Trisha Yearwood Opens Up About Songwriting, Self-Care and Joy After 60 (EXCLUSIVE)

Over the course of her long, multi-faceted career, Trisha Yearwood has earned success as a New York Times best-selling author, gifted actress, Grammy Award-winning singer and Emmy-winning host of Trisha’s Southern Kitchen on the Food Network.

The acclaimed entertainer has now added another creative accomplishment to her already impressive resume—songwriter. “I turned 60 this past September and it’s never too late to start something new that just might change your life,” Trisha tells Woman’s World as our cover girl (get your copy here!). 

“I feel so good!” she says. “I’m enjoying the songwriting process. It’s been so fulfilling. I wasn’t sure there was another adventure like that out there for me, and it’s just made me feel like, Okay what’s next? What’s my next adventure going to be?”

Trisha will be sharing her new music as well as her timeless hits on her spring theater tour, which launches April 30 in Austin, Texas and will feature special guest singer/songwriters Sunny Sweeney and Erin Enderlin, who collaborated with Trisha on her new album.

That enthusiasm for life has always served Trisha well and has propelled her to explore different avenues. Last year, she and husband, Grammy-winning legend and entertainer Garth Brooks, opened Friends in Low Places, Nashville’s largest honky tonk where Trisha created the menu and honored her late mother Gwen in a special room with exquisite décor.

Family has always been the foundation of Trisha’s life, and as she enjoys the Easter season, she has fond memories of growing up in Monticello, GA. “We always had ham at Easter,” she says. “As kids we always decorated Easter eggs. My mom would poke the ends of a raw egg with a toothpick and get all the insides out and let them dry. She would give us those eggs to dye and then we’d decorate them. That was before Sharpies, but we’d get ballpoint pens and decorate them. My sister, Beth, and I still have those eggs. My mom kept them in an egg carton and brought them out every Easter.”

Trisha sees Easter as a “season of hope and renewal” and here in this intimate Q&A, she shares her secrets to living a fulfilling, happy life where anything is possible in every season of life.

Woman’s World (WW): What’s your secret to staying strong and healthy?

Trisha Yearwood: At this stage in my life, I feel stronger and healthier than I ever have. I made a decision about how I wanted to feel and how I wanted to age, and it’s all about focusing on strength, not what size your pants are. I work out three times a week.

It’s hard to be a woman because there’s so much advice about who you ought to be, what you ought to look like. But once you live a little bit, you really start to understand what matters and what doesn’t.

WW: What has been your most difficult challenge, how did you get through it?

Trisha Yearwood: Losing my folks was the hardest thing I’ve faced. I was really close to my mom and dad and I remember being a young woman thinking, I can’t do it. That’s my biggest fear. My mother and I talked about it when she and my dad were still living. I asked my mom what she did when she lost her mom and dad and she said, “You’ll be okay. It’s a natural progression of things. You’re not supposed to outlive your children.” 

As hard as it was to lose my dad and my mom, I feel them with me more now than I did when they were alive. I miss them every day, but I feel them with me on a level that is just…different. I definitely feel that they are walking with me.

WW: What gives you the most joy?

Trisha Yearwood: You have the power to change your mindset. For me, it’s really getting back to simple things. If I want to find joy and reset, I go out and walk with my rescue dogs, Emmy, Millie and Mack. [Watching them] digging a hole until their face is full of mud, wagging their tails and living their best life is simple and it brings me joy. 

I also love taking walks with my sister—we talk about everything from what we’re going to make for dinner that night to what’s happening in the world. Those little moments are reminders that joy is always within us; we just have to look inward to find it.

WW: What are your best stress relievers?

Trisha Yearwood: The number one stress reliever for me is my music. When I sing, when I create, when I make music, I get to go to a totally different place and it is a place of pure joy for me.

Sleep is also key. If I sleep well, I see it on my face and if I don’t sleep well, I see it on my face—it’s my best beauty trick. Sleep and drinking water are things my mama taught me to do.

My girlfriends also are so great at making me laugh and relieving stress. My sister and I have a group of girlfriends that we’ll do girl trips with or do lunch with. The power of a group of women together is pretty strong.

WW: What are some of your favorite things right now?

Trisha Yearwood: I got this big barrel curling iron, and it makes a difference. A smaller one made me look like Shirley Temple and I didn’t know what I was doing. And someone taught me to curl each section opposite of each other. So, if you curl one section forward, you’d curl the next section backwards and it gives you kind of a beach wave.

And the thing I have the most in my closet are sweats, but my current favorite is matching sweatsuits, so it looks like I actually thought about it—If the bottoms match the top, I feel bougie.

WW: Tell us about your songwriting and what’s next…

Trisha Yearwood: On my upcoming album I co-wrote every song. It was like discovering a part of myself in a creative way that I hadn’t really tapped into. My longtime friend Leslie Satcher, who is a hit songwriter, encouraged me to write. She just kept reaching out and kept saying, “We need to write. You’re a writer.” She just kept at it until I went and wrote with her, and it was life changing.