Raised by Oprah
I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show every day as a new mom. Isabel would nurse and fall asleep in my arms, and for an hour the world was her warm weight against me and Oprah's voice in the room. I held my baby girl and Oprah, in her way, held me. She helped raise me. I think she raised a lot of us.
I felt connected to what she taught back then. I'm sure I learned things. But now, having lived almost double that life, the lessons have finally caught up with me. Three keep resonating.
Oprah-ism 1: Pint people, quart people. This one came from T.D. Jakes on her show, though Oprah repeated it until we all got it. People have different capacities for love. If you're a ten-gallon person, you can't expect a pint-size person to fill you up. Not because they won't. Because they can't. This means so much more to me now. This year I'm hearing: be generous. The pint might be all someone has. I'm learning to give when I have it to give, regardless of what I get or don't get back.
Oprah-ism 2: The calling. From her farewell show: "Everybody has a calling. And your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you were meant to be, and to begin to honor that." I filed it under career advice. But she didn't say job. She said who you were meant to be. This week it looked like time with friends. Dinner with an old colleague in Miami, who welcomed me into her home, where her husband cooked and I met her two young boys. A walk with a newer friend, talking about real life things — somehow energizing even through the jet lag. And today, yoga with a mentee of mine. All of it felt like part of my calling: to be present, to listen, to love.
Oprah-ism 3: Lift you higher. "Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher." For a while I thought this argued with the pint-and-quart lesson. It doesn't. Be generous with everyone but build your life around the ones who lift. Just because the pint is all someone has doesn't mean they belong in the environment that's right for you. Find your people.
And then gratitude, which is where Oprah would want this to end. "Gratitude is the quickest way to change your life." Of everything she taught me, this is the one I can prove. When I walk with my husband in the morning, our gratitude list has become our ritual. All these years after those nursing afternoons, I'm still doing Oprah’s homework.
This Sunday, you're on my gratitude list. I know that for sure.