243. Oprah Shares “The Letter from Glennon that Freed Me”

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And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Welcome back, Pod Squad.

Today is a big day.

Buckle up, buttercups, because today we have oprah winfrey

oprah winfrey baby

here we are yes here we are

oh wow there's sister

hello miss winfrey Hey, abs.

How you doing?

So good.

You're so wonderful.

This is going to be fun.

So fun.

It is.

It is.

Thank you for spending this time with us.

Oh, I wanted to spend this time with you.

I've missed you so much.

Oh, I miss you.

I've missed you so much.

I just remember our first gathering under the oaks at my house.

It was super Sunday.

Oh, my God.

That was so fun.

I know.

Magical it was.

It was.

And here we are, and we get to talk about your new book.

And I

have so many questions.

I wanted to start with one of the strategies that you talk about in the book about happiness happiness strategy that i am now trying to implement in all areas of my life

can you talk to us about detached attachment and how you discovered this strategy through your experience with beloved detached

detachment oh my goodness beloved one of my greatest teachers of all times you know what i do know

is that everything that is happening to you is there to teach you about yourself.

And so even in some of my darkest moments, and recently I had a couple, you know, dark moments with bullying online.

And I spent so much time going, okay, so now tell me, why is this happening?

What am I supposed to learn from this?

And how do I detach myself

from the...

whatever I was attached to.

And I start asking, what was it I was attached to?

I was attached to the idea of whatever it was.

So I learned this through Beloved.

I learned that

this thing that I'd worked on for 10 years and so loved and wanted other people to feel

the same kind of

joy and understanding of what it means to come through being an enslaved woman and still be able to love.

I was attached to the idea of people getting that but and getting it in the same way that I was.

And I remember after it bombed, it was so hard for me to say the word bomb for a long time because when people would say it bombed, I'd be like, did it really bomb?

Well, it actually did bomb.

And I knew that it was bombing

that.

And there'd been so much publicity about it.

I was on the cover of Time magazine and it was our beloved Oprah.

I mean, like more press than you've seen about anything.

And it bombed.

And I remember getting the call.

It opened on a Friday night.

And I remember getting a call Saturday morning saying, it's done.

It's over.

You've been beaten by the bride of Chucky.

Oh, good Lord.

No.

Yes.

And I didn't know what Chucky.

I said, who's Chucky?

is what they said.

And who's his bride?

Hopefully his bride is really famous or something.

Yes.

And I went into a depression.

I asked

my chef that morning to make macaroni and cheese for breakfast.

Yes.

And I ate my way through it.

And for a long period of time, I was stuck in that wall.

And it was a conversation with Gary Zukov who said to me, well, what did you really want?

And I said, well, I wanted.

people to feel everything that I was feeling.

I wanted the story to live in people's hearts.

And he said, well, I felt felt that.

And I said, well, I wanted more than you.

I actually wanted millions of people to feel that.

And he said, well, if you wanted millions of people to feel it, you would have done a different kind of movie.

Because this wasn't a movie for millions of people.

This was a movie for people who could receive it the way you wanted to give it and to present it.

And so I learned in that experience.

that everything else that you ever do in your life is a gift or an offering.

You do it with the purest of intention to be a gift and an offering.

And if people receive it, they receive it.

And if they don't receive it, that's okay, because your intention was to offer it as a gift.

And so that is how I learned to detach from my attachments.

So you're still attached to the offering because the...

Complete detachment doesn't work for me.

I have no idea how to be detached from anything.

So really?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So, but I'm learning from this.

I'm learning in terms of the pod.

So all I can do is put everything into

each hour with the guest, be in love with what they're doing, and then let it go completely.

Walk away from that hour and never check again.

No expectation.

And I've had to do this with my girls.

You know, Glennon,

you've been so helpful to me with my daughters and helped me with an intervention with one of my girls who was going through multiple trials.

And, you know, I now have 887 girls out into the world that I've put through school.

All of them have my email address and

still continue to contact with me with all their stuff.

And different levels of people, girls succeeding in the world and managing their lives to the extent that I would want them to.

And I learned the sophomore year, one of my daughter girls who'd come here and was going to Wellesley

and

was having multiple mental illness issues and was miserable.

And I remember saying to her, well, do you want to go back to South Africa?

And she said, no, I'll just slug it out until my senior year.

And I said,

slugging is not going to be good for either of us because at the end, when you graduate, there isn't no joy in the slug.

There's no joy in the slug.

So I want you to be as happy as you can be now.

Anyway, she ended up slugging it out.

And I learned in that experience that I wanted to go to Wellesley.

I had wanted to be in the white dresses and the graduation and the thing.

And so I convinced her.

to go to that school instead of staying in South Africa.

And that was my desire, not her desire.

And it turned out to be a miserable experience for her.

And

I learned from that experience, because it's nothing that's ever happened to me that I'm not like, okay, what am I supposed to get for this?

To release all of my expectations about what anybody else, particularly the girls, would turn out to be, would do with the education.

I offered the school.

I did the school as an offering for girls to grow their own wings and to soar.

And some grow, some don't.

Some take harder to grow than others.

Some take longer to actually leave the nest and fly.

Can I be okay

with just the offering of the school?

Can I just accept that, Abby?

You see what I'm saying, right?

Yeah.

Everybody who's raising

a teenager, a young adult knows exactly what you're saying.

Can we be okay with just the offering?

Can you just offer it and whatever, whatever and however they choose to receive it, be okay with that.

Be okay with that.

And have no judgment about it.

So I would have to say that even now, not being attached to the outcome of anything that I do, I realize

that I started the People's Fund of Maui

because I was so

interested for myself in finding out what is the best thing that could help people in this moment in time.

So the fires came, y'all, and in Maui.

I was home that day and had been told that we were going to have to evacuate ourselves.

And

it was a scary time because how do you get all the animals out?

I have horses and dogs and all that.

So we were,

which way are we going to go?

Which direction are we going to take?

I'd gotten in the Jeep and gone down the road myself because I didn't trust all the reports to actually look at the fires myself to see where they were.

And they look really pretty contained.

So I felt better about it after getting on the road and looking at myself and say, there's one there and there's one there and there's one.

And they were saying to me, security was saying there's one six miles from us, there's one eight miles from us.

So I got in the car myself and went and looked and I felt better and then decided to go take a hike, literally.

And

As I was coming down from the hike, I hiked up about two miles on the mountain.

And then I was coming down, I started to notice it getting dark, but it was the middle of the day.

It shouldn't have been getting dark.

And I was like, what's going on?

What kind of cloud is that coming in?

And it turned out to be a wall of smoke on the other side that was Lahaina burning in the middle of the afternoon because the winds had changed and the fire came.

So.

During that time, we were still trying to figure out for ourselves, are we going to have to evacuate?

What is going on?

What is going on?

And when we realized the devastation that had occurred across the way from us on the other side of Maui in Lahaina,

we were all just

in the moment trying to figure out how I was, how to best serve.

Do you, you know, where are the shelters, where are the people, wherever.

And so those first couple of days, I was

literally going around to the shelters, asking people, tell me what you need, tell me what you need

and at first it was just people needed underwear people needed towels people needed they needed uh

uh

shampoo and being able to you know keep themselves uh and

then people started to call me text me asking where can we send money well i didn't know i said well i'm here on the ground i don't know where to send i other than the red cross and the humane society which i'd gone out and bought 300 pounds of dog food taken by the Humane Society.

Other than that, I don't know where to tell anybody.

So I said, I will do some research myself.

I started researching.

There were some people on the ground doing things, but nobody was getting money directly to the people.

Duane LeRock had called saying,

you know, I'm so sorry for what's happening.

Is there anything, you know, we could do?

We started talking about having a fundraiser, a telethon, a concert.

And

in those discussions, realized it's going to take too long to do that.

I said, that's going to take too long.

And that's going to take too much money in order to have a good concert and do it in Honolulu because you can't do it here.

I said, that's going to take millions and millions of dollars.

Better to take that money and give it directly to the people.

In the meantime, my godson, Gail's son, Will, sent me this article on Dolly Parton.

Dolly Parton, when this happened in her hometown,

Gatlinburg, had had a concert, and in that concert raised $12.5 million.

She called it My People's Fund.

I called Dolly.

I sat down with Dolly's people, Dolly's team,

the head of her foundation, Jeff.

I said, Jeff, tell me how you all did this.

So I was so excited.

I went, oh my God.

Okay.

They were able to do that.

So I thought, okay, what could we do if we built a team, right?

Put together the rock and his team, my team.

We decided we're going to have to get somebody to manage the money on the ground.

We called this firm, EIF.

We talked to them.

We researched them.

We, you know, negotiated the feed down so that all the money

other than what we were needing to pay people to actually be on the ground was going to go directly to the people.

So I was so excited, so excited.

Makes me want to cry right now.

I was so excited for the announcement.

So I said to the Rock, listen, how much do you want to put in?

I said, I think $10 million would be great to start because anytime you go to a charity, somebody's raising money.

If somebody donates $10 million, that's a great start.

And I have on many occasions given $10 million and people are always excited with that 10 figure.

So I said, let's start with $10 million

and invite other people to join us.

I got up in the middle of the night in Hawaii after it was being announced.

It was being announced at eight o'clock here.

So it's two o'clock in the morning.

I was so excited, so excited.

And I was hit with all of this vitriol when I was hit with why aren't you paying for the whole thing yourself?

And how dare you ask other people?

And what's wrong with you?

And why didn't your house burn down?

And all the,

you know, everything from I had a blue light and a laser and I set the fires to I set the fires because I was trying to, people were saying that I was deliberately doing this because I was trying to get other people's land.

It was awful.

It was awful.

It was awful.

And it made me so sad.

It made me sad, but not just, it didn't make me sad for myself because it was, it was like when I was on trial years ago for saying something bad about a burger.

Texas

Texas will do that to you.

And the prosecute

and the attorney, the defense attorney was yelling at me and saying, you are influential and you did this.

You are, this woman is a liar.

And she did this to deliberately destroy my clients.

Well, a calmness came over me and I felt like, well,

he's not talking about me.

I know that that is not who I am.

So the trolling didn't affect my spirit.

because I know that's not who I am.

I know that's not who I am.

So I don't know who you're talking about, about, but that's not who I am.

But it did make me very, very sad.

Of course.

Because I thought, wow, this is what we've become.

This is who we are.

You live in a country now where you can say, let's do a world of good for people.

And then you are attacked for that.

And you know what?

I immediately start thinking, what is this supposed to teach me?

And I thought of every kid, every time I've ever said the word cyberbullying, but didn't understand really what that meant.

I thought of, oh,

this is what happens if you don't know who you are

and the dark side

comes for you.

The dark triad, as Arthur Brooks says, if the dark triad is coming for you and you don't know who you are, you will get lost in it.

You will get lost in the darkness.

So it made me so sad because I thought, wow,

we live in a world where this can now happen.

But I was able to separate myself from it.

And the thing that I am most proud about myself is that I had prayer.

And then I sat and I did my gratitude journal.

I normally just do five things a day.

I think I did 27 that day sitting on the porch.

I cried a little bit and I wrote a little bit.

And then I got up and I went to visit my neighbors who'd lost their homes up the hill and asked them, what can I do to help you.

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So what were you attached to?

I think I was attached to the idea.

You know, I was actually thinking this morning, Glenn, like, because I'm still going over it in my head, like, how did this happen?

How did this happen?

What was I thinking before?

I remember saying a prayer the night before, like, oh, gee, let this work.

Let this work.

Hope this really works.

I mean, the difference between what Dolly was doing and we're doing is that we have 10 times the amount of people.

So I remember thinking, let this work.

And I was thinking, okay, so I was attached to the idea of it being successful.

I don't know.

I still am trying to figure this one out.

I still am trying to figure it out because on the ground where the people are actually receiving the help, the people are grateful.

The people are

thankful that there is a people's fund that's saying, we're going to put money directly into your account.

We're not even going to make you stand in line and wait for a check because

we were told by the elders, Dwayne and I sat and met with the elders before and they said, that's not going to work in Maui.

Hawaiians are too proud.

They will be, they will not want to come anyplace and stand in line and look like they're asking for money.

But if you can find a way to just drop it in their accounts, they'll take it.

They'll take it.

So it wasn't, I don't know.

I'm still figuring it out, and which is a good thing because I know it shall be revealed.

Yep.

And in the meantime, I just keep going forward.

You keep doing the work.

Keep doing the work.

When you said, I know that's not who I am,

when

in your life

did you know

who you were?

If you look at the timeline of your life, and if that triad came for you at any point, can you pinpoint when you would say,

you're not even talking about me?

Because I think the confusion comes when you're not real sure, maybe they are talking about you.

Well, actually, I will have to say, sister, I can call you sister, right?

Oh, I wish you would call me nothing else.

I have to say that the epiphanal moment was on trial in 1998

for saying something bad about a burger.

Because up until that point, I mean,

you all,

I was dragged every week by the tabloids.

So the tabloids was my social media before.

Stedman and I were dragged for everything.

And the usual theme was: why won't he marry her?

And why is she so fat?

So I have been,

you know,

I think more than anybody else in this country,

made fun of,

ostracized.

It was a normal thing for all the comedians to make jokes about me on their nightly shows.

I mean, I didn't go on David Letterman for three or four years

because

he had done nothing but make these Ms.

Butterworth jokes about me.

Ms.

Butterworth, Ms.

Butterworth.

Yes.

And so

I was

a very different woman before that trial.

That trial grew me up.

And before that trial, I was always calling Maya Angelou,

crying about something that somebody said.

And I remember one time I called her and I was in the bathroom.

I had crying.

I don't even remember what the thing was.

And I was in the bathroom, door closed because people were in the house.

And I didn't want them to hear me crying.

And I was sitting on the toilet seat crying on the phone with her.

And she said, stop right now and say thank you.

And I said, I,

but you're not hearing what I'm saying.

And she said, no, say thank you right now.

Why am I saying thank you?

She said, I said, say thank you.

And I said,

Thank you.

She goes, I want to hear it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

She says, you say thank you because God's put a rainbow in the clouds.

You just can't see it.

And when you get to the other side, you'll be able to see that the rainbow was always there.

So say thank you because you're going to come out on the other side of it and you're going to be better.

So the answer to that question is,

before this, I was thrown by everything everybody said.

I mean, if you listen, somebody made a negative comment, I would try to track them down.

I could get a thousand great comments and then one negative comment and

I'd be calling them up.

Why did you say that?

And trying to convince them.

You should say that.

And then

it was six weeks of being on trial, six weeks of having your truth tested.

And we all know that that's what trial is all about.

And then I realized sitting there.

on the witness stand, oh,

I have a really big life.

So therefore, I get the real trial.

But everybody has trials.

People have trials of divorce.

They have trials of job failure, not succeeding, children, not working out the way you, raising children, the way you wanted to.

They have trials in their life.

And all trial stands outside of you

to force you.

to be able to answer who am i really

it's what we talk about in build a Life You Want, that metacognition of being able to separate yourself from the feeling or the circumstance or the trial or the challenge or the difficult.

Oh, that's out here.

So this past week going through all this, you know, online craziness stuff, I was like, oh, well, that's out there.

Literally, I'm sitting on my porch listening to the birds singing.

And that's out there.

Yeah.

That's out there.

How can I be detached from that?

Yeah.

It's that scripture.

It's, I'm just thinking for the first time that this is what blessed are you when you're persecuted is.

Yes.

It's because we've got these voices inside of ourselves that are always telling us we're crap, right?

Or like little, but then when it comes from the outside,

when it really, really comes from the outside and you listen to it long enough, there's a part of you that stands up for yourself.

Yes, yes, yes, because you know it's not true.

You know, it's not true.

The epiphany moment,

as you were saying, Amanda, sister Amanda, as you were saying, that moment when

he's literally holding up Time magazine

and he's saying, You are influential, aren't you?

That's what it says here in Time magazine.

So you deliberately used your influence.

And I'm thinking, I wasn't thinking about influence.

Everything you're saying is not true.

It is not true.

And when I came down from the witness stand, I literally said to my producer, Oh my God, you're going to love it.

I was on the witness stand for two days straight.

I said, You're going to love it up there.

And she goes, I don't think so.

I said, Oh, yeah, because you're going to get to figure out who you really are.

You're going to get to figure out who you really are.

And

that was sweet.

That was sweet.

I say, that was a big test to come to come to to that realization, but I came away from that with a knowingness about myself that I did not have before the trial.

That's what the trial taught me.

This is who you are.

This is who you are.

So would you say now when it comes, like it came this past week, are you able to recover faster?

Because I think it's beautiful to hear that you still, it's when people say just develop a tough skin and it will never affect you.

That's not real, is it?

It does hurt at first, right?

Would you say it?

Yes, it hurts at first.

I was stunned, but I was more stunned,

disappointed, and saddened that this is where we are in our country, that this could happen.

I mean, there isn't anybody who's lived a straighter, more

deliberately trying to be good life.

raised as a good girl, that whole good girl syndrome, all that stuff.

There's nobody who has paid more taxes,

don't have the offshore funds, not trying to get away with anything, literally just doing the right thing.

And I was like, How could this be?

It does not compute for me.

So, trying to understand that.

Is that what you're attached to?

Good.

I'm good.

Yeah.

That's good.

That's good.

That's good therapy right here.

That's good therapy right here in the middle of the podcast.

This is fantastic.

One time when I was having a good girl breakdown because somebody said I was bad, I was talking to Liz, Gilbert, on the phone, crying to her.

And I said, you know, it's like that Steinbeck thing.

I said, now that we don't have to be perfect, we can be good.

And she said, no, no, no.

Now it's now that we don't have to be good we can be free

fantastic liz that's great

the good thing gets me that's what we're that's what we're all striving for is the freedom

is the freedom is the liberation

is the liberation and what i found is you know what love liberates

love liberates that's right and when you're able to offer it and able to receive it, that's when the deepest sense of freedom comes, is when you can give and receive it openly

with no attachment.

With no attachment.

Speaking of love and freedom, I want to talk about your parents for a moment, if that's all right.

You lost your mother, Vernita Lee, in 2018.

and your father, Vernon, Winfrey, last year.

you told me that after her parents died gail said she felt unmoored

like she'd lost her anchor to the earth

and i have a friend who told me recently that her relationship with her parents was so complicated that her grief after their passing was tinged with a newfound lightness like a first-time freedom for her and freedom also freedom yeah

i didn't feel that but can i just say this

that the email that you sent me after

my mother passed

was the most freeing offering, was the most freeing, was the most

visionary, and was the most profound thing I'd ever

experienced in terms of dealing with that passing

because you said that she

would now be able to finally see me

and that

freed me

i had like this vision oprah when i heard about your mom's passing and it was just like a and i had a vision of your mom being in a different place wherever people go and her being able to look back back on the earth, like this is crap, crazy, but true, Abby knows, and just seeing the whole planet lit up.

Yeah.

Just lit up lights everywhere, all over the planet, all lives that you

had touched.

And then I felt her seeing that for the first time, her impact.

And then I felt, oh my God, then she will understand for the first time that she was part of that.

That it's a, she's going to be so freaking proud.

Well, you being able to put that in an email to me was

the best eulogy, was the best sermon, was the best offering I received.

Period.

Full stop.

I don't know how that came to you.

You said you were just sitting out somewhere and you just decided you were going to write that to me.

And it

changed me.

It changed me.

And I think it opened me to receive the spirit of my mother in a way that I had not thought I would.

You know, I, in Maya's passing, you know, still feel Maya, felt her presence, felt her with me.

I feel her abiding in me.

I feel more Maya-like now.

And I hear myself saying things and moving through the world, and it's my Maya-ness coming through.

And I always felt that because I lacked a connection with my mother here on earth, that that would not happen, that

the spirits are, that

she would not be a part of me and I of her, even though she had given birth to me.

But what you wrote to me in that email opened the channel for me to receive her in a way that I would not.

And so when I wrote to you and told you how you blessed me with that email, that, you know, you bless me or, you know, meager words do not measure up to what you really did was you opened a channel for me to be able to receive the spirit of her in a way that I would not have.

Good job.

Good job, Glennon.

Good job, Glennon.

Good job.

Yeah.

Did you know you did that?

No, Oprah, I did not

know that.

I tried to tell you in the email, but

thank you.

That's what you did for me.

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When was the last time, Oprah, that you had a side splitting laugh?

Oh,

I will tell you that

Gail and I have side-splitting laughs.

Not splitting we have like yeah we're we're rarely side splitting

on the phone but when we get together there's side splitting i tell you who i have one of one of my daughter girls is um is a is a budding actress and

she

tondo cracks me up all all all the time and uh

She was just,

she had just had a big skin breakout and had used some products by some famous person whose name I won't mention.

And she was just recently

in the CBS store and sent me a text of all of this person's products on display.

And she said, oh, there they go again, spreading zits throughout the universe.

Yeah, there they go again.

But she just, I mean,

she is so funny that when I just say her name and I start to laugh because she's got, because every time I text or call her, she's like, mama, mama.

She doesn't call me mama.

It's mama.

Mama.

So, no, it's withondo.

So wonderful.

Okay, can you, there's a part in your book where you talk about envy.

Is there anybody, Oprah, that you're still envious of?

No.

Don't, it doesn't exist for me.

Wow.

So good.

Doesn't exist

for me.

Do you ever envy a version of yourself that you're not yet?

Doesn't exist for me.

She's a real varsity over here, people.

No.

Doesn't exist for me.

I feel like if I was like

envious of anybody, the way the law works of

coming back to you, I think I just would get slapped in the face immediately.

Because, guys,

is there anybody who has a more awesome, incredible life?

I mean, when you think about it,

I hike a lot now, and I'm always,

you know,

not focusing on where I'm trying to get to, but I consciously stop and take breaths and turn around and look at how far I've come.

Damn.

Yeah,

that's how I get myself to the top.

Not by focusing on the top, but looking back at how far I've come and say, whoa, you didn't think you could make it to that point.

You didn't think you could get to the tree.

We have a big tree out there in the center of halfway up, like we call it the hope tree.

You didn't think, look at how you got there in 40 minutes and used to take you 55.

And on the first day you did it, it was an hour and 38.

And so I look back at how far I've come

and think, wow,

I've already been farther than I thought I was going to make it today.

I now think I can go a little further.

And the way I do it is I don't focus on where I got to get to.

I just focus on one step after the next step after the next step.

And I let that become the rhythm of my entire body.

Just what is the next step?

What is the next step?

what is the next step and that turns out to be a great metaphor for living i have no i don't i can't

nobody would I envy.

Nobody.

And you talk about just the next step.

You say, Stedman will have an outcome, plan, plan, plan.

But for you, you,

you stay in the moment and let intuition guide you.

I tend to over prepare, get nervous, freak myself out.

Do you not

prepare for things?

Are you just, you bring your full self and you trust that you will know what to say, what to ask?

for some things i think you need preparation for instance i'm speaking at an event tonight and

um

for weeks i was thinking about what am i going to say what am i going to say i always know that by the time i get there something's going to show up for me to say

and

So last night, I started organizing that in a way

that I could be concise because for graduation or something like that, you don't want to be up there rambling.

You want to make these points, these points, these points, and get off.

But I just have the confidence to know that I've lived long enough.

I know enough things.

I know how to talk.

I know how to talk.

So

I know I'm going to be able to,

if I have a central point to talk about, I know I'm going to be able to share that as an offering in a way that

it will

resonate and land with people.

I feel confident about that.

You should too, Miss Glennon, because you are damn good.

I keep telling you.

You are so damn good.

You're so darn good at that.

So darn good at it.

So you angst about it?

Oh, yeah.

But

I'm playing with the idea that I can just be me.

I'm not sure about it.

I mean, I went into a meeting, Oprah, and I said, what am I supposed to do?

And the person with me said, just be yourself.

And I said, listen, I don't know how much longer I can keep that up.

This is the funniest thing.

Because that's really all there is.

Listen, I made a career out of it.

I made an entire career out of it.

And the most comfortable space I've ever been in is sitting on that Oprah show for 25 years.

I was, I just

was never more myself than with that audience every day.

I mean, I felt like millions of people were like,

felt familial to me in a way, because I've reached a point where I felt comfortable

sharing myself in a way that I would not be judged by people.

And even if I was, I'd track you down and see.

But I know that

there is no other answer.

You know, it's kind of a favorite jokey line of ours.

You know, whenever I'm going off someplace or going to be speaking or something big is happening, somebody in the family will say, just be yourself.

Just be yourself.

But I love using, I don't know how much longer that can work for me.

Whatever the hell that means.

It's going to take you, it's going to take you to the end, Glenn.

It's going to take you to the end, Sister Glennon.

All right.

I already asked you if I could ask this.

What?

I want to ask you about a part in the book

that made me raise my eyebrows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Made me raise my eyebrows even through my Botox.

And I just want to read it to you and get your thoughts about it.

It's a part that Arthur Brooks wrote, not you.

Okay.

Okay.

So.

He's talking about friends conflict and how to handle it.

And he says,

quote, maybe your friends are religiously opposed to something about the way you live.

And you conclude that they are, quote, denying your humanity.

Okay, that's in quotes, denying your humanity.

And he says, we're not talking about abuse here, just difference in beliefs.

Yeah.

He goes on to say, this is completely self-defeating because it leads to your loneliness and isolation.

The solution in this case is humility.

Oprah, I got to tell you, I had to put that

down.

I had to circle my room walking.

Abby knows, circling the room walking.

What?

Okay, Mike, my thoughts about this are: I think, first of all, my queer self was triggered because I felt like the words religiously opposed and then putting denying your humanity in quotes made me feel like he was suggesting that denying your humanity was kind of like a

overstated.

Yeah.

Right.

I don't think he intended that, but go ahead.

Okay.

I want to know what it is that triggered, what it is about that triggered you.

What is it about that that didn't sit well with you that made you feel somehow confronted?

Yes.

Something I was attached to.

I was going to say, yeah.

Yeah.

How about that?

Okay.

I felt like it was written like a from a person's point of view whose humanity had never been questioned.

Because I felt like anybody who puts denying your humanity in quotes as if it's not a real thing

is someone who has never felt what it feels like to have someone else's religious views

doubt your very divinity or your very

reason to be to exist.

Reason to exist.

And I thought, isn't it interesting for a person whose humanity has clearly never been threatened in a way that makes him relate to that suggest humility for the other person

because to me it feels like

you know the person who's trying to deny your humanity should have

should be humble about it

it was just an example of why sometimes

reading a white man's perspective gets tricky because

he's suggesting humility for the very people I think who should not be choosing humility.

Because to me, he suggests that if we do not be humble in that moment, if we confront the other person or we draw a boundary, then we will end up lonely and isolated.

But the times I've felt lonely and isolated are when I don't confront the person, when I just say, okay,

your difference of opinion.

or your belief, I guess, is okay.

It's not a deal breaker between.

I think it depends upon what you are willing to sacrifice to get along

with the other person.

You know, in my own relationships, I have

perhaps sometimes chosen humility with my family, and in other times, I've chosen divorce.

I've chosen, I no longer want to be a part of this relationship, and I humbly

take myself out of it.

You know, I humbly remove myself from being in contact with someone who feels that demeaning me or diminishing me or doesn't see me for who I really am.

So I think

my interpretation of it is you must sacrifice that if you really want the relationship with the person.

In my experiences, I've chosen that I'd rather not have the relationship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Saya Nara.

Say.

I love that.

I humbly

never see you again.

I will humbly never see you again.

Peace out.

And I do mean peace.

Peace out.

Yes.

And that was a real hard one for me, you know, because when I first started making money and my salary was published in the newspapers, I don't even know how they got the salary because I was like, really?

I'm making that much money.

And I went to my accountant and go, is this true?

So you can no longer say to your family or all the people who are coming to your money, I don't have it.

And I realized that when I first started making money, that

I've been taking care of my family since.

And everybody who's listening to us right now, if you're the one or certainly the first one in your family to succeed, you're looking, you're looking at Abby.

You're the first one in your family to succeed.

You become the first national bank.

Yes.

And this is the thing that I teach my girls starting in eighth grade, that if you choose to be successful in life, number one thing you're going to have to manage is all your family and all the people who feel like that success is owed to them.

And so

for me, in the beginning, I did not know how to handle it.

Because saying I didn't have it, you know, when I was making $22,000, $25, $50,000 a year, I didn't have enough to service everybody in the family.

So I distinctly remember that when I was in Baltimore, that everybody always only needed $500.

My family members, they would need five, that was a number,

$500.

The day, and I do mean the day,

I moved to Chicago and there was a picnic at my mother's house in Milwaukee.

Everybody needed $5,000.

Wow.

Cost of living in Milwaukee.

Nobody asked me for $500.

Everybody needed $5,000.

$5,000.

I have sister ask me.

My aunt asked me.

Two cousins asked me.

Everybody, $5,000.

So I had to learn how to manage that in such a way that, wow,

I felt so put upon.

So unseen for myself, the thing we're talking about, so denied, my humanity denied by

multiple family members who just thought i was their bank thought i was their thought i was their bank and if you don't do it then something's wrong with you because we're family we're blood that whole blood thing where i i don't even i i don't remember hey help and remember me I'm your cousin.

We're in blood.

Hey, Help and remember me.

Blood.

I actually had a fourth cousin, not third, fourth cousin, say to me, y'all, I was in the house the night you was born.

Now that's got to be worth at least 25,000.

No way.

It's

a monopoly set.

For all those who were there in the house, 25 for you.

25?

That's got to be worth at least 25,000.

Yeah, she did say that to me.

She did.

So how did you humbly remove yourself?

The dinner of a lifetime.

The dinner of a lifetime.

I had the lifetime.

I had the dinner of a lifetime.

I had the dinner of a lifetime where I had all the family and all the friends and all the people.

And I got because I got so tired of people

seeing me as a bank.

So I had a dinner of a lifetime where I brought the attorneys in and I did the contracts for people and I set up trust funds and I said, this is what you're getting and this is what you're getting and this is what you're getting and please don't come to me anymore and then the people who came afterwards i humbly removed myself from their lives that's what i did humble restraining orders for all

i humbly now remove myself

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It's all fun and games, but you said from 86 to 98, you had no family relationships because you couldn't actually be in a real relationship based on people

because people were just coming to you all the time, which is all the time.

Which is sad.

Yeah, kind of sad.

Kind of said, I did the thing, guys, where I wanted to have one time,

you know, when I first bought a farm in Indiana and I had this, you know, Courier and Ives idea of the Christmas and the trees and the slaves and the dogs and the whole thing.

And I brought all my family together.

It was the worst experience.

It was.

Don't never do that again.

That was the first and last time that ever happened.

There was no nothing.

Oh, no.

Everybody was mad at everything.

Uh, I knew as people were arriving,

I could feel it, I could feel the tension.

I could, you know, what I was feeling.

I was feeling, what am I gonna get?

What am I gonna get?

What am I gonna get?

And then looking under the tree, kicking it up.

You know, what did she get?

And then she got more, and she should have had more, and she should have had more.

And I,

they hoped it was an Oprah's favorite things episode.

Oh my gosh.

It was interesting.

But anyway, I think, you know, I've reached a point now where I feel a great sense of contentment in my life.

Even when I was going through all this stuff last week, I was thinking, wow, I feel so good that I've reached the point of my mental spiritual evolvement that even in the midst of crisis,

I still know that I'm okay and I'm going to be be okay.

You know, that's a wonderful thing.

And that's not, you know, gleeful happiness, but I am able to, in the midst of any trial, make myself happier.

I think that's my favorite part of the book is what's really stayed with me too, is the idea that happiness is not dependent on not having unhappiness.

Correct.

That you need it to balance.

It's the yin and the yang.

And it's the cloudy days that make the sunny ones ones so great.

I'm the opposite.

I love cloudy days.

So I think, oh, yeah, you got to get some sunny days in there in order to get the clouds to come back.

Yeah.

Sunny days.

You know what?

You know, sunny days, sunny days create too many expectations.

Yeah, they're bossy.

It's the journey of the sun.

The sun is going to come out.

You got to come out or you're depressed.

That's right.

Or you got to do something.

You got to have activities.

You got to enjoy it.

The sun is like the epitome of toxic positivity.

It's like settled down.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But a cloudy day, a rainy day, wow.

You just get, it's liberation for me.

Like, no expectations.

Oprah, we love you.

You are just, I know, man, you're my North Star, and I am grateful for every single offer.

Can you get me my phone?

Because I want to just see if I can find Glennon's email.

I have it.

Where is it?

I want to just read that to the people if I can.

See it.

I had it for so long.

I printed it out and I have it in my drawer

so that Glennon, I always,

in times of trial, can go back to it.

See if it's going to come up.

I don't know in this moment.

It's not.

It's okay.

It wasn't meant to be.

I want it to so much.

So I thank you all for having me on here.

You're the freaking most best.

She's the most best.

That's what Oprah is.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

Oh,

okay.

This is written 112618.

And the subject is on mothering love.

Hello, my friend, my sister, my example.

I'm sitting on a balcony on Cayman Island and right at this moment writing an essay about the word mother, what that word really means, how it's less to me a fixed identity we can be or not be, and more an energy we can offer or not offer.

The essay is about how some of us who can check the box mother

never really learn how to offer mothering love.

and how others of us who don't check the box harness it and offer it widely and wildly.

The essay is about how much better off the world would be if we gathered up mothering love and used it like a floodlight instead of a pointed laser aimed only at the few we've been assigned.

As I'm writing this essay on the balcony, my sister just sent me a text that says, Gee, Oprah's mother died.

She was 83.

I wanted you to know.

I just got that text a minute ago.

I would never never presume to guess what your relationship was like, how complex it was and is to be your mother's daughter, what your feelings are this week, what your feelings have been or will be.

I just wanted to say.

That you are my example

of how to gather up mothering love

and use it as a floodlight to illuminate and warm the world.

You are my and the world's best example of grace, which means that we can somehow give what we've never even received.

I don't know much,

but from everything you bravely say and kindly don't say,

I've gathered that you didn't get the mothering love you deserved and needed as a little girl

and a grown girl.

To me, that is what makes you a miracle.

It is a miracle that somehow you took the broken pieces that she put in your hands, all of them, and you spun them into gold and opened your hands wide and offered that gold.

back to the world

which is not just a gift to the world

It is a gift directly back to your mother.

Because you worked with what she gave you, ensured that her legacy through you

is gold.

With your help, your mother's legacy is gold.

What a gift.

If there is a heaven,

she can see that now.

She can see that her miraculous daughter somehow,

somehow, turned her offerings to gold.

God bet she's amazed and grateful.

Well done, good,

faithful, miraculous, badass

servant

in your corner forever.

My friends, that

is my letter from Glennon that freed me.

And I thank you.

I love you.

Thank you.

Love you.

We love you very much, Oprah.

Thank you for coming on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

Okay, Pod Squad.

We'll see you next time.

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I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through a fire, I came out

the other side.

I chased desire,

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue

to believe

that I'm the one for me.

And because I'm mine,

I walk the line.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are map.

A final destination

lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do a hard game.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue

to believe

the best

people are free.

And it took some time,

but I'm finally fine.

Cause we're adventurers, and heartbreaks are back.

Our final destination

we lack.

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard

pain.

We're adventurers and heartbreaks on that.

We might get lost, but we're okay.

We've stopped asking directions

in some places

they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard

things.

Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we

can do hard

things.