If This Doesn't Motivate You, Nothing Will - Oprah Winfrey | One Of The Most Inspiring Speeches Ever

I want to propose something to

ever

yone today, uh, I want to propose that you resolve something very powerful to love who you are right now and of course, I think wanting to be your best self and setting goals and intentions is really important, take a moment. To look at what's really going on in your mind about yourself that may be holding you back, the energy of the universe responds to positivity, so if you tell yourself you're not thin enough, you're not good enough when it starts. that negative talk. in your head stop turning away from it when you let those thoughts of not being enough seep in, you can't really bring out the best in yourself, so your actions must be aligned with all the goodness and strengths that you know to be true.

Your life is like a wave and you ride it through the ups and downs, the study times and then you anchor yourself in the storms. A mistake is a life experience designed to move you in a different direction and a mistake may be more important to your Supreme. Destiny is even more than a triumph. Know that your life is much bigger than anyone has

ever

experienced, so when those mistakes occur, you use them to guide you to the next right state of mind. What mistake or mistakes have you made in your life that you need to forgive yourself for first? and the mistakes turned out to be blessings in disguise.

It's about progress, not perfection because no one is perfect, it's about progress. I think when you are fully present is when you are actually fully alive, you are clearer, you are calmer. We are not distracted and are able to experience all the nuances and wonders of a more awakened life, so when we can tune into what is in front of us, life becomes simpler and less packed with things to do, what if. and why not and when. you need to focus on what to do or what to do next. The approach is simply that a deeper human connection comes from that way of operating in the world and the now becomes your everything.

This is what I know, which is one of the

most

shocking. spiritual practices knowing the power of now because the only moment we all have, you have me, is now, past, already gone, the future, not even your next breath guarantees letting go of the energy that clouds your vision and stops you, it is a life practice that I learned. It has long freed me in so many ways that it is a fact that holding a grudge against someone who has done you wrong or reliving painful situations in your head over and over again only weighs you down and prevents you from being who you are meant to be right now. because you are still energetically clinging to the past the energy you put into constantly rewinding to resentment why did they do that why did they say that to me I didn't deserve to be treated like that all of that just keeps you stuck it

will

never change what happened you have to press stop and reject the temptation to keep replaying so you can then move quickly into the now for yourself.

You know a lot of people think that holding on to things that disempowered them is going to somehow magically turn them around, you have to release the notion, let go. to the hope that the past could have been different and you also have to release the idea that people would do what you could do at any given time,

this

is an important case that I had to make. learn and relearn before you really understood it, expecting people to do what you would do in a situation only leads to your disappointment not theirs, they move on with their lives so let people be the ones They are and you accept it or not.

Not doing that keeps you stuck in a circumstance that actually costs you time and costs you energy, and I can guarantee that many times the person on the other side of the bitterness you're holding on to isn't even thinking about you, in fact, they're probably They have simply moved on, they are certainly not obsessed the way you are, think of it as letting go of any bad habit that simply does not serve your well-being, it is not an easy task, taking the path towards a more enlightened existence and healthy, it never is. So

this

is what I want to ask you to ask yourself: why am I holding on to this, how does this serve me and to really think about the answer, maybe it makes you feel validated, maybe it makes you feel righteous or maybe take on the pain. be your decision. way of recognizing injustice so that, even if it is not corrected, at least it cannot be forgotten.

It's very difficult for me to even see myself as successful because I still see myself in the process of being successful. For me, being successful is getting to the point where you feel absolutely comfortable with yourself and no matter how many things you have acquired, the ability to learn to say no and not feel guilty about it, for me is the greatest success I have achieved. , is the same. that prevents you from being abused as a child that prevents you from being abused as an adult that allows you to build success for yourself I

will

not be treated this way I demand only the best for me you are worthy of saying no, you work, that's okay if you say no, it's okay if you say no and then people don't like you, that's really okay, what's important is how you feel about what you're doing, how you feel about yourself, it's a long struggle, though It is a long struggle and I only hope that they know the work I do in the program and the talks I give throughout the country and that the young people who are watching this can learn the lesson before me because it is painful because they keep repeating it. over and over again until you get it right and what I discovered is that every time you have to repeat the lesson it gets worse because you know it's me.

I call it God trying to get your attention, the universe trying to get your attention, so we didn't get your attention the first time so we're going to have to hit you a little harder this time so I'm still doing it. I'm still learning to turn your wounds into wisdom. You will be hurt many times in your life. I will make mistakes, some people will call them failures, but I have learned that failure is really God's way of saying, sorry, you are moving in the wrong direction, what is the truest, highest vision you have for yourself, without matter where you are in your life?

In life there's always the next level, there's always the next level until the last breath, so I feel like I always knew I would end the show when I felt like, oh, I've said everything I could say here on this platform. so I feel that until you have used your value as a human being you are not finished. I teach them that there is no life without cultivating a spiritual life because you are first and fore

most

a spiritual being having a human experience and if you lose sight of it. In addition to that, it is easy to get lost in the world and no one can save a world in which they are lost when they have lost sight of your own North Star, so having a spiritual life actually means actively and ritually creating space in your life. all the time out of gratitude out of kindness out of empathy out of inspiration out of joy and out of reverence for life in your soul home first and then working to spread that inner joy outward means slowing down means seizing the moment means being exactly where you are not being distracted somewhere else means knowing who you are and taking care of the task of understanding why you really came to our planet it is your job to become complete not perfect but whole and complete your world works in life your real job is to fill yourself until you your cup overflows so that you are never clinging and needy, crying out and insecure when you say I know who I am and I tell you that it is the thread that runs through everything, it is what allows you to remain in your own truth and one of the things that for years in Maya Angelou used to tell me baby, you need to know that you alone are enough, you alone are enough, what I know for sure is that in this world time moves forward and it is our most valuable asset, you can never get it back, so stay in that loop , playing it over and over in your pain head only amplifies your pain.

Let it go, exhale, make room in your heart for something uplifting, surround yourself with people who want the same thing. The best thing for you is that you have the ability to change the DNA of your spirit and control how you perceive life, so why not lighten your load and let it go? Living with integrity means living in a way that honors your true self, it is doing what you know. We're supposed to do it. My friend Martha Beck says that deep down we all know what makes us happy and how to create the best life possible, and that knowledge is actually encoded in our very nature, but I also know how challenging it can be to listen and trust. your own inner voice, especially when you feel the pressure of what everyone else thinks you're supposed to do, you're supposed to get married, you're supposed to stay married, you're supposed to have a baby, you're supposed to have.

Picture perfect, but here's something I hope you all realize for yourselves. Sometimes you need to do the things that people or society say you shouldn't do to discover what is true for you, what you really are. I'm supposed to be doing, for example, at the beginning of my career. Some of you have heard the story. I worked as a news anchor and reporter in Baltimore. He taught me a lot about life during that time. I knew I wasn't being my authentic self. I didn't like doing the news, I just didn't like it, but my father's voice thinking he knew what he was supposed to do and even my own voice saying wow, this is an important job, my father was saying, I don't do it. you do.

You quit that job, girl, you're making 25,000, you're never going to make that in a year. Then finally my bosses let their feelings be known, they took me off the news and put me on a local talk show called People Are Talking and When that decision was made at first I thought it was a demotion, but after a day at that talk show I felt so energized and so

motivate

d that I knew I had come back to myself and that's what it feels like to live integrity even at work, so much confidence. When I say that only you know how you feel about yourself and with that in mind I want us to be more aligned with the truth for ourselves this week who you should be who you are right now what you have been waiting for and wanting to do all those ideas should drive your decisions about how you move through the world right now; pay attention to what makes you feel lit from within; examine any moment in which you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, your head say one thing and your spirit says another and each He has a different talent and the reason we are so confused is because you are looking at the talent of others, yes, and wishing you had some of their talent and all the energy.

What you spend thinking about wanting, being jealous or envying someone else is energy that you are not only spending is going to come back to you negatively but you are taking it away from yourself, all your energy must be forced into what you do. I have to offer what I have to give, how I can be used in service because Dr. King's message that not everyone can be famous but everyone can be great because greatness is determined by service and there is no job here that you can do. Don't change the service paradigm and make work more satisfying.

I don't care what the job is if you say if I look at this from how I use it in service to something bigger than myself, it no longer becomes a job it becomes an offering to the world there is

nothing

that has ever happened to you not a single experience neither an encounter nor a crisis nor a joyful thing that has not happened to you just to make you better and help you improve yourself more and more What you are calling, whether you know it or not, when you realize that you are calling it, you actually begin to meditate, pray, do or have a spiritual practice, which is the first thing you need if you want to be successful in For the world, you need something that gives back to you and nourishes you, regardless of what you call it, you need to fill your cup so you can be as full that your cup will overflow and you have enough to give to other people if you don't.

You don't fill your cup you end up dry you end up tired exhausted and you don't have enough to give to other people you end up resentful every time someone asks you why your cup is empty and now they want some of yours so you are the number one job, your number one job It's filling your cup and feeling complete, that's your job and now I'm at this stage in my career thinking about how to do it more poignantly and fruitfully. I am now looking for ways to do this to create a level of sustainability within our communities that will last long beyond my lifetime, everything you are trying to do to me has already been done to you, that is not just a rhetorical saying, that is the law , Newton's third law of motion in physics.

What does meditation do? is to synchronize with the source. What meditation does is it literally allows you to tap into the power that created you so that you are aligned with that, and when you bring that out into the world, everything you do comes from the center. of that alignment that comes from the source thatWe call it God, we call it Divine energy Divine Intelligence, whatever name you want to give it, we call it life when you are in sync with life, life gives you wherever you are in your life in your relationships. every person that you meet, every experience that person wants to know, it was okay, it was okay and what I started to hear was that what people are really saying is: did you hear me? did you hear me? and what I said meant something to you and so I started listening with that in mind, with the intention of validating that you are here, you are talking to me, you are taking the time to do this with me, it is important because you are important and that is true for everyone who watches or listens to each argument. that you have ever had in every encounter the person just wants to know if you heard me if you saw me and if I said something you will find true success and happiness to fulfill the highest and most truthful expression of yourself as a human being that you want to maximize your Humanity using your energy to uplift yourself, your family and the people around you.

Theologian Howard Thurman said it best, he said, don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive and then do it because what the world needs. Needs are people who have come to life. Do you believe you are worthy of happiness? Do you believe that happiness is success abundance Comfort fulfillment peace Joy love is part of your birthright is that what you believe in or do you believe in something else because you will manifest the life you believe in I have always known that no matter what my belief is, I will to be well, empowerment is authority, it is a sign of permission to seize the day, it is the process of becoming stronger, more confident and more committed. and to have power is to move through the world without any kind of fear or any kind of apology and with these gifts comes an even deeper privilege, I think, and that is the ability to take charge of your own life, to be your own master and to reclaim Your rights. and this is what I know for sure that to whom much is given, much is expected and I have been given so much I have earned it I have been blessed with it but I have been given so much and that is why I have chosen to use my life to encourage others People No one's journey is smooth or seamless We all stumble We all have setbacks If things go wrong You hit a dead end How will you It's just life's way of saying it's time to change course So question every failure , this is what I do every failure every crisis every difficult moment I say what is this here to teach me and as soon as you get the lesson you can move on if you really understand the lesson you pass it and you don't have to repeat the class if you don't learn the lesson, shows up wearing another pair of pants or skirt to give you a make-up job and what I found is that difficulties come when you don't pay attention to the whisper of life because life always whispers to you first. and if you ignore the Whispers, sooner or later you will hear a scream.

Whatever you resist persists, but if you ask the right question, not why is this happening, but what is this here to teach me? What is this here to teach me? It puts you in the place and space to learn the lesson you need. I've always known this about celebrity, the true power of being someone that someone knows and I truly believe that the only difference between being famous and not being famous is that more people know your name, so that's the only difference. between understanding that is understanding that what Selma has done what Susan has done what Anna has done Rebecca has done what Jim has done what I have done you can do it too because true philanthropy comes from living from the heart of you yourself and give what you have It has been given to you How will you do that?

How will you use your personality? The energy of your personality to serve that which is the calling of your Soul. I know for sure. Any life, no matter how fantastic it is, how glorious it seems, how much attention you get, how much attention you get. In square meters you have any life and each life is improved by sharing, giving and opening the space of the heart. Your life improves when you can find a way to share it with someone else, so that you can do what we have done. true empowerment comes when each person leaves this room and makes a decision, makes a decision, maybe that decision is to write a check and support some of the wonderful organizations that you've heard about here today.

The real decision is how you will use yourself, how you will do it. You use everything you have been given to serve that which is greater than yourself, how will you use that to become truly empowered? Now it's a beautiful thing to receive an award and be on the cover of variety. Thank you so much. It is a beautiful thing but the true reward is in the lives that you are able to touch and the people that you know you have impacted. I live and I move and I have my being and you want to know why I am really so successful.

I knew that at the age of four. old man I knew when my grandmother said you better watch me now because one day you're going to have to learn how to wash these clothes and hang them like this so watch me hold these pins in my mouth I want and the reason I could do that is because Spirit, also known as intuition, my instinct told me that that would not be my life, so we all have that spiritual side and this lesson tonight is about connecting with it. I believe that beneath the surface of every physical problem there is a spiritual solution.

It is a spiritual solution why, because you are a spiritual being who has a human experience, that is the beginning of understanding spirituality, you are a spiritual being who has a human experience. I would say that reading is the strongest sign of future success I have ever seen. is the strongest the strongest the strongest I got my first job in radio uh when I was 16 because I've been broadcasting since I was 16 but I got my first job because I was a big reader when you're a big reader You can articulate, speak and master the English language in a way that other people cannot and people think you are much smarter than you are many times because you are a great reader if someone tells you if you ever get rejected. that way you will never ever forget it I said but it's okay I did it well you did it well it's okay but the answer to your question is can you find what your passion is if you find what you love you will never get tired or if you get tired if it fuels your energy of your work, so I think what happened to me is really the beginning of a greater passion to come, but if you discover what you are supposed to do and you know what you are supposed to do behind what it feels like you know that people wait for God's voice to be Moses and the burning bush.

I think that was just Bible talk, you know? because he

doesn

't come to the burning bush for the people, he comes. through your heart he speaks through your heart through your feelings and then you know what if you're doing the right thing if you feel it's right for you and when you hit what feels right when you know it's the right thing you would do it you know it's right because it gives you your juice and you know it's right because you would do it for

nothing

you would do it for nothing and you find a way to be able to just do it so you can keep going that's how you know you're doing what you're supposed to do once in a while When you can stumble and fall, you will surely count on this, you will undoubtedly have questions and you will have doubts about your path, but I know if you are willing to listen to be guided by that small, still voice that is the GPS within you, discover what makes you charge. life you will be more than fine you will be happy you will be successful and you will make a difference in the world many times You will have anguish and worry about things and you will put yourself in a state like someone said this morning because their phone went off.

They were mortified by a telephone. I said really, you'll put yourself in a state where the other person isn't really even thinking. about you to learn that I was able to determine specifically for myself what the limits were for me what I wanted to do give my money give my time give my service to who I wanted to give it to when I did it that I can make that decision and just because you get a hundred requests to the week

doesn

't mean you have to try to accomplish them all. Just because you have all these demands on your time and on yourself doesn't mean you have to say yes, you can decide because you are the master of your destiny, the captain of your soul is William Ernest Henley, he said and Invictus and understanding that really changed the meaning of my life in the sense that I was no longer driven by what other people wanted me to do, but instead took charge of my own destiny making decisions based on what I feel is the right next step for me creating a baseline for ourselves to be based on intention this was around 1989 when I read Gary Zhukov's book called the seat of the soul and that book changed my life because in it he talked about the power of intention and that cause and effect , what goes out comes back is determined by your intention, the energy of your intention is what determines your life, most people do not think about their intention.

They just think about what they want to do, most people don't think about why they want to do it, but what will come back to you, the energy that will come back to you is the real why of why you did it. hired on television not knowing anything about it, having Barbara Walters in mind, but thinking, oh, okay, I can do that without knowing how to write or film or anything and I think it was because those were the times and I literally had someone who was willing to work with me, I managed to find my way, but I had to find my way because the reports never really fit me and what worked for me, I'm that old, I'm so old that when I started like that it was a year of live action camera and it was like live video cameras and news stations would do a live take and throw it to someone live even if nothing happened and what I found out is that I wasn't that good at writing the part, but if I just I would stop and talk about what had just happened, it was really good and then I started to feel it.

So I started working in television at 19 and became a presenter immediately after. I could feel within myself that reporting was not the right thing to do. For me, although I was happy to have the job, I received an offer to go to Atlanta. He was making ten thousand dollars a year in 1971, but he was still in college. I thought I was doing pretty well. I got an offer to go to Atlanta. for 40,000 that I thought was gone, I'm going to make forty thousand dollars and my boss at the time told me you don't know what you don't know and you have to stay here until you can learn to write better until you can hone your craft as a journalist and So he said, "We can't give you 40, but we can give you 12." So to make a long story short, I would be here all day talking about how it all came about. about I started to hear what seemed like the truth to me, which is, I started to feel like portability wasn't for me, but I had my dad, I had my friends, they were all like, oh my gosh, you're a female presenter on the one you are TV I mean, you can't leave that job and when I was 25, my dad is doing well, you just hit the jackpot, you're not going to make any more money than that, that's all, so I was torn between What the world was telling me and what I felt was true for me, it felt like an unnatural act for me to report, even though I knew that for a lot of people it was glamorous and I started to think within myself what it is that I really do.

I want to do what I really want to do and I will say that knowing what you don't want to do is the best possible place to be if you don't know what to do because knowing what you don't want to do leads to you finding out what you really want to do when I was a news reporter , it was so unnatural for me, you know, to cover someone's tragedies and difficulties and then not feel anything about it if I had to say it. in terms of business, or or to leave you with a message that the truth is that from the beginning I have listened to my instinct, all my best decisions in life have come because I was in tune with what really felt like the right next step for me .

So when I got the call to come to Chicago after starting with a co-host and working on the conversation for several years, I knew it was the right thing to do for everyone except my best friend Gail, she said, I'm going to fail every single one of them. one of the people when I left all day, my bosses at the time thought it was fantastic and said, "You're going to, you're, you're walking a statute mile, you're going to fail, you're going to fail Chicago." a racist city you're black you're not going to do everything to keep me saying then you offered me a car and an apartment and all that stuff and I said no if I fail then I'll figure out what's next for me and I wasn't one of those people , you know, all my people who worked with me in news had their tapes and they had their stories and they had resumes ready that I didn't have. all of this because I knew that the time would come when what I needed would appear for me and when that appeared I was ready because my definition of luck is preparation to face the moment of opportunity and I was prepared to be able to enter that world of conversation in a way I knew I could do it I changed the way I looked at power in 1989 I read a book by a man named Gary Zhukov called soul seed and inside the soul heHe defined what true power is, what authentic power is and his definition of authentic power, that is, the type of power that neither your appearance nor your fame nor your money nor your square meters can ever take away from you, but authentic power is when it emerges. personality, your personality serves the energy of your soul when you are able to align who you are and what you have become in the world with actually what you have come to do in the world when your personality serves the soul, so I thought a lot in that.

The book really changed my life and I was building a house in Santa Barbara and like anyone who's ever built a bathroom or a house or anything else, nothing happens on time and it was 2002 and we were supposed to finish and it wasn't finished and I was like I can't wait to get home and I'm finally going to have a great Christmas and I'm going to have the kind of Christmas I dreamed of with The Courier and Ives, you know, cars. I'm going to have the Reeds on the door, but I didn't have a floor so it's a little difficult to do so I started thinking if I can't do it. that Christmas well what am I going to do for Christmas my house is not even ready and what can I do so I started while I was walking among the trees sitting under that tree because my favorite moment is being alone with my thoughts and while I was alone with my thoughts, I was thinking about what the next best Christmas possible would be for me and I thought about the best Christmas I've ever had.

The best Christmas I ever had was when I was 12, my mom was on welfare. She was living with my mother and half-brother and sister in Milwaukee. My mother called me, the oldest, to come into a room and say we won't have Christmas this year. We won't have Christmas. What about Santa Claus? There is no Santa. Claus, I had already realized that, but well, I was ashamed and ashamed because for the first time I had to face the reality that yes, what I have been suspecting is that we are not like other children, that we really are poor. true, then we are not going to have Christmas and there is no Santa Claus.

My first thought after feeling embarrassed was what is my story going to be, what am I going to tell everyone when we go back to school and they are showing off their toys and I have nothing to talk about, what am I going to do? I'm not going out tomorrow when everyone is in their backyards showing off the toys they got for Christmas. I'm going to stay inside, right? I'm going to pretend I'm sick what's my story is it going to be good that night some nuns showed up at our house and they brought a basket of food and they brought toys for my uh my brother and my sister and I was overwhelmed by the joy that those nuns they showed up not because they brought me a Tammy doll when I really wanted a Barbie doll.

I felt overwhelmed because someone remembered that we existed and someone cared enough in the middle of the night to come to our house with food and toys and also Now I would have a story, so as I contemplated what was the best Christmas I've ever had, I thought how could I make that possible for someone else, what could I do to create the same kind of experience for other children, so I took 50 members of my team at Harpo and we hired another 50 people in South Africa and we went to South Africa with the idea of creating something that we ended up making a documentary about called Christmas kindness Christmas kindness using my personality to serve my soul energy.

So we went from town to town offering toys and clothes, food, soccer balls to children who had never experienced Christmas before and early in the morning they could be seen lining up thousands of people to come and in fact we went to 10 or 12 towns to do this and people told me at the time oh that's so frivolous and the kids won't remember it and why don't you use your money to do something more substantial Oprah and I said maybe they don't remember the toy, maybe don't remember the clothes although what the children were most excited about was opening boxes that contained clothes because, as their caregiver told us, having new clothes did not make them feel poor and for many of these children it was the first time they experienced having something that It was new to them.

They may not remember what's in the box, but they will remember that someone remembered them. They will remember the experience. I know you've all heard the phrase "Everyone makes mistakes" countless times in your life and maybe even say it to comfort someone and encourage them. so as not to dwell on a misstep, so today I ask why we let our mistakes overshadow our good decisions and achievements. What I know for sure is that mistakes are here to help define us and when I started the Oprah Winfrey Network, oh, I definitely did. some mistakes some missteps we made before we were ready and I have to tell you all that if I had known then what I know now, I would have done a lot of things differently, I remember saying at the time, if I had to write a book about it.

I would call it mistakes 101. Sometimes when you're not listening to those inner voices and knowing your own purpose, you can get off track and even when I know how to listen, sometimes if I don't listen, I really get off track. You can quickly get into the wrong relationships or you can do things prematurely, stray from the right path, this is what I know, every perceived mistake can be an opportunity to know better and do better and from that perspective there really is no such thing as failure. You may perceive it that way in the moment, but things always change and eventually lead you to the path you are supposed to follow if you are paying attention.

Why are you here? What are you here to fulfill? Why are you here? to offer maybe it's friendship companionship leadership maybe you are all ships, including the mother ship that is always steering things forward for the rest of the people in your life. Well, I want you to know this for sure, life is like a wave and you ride it out. the ups and downs the study times and then you get anchored in the storms a mistake is a life experience designed to move you in a different direction and a mistake can be more important to your Supreme Destiny than even a Triumph knowing that your life is a greater path than anyone who has experienced, so when those mistakes happen, you use them to guide you to the next right state of mind, learn from it, ask what is this thing that is here to teach me and then let it go because you are always where you are meant to be, my Favorite quote.

Eckhart says: A New Earth has helped me overcome many mistakes and many storms. It says that life will give you whatever experience is most useful for the evolution of your Consciousness and how do you know that this is the experience you need because this is the experience you need? are having right now that knowing has helped me in many moments. I never knew what a brand was when I started when I started, I didn't even know what it was. I became a brand by making every decision flow from the truth of myself every choice I made for every show that was going to be on the air I made based on does this feel right? this feels good? this feels good?

Is this going to help someone? Is this going to help someone who doesn't? help someone and I learned that my greatest teachers were people like the Ku Klux Klan and the skinheads because one day I was sitting on television doing an interview with the KKK and at that moment I realized that the energy I was transmitting throughout The world was energy that I didn't want to be a part of, so literally in the middle of a commercial break I thought I would never do this again. I'm just going to allow my platform to be used as a Force for good and there are many forms of the KKK even if it's not called that so I really made a conscious decision to use myself and use the platform for what I thought it was going to do. improve, uh, enlighten people in some way, so that's the difference.

At that moment I stopped being used by television and made the decision to use television. Does this happen to you? As they get older, they have a hard time believing how many they are because they still feel the way they always felt at the end. This week I turn 68. I can't even imagine that number because when I was much younger, 68 didn't just feel, oh, but old and now this is what I know, just a marker of how many trips you've taken. the sun because we can determine what that number means to each of us. A good friend recently asked me if he considered me retired and I told him no, I don't have a single word in my vocabulary, even though I no longer do the show that was a pillar of my career.

I refocus my energy elsewhere and am always open to new possibilities and opportunities, so I am never around new ideas, producing new television dramas for my own travels, so, as I approach another trip around the Sun, Truly, truly, there are many more delights ahead and I hope everyone feels the same, barring any major health setbacks. Age is whatever number you choose to feel. Gail says she feels 45. I don't even have a number because I just feel like now is the present moment. because that's all we have, the past is gone, the future is promised to no one and when the future appears it will still be the now, so I live for it, I celebrate it and I constantly remind myself to stay in this moment doing whatever this moment is.

It requires giving it my full attention and in this moment I feel connected to the source of all things. I feel wise, at peace and content and yet this moment allows me to see that it is never too late to reach a new height that you never thought possible or attainable. A new goal can be as small as picking up a new hobby to add a little more joy to your daily life as radical as moving across the country to pursue the life you've always wanted, anything you've ever dared to desire. I encourage you to. Pursue it in hopes of starting a next chapter that is bigger and more complete than anything you've experienced so far, so keep growing and becoming more of yourself, that's the goal, relationships through challenges, victories and setbacks. , big and small, to recognize that you are not just living your days, you are life expressing itself through your physical body, your personality, your emotions and it is never too late to take the reins and the famous lines of Invictus, you are the owner of your destiny, you are the captain of your soul.

You know, Maya Angelou told me years ago, when I came back from my school in South Africa, the school opened and she couldn't make it, so I came straight from South Africa to Maya, Jay and I was sitting at the kitchen table. and she was teaching cookie baking and I said, "Oh, my other school is going to be like that, that school is going to be my legacy, it's going to be amazing and she said, you have no idea what your legacy is going to be." be because your legacy is every life you touch your legacy is not one thing, your legacy is everyone who was touched, those who watched your show, those who went back to school, those who left a domestic violence relationship, those that changed the way they saw things.

What I realize is that if you achieve success and fame, particularly fame, because fame is its own world and its definition, because it's really based on what other people think of you, it's so false, because Fame is not what you think of yourself, it's what other people think of you, um, when if you get to that and you don't have a grounded self, you will be controlled by the outside instead of the inside and if you get to that without the fullness of knowing who you are and what you are supposed to have to do with that fame when someone likes you or doesn't like you, that determines whether you are having a good day or a bad day and you have lost control of your own life , so I think.

What Fame quickly teaches you is to grow fullness within yourself so that you are not controlled by others who do not share your opinions. Each of us comes into the world with our own worldview and that worldview is actually formed from the cradle and you get from the world what you project into the world and you project into the world what you grew up with and what you grew up with, that's why , the essential question is what happened to you. I want people to understand the most important thing that when you argue with a friend and they act like they can't hear you because they are arguing with you so loudly that they really can't because of the way the brain is structured, so when you are in fear mode, anxiety mode when you're really amped up you just need both of you to calm down take a walk take a break and come back okay, start with understanding that having a full cup is the way you allow yourself to give to other people, you can't give what you don't have you can't love if you haven't been loved you don't even know how to start doing it so I think it fundamentally starts with understanding that you are worthy enough, that you are valuable enough, that you matter enough to give yourself the love that you deserve and That starts with making time for yourself so I have my own rhythm and pattern I know that if I go six days and then on the seventh for the seventh or eighth I don't give myself a break that a lot of other things give me that I'm not as alert I'm not as in attunement I'm not that focused I'm not that focused so I know that's my limit I can't go beyond a certain number of days and for me um walking in nature is my solace, it's where I feel like I'm one with everything and everything being, you know all creation and you know that it isconnected with other people, it can be dancing, it can be music, it can be knitting, it can be anything. is that it brings some kind of rhythmic pattern into your life it was actually Bruce and I were walking on my campus in South Africa and there was a group of girls literally dancing on the grass because God knows they love to dance and Bruce is like oh that's not it.

I just said oh, they're just having fun and Bruce said oh, they're not just having fun, they're actually healing themselves because of the rhythmic pattern, so when you've been in an argument with someone, are you in the middle of an argument? ? with someone, if you just go for a walk or put on music and start dancing, if you just have some kind of movement, you feel better, one of the most important things, the most important takeaways from what happened to you, I think. It is understanding how the brain works, understanding that when you are upset, afraid, angry or in a state of antagonism and you are trying to reason with a person, a child, your spouse, your boss, your friend, they literally can't hear you because the part of the brain that reasons is in the cortex and what you are saying only reaches the brain stem, so when someone is dysregulated, which is what happens when they are anxious, fearful and screaming and shouting, what you have to do is Calm down first and then you can help that other person calm down and regulate themselves, that's how you come to their senses, but if you're both literally yelling at each other, you're not listening to me and you're not listening to me.

Me neither and you know they can't really hear you. That's what I thought was so fascinating. One of the most important things I've learned in coping is to accept this moment for what it is, don't waste your energy pushing it again and that's if you're late. in traffic or if you're behind on your bills and don't know where the next paycheck is coming from to do it, don't waste your energy resisting what you know, the five stages of grief begin with shock and denial and end. With acceptance I have discovered that it is a great formula to operate in any crisis or challenging circumstance.

Come to acceptance as quickly as possible and that will allow you to better cope with this present moment because when you are pushing, I wish you were. In this way I want to say that I have seen so many people during this pandemic last March, okay I can't wait until this is over, that was last March, now we are a year later and they have spent the year in resistance instead of Ah. This is where we are not so sure when we will reach the shore. You better learn to step harder. Oh, my legs are getting stronger in the step, so I can accept the moment of step for what it is and have the wisdom, the faith, the understanding, to know that you won't be in this moment forever because if life does something, It's constantly changing, so however long we're in this pandemic moment, it won't be forever, but how can I? making the adjustment to accept the moment as it is and stop pushing it using all my energy wanting it to be something it isn't, is that saying of accepting the things you can change and being willing to live with the things you can't.

So that's been the most helpful for me. I have no problem dealing with it because I immediately get into it. This is what it is now. What do I need to do to be fully present in this moment? Without resisting or pushing him. I thought trauma had to do it. be a gigantic experience, you had to go through a tsunami literally, if not literally, a tsunami, a tsunami-like crisis in your life, uh, a fire, a hurricane, a tragedy, a car accident, a stabbing, someone died and it was through co-authoring this book with I Told Him that I understood that it was the consistent little things, it was the aggressions and microaggressions in a person's life that caused them to have their own view of the world.

Whatever that worldview is for you, it's different than mine, so the biggest learning for me is that trauma doesn't have to have a big capital O, it's really how you were loved and that neglect and trauma go hand in hand. hand because both are equally toxic. Over the years of interviewing people, it was my best classroom. Always paying attention to what people were saying and paying attention to their lives and what I understood and was able to articulate not through science but simply through my own observation is that people are as dysfunctional as they are unhappy and disoriented in their lives. depending on how far away they are. from the center of themselves and the center is where wholeness resides, as you know, and therefore, where there is no center and there is no sense of wholeness and love for yourselves, there will be disorder, chaos, confusion and you know, dysfunction in in their life and I saw that over and over again that people behave based on how they were loved and then how they were able to process that, in a way of loving other people, one of the most important points, I think, What Dr.

Perry does for you is that neglect is just as toxic as trauma, and even if you haven't had trauma with a big T, it comes down to, did you get what you needed? And I've done as many interviews as I have. I know you have two Jays with people who grew up in the same family and everyone in that family has a different experience and sometimes brothers argue about something that happened because from their point of view it felt like one thing and from the other person's point of view. From my point of view, it felt like something else, well, that's the reality of life: you can have two children, four children, six children raised in the same home and they experience their parents' love differently and they don't. all the kids could have gotten what they needed and some of the kids got what they needed, so negligence, you don't get what you needed? for your worldview, for your personal approach to life, your sense of self, your values, your sense of self-worth, and so I have seen in the thousands of interviews that I have thought about over the years. that the level of dysfunction in a person's life is almost directionally directly proportional to how they were loved, what happened to them, and how they were able to receive that love or not, so it is what happened.

For you, it's not just for people who had the Big T traumas, but it's literally what happened to you if you were loved, right? How were you loved? How was that love applied in your life and could you apply it? In the rest of the world you know one of my relatives says I'm spanking you because I love you, it certainly didn't feel like love, it certainly didn't feel like love, but I know that for that generation the idea of ​​"I'm going to keep you in line" and I will make sure that you are disciplined and that you obey and do the right thing.

In their minds, it might have felt like love, but it certainly wasn't felt or interpreted by I mean love, I mean, I think now and I know that if you're raised culturally, like I was, you have a lot of pain behind those spankings and memories. having done a program on Oprah years later talking about whether children should be spanked. in a black woman sits down and says well, I made B eat every day and my father was in the choir and my father beat me in front of the whole congregation at church and I came out fine and I said to him: really why?

No one, no one who has been beaten, realizes the humiliation of that. What you feel more than anything, even as a small child, is the humiliation of it and what you are told at that moment is that you are worthless, that you are not worth anything of who you are. so useless that now I can put my hands on you and physically hit you, so it's hard for me and I would have to say, um, it was a lot for me to get over it to start understanding that my life was valuable and like I say in what happened to you what What did that for me were the relationships with my teachers.

I could cry right now thinking about the teachers who stood in the gap for me and made me feel valued, made me feel important, so whether it was just at school or speaking at church I felt like I mattered, that there was some meaning and purpose for me. in the life. You know, I grew up in these circumstances where I should have no values ​​or self-esteem, except for Bruce, as he explains in What Happened to You doesn't have to come from your family, other relationships with people who support you, care for you, and, of course, In fact, I just see you, so the reason I love school so much is because that's the place where I felt seen.