Reese Witherspoon had a Christmas epiphany in the middle of her painful split from husband Ryan Phillippe - when she realized she was one of millions of women dealing with a break-up.

The Oscar winner admits she was sitting alone in her car in a Los Angeles parking lot trying to cope with the grief and the media fuss surrounding her split when she suddenly found the strength to go on.

She tells Elle magazine, "I was sitting in a parking lot and I felt like I just couldn't get out of the car. It was like, 'I can't get out of the car.' I thought, 'OK, half of the parking lot has dealt with this. More than half of the parking lot has dealt with this. OK, let's make it a little bigger. Half of this city has dealt with this. OK, let's make it a little bigger-half of this country...' until I finally got out of the car. It was like, 'It's OK. It's OK. There's this moment in (film) Walk the Line, where (Witherspoon's character) June Carter says, 'I was never aware of how much I was seen.' I was very aware of how much I was seen. It was this moment of self-discovery."

-Reese Witherspoon Pictures

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)