Reese Witherspoon felt like a 'robot' that 'broke' after difficult year with divorce

As a widely successful actress and producer, Reese Witherspoon consistently presents herself as a formidable force in Hollywood. Now, "The Morning Show" star is revealing she recently reached her breaking point, admitting she "cried and cried."

"I've been trying really hard to find balance outside of work," Witherspoon told attendees of her Hello Sunshine's Shine Away event, per E! Online. "I'm a person who fills my schedule with busyness, so that I feel less alone or less nervous or less unsettled."

She continued, "I started to realize that isn't going to work for me. About a year ago, I was like, 'I was a robot and the robot broke.' I cried and cried."

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"It actually makes me feel very vulnerable sharing that with you all," the "Sweet Home Alabama" actress told the crowd, "But I think it's important."

"We hold up so much for so many. My beautiful friend, Cleo Wade, just wrote this gorgeous poem ... about the glue in people's lives. And sometimes you are the glue in everybody's life, whether it's at work or being a mom or being a partner, but who is holding you together, you know? It's really important to remember," she said.

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Upon reading the poem, Witherspoon said she "burst into tears."

"I didn't feel like I was taking very good care of myself, and I wasn't asking other people for help," she continued. "I feel like I've learned a lot because I did the work – the hard work – in my early 20s, and reading every book and every self-help book and going to therapy and really trying to understand myself and forgive the parts of myself that were broken and the parts of myself where I felt like a failure, because it was a huge part of it."

Witherspoon says she has now reshaped her thinking: "Instead of thinking of it as a failure, I think, 'Gosh, I've learned so much from that moment.' And I don't blame others. I just reward myself for the hard things that little Reese went through."

Witherspoon has had an eventful year, having announced in March that she and husband Jim Toth were divorcing after nearly 12 years of marriage. They share one son, Tennessee, together. Witherspoon has two other children from her first marriage to Ryan Phillippe.