Archive of ‘Oprah Winfrey’ category

Oprah Winfrey and Friends’ 20 tips to writing a new vision

Find your flow, surrender to it and write your own story. Photo by Sonya Boatwright.

Find your flow, surrender to it and write your own story. Photo by Sonya Boatwright.

By Chanda Temple

For six straight days, I wrote about the inspiring messages delivered during Oprah Winfrey’s “Life You Want Tour’’ this fall. This blog post is my seventh and last post about the event, which was designed to renew people’s minds and souls to help them go after what they want in life.

In order to write your new vision, Winfrey said you must have a new language. To get there, here are some helpful comments from Winfrey and presenters life coach Iyanla Vanzant, pastor Rob Bell, “Eat Pray Love’’ author Elizabeth Gilbert,  spiritual leader Deepak Chopra and Soul Cycle fitness instructor Angela Davis.

  • Be aware of negative thoughts and release them. Stop telling yourself: “I’m so fat’’ or “I’m not going to get a job.’’ You are not those things. – Oprah Winfrey
  • Change your mindset. Instead of saying, “I’m so tired,’’ say, “I can’t wait until I get a second wind.’’ – Oprah Winfrey
  • You cannot care about every cause. It’s OK to say no. – Oprah Winfrey
  • Life taught me to tell the truth to myself and about myself. If you don’t tell the truth, you will end up with something you don’t want. – Iyanla Vanzant

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Stop waiting for the perfect moment

Stop waiting on the perfect moment to start your journey. Begin today. Photo via Creative Commons.

Stop waiting on the perfect moment to start your journey. Begin today. Photo via Creative Commons.

By Chanda Temple  

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall. I’m blogging every day this week about main messages from the event. Today is Day 6. 

Pastor Rob Bell doesn’t wait for the perfect moment or a big holiday to dine on the china at his home. He and his family use it every day.

Why? Because they have today, he said.

The practice, which Bell shared during Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Tour this fall, got me to thinking: How many of us wait for the perfect moment to do something but that perfect moment never comes and all we do is end up waiting?

Pastor Rob Bell Photo by Sonya Boatwright

Pastor Rob Bell
Photo by Sonya Boatwright

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Even in your darkest moment, fight to find beauty in the world

 

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat Pray Love,'' was one of of the "trailblazer'' speakers during Oprah Winfrey's Life You Want Weekend Tour this fall. Photo by Sonya Boatwright

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat Pray Love,” was one of of the “trailblazer” speakers during Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour this fall. The tour was designed to motivate attendees to live their best life yet.
Photo by Sonya Boatwright

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall. I’m blogging every day this week about main messages from the event. Today is Day 5. 

By Chanda Temple

Several years ago, Elizabeth Gilbert walked into a New York City post office and had this thought: I can’t wait to get home and have a good cry.

She was in the midst of ending her marriage and had just had a bad morning in divorce court. She figured that a big ugly cry was what she needed. But God saw something different for her. He told her she could go home and cry, but she first had to walk through the streets of New York City to find something beautiful. Why? Because she had to realize that even in her darkest time, the world is full of beauty.

Gilbert walked out of the post office and saw five elephants walking through Manhattan. The elephants were in town because of the circus, and Gilbert was thankful for what she had just seen. She told God, “That will do. Thank you.”

The experience taught her that people must demand to go on a quest for beauty every day, a sentiment she shared with the audience attending Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Tour in Atlanta earlier this fall.

Gilbert did not go home and cry on her couch that day. Instead, she went home, exalted. Soon she started seeing elephants everywhere. When she saw elephants, she felt they were signs, signs that she was on her path and that she should not dare stop.

Two years after seeing the elephants in Manhattan, she was in India, riding an elephant. She would later write the New York Times Best Seller “Eat Pray Love.” Three years after that, actress Julia Roberts was on an elephant, playing Gilbert in the movie, “Eat Pray Love.” The experience was electrifying for her.

“…ya never know how a good quest will end,” Gilbert told the audience.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert, left, and Oprah Winfrey at the Life You Want Weekend Tour in Atlanta. Photo by: Sonya Boatwright

Author Elizabeth Gilbert, left, and Oprah Winfrey at the Life You Want Weekend Tour in Atlanta.
Photo by: Sonya Boatwright

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Three things happy people do

Spiritual leader Deepak Chopra was one of the "trailblazer'' speakers at Oprah Winfrey's Life You Want Weekend earlier this fall. Photo by: Sonya Boatwright

Spiritual leader Deepak Chopra was one of the “trailblazer” speakers at Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend earlier this fall. Photo by: Sonya Boatwright

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall. I’m blogging every day this week about main messages from the event. Today is Day 4.

By Chanda Temple

Want to be happier in life? Try doing these three things spiritual leader Deepak Chopra suggested when he was a presenter at Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour in Atlanta in September.

1) See opportunities when others see problems

Think of life as a gift and not as a challenge. Live in gratitude.

2) Have purpose and meaning in life

Realize that true success is the ability to love, to have compassion and the ability to get in touch with the creative center inside you.

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The Day I Meditated with Deepak Chopra

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall. I’m blogging every day this week about main messages from the event. Today is Day 4.

By Chanda Temple

Oprah Winfrey opened the second day of her Life You Want Weekend with a group meditation with spiritual leader Deepak Chopra.

For nearly 10 minutes, we sat in a darkened Philips Arena with our eyes closed, breathing deeply and listening to Chopra. The video in this blog post is the entire meditation.

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Wednesday’s Word

How many times have you asked others if you should do this or buy that? Stop it. They are not you. What's for you is for you.

How many times have you asked others if you should do this or buy that?  Stop it. They are not you. What’s for you is for you.

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall. I’m blogging every day this week about main messages from the event. Today is Day 3.

By Chanda Temple

Earlier this year, a colleague shared something that made me really think: “You can’t tell everyone your dreams.”

She was so right. There are some people unable to understand what you want to do and others unwilling to understand. When you seek their advice, it may leave you worse off than before you asked them. You start to doubt your dreams, and that’s never good.

So how do you handle the questions stirring within you? Do nothing. Be still. And wait. That was part of Oprah Winfrey’s message during her Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall in Atlanta, Ga. When you are still, the answer will come.

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Oprah Winfrey: Learn to listen to the whispers

Things come in whispers in life. Are you listening? Photo by Kevin Shorter via Flickr/Creative Commons.

Things come in whispers in life. Are you listening?
Photo by Kevin Shorter via Flickr/Creative Commons.

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour in September 2014 in Atlanta, Ga.. I’m blogging every day this week about the main messages from the event. Today is Day 2. 

By Chanda Temple

During Oprah Winfrey’s recent Life You Want Weekend tour in Atlanta, she told the audience that things come in whispers and we need to learn to listen to them.

A whisper tells us if something is not right or does not make sense. If we don’t listen to that whisper, God will still work to get our attention. He may hit us with a pebble, a little thump up side the head to the point where we say, “Hmm, that’s odd.” It’s supposed to get our attention.

If we don’t pay attention to the pebble, we then get a brick. When the brick comes, we are in crisis and that crisis is supposed to get our attention, Winfrey said.

If we don’t pay attention to the brick, we will face a brick wall, which means there’s now a disaster to get our attention.

“Life is always speaking to you, especially in our greatest trials,” Winfrey said. So the question is: Will you listen to the whispers?

When Oprah Winfrey was growing up in Mississippi, her grandmother would wash clothes for other people and then hang them to dry in the backyard. She told Winfrey to pay attention to how she did it because Winfrey would one day have to it, too. At that moment, Oprah knew she wouldn't be doing that. The message came to her in a whisper. Photo by: Sonya Boatwright

When Oprah Winfrey was growing up in Mississippi, her grandmother would wash clothes for other people and then hang the clothes to dry in the backyard. She told Winfrey to pay attention to how she did it because Winfrey would one day have to it, too. At that moment, Winfrey knew she wouldn’t be doing that. The message came to her in a whisper.
Photo by: Sonya Boatwright

Chanda Temple worked as a reporter for 20 years before becoming a public relations professional. She blogs about being better in business and more at http://www.chandatemplewrites.com. Follow her on Twitter at @chandatemple. 

 

Motivation Monday: Oprah Winfrey’s tips on how to live your best life

Oprah Winfrey's "The Life You Want Tour" is the life you want. Photo credit: Sonya Boatwright

During Oprah Winfrey’s “The Life You Want Weekend” tour in Atlanta, the media mogul said that her fundamental belief is that for every action, there’s a reaction. So if you are putting out jealousy, envy, hate or love, that will come back to you. What are you doing to change that? 
Photo credit: Sonya Boatwright

Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour in September 2014 in Atlanta, Ga. I’ll be blogging every day this week about the main messages from the event. Today is Day 1. 

By Chanda Temple

In September 2014, I attended Oprah Winfrey’s “The Life You Want Weekend” tour in Atlanta, where Winfrey dropped nuggets of empowerment and encouragement into folks’ souls, just like farmers drop seeds into the ground during planting season. With a little sunshine, rain and prayer, those seeds are bound to yield a mighty harvest. I can’t wait to see what develops for my own crop.

If the thousands in the audience at Philips Arena wondered what to expect for the weekend, Winfrey announced it soon after stepping onto the stage: “I’m here to help you turn up the volume in your life,” and to help you figure out your purpose, your passion and your vision in life. And once you realize all of this, what will happen next? You’ll be that much closer to the life you want, she said.

As the audience went wild with applause that first night, I went wild with my note taking. I learned a lot and wanted to share it.

Atlanta's Philips Arena was packed during the weekend tour with Oprah in early September 2014. Photo credit: Chanda Temple

Everyone attending Oprah Winfrey’s weekend tour at Atlanta’s Philips Arena received electronic bracelets that lit up during certain moments of the program. The arena looked like it was full of dancing fireflies.
Photo credit: Chanda Temple

For the next couple of days, I’ll be blogging about the messages from that weekend, which also featured inspiring words from guest speakers “Eat Pray Love” best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert, life coach Iyanla Vanzant, pastor Rob Bell and spiritual leader Dr. Deepak Chopra. Today’s message looks at how positivity helps you live your best life.

To get us rolling with today’s theme, I recalled Winfrey’s challenge of transformation from the first night: Write a new story for yourself and intentionally create the life you want and live your life on purpose.

Here are four of her tips to get you started:

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Oprah Winfrey and my happiness journal

Oprah Winfrey has encouraged me to keep a happiness journal. Image from Canburak via Flickr/CreativeCommons.

Oprah Winfrey has encouraged me to keep a happiness journal.
Image from Canburak via Flickr/CreativeCommons.

By Chanda Temple

I’ve always wondered why people kept journals. Sure, I used to write in a diary as a kid. But once I got to high school, I stopped. I no longer saw a need to write down my daily thoughts.

But after watching a 2007 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” today on a 2012 repeat of OWN TV’s “The Best of The Oprah Show,” I’m a believer in the power of the journal. I’ll be starting mine today. (more…)

Seven Oprah Winfrey quotes that will inspire you

By Chanda Temple 

Oprah Winfrey Image from Webmaster Abril via Flickr/CreativeCommons.

During the last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show in May 2011, Oprah Winfrey encouraged the audience to ask themselves: “What’s your passion?” 
Image from Webmaster Abril via Flickr/CreativeCommons.

When Oprah Winfrey ended The Oprah Winfrey Show in May 2011 after a 25-year run, I set the DVR to record the last episode. Once I played back the recording, I sat in awe of her messages and immediately started taking notes. I wanted a written memory of her quotes so that I could read them whenever I felt like it.

The other day, I ran across my notes and thought they’d be a good share for “Throwback Thursday.” Here they are: (more…)