![\"2019](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tracee-ellis-ross-me-260723-f90220.jpg\")
Diana Ross and Tracee Ellis Ross at the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.George Pimentel \/ Getty Images<\/p>\nAnxiety can be a crippling part of life, but Tracee Ellis Ross has found a way to make peace with it.<\/p>\n
While appearing live on TODAY July 23, Ross opened up about the important life lesson her mother once taught her that has shaped the way she handles stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI read a quote somewhere that your mom, Diana Ross, taught you anxiety and excitement are the same things,\u201d Sheinelle Jones said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s what my mom always used to say when I was younger. So, they are the same. They feel the same in your body. They just have a different label,\u201d Tracee Ellis Ross explained. <\/p>\n
Diana Ross and Tracee Ellis Ross at the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.George Pimentel \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Over time, the actor has adapted the lesson a little bit. She still believes that anxiety and excitement are the same thing, but she also likes to underscore the fact that \u201cone doesn\u2019t have breath.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cSo excitement, when you\u2019re excited, you\u2019re breathing, you\u2019re so excited, and your body is filled with that feeling. When it\u2019s fear, there\u2019s not a lot of breath and you get scared, but it\u2019s the same butterflies inside your body,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ross went on to explain that anxiety is par for the course in her chosen career, especially now that she\u2019s appearing on Broadway.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s part of what I do. And so, it\u2019s not that it goes away. I get nervous every night. Every night I say to the team, \u2018Are you sure I can do this?\u2019 And I just step into it anyway,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The 53-year-old said trust plays a big part in the process of surrendering to your anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trust that the work and the discipline and all that I worked to prepare is there underneath me, and that my feet will know where to go. And I have the story to tell and I will be able to kind of deliver and be of service to the material,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Knowing the meaning behind her work also helps Ross control her anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re doing something like this, my job is not to be there to be about me. My job is to tell the story and be of service to the audience and be of service to the story, so that I\u2019m delivering for the audience to understand. It\u2019s not about me. And so that also takes the nervousness away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ross, whose show \u201cSolo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross\u201d just returned for a second season, has often spoken about the lessons she\u2019s learned from her Motown icon mom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI come from a lot of abundance, but all of the abundance that I enjoy is mine, that I\u2019ve built, and building my own life has made me very aware of what my mother built on her own and what it took for her to do that,\u201d Tracee Ellis Ross told Self<\/a> in July 2025. <\/p>\n \u201cThe example she set for me (was) that I didn\u2019t need a man to build the life I wanted,\u201d she added. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t, \u2018Look at me,\u2019 it was, \u2018This is me.\u2019 And that informed something very important for me foundationally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anxiety can be a crippling part of life, but Tracee Ellis Ross has found a way to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-565856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}