Jennifer Lopez is reflecting on her roller coaster year, from canceling her tour to her divorce from Ben Affleck.
"With 'This Is Me… Now' … I felt like, whoa, I got here. I'm good," Lopez told comedian Nikki Glaser for Interview Magazine, referencing her ninth studio album, which was released in February alongside an accompanying music film, "This Is Me... Now: A Love Story," and a behind-the-scenes documentary, "The Greatest Love Story Ever Told."
"I did all the work and look at where I am," she continued, "and then it was like my whole f------ world exploded."
Following the lackluster reaction to the aforementioned projects, Lopez canceled her This Is Me… Live tour in May, and in August, she filed for divorce from Affleck after two years of marriage.
Though she didn't address either topic directly, Lopez did open up about the "lifelong process" of self-discovery.
"I think that's what I love about life, that there's no arrival point. There's only getting better and growing if you want to. It's either growing or dying, and I don't want to do the dying part," she said.
"When your whole house blows up, you're standing there in the rubble going, 'How do I not ever let that happen again?'" she continued. "And then you start examining it little by little saying, 'OK, I did this, this was my part in it, this was what I should have seen early on, this is what I didn't look at.' Those things are what really are the lessons."
Lopez said her mantra is to "never stop looking inward, because it's so easy to blame everybody else."
"You have to be complete, if you want something that's more complete. You have to be good on your own. I thought I learned that, but I didn't," she admitted. "And then, this summer, I had to be like, 'I need to go off and be on my own. I want to prove to myself that I can do that.'"
Lopez said the journey can sometimes feel "lonely, unfamiliar, scary," "sad" or even "desperate," but she realized she's "capable of joy and happiness all by myself."
"Being in a relationship doesn't define me. I can't be looking for happiness in other people. I have to have happiness within myself," she said. "I used to say I'm a happy person but was still looking for something for somebody else to fill, and it's just like, 'No, I'm actually good.'"
The "Let's Get Loud" singer said she's "not looking for anybody" these days -- and she's fine with that.
"For people who are romantics and love being in relationships and want to grow old with somebody, we think, 'I have to have that to be whole and happy,'" she said. "And you don't."
The "Hustlers" actress added, "What can I f------ do when it's just me flying on my own.... What if I'm just free?"
Lopez said she's learned to not focus on the metaphorical two people in a crowd of 50,000 trying to drag her down but to instead focus on the 49,998 lifting her up.
"...How can I pay attention to that when I have these beautiful kids and all this amazing stuff going on in my life? I can't," she said, referring to her 16-year-old twins Max and Emme. "Even in hard times, I just go, 'You know the truth.' Head high. Like they said in 'Finding Nemo': Keep on swimming."
