For actress Eva Mendes, motherhood marked a seismic shift in her life, personally, professionally and emotionally. “It just changes everything,” she tells WHO of being a mum to kids Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 8, who she shares with Ryan Gosling. “It has influenced every single decision I’ve made in my life.”

A decade ago, Mendes, 50, left her acting career behind to focus on the family she created with Gosling, who she started dating in 2011 after the pair co-starred in the drama The Place Beyond the Pines.

Her last role was in 2014’s Lost River, written and directed by Gosling. “I love my work when I work with him because it’s all me, through a character,” she says, noting that she is proudest when her work feels authentic. “I just want to make it reflective of me and where I am.”

Eva Mendes and her kids with Ryan Gosling

Her latest project, children’s book Desi, Mami, and the Never-Ending Worries, fits the bill, inspired by conversations with her kids.

“As my daughter was getting a little older and dealing with certain anxieties –she’s a nail biter, I was a nail biter – I started talking to her about her brain and talking about it as separate from her,” she tells WHO. “I’d say, ‘You know what? That’s your brain trying to be a bully to you’ and that was the only thing that could kind of calm her or make her feel a little bit better. I started just telling them both, ‘Hey, just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true. Don’t believe everything you think.’ And then it was started from there.”

For Mendes, challenges with her own mental health intensified when she became a mum.

“Oh my gosh, I thought I worried before, talk about never-ending worry!” she admits. “Especially those first few years. I didn’t really think it was postpartum, as I knew it, but I just constantly had these thoughts of, ‘What if I die? What if I leave them too soon?’ I was consumed by those thoughts. That was a really hard time when they were little, and I couldn’t snap out of that.”

She’s since learned tools to help her cope – “I’ve loved therapy since I could afford it,” she notes – and relies on journalling as well as connecting with friends. “I have an amazing group of women in my life,” she says. “Connecting with a girlfriend, it’s almost like going to church for me.”

The power of friendship lured Mendes back into the spotlight after bonding with designer Stella McCartney when she was living down the block from her in London for five months while Gosling shot his upcoming film, Project Hail Mary. McCartney tapped Mendes to star in her cruelty-free winter campaign.

“We had a really nice moment afterward, when I was like, ‘I don’t do that for anybody,’” she tells WHO. “‘I just did that for you.’”

Leaving her family for work is a major consideration for Mendes, who manages big emotions with her girls by having open communication.

“In my house, nothing’s off the table. I like to call myself a shame assassin. Shame is a killer of spirit, and I personally know it has no place for me,” she says. “For me, it’s just about talking and connecting. Every day, it’s an emotional roller-coaster and that’s a good day – that’s not even a bad day. It’s just what it is.”

Other regular events in the Mendes-Gosling house include impromptu dance parties, with Mendes and her daughters getting down to disco and ’90s music.

“I carry a speaker with me everywhere,” she says. “When I need to get out of my head, it’s always music that I turn to. I try to remember to be present with them, so I’m like, ‘OK, I’m creating memories today, so let’s make them good ones.’ Sometimes I fail, but when I succeed, music’s a big part of it.”

Gosling’s ‘amazing’ talent

While Mendes also finds cleaning therapeutic – “I love to clean a kitchen,” she says – it’s Gosling, 43, who keeps them fed. “I can’t cook. Ryan is an amazing cook. His shakshouka is amazing,” she reports.

“I know this sounds crazy, but my kids really don’t like my eggs. And it kind of hurts my feelings. Apparently, it’s a skill and I don’t have it. I clean – I just don’t cook.”

Asked what skills she hopes her daughters inherit, Mendes has a long list.

“I wish for them so many things. It’s not one thing,” she says. “But, right now, I want a couple of critical thinkers. I really want them to think for themselves and to question, question, question.”