Learn from Oprah Winfrey: Be the Highest and Truest Form of Yourself

Learn from Oprah Winfrey and her formula for wellness

Key Take-Aways to learn from Oprah Winfrey:

1. Oprah’s wellness formula is mind + body + spirit.
   1. Mind = Emotions, learning and work
   2. Body = Nutrition and movement
   3. Spirit = purpose and relationships
2. Focus on what your perfect vision for your life should be and how purpose and wellness is the core of that vision
3. Our goal is to be the highest, truest form of thyself
4. Her guest, Dean Ornish, said we’ve lost our communities. Before we had churches, community functions and so on. Now we have social media which causes loneliness, envy and ADHD (I know!)
5. Of the 100 people, only 9 were men.

I attended Oprah’s Wellness tour at the Chase Center in San Francisco for half a day. I wanted to compare her material with what we are doing at UWB. What resonated with me most was when she spoke of her grandmother in Rome, Mississippi who dreamed that Oprah would become a maid one day. Oprah would tell her, ‘No, I want to speak in front of people and tell them how to live.’  And over her career she has done just that, speaking to over 37k people one on one and had the #1 talk show for 25 years. That’s how she set her life vision and took steps to do it over and over. To me, that was the foundation of her talk and made me really interested in her. We can all learn from Oprah Winfrey.

The goal of wellness is to be the highest and truest form of ourselves. Be full of yourself so much others think it. Make your cup overflow so when people see you, they say you walk proud. As Lady Gaga says, “In the space of complete radical acceptance have no shame at all. Think you are powerful beyond measure.” And Eckard Tolle “Life will give you the experience of how your conscious is at the moment.” But how do we get there?

She started with the importance of defining a vision to drive your life forward. “Where there is no vision, people perish.” She cited proverbs. Wellness and purpose must be at the center of it. Then take each step in the direction. She spoke of her adopted South African children who want it all and tells them “To do what you want to do, You got to earn it. You can’t just go do it. You got to pay some dues.” In your twenties, is the time to figure out what you want and work towards a vision in the thirties. This was the most important takeaway I learn from Oprah Winfrey.

Wellness is important to create balance. The balance is mind, body and spirit. Life is a constant shifting flow like leaves on the branch of a tree and we need to flow together with the branches in rhythm. Parents are especially out of flow because of kids – they make the mistake between being managers and consultants. And in business flow is minding your own business, and knowing your business (i.e. telling people you have no business here).  

What holds our wellness back? She speaks of stress which is wanting the moment to be something it’s not. Fear of being inadequate is another. Both fear and stress cause the flight or fight response, digestive and reproductive systems turn off and arteries restrict so we don’t bleed. It takes 90 minutes to then recover. She cited Marianne Williamson in the “Return to Love” that ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate but powerful beyond measure.”  I don’t totally get that quote to be honest.

 Then, the workbooks came out and we filled out questions for each of the wellness bubbles. 

1. Mind = Emotions, Learning and Work
2. Body = Nutrition and Movement
3. Spirit = Purpose and Relationships

We tallied up the numbers and came to our wellness equation. Whatever was lacking needed attention. Here is a link to the workbook. She then gave solutions for each bubble. See more here. One thing to learn from Oprah Winfrey is that we have to focus on wellness and treat it like homework. 

https://www.scribd.com/document/449839370/Oprah-s-Wellness-Formula

Then she discussed spirituality. We can’t have a full life without a spiritual life since we are spiritual beings. We then went into a meditation session with Jesse Israel, who founded the Big Quiet. Basically he was a burnt-out musician turned spiritual guide and guided us through a twenty-minute meditation. After this, she discussed her JOMO – Joy of missing out. And that we need to learn to respond not react by 3 exercises:

1. Phone free time several times per day
2. Guild free permission to take rest
3. Set boundaries with others to be alone

Spirituality is the root of being your truest form of yourself.

Fortifying the mind is a matter of intent and determining what you want. Measure outcomes on a daily basis. If you want love, give love. Want energy, create energy. Negativity will bring negativity. Your personal bitterness will also bring others personally bitter (same lense).  Every action has an equal opposite so if you want something, give it.

Then she asked, “do you have the disease to please then stop it.” That will cause you to do things for other people not yourself and that is a big killer of wellness. That way to cure this is define what you want.

Having intent with everything you do from food to relationships will help to stop wellness hurting action. What is the why? Why do you want that extra slice of bacon? She expanded on her personal relationships saying that her biggest mistakes are when intent wasn’t aligned. I really liked this point because I’ve affiliated myself with people who were not in the same wellness and purpose-driven mindset as me. This should be non-negotiable.

Dean Ornish jumped into the next part where he summarized his wellness formula 1. Eat a plant based diet; 2. Move more; 3. Stress less through yoga and meditation; 4 Love more and sex more.

That’s where my day ended. So much like the theory or Ultimate Well Being (UWB), Oprah has a wellness formula that is used to help people determine what they need/want and create the intent to increase their wellness score. There is a lot to learn from Oprah Winfrey and be the truest form of yourself.