OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
Today on "Super Soul Sunday," five-time New York Times
best-selling author and spiritual teacher,
Caroline Myss. On intuition-- It's the voice of
your gut instinct. It's the voice you don't want
to hear that never turns off. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): --purpose-- If you have life,
you have purpose. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): --and grace. If you can answer that this
Sunday morning, you are good. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): If you love an aha moment as much as I do-- Well, I've never
heard that before. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
Get ready for an hour chock full of them. That is big. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER): Super
Soul Sunday starts right now. [MUSIC PLAYING] OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
I wanted a place for people to go every Sunday to wake up. Thought provoking--
oh, you couldn't have said that better--
eye opening, and inspiring. This is my favorite
thing to talk about. This will lift you right on up. It's food for your soul. Every single Sunday. This is "Super Soul Sunday." [MUSIC PLAYING] OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
Born in Chicago and raised a devout
Catholic, Caroline Myss says she was just eight years old
when she discovered her gift, her intuition. I first met Caroline in 1998. By then, she had become
well known for doing readings to help people heal. I just feel like
I'm falling apart. I mean literally falling apart. I think your childhood
wasn't long enough. You had to be the
mother to your mother. OPRAH WINFREY: Is that true? Very true. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Caroline said she could also
gauge people's health without a physical examination
and referred to herself as a medical intuitive. CAROLINE MYSS: I feel it-- cold
feet, cold hands, imbalance. I can't get any sense of
balance in your body at all. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
The response from our viewers was overwhelming, and
Caroline came back to the show three more times. The concept of spirit. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
I can't believe it's been nearly 15 years
since we last spoke, so I invited Caroline
to Harpo Studios to get together and talk and
hear her unique perspective on some of life's
big questions that will help us all feed our soul. 1998, we're sitting
in the other studio right across this wall and we
were talking about this book. CAROLINE MYSS: Yeah. OPRAH WINFREY: And you
and I were really into it and having a conversation. I look out in the audience and
I see people's eyes not glazing over, but just I could
tell they were not with us. And I stopped-- do
you remember this? Yes, I do. OPRAH WINFREY: I stopped taping,
and I said, OK, everybody stop. Do you all understand
what we're talking about? I said we're talking about
anatomy of the spirit, and a woman stood up and
said, no we really don't. What are you talking
about, spirit? You're not sure? So spirit is a foreign
concept to you? Spirit is a foreign
concept, sort of to-- away from me, or more religious. OPRAH WINFREY:
Spirit is religious? To me.
OPRAH WINFREY: To you-- when I think of that. You stopped to explain
what we meant by spirit. Can you do that again for
all of our Super Soul family? I sure can. I think the way to
understand your spirit is that it's the
part of you that is seeking meaning and purpose. That's one way someone
can relate to that. Another way to understand
spirit is that it's the part of you that feels-- that is drawn to hope. That's one way to
understand spirit. BOTH: The part of you
that is drawn to hope. CAROLINE MYSS: Everyone
can relate to that. Right. CAROLINE MYSS: The
part of your spirit that is simply
drawn to hope, that will not give in to despair. The part of you that has
to believe in goodness. That has to believe
in something more. OPRAH WINFREY: It's
the light of you. CAROLINE MYSS: It's
the light of you. But light needs to have a word,
like, what does that feel like? It feels like hope.
OPRAH WINFREY: Feels like hope. It feels like grace. OK, that's really clear. I got that. Everyone can get that. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah Because nobody
wants to be hopeless. It's the part that says no,
no, no, I got to have hope. That's a tweetable
quote there. Your spirit is a part of
you that feels like hope. CAROLINE MYSS: Yep, there it is. Tweet, tweet.
CAROLINE MYSS: There it is. - There it is.
- There it is. And everyone says I get that. I get that. CAROLINE MYSS: I get that. OK, you say in "Anatomy
of the Spirit," page 170, "From a spiritual
perspective, in fact, the entire physical
world is nothing more than our classroom. But the challenge each
of us in this classroom is will you make
the choices that you make to enhance your spirit or
those that drain your power?" Yeah. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, I love
that you said that because I had just earlier today
was explaining to someone that I think the
world is a whole classroom. And probably, I read it
in this book 15 years ago and I'm now taking that on
to be my own explanation. But that's how I see the
world, as this super classroom. And that's why the
idea of what we do on this channel-- life class. Using other people's
life as a class. Using your life as a class
is so stimulating to me. CAROLINE MYSS: Well that's the
whole and seeing the whole-- OPRAH WINFREY: So this
is the earth school? It is an earth school. It is an earth school. And if you saw everything
about your life as a learning, as a lesson, as I'm looking
for truth, I'm looking for-- does this drain power? Am I empowering-- with
every choice I make, I'm either choosing to grace
somebody or withhold it. To give power or
to take it back. If people understand
that every single thing, I'm either going to learn
something from this or I'm not. So every single
choice we make is either going to enhance the spirit-- CAROLINE MYSS: That's right. --or it's going to drain-- CAROLINE MYSS: Totally.
- --the spirit. CAROLINE MYSS: There's
nothing in between. There is nothing in between. What one-- well
give me one choice that could be in between.
There isn't. OPRAH WINFREY: There isn't.
- There isn't. Another way to
say that is either-- you're either walking
in the direction of love or you're walking away from it. You're walking to fear. And there is no other choice. But even if you thought-- even if you're in
a grocery store, and you're thinking
should I buy this or not? And your gut says you
know you can't eat that. And you decide, I'm not going
to listen to that voice. Right there, even
that tiny thing, you've walked toward fear. OPRAH WINFREY: Wow. Because you blocked-- you've blocked your
intuitive voice. So every day, in
the smallest of ways and the largest of ways,
we're either giving ourselves power or taking away from it. CAROLINE MYSS: That's right.
- I get that. I get that. You said back in
1998, I'm not born here to have a personality. I'm born here to have a spirit. And you say that each of
us is born with a purpose for being alive. You call that-- and
actually wrote a book called "Sacred Contracts." CAROLINE MYSS: Right. OPRAH WINFREY: The
sacred contract is the reason you were born. Then if it is the
reason you were born, why are so many people confused
about what the contract says? Because, you know
what, it's first. A contract's not a
literal document. That's the first one
we have to understand. Right. Our sacred contract
is what we could think of as a spiritual document
that our soul recognizes. OPRAH WINFREY: OK, I love that. BOTH: A spiritual document
that our soul recognizes. Sometimes I have to repeat
it to get it, you know-- to push it all the way through. CAROLINE MYSS: Yeah, absolutely. OPRAH WINFREY: OK. You know how we
say things like, I just have to be
true to myself. OPRAH WINFREY: Yes, yeah. And if someone said,
like, what does that mean? You say there's something
I know I was meant to do. There's something I know-- I mean, Abraham
Lincoln felt that way. All these great
people who've always said something I know
I was meant to do. That knowingness is what
the soul understands. I was born and it
was for a purpose. You have agreements,
fundamental agreements, that you simply feel. You can't put your
finger on them because they reveal themselves
to you within the context of your life
through coincidence, through synchronicity,
through obligations you can't get out of, through
mad love you can't stop no matter what you do. That was your sacred contract. CAROLINE MYSS: These
are all parts of it. Parts of your sacred contract. CAROLINE MYSS: All parts
of it that, together, form the whole of your contract. Yeah. You say many people are
confused or completely in the dark about their
reason for living. That's what I was
saying, how can you be so confused about your
reason for being here? You know why? Because they define it by
what they want versus what they have. Oh, this is the thing that
you say that I love the most. Well, lots of things I
love the most, but OK. You say that people suffer
when they pursue a life or chase a dream that
doesn't belong to them. CAROLINE MYSS: There. There it is.
OPRAH WINFREY: There you go. You said it. CAROLINE MYSS: You
know, I'm mean, yeah. Explain what you
mean by that, though. I thought that was so profound. Absolutely. Well, people get
fixated on something, and they have to have it. Especially in this culture
of, literally, "American Idol." Exactly. "American Idol"--
OPRAH WINFREY: We call it that. CAROLINE MYSS: Even the name.
Even that. And that's exactly-- even the name.
CAROLINE MYSS: Even the name. OPRAH WINFREY: The
very idea of that. Something that-- it
doesn't belong to you. That life doesn't belong to you. OPRAH WINFREY: Yes. But in this-- but in our society, we're
taught to imitate something. To want something that
doesn't belong to us. And that is what
causes the suffering. CAROLINE MYSS: Yes. Because you're pursuing
a life that really even wasn't meant for you. CAROLINE MYSS: Right. So then the
question becomes how do you know what is the life or
the path that is meant for you? Well, that is not so
difficult as people think. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. First of all, it's not--
it's really, really not-- Well that's the
big question, though. CAROLINE MYSS: Yeah, it is. If you can answer that this
Sunday morning, you are good. [LAUGHTER] I'm going to take
a break and come back and let you answer that. Because I want you
to collect all the-- All right, I will do that.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK, good. OK, OK. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Coming up, lots more tweetable moments. CAROLINE MYSS: If you have
life, you have purpose. Tweet, tweet. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER): When
"Super Soul Sunday" returns. OPRAH WINFREY: Tweet, tweet. [MUSIC PLAYING] OK, so how do you know? That's the big, big question. OK, how do you know
you're on the right path? You were saying that it's
not as hard as we may think. No, it's not. It's not at all. OPRAH WINFREY: OK,
before you answer that. Does everybody--
before you answer that, does everybody have a path-- CAROLINE MYSS: Totally. OPRAH WINFREY: --that is
the best path for them? Everyone has a path. No one falls from a tree
without just-- right? So there's nobody here
on Earth whose life doesn't have a purpose or a path? Correct. OPRAH WINFREY: Correct. Absolutely, no one.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK. CAROLINE MYSS: If you have
life, you have purpose. OPRAH WINFREY: OK. CAROLINE MYSS: That's-- and
as an exercise on the aside-- That's a good tweet. If you have life,
you have purpose. Tweet, tweet. That's a good one. If you have life,
you have a purpose. And that is true of every one
of the seven billion of us. CAROLINE MYSS: Totally. It can't be otherwise. And this is why I
absolutely love studying the work of the mystics. Because this is what's
so extraordinary. The tiniest, tiniest truth
is the same at the big level. If you have life, one
drop of life-- one, one atom is as
purposeful as our planet. What is in one is in the whole. OPRAH WINFREY: Wow. It can't be otherwise. It cannot. Now-- Now, I knew that
and I say that, but I just got that
in a different way. Makes me want to weep. It does. Yeah, yeah, the magnitude
of that makes me want to weep. CAROLINE MYSS: It
cannot be otherwise. Yeah, isn't that something? CAROLINE MYSS: You cannot
take this one atom out and say it is separate from the whole.
You cannot. I cannot take you
out and say you are separate from the whole. OPRAH WINFREY:
Yeah, I know that. CAROLINE MYSS: There it is.
- I know that. I know that. You just reminded me. CAROLINE MYSS: It does,
it goes to your soul. It goes to my soul. CAROLINE MYSS: And
someone says, well, how do I find my life purpose? I first say to you you've never
lost your life purpose, OK? Now we're going to get
over that in a minute. Number two, OK, I have to
say to you have no judgments about your life,
no expectations, and give up the need to
know what happens tomorrow. OPRAH WINFREY: I
have no judgments. CAROLINE MYSS: No expectations.
- No expectations. CAROLINE MYSS: And
give up the need to know what happens tomorrow. OPRAH WINFREY: And
give up the need to know what happens tomorrow. Tweet, tweet on that too. OK. I need you to be fully
present, just fully present. And to appreciate all that
is in your life right now. Just-- No matter where it is. No matter where it is,
no matter what it is. To appreciate fully--
and what a person does-- I can't pay my bills.
I lost my job. OK. I mean, I'm
speaking for people who are watching who are-- CAROLINE MYSS: Absolutely. Still, I would say
to these people-- OPRAH WINFREY: I'm in
the depths of despair-- CAROLINE MYSS: You are
in the depths of despair and still, I need
to say to you-- You need to say to me. You had your life
focused on something that didn't belong to you and a
path that didn't belong to you. Yes, you did or you
wouldn't be here. You locked in on something that
did not belong to you, someone that didn't belong to you. You didn't let go of a yesterday
that didn't belong to you. You hung on to a rage
that did belong to you, and you wouldn't let it go. You lost track of being
here and that is true. Or this is what you did. A track of being here now. Or something happened
to you and you said this: it shouldn't have. And you never got over it. One of those things happened. And you said it shouldn't
have happened to me. I promise you, that happened. When someone finally
said, it's not my life. I don't know how
I lost my purpose. No, you didn't. You did not lose your purpose. What you lost was
the sense that you thought certain things shouldn't
happen to you, and they did. As if you were excluded from
the ordinary everyday things of life, and you
can't get over it. OPRAH WINFREY: So to
live with no judgment-- CAROLINE MYSS: No expectation. --and no expectation. CAROLINE MYSS: No expectation in
this sense-- think about this. Expectations are that certain
things should not happen to you that happen to ordinary people. I got it. People hold the idea of being
ordinary in absolute contempt. Please, God, make me
anything but not ordinary. Right? Yes, yes, yes. And because they do that,
they feel like they should be protected from ordinary things. OPRAH WINFREY: That's right. So when something happens,
like an illness, poverty, any kind of catastrophe-- I can't believe
this happened to me. Right, so so many people
spend so much time in the shock. They never get to move
through the other stages because they're
stuck in "I can't believe this happened to me." And who did you think
it was going to happen to? Them.
- Them. CAROLINE MYSS: The
person across the street. And it makes them think I
must be on the wrong path. And why is that? Because something
bad happened to you? Something you thought was bad? What if it was the best
thing that ever happened? One of the stories I love
to tell, which is St. Augustine-- an old story
from St. Augustine. When this man said to
Augustine, I've been praying, praying, praying for-- for what?
Gold. And why do you want gold? Because I'm poor. And what else-- but what
would you do with it? Augustine says to him
tell me about your life. He says, well, I have
family, and I have food, and I have friends. And he said that
sounds like gold to me. He says but I don't
have real gold. And Augustine said, well
what would you do with it? Well, I would hire my friends
and they would work for me, and then I wouldn't
have to work. And Augustine said,
well I can understand why God hasn't given you gold. Why? Because it would turn
your heart into someone bitter, and you would
abuse your friends. And I can see why
God has been so fair and just by not giving you
the answer to your prayer. By not giving you what
you think you want, he's protected you
from the worst of you, and given you the best of you. But is God always
fair and just? Life on Earth will never be
fair the way we want it to be. It will never be for every
one cause, there's one effect. There's not. For every-- there's millions
of causes and millions of effects for every
single breath we take. You don't recognize that
every choice you've ever made in your life is leading
to whatever decision you're making in any given moment. CAROLINE MYSS:
And not only that. That for every one
choice we make, we're actually making 30
because of our emotions are making a choice,
our mind is making a choice, our hearts
making choices, are our unconscious is make--
so every moment we're probably making 500 million choices. OK, OK.
I got a really good question. CAROLINE MYSS: Yeah. But I'm going to take a
break and then I'll ask it-- It's really good, though. You're good. OPRAH WINFREY: Really good. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Coming up-- CAROLINE MYSS: When your
life path begins to harm you, you've taken a detour. You know I just had
an aha listening to you. I love it when
that happens to me. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
Be sure to keep in touch on Facebook and Twitter. I want to hear what you
are thinking about miss Caroline Myss the Sunday. "Super Soul Sunday"
will be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] So let me get back
to the question I know everybody wants answered. That was really profound what
you said about trying to hold on to what is not yours. So how do you know when
you are on the right path? And what dream belongs to you? Or what husband belongs to you? Or what job belongs to you? You know you're
on the right path-- here's your clue. You're not put in a
position to betray yourself. You don't betray
yourself anymore. You're not put in a position
where you feel like you have to negotiate your
sense of integrity, which is an act of betrayal. Your heart, an act of betrayal. You don't feel like you have
to compromise who you are. It feels right. You can fully-- I got that. It's like if you're
at a job, you know you're really
gifted and talented, people are not paying you for
what you value yourself to be. You come in to work every
day feeling like I'm really not valued, I'm not being
respected for what I do, or my boss is
unkind, or whatever the situation might be. There's an unease with you. That's right. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, and so
when you have more respect for yourself-- put
yourself in a position where you can feel your
sense of value or worth, that turns around. That's right. - And that's how you know.
- You know. You know because you
don't feel like this isn't costing me my power. This isn't costing me my psyche. This isn't costing me my soul. OK, this is really good. CAROLINE MYSS: This isn't
costing me my sense of-- I don't feel confused
in some deep level. I'm not drained. I can be tired
after a day's work, but I'm not psychically
drained where I feel like I'm losing life-- And losing myself. CAROLINE MYSS:
And losing myself. That's what a lot of people
say, I'm losing myself. Why? Because I'm betraying
myself in some way. What is the difference-- because I have a lot
of married friends. I've interviewed a lot
of people over the years who are married and everybody
talks about how difficult, how it's work, how a
relationships is work. It's work. It's work. What is the difference
between betraying yourself and compromising? Because that's what I
have to do to get along. I'd say that a compromise-- compromise is when you
willingly, willingly-- Willingly-- CAROLINE MYSS: Willingly,
and out of love, say that's, all right, a little
this, little that, little this, little that. But in a compromise, you
don't go away feeling like I've betrayed myself. I've betrayed myself. I've allowed myself-- I've put poison
in my mouth here. OK, it goes back to
exactly what you said earlier that every choice is either
going to enhance your spirit or it's going to
drain your spirit. So if you have been
compromised to the point where you feel
drained or depleted, then you've betrayed yourself. You have. I mean, and the numbers of times
someone will say to themselves, I want to get out
of this circumstance but I'm too afraid to
take care of myself, so I will lie about how
happy I am in this marriage. I will put up a front. I will lie about this. But they're betraying everything
that's in their heart. They're betraying everything. When they say to me am
I on the right path? Here's what's true. You're on your right path. You're just not managing
it that well right now. OPRAH WINFREY: You're
never on the wrong path? CAROLINE MYSS: You're
never on the wrong path. You're just not
managing it well. You're making choices
that are harming you, and that's why it's
hurting right now. You're making unwise
choices and your intuition is trying to tell you that-- You're making unwise
choices, including the path that you're on right now. And the way you're
managing the path you're on. And it's harming you. And when your life path
begins to harm you, then we have to sit back and
say, you've taken a detour. OPRAH WINFREY: You know I just
had an aha listening to you. I love it when
that happens to me. I've often thought that-- and it's because of your
use of the word betrayal-- I've often thought, having
experienced being betrayed by a close member of
my family years ago, thinking that was the worst. That there's nothing
worse than being betrayed. And just hearing you
talk about it today, I think there's nothing worse
than betraying yourself. That the worst, most
ultimate betrayal is the betrayal to yourself.
CAROLINE MYSS: You're right. Yeah. Especially conscious. When you have an
opportunity to protect yourself, and you
choose otherwise-- Oh. Oh, it's hard. That is hard. It's brutal. You're right. And it's brutal because
it's you saying to God, saying to the forces,
the universal energy, that you're not
worth protecting. I think, in some
cases, you're saying you're not worth protecting. And the other one
is saying you are no different than the
people who hurt you. Big, big. What's the difference between
those people who hurt you and what you are
doing to yourself? That is so big. I am going to take
a commercial break. That is big. [MUSIC PLAYING] OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Coming up-- I hear that people
say to you all the time, can you give me a prayer? Can you give me a
prayer that works? That works. You got something
here that works? OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Prayer. What it is and what it is not. May change the way
you think about it. Back in a moment. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] How does grace work? Works like this. OPRAH WINFREY: Oh, this is good. We're going to get the
answer to that question. Do you ever have that, in
an argument with someone, where you got so fired
up and you thought, oh I could just say this? And all of a sudden a voice
says, you sure want to do that? You sure you want to say that? Because it's a game
changer if you say that. That's grace.
CAROLINE MYSS: That's grace. The grace that
comes in and says-- OPRAH WINFREY: Don't
say that because you can never take it back. CAROLINE MYSS: You can
never take it back. There's some places
in an argument. Everybody who's
married knows this. CAROLINE MYSS: The voice
that comes in and says, I'm going to prevent you from
doing something really ruinous right now. That's grace. Here's grace. Grace is the kind of thing
that comes in and says you'll be all right and goes away. Grace is the kind
of thing that says put your hand on that
person, just for a minute. And you could feel an
energy go through you and an energy calm them down. And it doesn't give
you an explanation. It just says-- when you
are flushed with worry and you think, am I
going to be all right, and then you suddenly know. Yes, yes you are. OK, now I tend to think that
I live in the space of grace. I just feel that-- I just feel that I'm flooded
with it all the time. I see it all-- I literally see it all the time. And then sometimes, exactly
what you described also happens. But I feel that are we not
in a constant state of grace? Grace is a power that
comes in and transforms a moment to something better. I love that.
CAROLINE MYSS: OK? Yeah. CAROLINE MYSS: It transforms
this moment to something better and it takes us with it. OPRAH WINFREY: So let's
talk about prayer. What does the word
prayer mean to you? Oh, I love prayer so much. Prayer is truly that inner-- it's an inner
mystical awakening. To me, prayer is so
many things, Oprah. Prayer is dialogue with God. OK? It's not petition. Most people know prayer
through petition prayer. Can I have? Can I want? Can I have more stuff? Where's my stuff? But that's not really
the holiness of prayer. A prayer is when you withdraw
from your five senses. I closed my eyes and I closed
my ears, and I withdraw. And I go into a world
where rational thought no longer commands and
distracts my intellect. OPRAH WINFREY: Where
rational thought-- CAROLINE MYSS: No
longer commands me. Where I go inside and
I think about, like-- there's this Catholic Saint
I'm very enchanted by named Teresa of Avila. Here's one of her prayers. Hover over me, God. Hover. Hover over me, God. Remind me you're there. Hover over me, God. I don't need more than that. What that does is
it just reminds me. Reminds me of everything. Reminds me be kind
to that person. Be kind. Kindness is much better
than anything else. Be kind.
- Yeah. You know my favorite line
is actually from Marianne Williamson in her daily prayer. I think it's called the Morning
Prayer from "Illuminata." And there's a line
that says please enter where you already abide. CAROLINE MYSS: Right,
yeah, isn't that beautiful? OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, please
enter where you already abide. So isn't it
interesting that I hear that people say to you all the
time, can you give me a prayer? Can you give me a
prayer that works? That works. You got something
here that works? There want magic.
OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. They want magic. They want to take what
they have and they want to get what they want. And prayer is truly saying-- you know there's a
lot more pain that comes from answered prayers
than unanswered ones? I got news for you. How so? Because if people really
got what they wanted, they would be in deep grief. This is why-- you know
how they say, be careful what you pray for,
you might get it? OPRAH WINFREY: Yes. There is a lot of
wisdom to saying, I trust. I just trust. I don't know what is in
my own best interests. No judgment, no expectation, CAROLINE MYSS: And give
up the need to know why things happen as they do. Now what you're saying
really sounds beautiful and I know that if you are
not in the habit of practicing being in the now and
accepting what is, it's confusing when
you first hear it. That's why, when we come back,
I want you to clarify what is the difference
between accepting what is and being able to move on
in your life with grace. And accepting what is
and having no ambition, and then you never do anything. Right, right. What can you change
and what you accept? OPRAH WINFREY: That's right.
That's what I want to know. Because a lot of
people will say, well then, so I should
just do nothing. I should just sit around and
be in the now all day long. We'll be right back.
- What are you doing? I'm in the now. I'm in the now. I'm now-ing. We'll be right back. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Coming up, how to tap into your intuition. This is the voice
of your conscience. It's the voice of
your consciousness. It's the voice of
your gut instinct. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER):
And we'll go soul to soul with Caroline Myss. What is your
definition of God? OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): "Super Soul Sunday" will be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] OPRAH WINFREY: What is the
difference between I'm going to accept and not resist-- because I have learned that what
you resist only shows up more. You're just building the
muscle for that thing that you don't want. What is the difference
between knowing how to surrender the thing and
knowing when to surrender and-- CAROLINE MYSS:
And doing nothing? And doing nothing? A person has to try. A person he has to put their
energy into their own life and their own effort. You have to do that. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. We have an
intuitive voice in us. We are born intuitive. We are so intuitive that it's
actually, for most people, the source of their
greatest suffering, right? That inner guidance tells us-- OPRAH WINFREY: I'm
just going to let you-- I don't even know
what you mean by that. How is your intuition, your
intuitiveness, the cause of your greatest suffering? I think would be the opposite. Oh, no. No it isn't, Oprah. It's actually the source of
people's greatest suffering. OPRAH WINFREY: Why? CAROLINE MYSS: Because
people hear when they've betrayed themselves. People are very
much aware when they are not honest with themselves. People-- it's that
voice that says, you shouldn't have said that. You know that's not right. OPRAH WINFREY: Or you're
still with this person and you know you should
have left them years ago. Yeah. CAROLINE MYSS: This is
the voice your conscience. It's the voice of
your consciousness. It's the voice of
your gut instincts. It's the voice-- It's the voice you don't want
to hear that never turns off. OK. CAROLINE MYSS: And when
you follow this voice, and you push, this is the
part that says you should push and you should do this. So it's the part that
keeps us moving and turning the wheel of our life. It's also the part
that says you've done as much as you could now. This is it. You've done everything you can. So it's the part that will say
that's as far as you can go. It will guide you. It will say this is it. So what you're saying is
exactly what I've always believed and how I've operated. The being able to accept
lives within the range of doing all that you can do. And when you have done
everything that you can do, you surrender it.
CAROLINE MYSS: That's it. Let it go.
CAROLINE MYSS: That's right. To the power and energy
that's greater than yourself. CAROLINE MYSS: That's it. OPRAH WINFREY:
That's what you do. That's right. You got to give it your all. OPRAH WINFREY: Give it your all. Give it your all,
give it your best. And this inner voice-- OPRAH WINFREY: And then not
be attached to the outcome. CAROLINE MYSS:
Totally, you got it. OPRAH WINFREY: That's it. So did you always
know these things? Were you intuitively attuned
to knowing these things? I was born-- I was very intuitive
from all my whole life. Yes. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah, your
mother saw it in you. CAROLINE MYSS: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. When I went to the world
of medical intuition, and that whole life
began, then my inner world developed very rapidly, very
clearly along a certain line. And it just has been
that ever since. [MUSIC PLAYING] OPRAH WINFREY: OK, let's
go to the big questions. I mean, you already answered
all the big questions. Those were the big questions. Give me the big question. OK, what is your
definition of God? Oy! Law. To me, God is law. OPRAH WINFREY: I've
never heard that before. Totally. God to me is mystical
law because law is the nature of the universe. It is-- OPRAH WINFREY: The
order of things. CAROLINE MYSS: The order. It's universal. It is consistent. It is the nature of life. And the negotiating principle
with mystical laws is prayer. That's what makes them intimate. Miracle is when God
bends these laws for you in an intimate way. And that's a miracle. Well, I've never
heard that before. I'm not sentimental about God. I do not personalize God
with emotion, like love and-- I don't go there. OPRAH WINFREY: And God's
not a he or her or-- No, it's a complete legal
transcendent cosmic force. OPRAH WINFREY: Force. Do you personalize
ever, and make intimate? Is God ever intimate with you? CAROLINE MYSS: You
know, it's strange. Totally intimate and totally
cosmic, both simultaneously. Wow, that's a good God. Yeah, it's not bad. I'd market it. OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): Coming up-- Do you have good days and bad
days too like regular folks? Come on. I take my calendar, bad
day, good day, bad day-- OPRAH WINFREY
(VOICEOVER): And then we find some breathing space
in the waving tall grass of a Kansas prairie. "Super Soul Sunday"
will be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] OPRAH WINFREY: Have you always
considered yourself spiritual? Or was there a moment,
an aha, an epiphany, revelatory experience? No, no. I've always-- I was so lucky. I was so ridiculously luck-- no, I was blessed.
OPRAH WINFREY: Blessed. I'll take the word luck out. No luck, I was blessed. Totally blessed. Yeah, I never had that. OPRAH WINFREY: From
your earliest memory, you were always connected to-- Well, I grew up
in a house where my parents always said prayers,
literally, at night with us. I had a little picture
of an angel above my bed, and then I was educated-- OPRAH WINFREY: You
were raised Catholic. CAROLINE MYSS: Raised Catholic-- OPRAH WINFREY: Are you
still a practicing Catholic? You know what? You know what Oscar Wilde said?
OPRAH WINFREY: No. I'm not going-- I don't go to that place because
they have all those gargoyles and all that other stuff. I don't live like a Catholic,
but I'm going to die like one. And that's what's true. That's what's true. What do you think
happens when we die? Well, I think our
bodies obviously die. All life-- I observe the law. All life dies. All physical life dies. I don't think-- OPRAH WINFREY: And
it's transformed into another form of energy. But I don't think
we're afraid of death. I actually think one of
the functions of grace is that we are not
afraid of death. When it actually shows itself? Yeah, I think
what we're afraid of is how we are going to die. We're not afraid of death. Because if you-- we've
never been afraid of death. We're terrified of
dying, the process. Who isn't? I don't care to disintegrate
and go through some kind of horrible death. Neither do you. Neither does your
family members. We don't want to say
goodbye to each other. We want to look at
each other in the face and say, fare thee well. I'll meet you on the other side. Right CAROLINE MYSS: We
don't want to say that. That's heartbreaking. But we're not afraid to be
dead because it's not possible. I assure you that. I promise you that. I promise you. Yeah I wouldn't have said
that too and leaves of grass. That we complain about
it, complain about it. But it may be the most exciting
thing that's ever happened, actually, on the other side. All right, finish this sentence. CAROLINE MYSS: All right. I believe -- God. Love is-- Beautiful, healing, perfect. OPRAH WINFREY: The person I
most want to be proud of me is-- I think my mom. She's been my greatest
sidekick and I love her dearly. I am ready to forgive-- That would be myself
from some not so hot choices I've made in this life. And you're ready to forgive? CAROLINE MYSS: I work on it. I'll get there. OPRAH WINFREY: Yeah. As a spiritual
leader and teacher, one would think that
you never have problems, and that you're
always in the flow, and that you're
connected to the law. Do you have good days and bad
days, too, like regular folks? Oh, come on.
OPRAH WINFREY: Oh, come on? Come on. I take my calendar-- bad day,
good day, bad day, good day. Absolutely, are you kidding? Is there something
you're still striving for? Or you are able to operate
in that flow of grace most of the time? I get back to
center a lot easier. I absolutely do. I hold myself accountable,
totally accountable. If I if I slip up, I
do not take it out on-- I don't say it's someone
else's fault. I hold myself-- my own feet to the fire. I absolutely do. I'm real good about that. You know that? And I'm really good about
also owning that I've become a pretty good person. You know, I think of myself
now as, like, fine wine. I've reached that
point in my life where I feel like it's time
for me to treat myself better. OPRAH WINFREY: So you're
going to actually practice what you teach-- Totally. --and give back to yourself
more in the next decade? I am. Yeah, that's great. You got it. Yeah, and I'm going to
take my lesson from you. So I'm taking my cues from you.
CAROLINE MYSS: All right. OPRAH WINFREY: OK,
you show me the way. All right.
OPRAH WINFREY: All right. Promise.
You got it. That was great. OPRAH WINFREY (VOICEOVER): In
this week's breathing space, we watch the sun rise
over the Kansas prairie, a preserve plot of
Earth undisturbed, growing wild in
its natural state. Bison roam free, grazing on
endless fields of Native grass. It has looked this way
for hundreds of years. Here, the horizon is everything. Watching storms
brew in the distance gives us a new perspective. As you watch the tall grass,
blowing here in the wind, consider your own natural state,
your intuitive self, and trust that you're on the right path. See you next Sunday.
