Full Episode: "Oprah and Shonda Rhimes" | SuperSoul Sunday | The Oprah Winfrey Network

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

[1] - We Just Launched a Website: wwww.TheRealFemaleDatingStrategy.com. Click here for registration information. Please also join our Twitter and Instagram Pages for updates!
[2] - Please read the FDS Handbook and Wiki before commenting. Repeated comments demonstrating lack of basic sub knowledge will result in a temporary or permanent ban.
[3] - Please REPORT any comments that do not follow the sub rules. If you do not report it, the mods will not see it.
[4] - PLEASE REMOVE ALL PERSONAL IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION from images (Name, Location, Job description, education, phone number, etc). Failure to remove ID info will result in a 1-2 day ban. Repeated failures will result in a permanent ban.
[5] - This sub is FEMALE ONLY. All comments from men will be removed and you will be banned. DO NOT REPLY TO MALE TROLLS!! Please DOWNVOTE and REPORT immediately.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/AutoModerator 📅︎︎ Jan 03 2021 đź—«︎ replies
Captions
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."
Info
Channel: OWN
Views: 371,302
Rating: 4.8766108 out of 5
Keywords: Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network YouTube, Oprah Where Are They Now, Where Are They Now Oprah, Iyanla Fix My Life, full episodes, Super Soul Sunday, Oprah Winfrey Show, The Haves and The Have Nots, Have and Have Nots, If Loving You Is Wrong, Iyanla Vanzant, Livin Lozada, Oprah Life Class, how-to, season, episode, Full Episode, Shonda Rhimes, Supersoul Sunday
Id: KRGRQrk6dc8
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 42min 36sec (2556 seconds)
Published: Mon Sep 14 2020
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.