Sarah Drew’s “aggressive gratitude” eased her fear

In a new Lifetime romantic drama, Sarah Drew plays a widow trying to rebuild her life. Off-screen, she traces her own turning point to advice from her pastor father: “aggressive gratitude” as a way to push fear aside—an approach she says has “been the greatest

When Sarah Drew says she learned to fight fear with gratitude, she isn’t talking in theory. She’s describing a moment that landed in her body—while she was already carrying her first child.

Drew. best known as an alum of “Grey’s Anatomy. ” stars in the Lifetime romantic drama “When I Said I Do. ” airing Saturday. May 23. 2026. at 8 p.m. and available for streaming the next day. In the film. she plays Ali Corley. a widowed search-and-rescue K-9 handler who rebuilds her life and finds love again after losing her husband on the job.

But long before the fictional love story begins, Drew says she was confronting a very real fear spiral of her own.

“One of the biggest, scariest risks that I leaped into was choosing to become a mom,” the 45-year-old told Fox News Digital. “I took the risk, and I was pregnant. I was probably about six months pregnant, and I had been having panic attacks.”

She described how anxious thoughts crowded in—about whether she would fail as a mother. about the weight of what responsibility would demand. about what her life would become once the baby was here. “I’d been so caught up with anxiety about all of it,” she said. “I was worried I was going to screw up. I was worried for my kids that I wasn’t going to have the necessary selflessness that’s required. I was worried that I was too self-absorbed to do this well. [I was worried that] I would resent the fact that [my kids] were … demanding things from me.”.

Looking back, Drew said those worries weren’t just nerves—they were overwhelming enough that she turned to the one person she trusted to speak to her from the inside.

At the time, Drew was starring in “Grey’s Anatomy,” and she and her husband, Peter Lanfer, were preparing to welcome their first child after a decade of marriage. From the outside, she said life looked picture-perfect. Inside, she felt fear. And she reached for her father.

She remembered writing to him and asking for help that was specific to the battle she was fighting. “I remember writing to my dad and just saying. ‘Do you have any advice or any wisdom or any Scripture that you can point me toward that could help combat this fear?. Because it’s really overwhelming,’” Drew recalled. “And he wrote back with some really lovely Bible verses that I have taken to heart for sure.”.

But Drew says the most memorable guidance came with a phrase that she’s kept close: her father’s idea that fear doesn’t just shrink by wishing it away. It changes when gratitude takes over.

“But the biggest thing that stuck with me was that the best way to combat fear is with aggressive gratitude. ” said Drew. “And I was like. ‘Tell me more.’ … He calls it ‘aggressive’ because it’s not always easy when you first start practicing gratitude because sometimes you’re just in a mind spiral. and all you can see is the scary and the dark.”.

In Drew’s telling, the method was also practical: she wasn’t meant to sit in uncertainty and hope it passes. She was meant to replace the fear-running script with spoken, deliberate thanks.

Her father urged her to confront her anxieties with faith and to speak aloud the blessings God had given her, even when she felt unsure. Drew described it as deliberately swapping what her mind fixated on—“the scary and the dark”—for immediate, specific appreciation.

“… You’re replacing the scary and the dark with, ‘I’m grateful that there is oxygen in my lungs. I am grateful that I have a roof over my head. Look, I have this beautiful meal. I’m so grateful for this. Thank you for this. Thank you for that.’ All of a sudden, your brain chemistry starts to shift,” Drew said.

She added that the brain doesn’t always change quietly. “You start bushwhacking a new pathway in your neurotransmitters so that you’re literally looking toward the good things,” she said.

And she said she can feel the difference when she tries it—whenever fear returns. “Whenever I’m feeling really scared about something. I go straight to gratitude. and that generally turns the corner for me. As soon as I start being grateful for things. I start noticing more things to be grateful for. and it transforms.”.

Drew is now a devout Christian and a proud mom to two children. Since exiting “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2018, she has written two Christmas movies for Lifetime while continuing to act, People magazine reported.

She also said she was drawn to “When I Said I Do” for reasons that mirror the life lesson at the heart of her own story: resilience, perseverance, and hope. The film is inspired by Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black’s 1999 hit duet of the same name.

In one of her biggest statements about faith and family. Drew described how her parents never doubted her decision to pursue acting in Hollywood. She said they embraced her choice and encouraged her step by step. “I love them so much, and they’re such good people,” she said. “And for them. they always recognized my acting as a gift that was given to me to be used for goodness. For them, it was an outpouring of the love of God. And so. there were never any guardrails in terms of. ‘Oh. that’s a scary place to go into.’ It was like. ‘No. look at the opportunity that you have to use your gift and love people over there.’”.

Drew remembered her mother’s words when she was dropped off at college: “Go out there and love some people.” She said that message became the motivation she was raised with—love first. then everything else. “First, you love people, then everything else happens underneath that. But the first thing you do is go out, and you love people.”.

That belief shows up in her creative instincts, too. Over the years. Drew said she’s been inspired by the 1981 historical drama “Chariots of Fire. ” which tells the true story of Eric Liddell. a devout Christian who refused to run an Olympic race on a Sunday because of his religious convictions. The movie’s title comes from a line in William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem,” symbolizing noble purpose and spiritual strength.

Drew described the central theme as something she personally recognizes. “When I act, I feel God’s pleasure,” she noted. “That’s what it is. It’s a beautiful. divine thing I feel — like I’m dancing with God a little bit whenever I get to play a role. It’s really sweet and meaningful. It’s an expression of my faith more than anything else.”.

These days, she said gratitude isn’t just how she manages panic. It’s also how she keeps perspective when the world is watching. “I don’t want any moment to be motivated by, ‘What’s this going to get me?. How is this going to be a stepping stone for the next thing?. How many followers should I have?’ All the things that come with gaining notoriety,” Drew said.

“My purpose has always been to make a connection with people through storytelling,” she continued. “My younger self wasn’t reading the reviews. She didn’t care if this was taking her into another place in her career. She didn’t care if this was starting her career. She was just soaking up every single second of this experience because it had been the most magical thing that had ever happened to her.”.

And in the story Drew tells—about fear that once felt too loud to handle—gratitude wasn’t a comforting platitude. It was the tool her pastor father gave her, and the habit she says actually changed the way her mind behaved.

In “When I Said I Do,” she’ll play Ali Corley as love returns after loss. In Drew’s own words, fear doesn’t disappear with time alone. Sometimes it’s battled—aggressively—by choosing what you say back to your own darkest thoughts, one breath, one blessing, one “thank you” at a time.

Sarah Drew Grey’s Anatomy Lifetime When I Said I Do Eric Johnson aggressive gratitude faith pastor father pregnancy panic attacks