle child of five. I learned a lot. I gleaned a lot, but it was tough.”
She continued, “So, you know, for those young people who may be in the same boat, I’m like, ‘Oh, I see you, and I want to hear you, and I wanna see you.’”
Metz hopes the book “will create conversation between” the reader and the listener. “And even if it’s not a conversation you want to eventually have, hopefully it will just foster connection and time spent with who you’re reading it to. Yeah, so, I mean, that’s certainly our hope and the reason why I wanted to write it about feelings.”
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“I hope that they take away that they’re loved, that they are important and that their feelings are very valid,” she added.
Praying “from morning till night” is also an important part of her day.
Along with praying before meetings, interviews, auditions and other things she does throughout the day, “whether it’s friends or family who are going through something or if I see some, you know, an ambulance driving on the road, I will pray. I will just stop and pray for that person. And I think whether you call it prayer or however you call your higher power, I think positive collective consciousness is so important.”
WATCH: ‘This is Us’ star says she’s ‘so happy’ after her move from LA to Nashville
She said she starts every day with a prayer of gratitude, “and then I just continue through the day.”
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“I’m always wanting to put positivity out there,” she added. “And that for me looks like prayer in my connection and relationship with God.”
“When I Talk to God, I Talk About Feelings” is available now.