Jennifer Lopez Is ‘Flying on My Own’ After Ben Affleck Divorce: ‘Not Looking for Anyone’

Jennifer Lopez is getting candid about some hard life lessons!

Lopez sat down with comedian Nikki Glaser for Interview magazine, talking about the huge changes in her life this past year: she canceled her This Is Me… Live tour in May and filed for divorce from Ben Affleck in August.

J.Lo recalled releasing her “This Is Me… Now” project and thinking, “’I got here. I’m good. I did all the work and look at where I am,’ and then it was like my whole f**king world exploded.”

Talking about the growth she’s experienced, Lopez said, “It’s a lifelong process. 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 went on, “There’s times when I thought I figured it out, and then life goes, ‘Let’s send you another thing and see if you fall for it. Let’s see if you really have learned that lesson.’ And I hadn’t. I understand that now in a much deeper way, which doesn’t mean that I won’t make mistakes in the future, but again, when your whole house blows up, you’re standing there in the rubble going, ‘How do I not ever let that happen again?’ And then you start examining it little by little saying, ‘Okay, 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.”

Jen said she is examining her feelings and belief systems and how they play a role in her decisions,  explaining, “I would say, never stop looking inward, because it’s so easy to blame everybody else.”

Over the summer she needed to “go off and be on my own” to prove to herself she could do it.

Nikki asked if it was hard. Jen replied, “Yes, it’s f**king hard!”

Lopez explained, “It feels lonely, unfamiliar, scary. It feels sad. It feels desperate. But when you sit in those feelings and go, ‘These things are not going to kill me,’ it’s like, actually, I am 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. 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 actress now knows it is okay to have flaws and you don’t have to be perfect to be loved.

“Somebody who truly loves you will help you heal those parts of yourself,” she said. “That’s what I’ve learned about love, that it is a secure thing. You make me feel safe, and when I fall short of the glory, you understand me and you help me to grow to be better, because you have your boundaries and I have my boundaries. And I go, ‘Here’s where you’re falling short for me and here’s where I’m falling short for you.’ And so, we get better at those things together.”

Has she set the bar for the next man in her life? Jennifer insisted, “Here’s the thing: There’s no new bar because I’m not looking for anybody. How’s that?”

She has a whole new outlook, too. “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.’ And you don’t,” Lopez said.

Jen joked it “only took 30 years” to get to this secure place.

Reflecting on her journey, she said, “I was thinking about this time in my life, and I’m like, ‘That’s not what I thought it was going to turn out like.’ And then I thought, ‘No, this is exactly where I needed to be, to lead me to where I want to go.’”

Nikki asked if she had regrets after the pain she endured, but J.Lo told her, “Not one second. That doesn’t mean it didn’t almost take me out for good. It almost did. But now, on the other side of it, I think to myself, ‘F**k, that is exactly what I needed. Thank you, God. I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry that you had to do this to me so many times. I should have learned it two or three times ago. I get it. You had to hit me really hard over the head with a f***ing sledgehammer. You dropped the house on me. Don’t have to do it again.’”