OPRAH: What do you really want
in your life? Do you think that everyone has
a calling? We are all looking for the
same thing. What inspires you? Can we heal from everything? How do we live an awekened
life? Why do you think we are here
as human beings? To say yes to life, you've
gotta start saying yes to life
experiences! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU
WHOLE HEARTEDLY SAID "YES" TO
LIFE? FACED YOUR FEARS... IGNORED THAT "NO"
VOICE INSIDE YOUR HEAD... AND
JUST SAID "YES! I AM ALL IN.... WELL THAT'S WHAT
SHONDA RHIMES DID. SHONDA
DESCRIBED HERSELF AS EXTREMELY SHY AND INTROVERTED
AND FELT IT WAS TIME FOR A
RADICAL SHIFT. SO, THE MEGA TALENTED MASTERMIND
BEHIND SOME OF TV'S HOTTEST
SHOWS GAVE HERSELF A CHALLENGE. FOR ONE
FULL YEAR, SHE ERASED THE WORD
"NO" FROM HER VOCABULARY, SHONDA: I am a
completely different person.
There's a transformation that
happened that I wasn't expecting. OPRAH:
It's a spiritual practice
SHONDA: yeah. SHONDA'S "YEAR OF
YES" WAS AN EPIPHANY... ((Shonda)) "I
said yes to my kids in a way
that I had never done before."
THAT OPENED HER UP IN UNEXPECTED
WAYS.... ((Shonda)) "I lost 110
pounds RIGHT NOW ON SUPER SOUL SUNDAY SHONDA: Yes can
be a very small thing and it
can be life changing.... THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF YES.
OPRAH: So, welcome to Super
Soul Sunday. SHONDA: Thank you for having me. OPRAH:
Thank you for saying yes!!
SHONDA: Absolutely. OPRAH:
Thank you for saying yes in this year of
yes. And, you know, the whole
point of this show is to open
people's heart space a little bit. SHONDA: Yes.
OPRAH: Get them to have
different ways of thinking
about things. But I just wanted to share that I knew
something was going on with you
because I don't say yes to a
lot of things. I like being at home OPRAH: But at
least three times this year I
said yes to things. And at
every single one of those things, you were there.
SHONDA: We saw each other out.
OPRAH: We saw each other. Yes.
And so the first time I was, like, hmm,
Shonda's out. And the second
time we were at a Selma party.
SHONDA: Right. OPRAH: And then I invited you
to the Legends. And then, oh.
SHONDA: And I came, yeah.
OPRAH: Shonda said yes. I said, what
is going on? SHONDA: It was
completely new for me. I
thought, Oprah goes everywhere. OPRAH: No. SHONDA:
And you never go anywhere.
OPRAH: No. Those are the only
places I've been this year. And you
you were you were out and
about in a way that I had not
seen. SHONDA: Ever. OPRAH: And then I heard
that you'd written the book,
The Year of Yes. SHONDA: Yeah.
OPRAH: And that it was a conscious
decision. SHONDA: It was. It
was a real effort to decide to
spend a certain amount of time just sort of
saying yes to everything that
scared me. OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA:
Yeah. OPRAH: Well, you know, one of
the whole purposes of this
platform, Super Soul Sunday, is
to get people to open up and say yes to life.
And, you know, one of the
reasons I really appreciate the
idea of The Year of Yes is that to say yes to life,
you've got to start saying yes
to life experiences. To things
that ordinarily would scare you or intimidate you or you
think would bore you. SHONDA:
Absolutely. OPRAH: So this all
started with your sister, Delorse. Tell me.
SHONDA: It did. It was
Thanksgiving of / 20-13.SHONDA:
'13. And we're standing in my kitchen. She's
chopping things, making things
for Thanksgiving dinner. And I
was sort of doing what I always do which is
giving her this long fancy list
of all the invitations I had
received. / people wanted me to speak here and I was
invited to this party and that
party. And finally she just
sort of cut me off. And she said, are you gonna do any of
these things? And I well,
no! And I was very surprised
that she asked me that. Because obviously no. And she
she sort of shook her head
and said, why not? And I
thought, what does she mean why not? And I said,
well, I have, you know, the
babies, I have two small
children, I have an 11-year- old. I have two shows. I can't
possibly do any of these
things. And she looked at me
and she said, you know, you have two sisters who live
four blocks away. Your parents
are 45 minutes away. They'd
come and stay in a heartbeat. You have a
wonderful nanny, you have
fantastic friends really close.
You're supported all over the place. All you do is work. You
never have any fun. You never
go anywhere. You never do
anything. And I thought, she doesn't know what
she's talking about. And I
really got an attitude about
it. I was I'm leaving this kitchen. And she said,
you never say yes to anything.
OPRAH: Mm-hmm. SHONDA: And that
really stuck with me. OPRAH: And you
had already accepted to be on
the Board of the Kennedy
Center. Because that was a seminal moment.
Right? SHONDA: Yeah. Well, I
had I I don't even know
if you accept being on the Board of the Kennedy
Center. I feel like when the
President of the United States
asks you to serve, you serve. OPRAH: Right. SHONDA:
[So] I had to go to the Kennedy
Center Honors because I had
just been nominated to the Board of
Trustees. // // And when I got
there, I was informed that I
was sitting in the Presidential Box. OPRAH:
Whoo-hoo. SHONDA: With the
President and the First Lady
and the Secretary of State and his wife. Now,
generally I think for other
people this would have been the
MOST exciting thing in the world. OPRAH: Yes. Like
whoo-hoo. SHONDA: I was
horrified. Like so stressed out
and so nervous about the entire thing. But
nobody asked me. They said,
this is where you're sitting.
And so that is where I sat. And I was really nervous. But
I ended up having an amazingly
fun time. It was an incredible
evening. And where I started out sort of
almost being unable to speak,
by the end of the evening, I
was really comfortable and having a delightful time.
And when I got home from D.C.,
I literally was crawling into
bed and I had a thought. Which was, if they
had asked you, you would have
said no. If they had asked you
to sit with the President and the First Lady,
you would have said no. Which
is so sad. I would have missed
this experience that I wouldn't trade for
anything. OPRAH: And you would
have said no out of humility
and, no, let somebody else and, no or just -
SHONDA: I would have said no
out of fear. OPRAH: Really.
SHONDA: And what I really realized was that I
would have said no because I
felt like why would they want
to sit with me? What am I gonna say? What do I have
to add to the conversation?
OPRAH: Because you're
ShondaLand. SHONDA: But there's part of me that
feels like those are the
characters. And the stories
that I tell are very exciting. But somehow I am not a part of
that story, interestingly
enough. OPRAH: So that was over
a year ago. SHONDA: That was over a year ago.
OPRAH: And now you can say that
in a year's time of saying yes,
a year of saying yes, you are a completely
different would you say
you're a a completely different
person? SHONDA: I am a completely different person. I
mean, everybody I everybody
who knows me thinks I'm a
completely different person. I feel like
a completely different person.
There's a transformation that
happened that I wasn't expecting. SHONDA: I lost 110
pounds which was a complete
byproduct of the entire thing.
It wasn't the goal. It wasn't a thing that
it was part of it. One of the
yesses, though, was one day I
thought, well, you can't sort of say yes to everything
and not say yes to taking care
of yourself and not say yes to
health. And that came from sort of having an
epiphany of I work hard to
succeed at every single thing I
do. I work my butt off at work. I work really hard to be
a mother. I work really hard at
everything. Why do I think that
losing weight's supposed to be easy? Why do I
think that it's gonna be fun to
put down the fried chicken?
It's never going to be fun to put down the fried
chicken. I'm always going to
hate losing weight. So if I can
accept that I'm always going to hate losing
weight, then either I'm gonna
do it or I'm not gonna do it.
OPRAH: So you made a decision. SHONDA: Yeah, I made
I gave myself some rules. I
made some really clear rules.
Like I said I was never gonna tell myself I
couldn't have something, which
was a new thing for me because
I'd always made a bunch of, like, really
crazy restrictive rules. OPRAH:
Yeah, yeah, no carbs, no
only the chicken with no skin. SHONDA: It lasts like
three days and then I'd be
eating an entire cake or
something. OPRAH: Yes. Yes. SHONDA: So now I sort of
just made it I could have
whatever I wanted. And I made a
really crazy rule for me which was amazing which
was I only eat what I crave.
OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA: I never
even thought of it before. You just
eat automatically. But the idea
of just eating what you crave
became kind of exciting. Because then I'd be
like I really want this kind of
brownie. And then I'd have it
and I didn't even have to eat the whole thing, and
I'd be perfectly satisfied.
Versus you'd say, you know, I
want some chocolate. I want a brownie. I want
something. And then you'd eat
all these substitutes. You're
still not satisfied OPRAH: I've eaten four health bars
trying to not get to one
brownie. Yeah. SHONDA: it was
life changing. OPRAH: and it's no coincidence that
it all happened at the same
time. SHONDA: It's absolutely
no coincidence. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: I also
think, you know, one of the
things that happened during the
year was I started saying yes to telling
people what I think. You know,
there's sort of a yes to no
bull going on there. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: And I
stopped I would say I
stopped eating all my feelings
and just started telling people them. OPRAH:
Uh-huh. SHONDA: Which meant I
got a lot more frank and a lot
more up front with people which was really
good for me as well. OPRAH:
Yeah. Were you one of those
people, too, who never said yes to what you
really wanted but you said yes
to a lot of things you didn't?
SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: I was
absolutely the person who did
anything you asked me to that I
didn't want to do. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: And
then sort of grumbled about it
quietly to myself. OPRAH: Which
builds a level of resentment. SHONDA:
Yes. OPRAH: Yes. SHONDA: And
then I'd feel resentful towards
people. OPRAH: Yes. Yes. OPRAH: So
/when you left the Kennedy
Center, you're flying back and
you say to yourself, oh, that was I
actually had fun and maybe I
need to take a look at my life.
SHONDA: Mm-hmm. I really sat down and thought, I
need to start saying yes to the
things that scare me. If I
never say yes to anything, I need to start
saying yes to things that I
would always say no to
automatically. OPRAH: Yes. SHONDA: And I promised myself
that I would do it for just a
year. Because I thought that I
wasn't gonna survive. I really thought I'm
gonna die of shame and shock
and fear. OPRAH: Uh-huh.
SHONDA: And so I sort of threw it out there.
COMING UP... OPRAH: you had a
major epiphany about marriage.
SHONDA: I did. AND LATER... SOMETHING
ALL MOMS CAN TAKE NOTE OF - HOW
SHONDA BECAME MORE PRESENT AS A MOTHER...
SHONDA: I said yes to my kids
in a way that I had never done before. Scandal Clip: Cyrus: We Think
we have a way out. Olivia: Is
that why you called? We can't
discuss this. Cyrus: It's not about Geneen.
Olivia: We shouldn't even be
saying her name. Cyrus: Just
Listen. Olivia: I can't listen. We can't even discuss
- Cyrus: Wanda. We didn't call
you here to talk about the
investigation. President Grant: We called you
here to talk about a wedding.
Our wedding. THE CREATIVE FORCE BEHIND SMASH HITS
LIKE..."SCANDAL," "GREY'S
ANATOMY," AND "HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER..." SHONDA RHIMES
IS A MASTER STORYTELLER.
HARNESSING THE POWER OF HER IMAGINATION, SHE
CREATES ENDURING CHARACTERS WHO
REFLECT OUR OWN STRUGGLES, HOPES...
AND HEARTBREAK. AND YET, THE
WOMAN BEHIND ALL THOSE BOLD, FEARLESS FACES WE
SEE ON TV WAS PAINFULLY SHY
DOING ALL SHE COULD TO AVOID REAL LIFE....
SHONDA OPENS UP IN HER
REVEALING NEW MEMOIR, "YEAR OF YES." OPRAH: Well, I
/heard /that you had a major
epiphany about marriage.
SHONDA: I did. I did. And that was really
freeing as well. I I mean, I
sort of discovered I mean, I
knew, but I sort of was able to finally sort of stand
up and say, I don't want to get
married. At all. And I feel
like - OPRAH: Like you said that out loud.
SHONDA: I said that out loud. I
said it to everybody. I said it
to my family. I said it to my friends. I said it to
anybody who asked. Which feels
obvious and, you know, maybe
silly or something to people who are married or
people who are older, people
who have been through it. But
if you're a woman in your 30's or 40's, that's a
big deal. Everybody's asking
you all the time if it's gonna
happen. When it's gonna happen. OPRAH: Mm-hmm. SHONDA:
If you're dating anybody,
they're definitely asking you
about it. It's a big - OPRAH: First they ask
are you dating. SHONDA: Yes.
OPRAH: Then the particularly
if you're a famous person. First, are you
dating? Who are you dating? Who
are you dating? Who are you
dating. And then the moment you're dating
more than a month, it's when
are you getting married?
SHONDA: Yes. OPRAH: How close is the
relationship? There's a lot of
pressure on that. SHONDA:
There's a huge amount of pressure. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA:
And the desire to want to get
married? It's a lot like the
desire to want to have children in our
society. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA:
Like we're supposed to want it.
And if you don't want it, what's wrong with
you? OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: It's
fascinating to me. And I always
knew. I'm one of those people, since I
was 5, I could tell I you I was
gonna have kids. I could tell
you I was gonna have three. I could tell you they
were gonna be girls. But I have
never wanted to get married. I
never played bride. I was never interested. I
don't know what it is. I never
wanted to get married. I love
having boyfriends. I love dating. I do not want a
husband in my house. And I
don't know what it is. I just
don't. OPRAH: Well, I don't know if I've ever said this
publicly, but I really wanted
to be wanted to be married to.
SHONDA: Mm-hmm. OPRAH: I wanted Stedman to
want to marry me. SHONDA:
Right. OPRAH: The moment he
asked me to marry him I was, like, oh,
God. Now I actually have to get
married? SHONDA: Have to get
married. OPRAH: And we ended up not
getting married because I was
supposed to do a book at the
same time, this was in 1993, and the wedding and
the book were happening around
the same time. And we were on
our way from the book party and Stedman
said he did not want to have
his wedding disturbed by all
these people asking me about the book, which I ended
up not doing. And I said, okay.
All right. So he said, we
should just postpone this wedding. And I said,
okay. And that was it. And we
have never discussed it again.
SHONDA: Wow. OPRAH: But what I realized is,
I don't want to be married.
(whispering) SHONDA: See?
OPRAH: I don't SHONDA: There's a freedom.
OPRAH: want to be married.
Because I could not have the
life that I created for myself. SHONDA: Yes.
OPRAH: I couldn't do it. I
couldn't do it. And all the
people would say say to me, well, you could do
because you could have your
baby and you could have the
baby and you could have your own nursery here and you
could do that and you could be
married. And I knew that I
could not do that. I knew that I couldn't do it.
SHONDA: I have so much going on
inside my head in terms of
writing, there's such a large space in my life
taken up by that - OPRAH: Yeah.
SHONDA: I can't imagine it
being taken up by a husband and children
and writing and everything
getting its due out of it.
OPRAH: Because don't people always say, oh, you can
either be a writer or you can
have kids. SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH:
You can be a writer or you can be
married. You can be a writer or
this. There's not room for all
of it. SHONDA: There's not and I don't believe
there is room for all of it. I
really don't. OPRAH:
Particularly for you. Maybe there's some people who are
doing it. SHONDA: There may be
some people who are doing it
and who are very happy and who love it.
And I am not knocking any of
you. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: It's
not that. It's just I've never it's never
been like a dream of mine.
OPRAH: To be married. SHONDA:
Yeah. It's just not it's not a dream. OPRAH: So
this year of yes got that
clarified. SHONDA: And it was
really freeing to sort of say it out loud and to not
feel I always felt like it
was a dirty little secret.
Because you're not supposed to not want that. OPRAH: Oh, my.
You just liberated a lot of
people. SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH:
You know, but I've lived with this for
years, the pressure, the
tabloids, every week making a
story. Why you're not married. It's my fault. It's his fault.
I want to be married. But I
never I never wanted it.
SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH: And so does that mean you
still date? You're open to
dating? You're - SHONDA: I'm
absolutely still dating. I'm very open to dating. And
part of the year of yes is that
I feel like I'm more aware of
of the attentions of men. Whereas before I feel
like I was a little bit more
shut down and someone would
have to say, that guy was kind of flirting with you. And
I'd go, what? I didn't even
know. Now at least I feel like
I'm I'm looking. Like I might actively be
looking. So I actually my
antennas are up. OPRAH: And so,
I also heard that you learned in the process to say
no in a way to be able to
say, no, I'm not able to do
that. Which I'm gonna take that line from you. No, I'm -
SHONDA: Yes. OPRAH: I'm
really not able to do that.
SHONDA: That is my "No is a complete sentence"
sentence. Which is, I'm sorry,
no, I'm not able to do that.
And that's all I say. And it was it's really hard
to say that to people. It's
really interesting how, I don't
know how wired we are to tell somebody a thousand
reasons why we can't do
something for them. You know, I
can't do it because of this and this and this. OPRAH: Yep.
SHONDA: As if you're required -
OPRAH: To defend your nice niceness. SHONDA: Yes. To
defend it. OPRAH: Your
nice-hood. SHONDA: Yeah. I'm a
good person. I'm nice. OPRAH: I'm a good person
and I want you to think I'm
nice and so I'm gonna tell you
why all the reasons why. OPRAH: So you got
that. You figured that out.
SHONDA: That was that was a
hard one, though. I mean, that one was
one that I've struggled with
over the course of the year to
really get right. OPRAH: Because you lose some
so-called friends. SHONDA: I
lost some friends this over
the course of the year. I really did. I I
shed some pounds. I shed some
friends, as I like to say.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: And it was it was
painful. But it was also really
freeing. Like I've been happier
over the course of the year than I ever have.
Partially because I found that
I am not doing things that I
didn't want to do. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: Yeah.
It's really amazing. COMING
UP... HOW SHONDA OVERCAME HER FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING...
OPRAH: You get that kind of
terror where it's like a white
hot terror comes over you... SUPER
SOULERS IF YOUR "YEAR OF
YES" STARTED TODAY, WHAT WOULD BE THE FIRST YES ON YOUR
LIST? LET US KNOW ON FACEBOOK
OR TWITTER USING THE HASHTAG SUPERSOUL
SUNDAY. (Shonda) "Let me describe
myself as a kid. I was highly
intelligent, way too chubby,
sensitive, nerdy and painfully shy. I wore coke
bottle thick glasses. I had two
corn row braids traveled down
the sides of my head in a way that was not pretty. And
here's the kicker ad I was often
the only black girl in my
class. I did not have friends. No one is meaner than
a pack of human beings faced
with someone who is different.
I was very much alone. So...I wrote. I created
friends. OPRAH: I think,
probably a surprise to a lot of
people that you, the founder, creator, of the
empire ShondaLand, uhh, TGIT,
ABC, Thursdays nights, creating
all of these characters that now have become a part of
our lives, that you really were
painfully shy up until last
year. SHONDA: Yeah. I think it would be.
It's interesting because I feel
like perhaps they're mistaking
me for my characters? OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: And there
is the beauty of getting to
hide behind my characters.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: You know, my
characters / were living a much
more exciting life than I was.
They were saying all the things perhaps I would
want to say or do or having the
courage that I was not having
at the time. OPRAH: And the character closest to
who you really are would be?
SHONDA: there's a little bit of
me in everybody. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: there's a
lot of Christina Yang in me.
And there's a lot of Olivia
Pope in me now, now that I've become sort of
much more of a professional
woman. Starting out, I think I
was a lot more Christina Yang. And now I feel
like I'm much more Olivia Pope.
OPRAH: Really. SHONDA: Yeah.
OPRAH: Good yeah. In combination.
SHONDA: Good combination. But
not as not as outgoing
before. OPRAH: So one of the first things
that came along to say yes to
was the invitation to speak at
your alma mater. SHONDA: That was the very
first thing that happened was I
feel like you throw something
out like that out into the universe and suddenly
it hails opportunities. OPRAH:
Yes. SHONDA: the President of
Dartmouth called and said will you do
the commencement speech? No
one's ever asked me to give a
speech anywhere before for any reason. So it
was crazy that suddenly that
was what was happening. OPRAH:
And that it was Dartmouth. SHONDA: It was
Dartmouth. It's in front of,
you know, thousands and
thousands of people. It's a 20- to 25-, 30-minute speech.
It's not, you know, talk for
five minutes. It was a huge
deal. OPRAH: Yeah. And it's graduation where
you're supposed to come up with
some kind of wisdom something.
SHONDA: Where they talk about it
you know, they put it on the
internet. OPRAH: Which you said
in the speech, yeah. SHONDA: I was very worried
about it. OPRAH: Yeah. OPRAH:
But you said yes. SHONDA: I
said yes. Which was terrifying. but
OPRAH: And you would get
when you say terrified I read
somewhere where you said because this isn't
the first time I've interviewed
you. But you were saying you
couldn't even remember what happened. You
get that kind of terror where
it's like a white hot terror
comes over you and you can't yes. SHONDA: I think
I've told you that Every single
time you've interviewed me I
always say, like, what I remember is Oprah's
coming towards me and then a
white hot light and then
nothing. People always say, how was it? And I have no
idea. Did I say anything?
Literally. Because I would be
so fearful that I I feel like my body would go
into shock. I don't know what
it was. But I would the
stage fright would overtake me. There would be
such a sense of panic of what's
happening. I remember standing
there and going, there's Oprah. / And then
literally that's the last real
thing I remember of the entire
thing. OPRAH: (Laughter.) SHONDA: And then it
being over. And me being, like,
I hope I didn't say anything
crazy. OPRAH: I understand that. I
understand it. I mean I don't
think I had it that bad but
that happened to me the very first time I interviewed
Sidney Poitier because had
you know, he's the love of my
aspirational dream. I'd watched him since Lilies
of the Field when he won the
Academy Award. OPRAH: And the
first time he sat down on The Oprah Winfrey Show
I swear I can't remember
anything other than him sitting
and then the end. I remember there's a photo
of him hugging me. OPRAH: And
after he left, I just went in
the control room, put my head down and bawled
because I'm like I don't know
what I said. I was idiot.
SHONDA: It didn't make any sense. OPRAH: It
didn't make any sense. Yeah.
That feeling. That feeling.
SHONDA: And I had that so many times, this crazy
haze of fear, that it it was
paralyzing. And so they would
have to push me out to do these interviews. OPRAH:
Wow. SHONDA: And really try to
convince me. OPRAH: So when you made the decision that you
were gonna say yes and
Dartmouth called OPRAH: how did
that work for you? SHONDA: Oh, I had a speech
written and I was on the plane
going there. OPRAH: Mm-hmm.
SHONDA: And I read the speech over and
I thought, there is nothing in
this speech that is true or me
that isn't like a platitude. That doesn't feel
like what you'd hear in every
graduation speech you've ever
heard. OPRAH: Follow your dreams. (funny
voice) SHONDA: Right. It was
all of the stuff that - OPRAH:
Believe in yourself. (funny voice)
SHONDA: Yeah. It was all of
that stuff. And it was sort of
designed to keep me hidden. Like you would hear
the speech and you'd go, that's
a speech. That's a speech.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: But you'd never know
anything about me. You'd never
feel like, oh, that's Shonda in
there. And I hit delete and I started over
on the plane. I wrote that
speech on the plane on the way
there. And it was - OPRAH: And you started with
your truth! SHONDA: Right.
SHONDA: Yeah. I was, like, just
tell the truth. Be yourself. Be who you are.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: And
there's nothing better than
that, obviously. OPRAH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SHONDA: And I was so much more
comfortable standing up there.
Saying the truth. You can see it on the
video. There is a moment on
that video of me giving the
speech where I stand up at the podium and I look out
at the audience before I start
speaking and I exhale. And that
exhalation is the moment of me releasing any
sign of fear, any moment of
stage fright. It is the last
time when standing in front of an audience I have been
afraid. OPRAH: Really. (Shonda)
In general, I do not like
giving speeches. Giving a speech requires standing in
front of large groups of people
while they look at you and it
also requires talking. I can do the standing part OK.
But the you looking and the me
talking ... I am not a fan. I
get this overwhelming feeling of fear.
Terror, really. Dry mouth,
heart beats superfast,
everything gets a little bit in slow motion. Like I might pass
out. Or die. Or poop my pants
or something." (add laughter)
OPRAH: you know what I think really
worked so beautifully with that
speech, is you standing up
saying, I feel like I'm gonna poop in my pants.
SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH: I feel
like and once you say it,
well, you know you're not going to. SHONDA: Yes.
OPRAH: now that you've said it,
it's sort of kind of released
in a way, right? SHONDA: Right. It was like
coming out of like I'm
coming out as a person with
stage fright. OPRAH: Yes. SHONDA: It was complete
it was just really
interesting. OPRAH: Yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes. SHONDA: And it really did free me.
OPRAH: Isn't it amazing how the
truth does that? SHONDA: It
really does. There's something about it. Because I
feel like we spend so much time
hiding ourselves and trying to
be something that we're not. OPRAH: Yes.
SHONDA: Or trying to make sure
that nobody knows that we're
this person. And the minute you say, like,
this is who I am. OPRAH: Yeah.
SHONDA: It's so much better.
OPRAH: Yeah. You know, and that's that's
if you're Shonda Rhimes or if
you're anybody in everyday
situations. SHONDA: Yes. OPRAH: Yes SHONDA: And
what's interesting to me is
it's always applied in my
writing. OPRAH: Yes. SHONDA: That's what's so
odd to me is that I've known
this in my writing my entire
life. The more truthful, the more the
deeper you go inside yourself
with your writing, the better
it always is. And yet I've never applied it to any other
part of my life. COMING UP...
OPRAH: So how has the year of
yes affected the way you raise your
daughters? PLUS- FOR ALL YOU
GREY'S ANATOMY FANS MOURNING
THE LOSS OF MCDREAMY... OPRAH: I
have to ask you, why'd you do
it? (Shonda) as a very successful
woman, a single mother of
three, who constantly gets
asked the question "How do you do it all?" The answer
is this: I don't. If I am
accepting a prestigious award,
I am missing my baby's first swim lesson. If I am at my
daughter's debut in her school
musical, I am missing Sandra
Oh's last scene ever being filmed at Grey's
Anatomy. If I am succeeding at
one, I am inevitably failing at
the other. That is the tradeoff. and yet I want my
daughters to see me and know me
as a woman who works. I want
that example set for them. I like how proud
they are when they come to my
offices and know that they come
to Shondaland. There is a land and it is
named after their mother.
(laughter) OPRAH: So during
your Dartmouth address you were so honest about the
idea of being a which I love
the truth in all that speech
umm, the idea of being a powerful woman and
working woman and being a
powerful mother at the same
time. That if you're doing one thing really well,
that something is always
lacking. SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH:
Do you still feel that? Or do you feel like you found
a way to balance it? Or is
there such a thing? SHONDA: I
think, you know, part of it is giving yourself
permission to be okay with the
idea that something is always
lacking. You know? It's the guilt that gets you. It's
the guilt that eats you alive.
I wrote that because on the
plane you know, right when I before I got on the
plane, I had rushed to my
daughter's school to watch her
get her school achievement certificate at the
end of the year and had stayed
long enough to watch her get
her certificate, took a couple of pictures of her,
said I love you, she was like,
are you coming to the party
afterwards? I said, I can't. I got on a plane and went
flying to Dartmouth. And I felt
really awful about that. I
mean, I was missing something. So I was feeling
that feeling of guilt in that
moment. But I also felt like we
should give ourselves permission to not feel guilty
about it. It really is part of
the trade-off of what we're
dealing with. I mean, what's the alternative? I I'm a
miserable, unhappy woman who
doesn't work? I don't write for
a living? You know, there's it's not fair to
that would be less fair to my
child, actually. OPRAH: Yeah.
Because one of the things I thought was so
important, / that what you
really want to bring to your
daughters, to your family, is a happy life. SHONDA: Yes.
OPRAH: You want to present to them as a woman who can is
in control of herself. Who knows how to make
decisions for herself. This is
what I think all mothers really
want. And ultimately, that's why staying
in a bad marriage or being
burdened by a relationship that
isn't really working and you're doing it for the
children doesn't work for the
children because what they want
is a happy mother. SHONDA: Yes. I'm amazed by the
greeting cards right now. All
the greeting cards are about
sacrifice. Have you noticed that? Mother, you
you gave up so much for me.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: You worked
so hard for me. You sacrificed so
much. You were so wonderful and
giving and selfless. Where is
the greeting card that says, mother you
taught me how to be a powerful
woman. Mother, you taught me
how to earn a living. Mother, you taught me
how to speak up for myself and
not back down. Those are the
greeting cards that should be out there. Those are
the qualities that we would
want for our daughters to have.
I don't want my daughter to grow up and think
I should shrink and be in the
background. I should be
selfless. I should be sacrificing. I should be
silent. That's not what I think
a mother is. And I don't think
that that's what I want my daughters to see a mother be.
SHONDA IS RAISING THREE
DAUGHTERS.... 13-YEAR-OLD HARPER, THREE-YEAR-OLD EMERSON
AND BECKET WHO IS TWO. OPRAH:
So how has the year of yes affected the way
you raise your daughters?
SHONDA: I have been more
encouraging of their sort of ideas and interests which
has been hard for me. OPRAH: So
less timid. Less timid. SHONDA:
Less timid. But also more embracing of who
they are. You know, my my
daughter, Harper, is 13. She's
very different from me. Very different. Like
she is an extroverted tall,
thin, beautiful wannabe actress
kind of child. And I am if you put me in a corner
with a book for the rest of my
life, I'm happy. We are polar
opposites. And I have really sort of thought how do
I embrace spent my time
thinking this year how do I
embrace her personality and make her shine for who she
is. And that has been really
wonderful for her and for me as
opposed to me thinking, like, how do I felt
her fit into the box of what I
think a kid is supposed to be?
OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA: And so I said yes to
my kids in a way that I had
never done before. I decided to
myself that every single time they asked me
my daughter says to me all the
time, wanna play? Wanna play?
And there's so many times I've said, well, I
can't right now, honey, I'm
doing this. I can't right now.
I decided that every single time she said to me,
wanna play? I would say yes.
OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA: So it
doesn't matter if I'm wearing an evening gown
and heading out to the DGA
Awards or I am have my bags
on my shoulder and I'm heading out to work, I
drop everything I'm doing, I
get down on my hands and knees,
and we play. And, you know, she's 3. It's 10
minutes. And she loves it. And
it's changed my sense of being
a mother and my sense of pride in being a
mother.(open) OPRAH: Mm-hmm.
SHONDA: And it's changed our
relationship, I think. OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA:
With my it's changed my
relationship with my kids. I
don't have the any guilt. OPRAH: So there are
big yesses and little yesses.
But that little yes turns out
to be a really big yes. SHONDA: It's turned out to be
the biggest yes. OPRAH: So yes
has affected every area of your
life, really. SHONDA: I absolutely think so.
OPRAH: Wow. Has it affected
your writing? SHONDA: Oddly
enough, I don't think so. OPRAH: I was
gonna say, because is that like
- SHONDA: That's a separate -
OPRAH: That's a sacred - SHONDA:
Yeah, it's a separate space.
It's a very separate space for
me. It doesn't exist on this plane. EARLIER THIS YEAR
SHONDA MADE A DECISION THAT
LEFT MILLIONS OF FANS IN SHOCK AND IN TEARS.
AFTER 11 SEASONS ON GREY'S
ANATOMY THE CHARACTER DOCTOR DEREK
SHEPHERD, PLAYED BY PATRICK
DEMPSEY, DIED ON THE SHOW. OPRAH: did you ever
imagine that when you kill
McDreamy it would make the
news? SHONDA: I did not. I did not. Not in
Season 11 did it ever occur to
me that there would be an
article in Time Magazine about how to mourn a fictional
character. OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA:
That just never even crossed my
mind. OPRAH: I have to ask you,
why'd you do it? SHONDA: I did
it because I honestly spent a
lot of time thinking story-wise, how do
you exit that kind of
character? You can't you
can't let McDreamy leave her, like walk away. He has to
remain dreamy. That love has to
stay alive. You know? You have
to believe that those two people were really
in love forever. OPRAH: Yeah.
SHONDA: And in order for that
to be true, how else is he gonna go? Right?
Either you end the show, and
Ellen was not ready, or he has
to die so that their love remains true. And that
was really hard for us to do.
It was hard for me. It was hard
for Patrick. It was hard for Ellen. It was hard
for us.OPRAH: That makes sense.
SHONDA: Yeah. COMING UP... HOW SAYING YES BECOMES A SPIRITUAL
PRACTICE... SHONDA: Every
single time you say yes, you're sort of stepping forward into
the world again AND WHAT IT
FEELS LIKE TO STEP BE IN THE FLOW... SHONDA: I call it the hum. /
it's a real, true happiness.
It's very pure for me. OPRAH: Do you think that this year of saying yes has
allowed you to live a more
awakened life? SHONDA:
Absolutely. I ended up sort of ended the year by doing
this umm magazine photo shoot
for Essence and I'm standing on
the rooftop of a hotel in New York //with the
Chrysler Building behind me.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: And I'm
posing and I'm suddenly feeling like a
supermodel and I thought, if I
had said no to this, I would
never have had this experience. But I also
realized I can't say no
anymore. Saying no really was a
way of sort of stepping back from life. It was like a slow
form of suicide. It was saying
// I don't want to be a part
of the world anymore. So what I've learned from this
year is that every single time
you say yes, you're sort of
stepping forward into the world again. You're
rejoining the world. OPRAH:
During those years / when you
were saying no to everything, were you lonely?
Were you sad? Were you -
SHONDA: I think I was spending
most of my time and most of my energy living
inside my imagination as
opposed to living in the real
world. OPRAH: mmm SHONDA: You know? I used to
sort of joke, like my body is a
container that I carry my brain
around in. And that sounds really feminist
and awesome, but it's also sad.
Because it means that the real
world that's happening outside is not
something that I was conscious
of or a part of. OPRAH: writing
is your truth, would you say? SHONDA: Absolutely.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA:
Absolutely. Although I always
say that, like, I make stuff up for a living.
And yet that's my truth. OPRAH:
That's your truth. SHONDA:
Yeah. OPRAH: So tell me what happens. You
know we've all heard about
athletes having a zone. Is it a
zone for you, too? SHONDA: I call it the hum.
OPRAH: The hum. SHONDA: The
hum. It's like I get this hum
in my head where I feel like I could
write forever. OPRAH: Like,
hmm, hum. SHONDA: Almost. Yeah,
like a frequency basically. OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA:
Where, I don't know, it's
almost your where you go
from sort of exertion to, I don't know,
exaltation. Where it feels
there's just an endless joy for
me. Where I feel like I could write for the rest of my
life. And I lose time and my
assistant has to come in and
say, it's been five hours. You have to stop now because
of this or that. It's it's
really lovely. It's the it's
a real, true happiness. It's very pure for me. OPRAH: It's
a spiritual practice. SHONDA:
Yeah, it is. /I don't need to
be anyplace in particular. I need a few
things. I need my headphones,
which for some reason, for me,
sort of signal it. It's almost like a hypnosis thing.
You put your headphones on and
I think, okay, now I'm in my
space. OPRAH: So it is like a meditative state.
SHONDA: Yeah. OPRAH: Where
you're in that zone. Where you
because I think all artists I
remember Rainn Wilson here
saying there's no difference
between art and prayer. SHONDA: Yeah. I think that's
true. OPRAH: There's no
difference between art and
prayer. So does it feel like that? SHONDA: Yes, I do.
I think that's very true. I
think it's very - OPRAH: That
you're in communication with a higher
power? SHONDA: Yeah, with
something higher than yourself.
Because it certainly isn't just coming
from me. OPRAH: We can tell
that from the very beginning
you always had it as a calling. Do you think
everybody has a calling?
SHONDA: I do. I really do. I
think it's harder for some people to find out what their calling
is than for others. But I think
that everybody has one. I think
I was very lucky to know what mine is so early.
OPRAH: Yeah. OPRAH: So // what
wisdom would you say ultimately
that you've uncovered in this year
of yes? We're all gonna read
the book. But what is the one
thing that you come away with that you really want
to pass on? SHONDA: I want to
pass on that it that it can
start small. Like no matter how bad it seems or
how or even how great your
life seems. Whatever's going
on, if you feel like you need to make a change, the
yes can be a very small thing.
You know, it can be yes to
making a phone call to someone you haven't spoken
to in a while. It can be a yes
to your spouse. Yes, we will
have this conversation. It can be -
OPRAH: Yes to playing with your
children. SHONDA: It can be yes
to playing with your children. It can be
yes to walking around the
block. It can be yes to holding
someone's hand. Yes can be a very small thing and
it can be life changing. COMING
UP... SHONDA: The only limit to
your success is your own
imagination - whatever you can
imagine is possible. OPRAH: Can you finish this
sentence? I believe. SHONDA: I
believe we all have the power
to change. OPRAH: Creativity is?
SHONDA: Creativity is who we
are. OPRAH: And imagination is? SHONDA: Imagination is our
soul. OPRAH: Ooh. And saying
yes is? SHONDA: Saying yes is transformative. OPRAH: Love
that. What's the moment that
most impacted or changed your
life? SHONDA: hmmm the moment that changed
me.. Possibly 9/11. But in a
positive, strange way in that
it's the thing that made me, once again, wake up
and say if the world's gonna
end tomorrow, there are things
that I need to do. And that's what drove me to
sort of adopt my first
daughter. OPRAH: Wow. SHONDA:
Yeah. OPRAH: And you named her Harper Lee.
SHONDA: I did. I did. OPRAH:
Ok. So what do you believe is
the world's greatest wound? SHONDA: Oh...
our inability to realize that
we're all the same. OPRAH: hmm
Which is my next question. Where does
prejudice and racism come from?
SHONDA: That's the same thing.
OPRAH: Yeah. SHONDA: It's really our
inability to realize we're all
the same. Fear. OPRAH: Yeah.
It's just fear. SHONDA: Yeah, racism is just
fear. OPRAH: And how can we
begin to have a conversation
that doesn't scare everybody? SHONDA: I know.
Everyone is so afraid to have
the conversation. I think
everyone is so afraid that if they have the
conversation, they're either
calling someone a racist or
they're being called racist or they're gonna say the wrong thing. I
feel like if you can't have the
conversation, you can't make
anything change. OPRAH: We can never heal.
SHONDA: Yeah. And and it's a
conversation we all need to
have because if we don't have it, I don't care
who you are or what color you
are. You're not living in an
equal society. And I don't know how that can be
comfortable for any of us.
OPRAH: Yeah. And it keeps
showing up. SHONDA: Mm-hmm. OPRAH: And in this
year for us it shows up with
black men being shot. SHONDA:
Yes. OPRAH: And if there wasn't a camera,
nobody would believe it.
SHONDA: Exactly. OPRAH: Or at
least a lot of people wouldn't believe it.
Yeah. Yeah. SHONDA: I think
it's heartbreaking. OPRAH:
Yeah. SHONDA: And I don't know how you want
your children to grow up in a
world like that. How you want
the next generation to inherit a world
where this is okay. OPRAH: So
what is the truth final
question, what is the truth that you hold as your
as your way of life that you
embrace on a regular basis?
SHONDA: When I was a kid, my father used to say
to me all the time, the limits
the only limit to your
success is your own imagination. And I took that
as not just being, you know,
financial success or work
success. I took that as being every kind of success.
Love and family and emotional
and everything. The only limit
to your success is your own imagination. I really
do think that that is true.
Whatever you can imagine is
possible. That is true. OPRAH: Yeah I'm so proud of
you. SHONDA: Oh, thank you. I'm
excited. Thank you so much for
having me. OPRAH: Thank you. Thank
you. SUPER SOULERS, I'M HOPING
YOU START THIS WEEK WITH A RESOUNDING YES... YES
TO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL... TO
SOMETHING THAT MIGHT EVEN BE TERRIFYING...
SOMETHING UTTERLY SURPRISING...
SHONDA BELIEVES THE PATH TO YOUR TRUE SELF
BEGINS WITH THAT ONE TINY
LITTLE WORD... AS SHE WRITES IN "YEAR OF YES" ON
PAGE 286... "HAPPINESS COMES
FROM LIVING AS YOU NEED TO, AS YOU WANT TO. AS
YOUR INNER VOICE TELLS YOU TO.
HAPPINESS COMES FROM BEING WHO YOU ACTUALLY
ARE INSTEAD OF WHO YOU THINK
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE // DON'T
APOLOGIZE. DON'T EXPLAIN. DON'T
EVER FEEL LESS THAN. WHEN YOU FEEL THE NEED TO
APOLOGIZE OR EXPLAIN WHO YOU
ARE, IT MEANS THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD IS TELLING
YOU THE WRONG STORY. WIPE THE
SLATE CLEAN AND REWRITE IT."
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