Jada Pinkett-Smith opens up about finding the balance between work and motherhood

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For Jada Pinkett Smith finding the balance between work and motherhood hasn’t always been easy.

Pinkett-Smith now gets to work with her daughter Willow on the Facebook Red Table Talk series but when her kids were younger, she admits being a working actress and navigating motherhood was a difficult task that she struggled to master.

—Jada Pinkett Smith talks about dealing with flirty women who have pushed up on her hubby Will—

“I did both things. I stopped [working] and I was miserable and my family was miserable. When I was working I was good,” Pinkett-Smith said Thursday during a fireside chat moderated by Jay Shetty in West Hollywood. “I had to realize that I was going to be more of a benefit to my family doing the things that I love. Yes, it’s going to take time to find the balance but just know this is the path.”

But while Pinkett-Smith finally found her groove, she knows it’s different for every woman, PEOPLE reports.

“A friend of mine stayed home with her kids and she loved it,” she said. “For every woman, it’s important that we recognize that we have the right to figure out what works for us personally. We don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. If we are good, our family is going to be good.”

—Jada Pinkett Smith on Willow’s cutting, finding peace and creating space for women to heal on ‘Red Table Talk’—

Now, Pinkett-Smith realizes that she should have taken care of self first so she could better feed into the needs of her children. The Girls Trip star admits that her husband Will gave her some valuable advice that she wished she should have adhered to.

“Will used to tell me that all that time ‘put your mask on first.’ You know when you are on the plane and the pilot says if something goes down, ‘put your mask on first.’ You can’t do something for anyone else if you don’t have oxygen.”

Tune in to new episodes of Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith and Adrienne Banfield Norris every Monday at 9:00 a.m. PT / 12:00 p.m. ET on Facebook Watch.