فصل 08

Power

When you know better, you do better.

—Maya Angelou Whenever I hear Paul Simons song Born at the Right Time, I think he must be singing about me. I came into the world in 1954 in Mississippi—a state with more lynchings than any other in the Union—at a time when being a black man walking down the street minding your business could make you subject to any white persons accusation or whimsy. A time when having a good job meant working for a nice white family that at least didnt call you nigger to your face. A time when Jim Crow reigned, segregation prevailed, and black teachers, themselves scarcely educated, were forced to use ragged textbooks discarded from white schools.

Yet the same year I was born, a season of change began. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that black people had the right to equal education. The ruling created hope that life could be better for black folks everywhere.

I have always believed free will is a birthright, part of the universes design for us. And I know that every soul yearns to be free. In 1997, while I was preparing to play Sethe in the movie Beloved, I arranged a trip along a portion of the Underground Railroad. I wanted to connect with what it felt like to be a slave wandering through the woods, making my way north to a life beyond slavery—a life where being free, at its most basic level, meant not having a master telling you what to do. But when I was blindfolded, taken into the woods, and left alone to contemplate which direction led to the next safe house, I understood for the first time that freedom isnt about not having a master. Freedom is about having a choice.

In the film, Sethe explains what it was like to make the trek to freedom Looked like I loved [my children] more after we got here, she says. Or maybe I knew as long as we were in Kentucky … they really werent mine to love.… Sometimes I hear my boys, hear em laughing a laugh I aint never heard. First I get scared, scared somebody might hear em and get mad. Then I remember that if they laugh that hard till it hurt, that be the only hurt they have all day. She also says, Id wake up in the mornin and decide for myself what to do with the day, as if thinking Imagine, me decide.

During shooting, I said those lines over and over, feeling the force they carried. In the years since, Sethes words have remained with me—I rejoice in them daily. Sometimes theyre my very first thought before I get out of bed. I can wake up in the morning and decide for myself what to do with the day—Imagine, me decide. What a gift that is.

What I know for sure is that we all need to cherish that gift—to revel in it rather than take it for granted. After the hundreds of stories Ive heard of atrocities around the globe, I know that if youre a woman born in the United States, youre one of the luckiest women in the world. Take your good fortune and lift your life to its highest calling. Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

Ive always been a homebody. I know that might be hard to believe, given my full schedule, but I usually head home right after work, finish dinner before 700, and climb into bed by 930. Even on weekends, home is my all-time favorite hangout. Since Ive spent most of my adult life in the public eye, its important for me to carve out a private space. A refuge. A safe house.

Years ago, Goldie Hawn told me shed created her own safe haven by declaring her home a gossip-free zone. As part of her work for Words Can Heal, a national campaign to eliminate verbal violence, she and her family pledged to replace words that belittle and do damage with those that encourage and rebuild. Her choice to use language that uplifts is in line with a truth Maya Angelou once passed on to me Im convinced that the negative has power—and if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over, she said. Those negative words climb into the woodwork, into the furniture, and the next thing you know, theyre on your skin. A negative statement is poison.

I know firsthand just how hurtful negative words can be. Early in my career, when the tabloids began printing untruthful things about me, I was devastated. I felt so misunderstood. And I wasted a lot of energy worrying about whether people would believe the falsehoods. I had to fight the urge to get on the phone with anyone whod maligned me and defend myself.

That was before I understood what I now know for sure When someone spreads lies about you, its not about you. Ever. Gossip—whether in the form of a rumor thats sweeping the nation or a gripe session between friends—reflects the insecurity of those who initiate it. Often when we make negative statements about others behind their backs, its because we want to feel powerful—and thats usually because in some way we feel powerless, unworthy, not courageous enough to be forthright.

Hurtful words send the message—both to ourselves and to those with whom we share them—that we cant be trusted. If someone is willing to tear down one friend, why wouldnt she be willing to disparage another? Gossip means we havent emboldened ourselves to talk directly to the people we take issue with, so we belittle them. Playwright Jules Feiffer calls it committing little murders Gossip is an assassination attempt by a coward.

We live in a culture obsessed with gossip—whos wearing what, whos dating whom, whos entangled in the latest sex scandal. What would happen if we declared our homes, our relationships, our lives a gossip-free zone? Wed probably be surprised at how much time wed free up to do the work thats most significant—building our dreams rather than tearing down others. Wed fill our homes with a spirit of truth that makes visitors want to kick off their shoes and stay awhile. And wed remember that while words have the power to destroy, they also have the power to heal.

Some people might find it ironic that Ive never been much of a TV watcher. Aside from old reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, I stopped regularly tuning in to sitcoms the night Mary Tyler Moore went off the air. At home, I skip the late-night news because I dont want to take in all that negative energy right before sleep—and on vacation, I seldom have a TV in my bedroom. On days when I do flip through the channels, its almost certain Ill find at least one show that involves sexual exploitation or violence against women.

In my early days on-air, I was guilty of doing irresponsible television without even knowing it—all in the name of entertainment. One day my staff and I booked a husband whod been caught in an adulterous sex scandal, and right there on our stage before millions of viewers, the wife heard for the first time that her partner had been unfaithful. Its a moment I have never forgotten The humiliation and despair on that womans face made me ashamed of myself for putting her in that position. Right then I decided Id never again be part of a show that demeans, embarrasses, or diminishes another human being.

I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become—as a woman thinks, so she is. If we absorb hour upon hour of images and messages that dont reflect our magnificence, its no wonder we walk around feeling drained of our life force. If we tune in to dozens of acts of brutality every week, it shouldnt surprise us that our children see violence as an acceptable way to resolve conflict.

Become the change you want to see—those are words I live by. Instead of belittling, uplift. Instead of demolishing, rebuild. Instead of misleading, light the way so that all of us can stand on higher ground.

There I am, sitting in Mr. Hoopers fifth-period algebra class, dreading the test were about to take, when an announcement over the intercom tells us to go to the auditorium for a special guest speaker. Hooray, Ive been saved! I say to myself, figuring thatll be the end of algebra for today.

My escape is the only thing on my mind as my classmates and I enter the room, single file. I settle into my seat and prepare to be bored to sleep in yet another assembly. But when the speaker is introduced as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader who was with Dr. King the day he was shot, I sit up a little straighter. What I dont yet know is that Im about to hear the speech of a lifetime.

It was 1969. Because I was an A to B student, I thought I already understood the importance of doing my best. But that day, Reverend Jackson lit a fire in me that changed the way I see life. His speech was about the personal sacrifices that had been made for all of us, regardless of how our ancestors came to be here. He talked about those whod gone before us, whod paved the way for us to be sitting in an integrated high school in Nashville. He told us that what we owed ourselves was excellence.

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism, he said. Therefore, be excellent.

I took him at his word. That evening I went home, found some construction paper, and made a poster bearing his challenge. I taped that poster to my mirror, where it stayed through my college years. Over time I added my own maxims If you want to be successful, be excellent. If you want the best the world has to offer, offer the world your best.

Those words have helped me over many a hurdle, even when less than my best was evident. To this day, excellence is my intention. To be excellent in giving. In graciousness. In effort. In struggle and in strife. For me, being excellent means always doing my personal best. In Don Miguel Ruizs book The Four Agreements, the final agreement is just that Always do your best. I know for sure that this is the most fulfilling path to personal freedom. Your best varies from day to day, Ruiz says, depending on how youre feeling. No matter. Give your best in every circumstance so that you have no reason to judge yourself and create guilt and shame. Live so that at the end of each day, you can say, I did my very best. Thats what it means to excel at the great work of living your best life.

My father raised me to believe that being in debt was a terrible thing. In our house, it was almost a character flaw, akin to laziness and what he called trifling. So when I moved away from home and was $1,800 in debt within a year, I felt Id failed. I never told my father, nor would I have dared to borrow money from him.

Instead, I took out a consolidation loan at 21 percent interest, ate a lot of raisin bran for dinner, and bought the cheapest car I could afford—a bucket on wheels, I used to call it, but it got me to and from work. I tithed 10 percent to the church and shopped for clothes only once a year.

I paid off the $1,800 and vowed never again to create more bills than I could pay. I just hated the way overspending made me feel.

My dad saved for everything that mattered—a washer and dryer, a new refrigerator. By the time I left home in Nashville in 1976, he still hadnt gotten a new TV. He said his money wasnt right. When The Oprah Winfrey Show went national, thats the first thing I bought him—a color TV, paid for in cash.

Why anyone chooses to live a life in debt has always been a puzzle to me. Ill never forget a couple who appeared on my show to talk about their financial plight. Theyd been married for only nine months, but their relationship was already buckling beneath the weight of a gigantic expense. Theyd charged most of their beach wedding in Mexico, paying for hotel rooms and spa treatments for some of their guests, lobster and filet mignon for the wedding dinner, and an open bar. On the other side of this blessed event were credit card bills for almost $50,000. That didnt include the $9,000 the husband had borrowed from his 401k plan to buy the engagement ring. The pursuit of a fairy-tale weekend had landed them in a nightmare that lasted for years.

What I know for sure When you define yourself by the things you can acquire rather than see what you really need to be happy and fulfilled, youre not just living beyond your means or overextending yourself. Youre living a lie.

Thats why being burdened with bills feels so awful.

You are being untrue to yourself. When you free yourself from debt, you create space to purchase with purpose—to add to your life things that are meaningful.

I still think twice before I buy anything. How will this fit in with what I already have? Am I just caught up in the moment? Can it be of real use to me or is it just something beautiful to have? I still remember the time, years ago, when I was in an antiques store and the dealer showed me a gorgeous eighteenth-century dressing table with mirrors and hidden drawers. It was polished to such a sheen that the cherrywood seemed to be vibrating. But as I stood pondering whether to purchase it, I said to the man, Youre right—its beautiful and Ive never seen one quite like it—but I dont really need a dressing table with all that razzle-dazzle. He took a pretentious breath and replied, Madam, no one buys anything here because of their needs—these are treasures to be enjoyed. Indeed. Well, let me get down to the needs store, I thought, because what Im really looking for are fireplace utensils. Not only did I not need a dressing table, I hadnt the space for it.

To be fair, Mr. Dealer had a point—some things are just to be treasured and enjoyed.

But I know for sure that you enjoy everything a lot more when youre not overreaching. This is how you know youve shopped smart You bring home a purchase, theres not a tinge of remorse, and whatever you got feels better to you ten days later than it did when you first bought it.

In 1988 I was in Tiffanys trying to decide between two china patterns. I was going back and forth, and finally my shopping buddy said, Why dont you get both? You can afford to. I still remember thinking, Oh my God.… I can. I can. I can get both! I started jumping up and down right there in the store like Id won the lottery.

Since that time, Ive had many shopping temptations. But knowing that mindfulness matters in all experiences, I try to remain grounded. Another yellow sweater is going to make me feel … what? If the answer is nothing, Ill put it back or get it for someone whose day it will brighten like Gayle, who loves yellow the way some people love chocolate.

I hope the way you spend your money is in line with the truth of who you are and what you care about. I hope that your money brings joy to you and the ones you love. And I hope you use it as a powerful force for good to fulfill your best intentions.

In my twenties, I attended a prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C., that was sponsored by the National Black Caucus. I had the good fortune to hear a most eloquent preacher from Cleveland Reverend Otis Moss Jr., a man who would go on to become a mentor and friend.

That day, Reverend Moss told a story that abides with me to this day. His father, a poor sharecropper, worked all his life to raise and care for his family, suffering the same sort of indignities and humiliations that generations before him had long endured. But in his fifties, he finally had a chance to do what those generations never had cast his vote in an election. On election day, he rose before dawn, dressed in his best suit, the one he wore to weddings and funerals, and prepared to walk to the polls to vote against a racist Georgia governor in favor of a moderate. Six miles he walked when he got there, he was told he was in the wrong place and was sent to another location. He walked another five or six miles and was met with the same denial before being sent to a third voting place. When he arrived at the third location, they told him, Boy, you are a little late—the polls just closed. After walking all day, covering more than 18 miles, he returned home, exhausted and depleted, never having experienced the joy of voting.

Otis Moss Sr. told this story to anyone who would listen, and lived in great anticipation of his next chance to cast his vote. He died before the next election. He never got that chance to choose. So now I do. And every time I cast a ballot, I choose not only for myself but also for Otis Moss Sr. and for the countless others who wanted to but couldnt. I cast a ballot for everybody who came before me and gave their lifes energy so that yours and mine could be a force that matters today.

Sojourner Truth, speaking at the Womens Rights Convention in Akron in 1851, said, If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! Wed see amazing changes if women took to the polls en masse.

Recent voting statistics are embarrassing and disrespectful to our female heritage—to every woman who had no voice but hoped someday her daughters might be heard. In 2008, only about two-thirds of eligible female voters bothered to cast a ballot. And remember, the 2000 presidential election was decided by only 537 votes. I know for sure We ought to respect ourselves and our forebears enough to be counted.

Were a country that spends 95 percent of our health care dollars on treating illness, and less than 5 percent on staying well and preventing it. How mixed up is that? The paradigm needs to change. And the change begins with how we choose to see ourselves as purveyors of health or as conveyors of disease.

The ultimate in being healthy is to operate at full throttle—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Its being alert, feeling alive and connected. And if you look at your life as a circle and all its aspects family, finance, relationships, work, among others as sections of it, youll see that if one part is malfunctioning, it will affect the whole.

There have been many times in my life when Ive put far too much emphasis on work and not nearly enough on taking care of me. Theres a huge difference between attending to the needs of your personality ego and caring for your true self. Making that distinction can save you a lot of wasted time. This I know for sure.

Youve got to be in touch with your mind, body, and spirit to live the life you were meant to. When all three are completely engaged, youre able to fulfill your potential on earth.

Its a decision you make to pursue what you were called here to do and not just meander through your days. The average life expectancy for an American woman is 80. Thats a prediction, not a promise. What you do today creates every tomorrow.

To own the abundant life thats waiting for you, youve got to be willing to do the real work. Not your job. Not your career profile. But heeding your spirit, which is whispering its greatest desires for you. Youve got to get silent sometimes to hear it. And check in regularly. You must feed your mind with thoughts and ideas that open you to new possibilities. When you stop learning, you cease to grow, and subconsciously tell the universe youve done it all—nothing new for you. So why are you here?

You cant pretend that your body will function forever no matter how you treat it. Your body wants to move it wants to be fed well. If youre sprinting through life as though its a race you have to win, you need to slow down and schedule some rest. Because the truth is, youve already won. Youre still here, with another chance to get it right, do better, and be better—starting now.

Years ago on my show, a young mother shared her frustration with getting her son to go to bed. Her son was 3 years old and ruling the house. He wanted to sleep in her bed he refused even to lie down in his own. And the more the mother insisted, the more the child resisted—yelling and screaming, until he literally dropped from exhaustion.

We showed a tape of the two of them battling it out. When our expert, Dr. Stanley Turecki, finished watching, he said something that made the hairs on my arms stand up Nothing happens until you decide. The reason this 3-year-old boy didnt sleep in his own bed was that his mother had not decided it would happen. When she did, the child would go to his bed. He might cry and scream and rant until he fell asleep, but he would eventually realize that his mother had made up her mind.

Well, I knew Dr. Turecki was speaking about a 3-year-old, but I also knew for sure that this brilliant piece of advice applied to many other aspects of life. Relationships. Career moves. Weight issues. Everything depends on your decisions.

When you dont know what to do, my best advice is to do nothing until clarity comes. Getting still, being able to hear your own voice and not the voices of the world, quickens clarity. Once you decide what you want, make a commitment to that decision.

One of my favorite quotes is from mountaineer W. H. Murray

Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethes couplets Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. / Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Make a decision and watch your life move forward.

Im always fascinated by lists of Most Powerful People, and by the ways they use external things—fame, status, wealth—to define and rank power. Its curious how a person can go from the top of the list one year to unlisted the next—all in the blink of a board meeting. Was that persons power real, or was the power only in the position? We often get the two confused.

When I think of authentic power, I think of the power that occurs when purpose aligns with personality to serve the greater good. For me, the only real power is the kind that comes from the core of who you are and reflects all that you were meant to be. When you see this kind of power shining through someone in all its truth and certainty, its irresistible, inspiring, elevating.

The secret is alignment when you know for sure that youre on course and doing exactly what youre supposed to be doing, fulfilling your souls intention, your hearts desire. When your life is on course with its purpose, you are at your most powerful. And though you may stumble, you will not fall.

I went down to Louisiana five days after Katrina hit to witness for myself the disastrous effects of the hurricane. Maya Angelou described it so profoundly, saying, The land became water, and the water thought it was God.

I spent no more than ten minutes in the Superdome in New Orleans, where thousands of families had waited and waited for five days for help to come. Days afterward, I thought I could still smell the urine and feces, mixed with the pungency of decaying flesh.

I said on the air, I think we all—this country—owe these families an apology.

The next day, Gayle King, who, in addition to being my best friend, is also O magazines editor at large, got a phone call from an irate reader canceling her subscription because Oprah has gotten too big for her britches, telling us the government needs to apologize to those people.

What I know for sure is that behind every catastrophe, there are great lessons to be learned. One of the greatest As long as we play the us and them game, we dont evolve as people, as a nation, as a planet. Katrina gave us an opportunity to live in the space of an open heart and to show our compassion.

Over the years, Ive heard many people lamenting why God allows this or that. Another lesson People suffer not because of what God does but because of what we do and do not do.

So much of what happened in the aftermath of Katrina was man-made. And as we all saw, there was plenty of blame to go around. But the storm also gave us a chance to see that in moments of desperation, fear, and helplessness, each of us can be a rainbow of hope, doing what we can to extend ourselves in kindness and grace to one another. Because I know for sure that there is no them—theres only us.

In January 2009 I appeared on the cover of O twice two versions of me standing side by side, a before and after. In one image, the before, I was in good shape. In the after, I was overweight. I had the confidence to show these photos of myself because I knew I wasnt alone. An estimated 66 percent of American adults are either overweight or obese. And almost nobodys happy about it.

That cover stirred an outpouring of emotion and an avalanche of support. One of the most memorable responses I got was this e-mail from a friend Heres how I see your weight—it is your smoke detector. And were all burning up the best part of our lives.

Id never thought of it that way before, but it was a true aha moment. My weight was an indicator warning, a flashing light blaring my disconnection from the center of myself.

What I now know for sure is that for me weight is a spiritual issue, not a food issue. Marianne Williamson struck a nerve when she sent this e-mail Your weight is really an invitation to your best life.

All those years of diets doomed to fail, I thought weight was the barrier. I told myself I had a weight problem—instead of looking at my out-of-balance existence and how I used food to repress the facts.

I once coauthored a book with Bob Greene called Make the Connection. The title was his idea. Even while writing my part, which involved sharing my frustrated journal entries about being fat I was 237 pounds when Bob and I met, I would often say to him, Remind me again—whats the connection?

I did learn from Bob that my overeating wasnt about potato chips, that I needed to peel back the layers of my addiction to food and figure out what was eating me. Obviously, I didnt peel deeply enough.

But now I know that the connection is loving, honoring, and protecting everything about yourself. Bob has often said to me, Your weight is ultimately tied to your feelings of unworthiness. For years, I vehemently disagreed, saying, Listen, Bob Greene, Im not one of those people who think they dont deserve what they have. Ive worked hard for everything I own.

But as I move along the spiritual path to permanently resolving and managing the weight issue, I now see that a sense of unworthiness can come in many forms.

Ive been an overachiever since I was 3 years old. For years I felt the need to show that I belonged here—the need to prove my worth. I worked hard. I got As. I won speaking contests, earned scholarships. I was in my mid-thirties before I realized that just being born makes you worthy enough to be here. I had nothing to prove.

For most of us who overeat, extra pounds correspond to unresolved anxieties, frustrations, and depressions, which all come down to fear we havent worked through. We submerge the fear in food instead of feeling it and dealing with it. We repress it all with offerings from the fridge.

If you can conquer the fear, youll fly. Thats another for sure.

Let your life awaken in you. Whatever your challenge—overeating, overindulging in any substance or activity, the loss of a relationship, money, position—let it be an open door to your holiest revelations about yourself, an invitation to your best life.

I love to watch the sun set over Maui, transforming the sky. Nature has an easier time with transformation than we earthly beings do.

Evolving as a human being is a lifelong excavation process—digging deep to uncover your underlying issues. Sometimes it feels like trying to shovel through Kilimanjaro. You keep hitting rock.

What Ive discovered, though Rocks unattended turn into mounds, and then mountains. And its our job to do daily cleanups—in our work, our family, our relationships, our finances, our health.

Ignoring problems is easier, for sure, but if we take even tiny steps to address them, those steps eventually become giant leaps on the journey to self-actualization.

Reaching your potential as a person is more than an idea. Its the ultimate goal. The wonders were capable of have nothing to do with the measurement of mankind, the lists of whats in and whats out, whos hot and whos not. Im talking about the real deal Whose life did you touch? Who did you love, and who loved you back?

This I know for sure is what matters. For me, its the only goal worth aiming for a transformation of consciousness that allows me to know that I am no better or worse than any other being. That I simply am.

In the third grade, I learned the Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I loved those words. I wrote them on everything and carried them around in my book satchel.

I was a good-deed doer. At one point, I even thought I was going to be a missionary. Every Sunday, I would go to church, sit second pew to the right, take out a notepad, and write down everything the minister said. At school the next day, I would recite the sermon on the playground. I called it Monday-morning devotion. The other 8-year-olds would see me coming and say, Here comes that preacher. Back then, when the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church was trying to raise money for the poor children of Costa Rica, I started a campaign. I was going to collect more money than anyone else. I gave up my lunch money and convinced my classmates to do the same. It was all part of the principle of Do unto others that I lived by.

Then, in the fifth grade, I ran into some problems. There was a girl in my class who didnt like me, so I went around school talking about her. One of my friends pointed out that if I believed in doing unto others and was talking about this girl, chances are she was talking about me, too. I dont care, I replied, because I dont like her, anyway.

For a long time, whenever I would say or do something that went against my better self, I would try to justify it to myself. What I didnt understand is that all of our actions, both good and bad, come back to us. But eventually I learned that we receive from the world what we give to the world. I understand it from physics as the third law of motion For every action, theres an equal and opposite reaction. It is the essence of what Eastern philosophers call karma. In The Color Purple, the character Celie explained it to Mister Everything you try to do to me, already done to you.

Your actions revolve around you as surely as the earth revolves around the sun.

This is why, when people say theyre looking for happiness, I ask, What are you giving to the world? Its like the wife who once appeared on my show wondering why her relationship with her husband had broken down. She kept saying, He used to make me so happy. He doesnt make me happy anymore. What she couldnt see was that she was the cause of her own effect. Happiness is never something you get from other people. The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you are able to give.

If you think something is missing in your life or youre not getting what you deserve, remember that theres no Yellow Brick Road. You lead life it doesnt lead you.

See what comes into your life when you spend extra time with your children. Let go of your anger with your boss or coworker and see what gets returned. Be loving to yourself and others and see that love reciprocated. This rule works every time, whether or not you are aware of it. It occurs in little things, big things, and the biggest things.

Today I try to do well and be well with everyone I encounter. I make sure to use my life for goodwill. Because I know for sure that what I think, what I say, what I do—everything will be returned to me. And the same is true for you.