The 74-year-old actress has been with Kurt Russell for 37 years.
Goldie Hawn is sharing her secrets to a successful relationship. The 74-year-old actress has been with Kurt Russell for 37 years and has some advice for how to keep a relationship going, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic that has many couples in quarantine together.
"Quarantine is a state of mind," she tells ET's Rachel Smith via video chat, while also talking about her organization MindUP. "You know, we really are our own keepers. I don't believe that [you] should expect someone to be your keeper. You have to stand on your own two feet. You've gotta figure out what it is that you stand for and know as much about yourself as possible. We're born alone and we die alone and we have to really understand that this is our strength. We are our own power, we are our own generator."
Hawn's counsel for couples having issues is "be patient."
"Know that this is not going to go on, and yet we have each other for this period of time which is kind of extraordinary," she continues. "Sometimes there are things you don't like about somebody, but that's OK. You don't have to punch them out. You don't have to be angry about it. Just know that everybody has their own qualities. Sometimes they're really good and sometimes they're not."
As for the breakups that have occurred amid quarantine, Hawn says, "But what's going on now, lots of divorces are happening, a lot of things are happening 'cause people are in such close quarters. ...People say, 'Well, how does this work out?' Forgiveness and patience. That's a great quality to develop and I think this is what helps relationships sustain."
Hawn adds, "Because they're not easy. Not even out of quarantine. They're not easy."
One thing that helps her and Russell's romance is his ability to make her laugh. "I have a tickle inside of me and I've always had it and I never want to lose it," she quips.
In fact, laughter has been so important to Hawn during this trying time that she started the #LaughingChallenge on Instagram. Hawn did the challenge for MindUP, which teaches the skills and knowledge children need to regulate their stress and emotion, form positive relationships, and act with kindness and compassion. Her daughter, Kate Hudson, as well as Reese Witherspoon and other celebrities have gladly accepted the challenge.
"When we put this [laughing] challenge up, I realized how important it really is, because there's nothing greater than knowing that you're sharing a laugh with someone," Hawn says on why she decided to start this social media craze. "I'm watching everybody share their pictures of laughter and these babies... I can't explain, I'm giggling to myself. I mean, laughing watching them. It's sort of the gift that keeps on giving."
Hawn muses, "My dream is just all of us at one point having just a global laugh together because there's so much power in positivity, so much power."
The challenge wasn't too hard for Hawn and her brood. "We are a laughing family," she says proudly. "There's no doubt about it. I grew up in a laughing family and we created our own laughing family."
The energetic actress also shares that keeping active has helped her while in quarantine. "I prefer to dance through life rather than slog through life," she proclaims. "I'll never stop working my body. I can't. So every day I have to do something."
Meditation is also something she strives to do to "get myself grounded," and is something she believes is important for young kids as well. "You do that with MindUP, my program that I have in schools. Now millions of children have had it, have taken it and that's why they do brain breaks during the day so they know how the brain works," she shares. "They do it and it quiets them down and they know what's going on in the brain."
In addition to all the laughing, dancing and meditating, Hawn admits that she's faced some somber moments while in quarantine. She recently revealed that she's been crying three times a day.
"Laughter and tears are very close together," she tells ET. "My mother once for a present gave me a Japanese sort of doll and one side was laughter and the other side was tears. It really is what we're made of as humans. It's how we do tragedies or we do comedies or things that we do for a living, but truly they're very close to each other. So yeah, I do cry. I cry and I don't have a problem with that because if I feel sad for someone or I heard of something that made me extremely sorrowful about someone passing or looking at children who are being abused and women and men being abused in their own homes, it gets to me. It just does. So I let it go. I let it go. I cry."
And amid the coronavirus pandemic, Hawn has shifted her focus to help others with MindUP. "It's a lot of work and it is a lot of love," she says, adding that it helps create "happy children, more balanced children, children who can manage their emotional construct better with stress."
"This is the reason I created this program 20 years ago, and now more than ever it is needed," she relays. "So that is what I am doing basically, aside from finding my moments of laughter and my moments of joy because that is who I am too."
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