Candace Cameron Bure Gets Candid About Mental Health: “Opening Up To Someone Made all the Difference” (EXCLUSIVE)
The ‘Full House’ actress talks about finding balance, happiness and healing
Candace Cameron Bure has lit up the entertainment industry as a role model to women since stealing our hearts as D.J. Tanner on Full House in the late 80s. She’s since reached millions of fans with countless Hallmark movies and now she’s a staple on the Great American Family (GAF) network.
The 48-year-old mom of three grown children has also taken on producing, writing scripts, books and recently launched her own podcast. Now, she’s starring in two holiday movies for Great American Family (GAF): A Christmas Tree Less Traveled, premiering November 16 and Home Sweet Christmas, premiering December 1.
Candace Cameron Bure has rarely lost her megawatt smile and cheerful attitude, but the former beloved child star revealed on her Candace Cameron Bure Podcast that she has struggled with depression since her twenties. Despite her many blessings, Candace says she has learned to confront her own fears and depression with intention and meaning.
“Depression has been something on and off in my life. I had never shared that publicly before I did a very recent podcast about emotional health and all the different emotions of happiness, sadness, joy, fear, anxiety…and the episode on sadness is when I shared about my depression,” she told Woman’s World as our cover girl (get your copy here!)
Admitting her podcast veers towards the more personal aspects of life, her own vulnerability and fear have come to the surface. “It’s been surprising to talk about my experiences in relation to the topics, but it’s also been liberating in certain places and hearing feedback from people that it affected them and thanking me for sharing is the part that’s encouraged me to say, okay, pitch in.”
Today, Candace has found the secret to finding balance, inspiration, peace and happiness while still maintaining a hectic work and family life, especially around the holidays. “My holiday season begins November 1, the day after Halloween, and I love to celebrate solidly for November and December.” Here, learn how the actress faces holidays and every day with confidence, calm and a happy heart.
Woman’s World: You are so busy with various projects and a podcast. What might we find you doing for leisure time activities to relax and rejuvenate?
Candace Cameron Bure: I love being outside in nature, I love walking, I love exercising and taking walks with my husband almost everyday is what we do when we’re together and I love it. I enjoy reading. And I love shopping, whether it’s window shopping or whatever. I just love being outside in the sunshine. Those are the things that relax me. Along with conversations with people I love. All of these things put me in a relaxing state.
WW: Your Great American Family holiday movie, A Christmas Less Traveled, is described as your character, Desi, coming to realize about her road less traveled. What might be your revelation on your own road less traveled?
CCB: Good question. I think the need to grow and learn every day and every year of my life. As you get older, you figure out what’s most important, and so I guess I’m continuing to discover what those things are and the priority of them.
WW: It’s the holidays almost and you have said that you previously exhausted yourself with decorating, but have now made the whole holiday a lot simpler. How do you decorate now and what are your menus like?
CCB: I put my Christmas decorations up early November. Putting up golden leaves just doesn’t do it for me because I am in Southern California and we don’t have fall or cold weather then. So smells from baking are great Christmas reminders. I go for the Christmas decorations like a simple wreath, ornaments that I’ve collected over the years that have special meanings for me.
As for menus, I go for the traditional foods for Thanksgiving like turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing and all of that. Christmas we do a different menu, for our Christmas Eve dinner of beef Wellington, which is our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. I celebrate all that with family members and friends. I love baking so I bake cookies every year without a doubt. I love making sugar cookies because I get to decorate with icing. I have a whole cut out of cookie cutters that come with recipe cards.
WW: Holiday traditions?
CCB: For sure. There are different seasons of life, whether it was creating new ones or following ones my parents had and when my own kids were young and to what our life is today because I have adult children now. I’m sure traditions will change as family grows and their new traditions will probably become our traditions.
Thanksgiving traditions have lasted pretty much through the years with the dinner and family and friends. That changes depending on whose house it’s at. Christmas time, the one that has lasted the most is our Christmas Eve dinner and then we go to our Christmas Eve service, which is a candle lighting ceremony and it’s really beautiful.
We started a new tradition about five years ago where we started around 5 a.m. Christmas morning to watch the sunrise. My family and I go out to a point, usually up a hill or mountain so we could watch the sun rise, and that’s been a really beautiful new tradition in our family.
WW: Does that symbolize anything—maybe welcoming in new possibilities or just a new day?
CCB: For me, the sun coming up and watching that is the light of the world, literally lighting up the earth. That’s what we are celebrating on Christmas morning is Jesus and He being the light of the world. It feels very representative and setting the tone of what we’re celebrating that day, that God has brought us a light to save the world and it brings beauty.
WW: How does exercise help you cope with any stress?
CCB: It clears my mind. You get those endorphins going. You’re sweating and it releases different chemicals and compounds in your body, so that helps me clear my mind, it relaxes me, but it also makes me feel better when I exercise. Fitness fuels a lot of things I’m able to do—It keeps me healthy, keeps my mind healthy and just keeping a healthy body in general.
WW: Writer, actress, producer, inspirational speaker, director—where do you think your self-confidence comes from in wearing so many hats?
CCB: I think it’s a combination—I really believe faith gave me my self confidence, but I also believe it’s the people I surround myself with—my children, my husband, my business partner—who encourage me and help me continue to believe that I can do all the things that I want to do and accomplish them. I think their voices are so important. They give me confidence, especially when I’m lacking it. They help remind me, hey, remember you’ve done this or look at what you have done…you can do this easily. These words coming from the people around you are really powerful.
WW: Do you have any organizational tips that you can pass on to the reader that help you in your busy days?
CCB: I don’t think this is revolutionary, but I think that the main thing for me is about prioritizing. I make lists on a pad of paper and organize everything the night before so that I know what my day is going to bring about. Having an order of importance so the things that I know I need to get done are the first things on my list that I accomplish and the things that can wait another day or two or till the end of the day, but I time everything out and that type of organization really helps me get through my day and not feel like a failure if I don’t get through it all.
WW: Dancing With the Stars, you said, scared you and caused you insecurity and fear. What might your fears be now and how do you face them?
CCB: That was brave, but I did another thing that was super brave. One of my other fears has been singing because I don’t have a very pretty voice. I got surprised earlier this year by a vocal coach who I was interviewing on my podcast and I asked her if she thought anyone could learn to sing even if you don’t have a nice voice and she said absolutely. It’s all about training your voice and learning how to use it…it’s an instrument. She challenged me and said she’d give me lessons and promised me I could learn to sing. I took several lessons from her over a few months and I have it up on my YouTube with my podcast and it was really interesting to be so vulnerable putting it out there for the public to watch.
She was right. I definitely did improve over those few months. It’s something I’m going to continue to do. I’m not trying to be a singer or record anything, but even in my movies, my Christmas movies, there are places you do have to sing and I just wanted to have the confidence that I didn’t sound horrible, so she really did help me get my confidence, but also gave me some tools to learn how my voice works and make it sound prettier, make it sound better.
WW: Hosting your own podcast, what have you learned about yourself besides singing?
CCB: You have to put yourself out there a lot and I think that’s the one thing…I’ve definitely been more vulnerable than I expected to be, especially because my podcast is a little different in that I have one guest co-host for an entire season and we do thrive on a specific topic.
My place as the podcast host is to be the guide and bring on the experts and ask the questions so that they can share in their expertise. What’s happened over the course of the podcast is it’s rather personal and I’ve been much more vulnerable, even of my experiences in relation to the topics we are talking about more than I thought, so that’s been surprising but it’s also been liberating in certain places and hearing feedback from people that affected them.
WW: Can you give me one specific example of that?
CCB: I’m often known as a very positive, happy person, but I had battled with depression since a teenager. I didn’t know on the day that I was actually going to share that and my co-host kept pushing and opened me up like a little onion. She kept peeling the layers back and the outpouring of the amount of people that said thank you so much for sharing…that’s exactly how I felt. And then to give them tools to say, hey, this is what helped me and it might not be the same thing to help you, but here are some tools that have helped me over the years.
WW: That was very brave. What were some of the tools you gave listeners?
CCB: Exercise has been a huge part of my life and helps my mental state. That’s why exercise is such a priority to me…getting out and getting in nature to clear my mind. You don’t have to be a fitness guru to know that going out and walking and being with trees and getting that oxygen to your brain can really change the dynamics of your mental state. Also talking and going to therapy has helped me. I think the biggest tool was opening up to my husband and at the time I shared with my husband, there were only about three people in my life that knew, including my husband, so it was very difficult.
WW: You are known as a very positive, happy person with a contagious smile. What brings you happiness on a regular basis and makes you smile?
CCB: My family. My work. I absolutely love what I do. Those two things are the core that bring me happiness.
WW: How do you usually start out your days?
CCB: I read my bible in bed as soon as my alarm goes off and I do my bible studies in the morning. Then I’ll make a hot cup of matcha. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I do love tea and matcha, so I make that. I’ll usually go to the gym and exercise for 45 minutes to an hour. Then shower and get on with my day. Depending on where I am, I’ll go to the studio or my office or have readings.
WW: What would you say excites you most about the years ahead?
CCB: My son got married this year so I cannot wait to be a grandmother someday—that’s exciting for my future. And my other kid to find a spouse…I’m just looking forward to more weddings and grandbabies.
Conversation
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