0:00

I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome

0:02

to Super Soul Conversations, the

0:05

podcast. I believe that

0:07

one of the most valuable gifts you can

0:09

give yourself is time. Taking

0:11

time to be more

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fully present. Your journey

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to become more inspired

0:18

and connected to the deeper

0:20

world around us starts

0:22

right now. When

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Eat, Pray, Love was first published, Elizabeth appeared

0:26

on The Oprah Show to talk about how

0:28

her book had sparked a revolution. and

0:30

stirred something up for millions

0:33

of women. Little did Elizabeth know

0:35

the next leg of her own journey was

0:37

just beginning. She married the Brazilian man

0:39

that readers fell in love with in the

0:41

book, whose real name is José. Making

0:44

peace with this idea of being

0:46

married again was not easy.

0:48

She documented that soul -turning

0:50

process in her follow -up book,

0:52

Committed. After eight years

0:54

of writing about her own life, Elizabeth

0:56

returned to her roots, fiction

0:58

writing. In The Signature

1:01

of All Things, Elizabeth

1:03

created a passionate, independent -thinking

1:05

heroine, not unlike herself,

1:07

Alma Whitaker. This daring

1:10

novel about a 19th -century

1:12

botanist quickly attracted excited readers

1:14

and accolades from critics. In

1:17

the fall of 2014, I was thrilled

1:19

to have Elizabeth join me on The

1:21

Life You Want Tour. Thousands

1:23

of women cheer when they hear her

1:25

urgent message, you can take the

1:27

lead and be the hero. of

1:29

your own story on stage

1:31

or with her beautiful writing

1:34

elizabeth aims to inspire the

1:36

phenomenal success of eat pray

1:38

love was just a hint

1:40

of what was to come

1:42

so you know her as

1:44

the author of each pray

1:46

love so many people do

1:49

and her memoir sold more than

1:51

15 million copies appearing more

1:53

than was it 200 weeks

1:55

it was It was a long time. was a long

1:57

time. More than 200 weeks on New York Times

1:59

Bestseller. That's like almost four years. Yeah.

2:01

And the story has

2:03

just reached into almost

2:05

every corner of the world where

2:08

women have access to reading

2:10

and touch women's lives. It's a

2:12

beautiful, rare, and

2:14

amazing thing. People will come up to

2:16

me and they'll say, I'm sure you hear this all

2:18

the time. Yeah. They always begin it with that, right? Yeah,

2:20

yeah. I'm sure you hear this all the time. But

2:23

your book changed my life. I'm

2:26

still capable of bursting into tears

2:28

at that because I don't mind

2:30

hearing it again. I really You know what? I

2:32

really don't mind people hear a lot of

2:34

bad stuff in their life, and that's a it's

2:36

your life that got changed? Yeah. Like, I've

2:38

heard it from someone else, but not from you,

2:40

your life. Like, it's amazing. But what does

2:42

that mean? I would say, when somebody says, you

2:45

changed my life, I'd say, and

2:47

what does that mean? Right, right. Tell me about that.

2:49

what way? What did it, you know, show? I

2:51

feel like what I'm hearing from

2:54

people mostly about it is that

2:56

for some reason, and this just

2:58

boggles my imagination, there

3:00

are still just huge swaths of

3:02

women who never got the

3:05

memo that their lives belong to them. And

3:07

there's this instinct that they have that

3:09

they need a permission slip from the principal's

3:11

office for anything. And I

3:13

feel like in a way, Eat, Pray,

3:15

Love kind of was a permission slip

3:17

from the principal's office. It said, you

3:19

are allowed to ask yourself. some really

3:21

important questions about your life. You are

3:23

allowed to take accountability and ownership for

3:25

your own journey. You're allowed to

3:27

ask what serves you sometimes, because

3:29

I know you've been trained up

3:31

to serve everyone, but you're allowed

3:33

to turn that on yourself and

3:35

honor your own life that

3:37

you were given. And I feel like it

3:39

just got to people somehow that they hadn't

3:41

quite put together that they could do that.

3:43

You know what is so fascinating? You

3:47

know, we're doing the Life You

3:49

Want Tour. But one of the things

3:51

that I think I just see

3:53

people like enraptured over your words

3:55

when you say,

3:57

I did the same

3:59

thing that mother did and her mother did

4:01

and her mother did and her mother

4:03

did. And people can see themselves in that

4:06

because we've just sort of so many

4:08

people. I broke the chain for

4:10

my family cycle. But so many

4:12

women have just done the thing that

4:14

was always done. 13th

4:16

grade. 13th grade. You get married.

4:19

It's the next thing. Then comes

4:22

the baby. And it's just

4:24

not thought. It's not always chosen.

4:27

a reflex. And the

4:29

idea that you have the ability

4:31

to change that if you want

4:33

to. Even if, and

4:36

the story that you tell on stage. even

4:38

if you can't leave where you

4:40

are right now and go on your

4:42

own quest. Right, right, right. Yeah,

4:44

well, that story I love so much

4:46

because for years... women have

4:48

come up to me and said some variation of

4:51

this. I would love nothing more than to do

4:53

what you did, to drop everything and run and

4:55

to go on a quest and to travel around

4:57

the world and find my true self, but I

4:59

can't because I have A, B, C, D, E

5:01

obstacles. Yes. I have an elderly relative who I

5:03

take care of. I have young children who rely

5:05

on me. I'm the provider for this household. I

5:07

have contracts with people who I love and

5:09

who need me, and I can't just run away

5:12

from them. And I've struggled over the years

5:14

to figure out how to answer that when they

5:16

say... How can I go on my quest

5:18

when I'm in that situation, which is most people, to

5:20

be honest. And I

5:22

got my answer a couple years ago in a

5:25

bookstore in Washington, D .C. A woman came up after

5:27

the signing, and she said, I want to

5:29

tell you about my mother. And she told me

5:31

this story. Do I have time to bring it

5:33

here? Her story is about her mother, who was

5:35

Irish Catholic, grew up in a very traditional, restrictive

5:37

household in the 50s, did what her mother and

5:39

grandmother and grandmother and grandmother did, got married at

5:41

18, had five kids in a row. And when

5:43

the oldest was 10 and the youngest was two

5:46

months, her husband left her and never came back.

5:48

And she was alone to raise this family. No,

5:50

just picture that. The oldest is 10, the

5:52

youngest is two months. You're 28.

5:55

You have a high school education. you're telling that story,

5:57

I can't, you know, I'm thinking, where was I when

5:59

I was 28? And just the idea of managing...

6:01

Five children. Yeah. Even it was one. Even

6:03

if it was one. You know, it's

6:05

five. Five kids. And the heartbreak. of somebody

6:08

walking out on you, too, that you

6:10

have to process in addition to rallying. So

6:12

her husband got tired, got fed up,

6:14

whatever. it. It never heard from him again.

6:16

Left. Took a train, left. And

6:18

she had to figure out how to hold

6:20

that family together, and she did. And I

6:23

don't know the details of how she did

6:25

it. I just know she's heroic. She did

6:27

it. But she did something else, too, which

6:29

is that she made a decision that very day

6:31

that she realized he was never coming home,

6:33

that her life was not always going to look

6:35

like this, this much sorrow, this much oppression,

6:37

this much poverty. And she made a

6:39

promise to herself that someday she was going

6:41

to see the world. And then she got

6:43

a coffee can, just a regular, humble, empty

6:45

coffee can, stuck it in the back of

6:47

her closet where her kids couldn't see it.

6:49

And starting on that very day that her

6:51

husband left her, she put $1 in that

6:53

coffee can and started a practice every day,

6:55

$1. No matter what it took to

6:57

get it, because it wasn't always easy to get

6:59

it, but she figured her family was always desperate, always

7:01

poor. There was never a day when $1 was

7:03

going to break them. She could spare that and

7:06

sacrifice for it. And it took her

7:08

20 years until all those kids were grown.

7:10

She never touched that money. She just added

7:12

to it coffee can after coffee can after

7:14

coffee can. And when the last kid was

7:16

out of the house, she cashed in the

7:18

coffee cans. She bought herself a ticket on

7:20

a freighter ship, and she sailed around the

7:22

world alone, as she had always promised herself

7:24

that she would do. So the message of

7:26

that is you might not be able to

7:28

begin your quest today, but you've got to

7:30

get your plan. Get your coffee cans

7:32

going. Take the long view if you

7:34

need to. But don't... give up on

7:36

that question in you about the world

7:38

and your place within the world. Take

7:42

whatever time you need, but

7:44

make your plan and

7:46

begin today. I

7:49

just love that story.

7:51

Me too. And now are

7:53

women writing to you? And telling you

7:55

about their coffee cans? Suddenly it's the

7:58

coffee can revolution, right? All over Twitter.

8:00

They're sending me pictures. I started my coffee can

8:02

today. Or they're dialoguing. Some were like, I

8:04

got my Oprah chai tin from Starbucks. That's

8:06

a good, that's a good can. I'm like,

8:08

whatever the vessel, doesn't matter. Somebody's like, all

8:10

I have is an old pickle jar. Is

8:12

that okay? Yeah, that's okay. It's

8:15

a shoe box. I don't shoe box.

8:17

It's okay. It's a plastic bag. I don't

8:19

care. But begin honoring your quest and

8:21

your journey by making that commitment.

8:24

that every single day you're going to do something

8:26

because you're either going away from it or you're

8:28

going toward it, right? Yes. Whatever your destiny is.

8:30

Yeah. At

8:33

31, Elizabeth Gilbert seemed to have

8:35

it all, a beautiful home, a

8:38

thriving career, and a happy

8:40

marriage. But underneath her

8:42

glowing success, she was filled

8:44

with despair. Desperate

8:47

to free herself from a life she

8:49

felt was not her own, she divorced her

8:51

husband. and set off on

8:54

a spiritual quest that took

8:56

her to Italy, to India,

8:58

and Bali. That transformative experience

9:00

became her best -selling memoir,

9:02

Eat, Pray, Love. Today,

9:05

with more than 15 million copies in

9:08

46 different languages, Elizabeth

9:10

has inspired a generation of

9:12

women around the world to

9:14

seek their own heart's journey. Do

9:18

women write to you all the time? trying

9:21

to figure out how

9:23

to stay on course

9:25

for the quest for themselves. Do

9:27

they write to you about that?

9:29

They do. And honestly, I feel like,

9:31

and I think Pema Chodron, who

9:33

we both love, she says the older

9:35

I get, the more I think

9:37

every problem is just fear. And

9:40

I feel like I'm seeing that too because

9:42

the questions that people come to me

9:44

with seem to always boil down to some

9:46

version of fear. It's either I'm stuck

9:49

and I'm scared. to make a

9:51

move, to make a change.

9:53

Or it's what I call the haute couture

9:55

high -end version of fear, which is perfectionism. You

9:58

know, until the path is until

10:01

the perfect, the haute couture. You know?

10:03

Yes, because perfectionism is its own thing.

10:05

Perfectionism is just a real glossy... it's

10:07

also, I'm really scared of not... just

10:10

fear. Of presenting myself in a way

10:12

that doesn't look like I'm perfect. Yeah.

10:14

It's just fear in, like, really good

10:16

shoes, you know, but it's still fear.

10:18

And I feel like almost every question

10:20

that women come to me with on

10:22

Facebook, on Twitter, in person, when they're

10:24

stuck, it's fear. What amazes me is

10:26

that you started this revolution. You weren't

10:29

trying to start a revolution. You were

10:31

just taking care of your own self

10:33

and wrote this book, Eat, Pray, Love.

10:36

And even now, as

10:38

we're on the Life You Want tour...

10:40

I saw a Facebook post that you

10:42

did the other day. I was just

10:44

sort of in bed, and I was

10:46

scanning, and I wanted to thank all

10:48

the people who had come out to

10:50

Detroit, I think it was. And I

10:53

was, you know, went to post something,

10:55

and I saw this post from you

10:57

thanking me, which just really opened my

10:59

heart in such a way. Oh, but

11:01

you're giving such an incredible thing, not

11:03

just what I was trying to convey

11:05

in that post, is that you're not

11:07

just giving this to the 10 ,000 people who...

11:09

came to be there you're giving it to

11:11

me and i'm allegedly there as a teacher but

11:13

i'm actually there as a student because i'm

11:15

only talking for 45 minutes and the rest of

11:17

the weekend you see me i'm on the

11:19

like this on the edge of my chair. So

11:21

that's what I wanted to talk about. Just

11:23

drinking it in. That you say that I'm just

11:25

there taking notes emotionally, spiritually, and literally in

11:27

the guise of a student when I'm not speaking,

11:29

which is really only for 45 minutes.

11:31

I'm sitting in the front row with

11:34

my heart, mind wide open, and I'm learning from

11:36

Mark Nepo and Rob Bell and Iyanla

11:38

and Deepak, from the brave audience members who

11:40

rise to speak, from everyone who's there

11:42

to share and to grow. And then you

11:44

go on to tell this beautiful story.

11:46

that your friend shared. Yeah. Yeah, can

11:48

you tell us about that story? I

11:50

love this. I brought my best friend

11:53

to the life you want to

11:55

her. My best friend, Ray Elias, who's

11:57

my, she got to meet Gail. She's

11:59

your Gail. She said to Gail, I'm

12:01

Liz's Gail. Which is what people say

12:03

to me all the time. They say it, and Gail's

12:05

so sweet. I'm like, she was so gracious about it. So

12:09

we were both on fire when we came home

12:11

from the weekend because we were just sharing

12:13

and bouncing off everything that we had heard. And

12:16

I was saying, isn't it incredible? Because

12:18

you and I do this work. Like,

12:20

we show up for our lives. We

12:22

are present in the day. We are

12:24

trying to bring the light. We are,

12:26

like, always. And yet there's always another

12:28

ascension that you can do. And Rhea, who

12:30

used to be a heroin addict and homeless

12:32

and in prison and, you know, just like

12:34

a lost soul who pulled herself up from

12:36

that, she said, back when I was a

12:39

junkie, I used to say... You think you

12:41

hit rock bottom, there's always another trap door,

12:43

there's always another bottom, there's always another bottom,

12:45

there's always something lower. And she

12:47

said, and now I'm in this moment in

12:49

my life where I think that's good

12:51

and it's fine and I've figured out so

12:53

much and I'm full of grace and

12:55

full of life and gratitude, but there's always

12:57

another level up. There's always another ascension,

12:59

more grace, more light, more generosity, more compassion,

13:01

more to shed, more to grow. And

13:03

that's how I felt when I came over

13:05

that weekend and I wrote on that. Oprah

13:08

did that. She just gave me a rope ladder

13:10

up to another level of my soul. We

13:12

all did that. I love that. Another rope ladder

13:14

up to my soul. Yeah. Yeah. Now,

13:17

what I love that you're talking about

13:19

on this Life You Want tour is the hero's

13:21

journey. And I, who have loved

13:23

Joseph Campbell and quoted Joseph Campbell

13:25

and talked about following your bliss

13:27

and, you know, so

13:30

many wonderful Joseph Campbell quotes, I

13:32

never knew that he felt that

13:34

way about women in the

13:36

journey. Well... We love Joseph Campbell,

13:38

and we should love him. And I do

13:40

love him, and I still love him.

13:42

And he was just the reporter, really. I

13:45

mean, in a way, it wasn't that

13:47

he was a misogynist. It was that he

13:49

was accurately reporting world history. There are

13:51

no women in the hero's journey. Which is

13:53

guess what? Let's talk about the hero's

13:55

journey. So the hero's journey. So Joseph Campbell,

13:57

great 20th century scholar and teacher, a

14:00

real master, a real... genius

14:02

spent his entire life studying the myths

14:04

the fairy tales and the religious origins

14:06

of every culture on earth looking for common

14:08

threads right and he discovered that there's

14:10

this one story that never stops being

14:12

told and it's been told since we

14:14

became human we're telling it now we

14:17

tell it in every language of the

14:19

world it never goes away and that's

14:21

the hero's journey and it's very recognizable

14:23

it's luke skywalker it's odysseus it's moses

14:25

it's nemo it's bambi you know and

14:27

it's a restless youngster who gets called

14:29

to the journey, goes through the road

14:31

of trials, suffers through dark nights of

14:34

the soul, finds his teachers, faces the

14:36

battle, loses his fear. That's the shorthand

14:38

for the hero's journey. We need that

14:40

story. It's a beautiful story. It inspires

14:42

us. It shows us the way. But

14:44

it's never included women. And

14:46

that's a big

14:48

oversight. The most important human story that

14:50

has ever existed. It doesn't include

14:52

women, except as side characters. You can

14:54

be the hero's mom. Yeah. You

14:56

can be the helpless virgin. You can

14:59

be the old crone. Right. But

15:01

you can't be the hero. That's only

15:03

for men. And I had a

15:05

problem with that. And Joseph Campbell

15:07

got challenged on that a lot by a lot

15:09

of young women. female students, yeah. Who would just

15:11

say... please give us some examples of the female

15:13

hero's journey? And he would say no. Because it

15:15

doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. And then he would

15:17

give the reason, which I also have problems with.

15:19

And he would say the reason is that women

15:21

don't need to go on the hero's journey because

15:23

the hero's journey is all about the process through

15:25

which a broken person becomes whole. Women

15:27

don't need to do that process because women aren't broken. Women

15:31

have no unresolved emotional issues. You and I know

15:33

that. Women are totally whole

15:35

already. Because women possess this extraordinary power.

15:37

They're the life givers. They're the womb.

15:40

They're the only ones who can generate

15:42

life on Earth. And therefore, their purpose

15:44

is obvious, which is to

15:46

have babies and only to have

15:48

babies. As you're saying, as you're

15:50

standing on stage saying that

15:52

as we're traveling the country, I

15:54

mean, I just marvel at

15:58

the fact that you and

16:00

I and every other

16:02

woman watching were born at

16:04

this time. Oh, so lucky. Because you

16:06

talk about the fact that, and I

16:08

don't think we as women people appreciate

16:10

it enough, that really, we're

16:12

the first generation that

16:14

really has been allowed to

16:16

choose for ourselves.

16:19

To write our own story. And to

16:21

write our own story. The first, and

16:23

I say it. All the time. We're

16:25

a new species. But it's astonishing. It's

16:27

just astonishing. And the problem and the

16:29

reason that sometimes we feel half insane

16:31

is that we don't have what men

16:33

have. We don't have 30 ,000 years of

16:35

role models to show us how to

16:37

be the hero. We don't

16:39

have any, really, until very recently.

16:41

That's right. We don't have Odysseus. We

16:43

don't have Moses. We don't,

16:46

you know, we... Odysseus is and Goliath,

16:48

anybody, yes. He's out there sailing around

16:50

the world. Where's Penelope, his wife? She's

16:52

got that big scene at the loom,

16:54

weaving and weaving and weaving and waiting

16:56

and waiting and and waiting for something

16:58

to change to her life. Yeah. because

17:00

she has no agency other than her

17:02

job, which is to be loyal and

17:05

faithful. Well, he's out there sleeping with

17:07

goddesses and sailing around the world. You

17:09

know, so it's understandable to me

17:11

when women hesitate on the brink

17:13

of the journey and wonder, no

17:16

wonder they don't feel like they have permission

17:19

to do this. No wonder it's scary.

17:21

Who did this before us? Your grandmother didn't

17:23

do this. Right. You know, maybe

17:25

your grandmother did if you were like

17:27

British aristocracy and she was, but probably not.

17:29

But for you, at the point of... Literally,

17:34

not a nervous

17:36

breakdown, but breaking down emotionally.

17:38

You were at the point where

17:40

the choice to stay would

17:42

have been worse than... Scarier than

17:44

leaving. Yeah, scarier than leaving. Yeah,

17:46

that's when we changed mostly, right? I mean,

17:48

unless you're really evolved. Usually

17:50

don't do the work to change until not

17:52

changing gets worse. And I stand that

17:54

quote. Yes. Something like until the status quo

17:56

is actually scarier than the transformation. Right. Yeah.

18:00

And I had to step up

18:02

and stand on my own two

18:04

feet and say, this life is

18:06

not my destiny and I have

18:08

to leave. And it was terrifying.

18:10

And it's also hard. We spoke

18:12

earlier about doing what your mom did,

18:15

doing what your grandmother did, doing what

18:17

all my aunts did. Every woman I

18:19

ever knew got married. Yeah. And what

18:21

everybody expects you to do when there's

18:23

something else calling inside of you that

18:25

says, this ain't it. This is not

18:27

it. This is not my dream. Yeah.

18:29

You know, this is not my path.

18:31

And it's especially hard. See,

18:33

I don't, my mother, I don't come from a

18:35

dysfunctional family. I really admire and revere my

18:37

mother. It's really hard not to imitate your mother

18:39

when you admire and revere her. Yeah. Because

18:41

I wanted to be like her. She was strong.

18:44

She was capable. She was confident. She was

18:46

beautiful. I got married the same age she did.

18:48

Of course I did. You

18:50

know, the difference is I

18:52

wanted something else. I was made to be something

18:54

else. So do you believe that

18:56

the hero's journey is a part of

18:58

our DNA? Yeah, I do. And Joseph Campbell

19:00

made that argument really persuasively, and the

19:02

best evidence there ever is of that is

19:04

that it's told that story precisely the

19:06

same way, has never been told any differently,

19:08

and it's told precisely the same way

19:10

in society's... around the world that have never

19:12

heard of each other. You know, you

19:14

go to, like, the middle of Papua New

19:16

Guinea and you ask them what their

19:18

great heroic tale is, and they're going to

19:20

tell you Moses, Jason and the

19:22

Argonauts, Luke Skywalker. Like, the names

19:24

of the heroes change and the settings

19:26

change, but the path is so

19:28

much exactly the same that it really

19:30

is kind of the blueprint for

19:33

enduring difficulty. So it always begins with

19:35

the call. The call starts the

19:37

thing. And then the refusal of the call.

19:40

First comes the call. Then comes...

19:42

ask me to do this. Don't

19:44

take this cup away from me. Yes. I'm not

19:46

a hero. Don't look at me. I don't have

19:48

the power. I'm just a kid. I'm just a

19:50

regular guy. The call won't leave you alone, though. And

19:53

then you begin the journey. Yeah. And then comes the

19:55

road of trials, which we all know because we've

19:57

all been there. It's so interesting because I'm just, I'm

19:59

a producer on the movie Selma. And, you

20:01

know, Martin Luther King, classic, classic

20:03

hero's journey. You get

20:05

the call. Doesn't really want. Don't ask me. Don't ask

20:07

me to do it. I just want to have a

20:09

normal life and have a church. And

20:11

be a nice preacher, but call.

20:13

I'm not your hero. Yeah, I'm not your hero. And

20:16

Destiny's like, yeah, you are. Yeah,

20:18

you are. Or, and you

20:20

know, I say you can answer the call or

20:22

you can refuse the call. Really,

20:25

he could have refused the call. He could have refused

20:27

call. He could have insistently said, it's not me. But

20:29

he chose to answer it. And doesn't it make for

20:31

a better story? Do

20:33

you think the call is the same

20:35

for men and women, that we

20:37

all have that calling, that yearning to

20:39

step out? Yes, I

20:41

absolutely do. Whether you choose to hear

20:44

it or not. I absolutely do. I think

20:46

that call comes in the middle of

20:48

the night and the call begins. I mean,

20:50

look, the word quest is question, right?

20:53

Like every quest begins with a question. And the

20:55

question's always the same question. How do you

20:57

know, though, that you're being called to something? What

20:59

are the signs? You get the question. Here's

21:01

the question. What have I come here to do with

21:03

my life? You're telling me you never got

21:05

that question? That's the question that

21:07

begins every single quest. What

21:10

have I come here to do with my life? There's

21:12

no one who hasn't had that question come to

21:14

them. That's the call. That's the

21:16

call. It's like whispering you haven't, you're

21:18

just pretty out. You're really not paying

21:20

attention. You're really not paying attention. You're really watching Breaking

21:22

Bad at 4 in the morning and eating ice cream,

21:24

and you're really not listening. You're not listening,

21:26

yeah, because everybody's gotten in one form or

21:28

another. That is the call. here to

21:30

do with my life? What have I come here to do

21:32

with my life? Now, you can choose to ignore that question,

21:35

or you can pursue it. And the pursuit

21:37

is the beginning of the journey. Now,

21:39

isn't it true, though? I

21:41

just knew this for myself. When

21:43

there came a time for me

21:45

to leave Baltimore and everybody around

21:47

me was saying, no, there's no

21:49

way you're going to succeed, I

21:52

didn't hear it as much as

21:54

I felt it. I felt that

21:56

if I didn't move from

21:59

where I was, for whatever I was

22:01

being called to here, obviously, in

22:03

Chicago, I felt if I didn't do it,

22:05

that a part of me would die. I

22:08

felt that I would just sort of

22:10

like not physically die, but that

22:12

parts of me would sort of

22:14

shrivel up in some way. And

22:16

that I would not be emotionally,

22:19

spiritually myself. Did you feel

22:21

that? Yes. You felt that

22:23

too? Yes, absolutely. And I had

22:25

a friend who said to me,

22:27

you stay on this path, you

22:29

might actually die. Yeah. You

22:31

might get very sick. You might crash your

22:33

car into a tree. Like, you might

22:35

get so depressed that, you know, like, you

22:37

might literally die if you don't change.

22:39

Really? And I that. That is, I think,

22:42

what makes people sick. They just, parts

22:44

of them just... You just atrophy. Atrophy, yeah.

22:46

Like, you just, like, you die in

22:48

pieces. And we've all seen

22:50

people who have sort of shut down in

22:52

pieces and died. And also

22:54

that feeling that you kind of don't have a

22:56

choice, right? Like, I had the same thing when

22:58

I used to tell people when I was a

23:00

teenager that I was going to be a writer.

23:02

Like, what a... Nobody ever said... Here's a line

23:04

you never hear. Oh, yeah, that's where the big

23:06

money is, kid. You know, like, follow that. That's

23:08

an easy path. You'll get there. You know, like,

23:11

no one ever in history said that. It

23:13

didn't matter what they said

23:15

because I had no choice. This is what

23:17

I... I knew this is what I came

23:19

here to do. I don't have to succeed.

23:23

Succeeding means answering the

23:25

question, following the quest. Wherever

23:28

it ends. The point is,

23:30

did you try? Did

23:32

you show up? Yes, and a

23:34

part of what you make so clear

23:36

is that everybody gets called. You

23:38

can choose to answer it or not.

23:40

Once you do answer it, you're

23:42

going to be faced with obstacles and

23:44

challenges and people who look like

23:46

friends or not. Yeah. Oh, it's

23:48

not easy. Yeah. Like, I mean, I

23:50

think what I really try to communicate with

23:52

people is that we try, we're a

23:54

little bit delusional in this society, the way we

23:57

sell changing your life as if it's something

23:59

like fun. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And

24:01

what I say is, like, if you're doing this, if

24:03

you're going to answer the call and you're going

24:05

to transform and you're going to change. And really step

24:07

up to who you're supposed to be in the

24:09

world. Get ready. Get ready. Yeah.

24:11

It is not a day at the

24:13

beach. Like, you know, expect. to

24:16

be challenged, expect to

24:18

be hurt, expect to feel

24:20

lost, expect to feel

24:22

despair, expect to be double

24:24

-guessing yourself at every turn.

24:27

Because that's what the road of... They

24:29

don't call it the road of trials because it's

24:31

like a joyride. Joseph Campbell

24:33

called it the road of trials because

24:35

that's exactly what it is. But every

24:38

single one of those obstacles, challenges, and

24:40

temptations that you have to learn to

24:42

manage will help you. Gain your talents

24:44

and powers and shed your fears so

24:46

that when it comes time for the

24:48

climactic scene in every hero's journey, which

24:50

is the battle, you're ready. Because

24:53

every single one of

24:55

those obstacles prepared you for

24:57

the battle. And then

24:59

you lose your fear and then you become

25:01

the hero. What was your actual battle? So

25:04

we know the leaving, the going out,

25:06

the eating, the praying. What was

25:08

the real battle? The real battle

25:10

for me was my own...

25:14

self -abuse, was

25:17

to learn how

25:19

to stop, how to drop the knife

25:21

that I was holding to my

25:23

own throat so that I was never

25:25

good enough. I was never, you

25:28

know, I couldn't let go of my failures.

25:30

I couldn't let go of my shame. I

25:32

couldn't let go of anything wrong I had

25:34

ever done. I had an inventory that

25:37

was so long, and that happened

25:39

in India. Because, and I'll

25:41

remember, I remember it very well,

25:43

because I was in four months of

25:45

meditation, and that was my battle,

25:47

was the four months in that meditation

25:49

cave, alone, with no distraction, no

25:51

friends, nothing except me and it. And

25:53

the it was the anger, the sadness,

25:55

the sorrow, the shame, the pain. And

25:58

we were in there. Yeah. You

26:00

know, my head, like most of our heads, is

26:02

a neighborhood you don't want to walk around alone

26:04

in at night. That's right. You know, it's not

26:06

nice in there, and when you're forced to be

26:08

there, and I just... the day

26:11

that I finally, this was

26:13

my victory in my battle.

26:15

All my demons, all my

26:17

monsters that I've been carrying around forever. The

26:20

light came through and I realized, oh,

26:24

they're not demons. They're not

26:26

monsters. They're not dragons. I've

26:28

been making them more grandiose

26:30

than they are. They're just

26:33

the orphaned parts of me.

26:35

They're just the fearfullest, most

26:37

young. terrified parts of

26:39

me. They are scared to death.

26:41

And they are throwing temper tantrums because

26:43

of their fear. And now I

26:45

have to tell them that it's going

26:47

to be okay. And they will

26:50

all go to sleep. I

26:52

am the mother of all of these

26:54

parts of me. And I remember just

26:56

sort of in my mind ascending above

26:58

them all and just saying, I love

27:00

you, fear. And now you go to

27:02

sleep. I love you, anger. You're part

27:05

of me. Go to sleep. It's fine.

27:07

I'm in charge now. I love you,

27:09

Shane. Even you. Come into my heart.

27:11

Go to sleep. You're safe. I love you.

27:13

I'm not leaving you. I can't. You're

27:15

part me. You're part of the family. You're

27:17

never going to be away from me.

27:19

I love you, failure. Come into

27:21

my heart. Rest. You're so tired. You're so scared.

27:23

You're just children. You don't know how the

27:26

world works. I love all

27:28

of you. I have space for

27:30

all of you. And together,

27:32

we're just going to go forward

27:34

now. But mommy's driving now.

27:36

And mommy is the part of me

27:38

who can embrace everything that I

27:40

am in peace. Well, I

27:44

think so many people think, like, if you wrote

27:46

that book and you conquered your own dark

27:48

night of the soul where the hero finds he's

27:50

lost and questions everything, what was your

27:52

dark night? Oh, God, I had so many of

27:54

them. I had a string of them. Sitting

27:57

when you quieted all the fears, was

27:59

that a dark night? What I did, I

28:01

had a, you know, I think my reckoning.

28:03

was that I went away for 10

28:05

days once during that time to be

28:07

in absolute silence for 10 days. No

28:09

books, no writing, no, you know, just

28:11

went to this island, 10 days of

28:13

silence. And I think I wept out

28:15

10 lifetimes of sorrow. I would just

28:17

walk around this island sobbing, praying, talking,

28:20

and just being like, and I remember

28:22

feeling like it was a peace summit

28:24

in a way. I was like, all

28:26

you guys, these are the battling

28:28

demons. We're all going to have to

28:30

figure out how to work together

28:32

here because we can't be. like this.

28:35

Like, we're going to have to figure out

28:37

how to integrate this thing called a self. What

28:39

did you learn about yourself? That

28:41

any voice that

28:43

you have that

28:45

attacks you in any way is not your highest

28:47

self. And I think the trick that we fall

28:49

into sometimes is that I feel like we have

28:52

these three layers of self. We've got little scared

28:54

kid. We've got older

28:56

sister perfectionist judge who we

28:58

think is the higher self, right? So little

29:00

scared kid is like... want all that ice

29:02

cream because I need it because I'm hungry and

29:04

I'm scared. Older sister scared judge

29:06

says, you idiot. You're

29:09

always eating ice cream. When are you going to

29:11

stop doing this to yourself? And you

29:13

think that's your higher self because it

29:15

knows more because clearly it's right in

29:18

a way. You can't keep abusing yourself

29:20

like this. But if it's speaking to

29:22

you in that tone, I can guarantee

29:24

you. That is not the voice of

29:26

God, and that is not your channel

29:28

to God because it doesn't come in

29:30

that tone. If it's doing any of

29:32

this, it's just a judge inside you,

29:34

but it is not

29:37

grace because you'll know grace when you

29:39

hear it because grace says, I

29:41

don't care what you do. You're

29:43

splendid and magnificent,

29:45

and I'm here, and

29:47

I'm right beside you, and we're going to get through

29:49

this. That is the only thing grace ever says.

29:52

It never says you screwed up. It

29:54

never says you got to do better. Like,

29:56

grace never says that. You say that.

29:58

Yes, that's right. You know, grace

30:00

just says, love, come,

30:03

embrace, safe,

30:05

us, peace. You'll

30:07

know it when you hear it. Is

30:10

that what you call God, grace? Yeah. Yeah.

30:12

Yeah. I think that's it. You

30:14

know, it's, it's, I said this to

30:16

you before. God is the simplest definition I've

30:19

ever seen. Whatever lifts your face out

30:21

of the dirt. Because

30:23

we do spend a lot

30:25

of our lives kind of like

30:27

in the mud, you know?

30:29

And anything that lifts that and

30:31

ascends you and gently comes

30:33

and just says, rise, rise, rise,

30:35

that's grace calling. Thank

30:37

you. Thank you, Oprah, for everything

30:40

and all the light that you bring

30:42

to us all. Thank you. I'm

30:45

Oprah Winfrey, and you've been

30:47

listening to Super Soul Conversations.

30:49

the podcast. You can follow

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Thank you for listening.