The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations

Russel Simmons If you sit, and the thoughts settle, and the noise disappears, then you see all God’s beauty. Those people who are fully awake see all the sunsets. You drive your car, you see every flower. It promotes a lasting, stable, happy relationship with the world. And so if you meditate, you’ll be a happier, more stable person. You will be more productive. Because if you’re awake and present and thoughtful, you’re good at your job. And you’re a good giver. And also, having that kind of focus, that single point of focus it takes when you’re working and when you’re engaged, is the real thing that promotes happiness on its own. And then the things come as a result.

What is the soul? Indie Arie: The real you. You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

The great American mythologist, author, and philosopher Joseph Campbell once said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Pastor Joel Osteen Oprah: I heard a sermon that you preached on the power of “I am.” And that sermon literally changed how I spoke power into my own life. I was shooting The Butler. I had heard that sermon. I was exhausted. We’d been shooting and shooting and shooting. And your voice came into my head—that whatever follows “I am” will determine what your experience will be. And so I literally thought, I’m going to try that because I’m exhausted. And I started saying, “I am getting my second wind. I am going to feel so much better by midnight, I’m going to want to shoot all night.” And I’m telling you, I started to feel differently. And I couldn’t believe that it happened so quickly. Pastor Joel Osteen: It’s an incredible principle, I don’t think we realize that what follows “I am,” we’re inviting into our life. You know, you say, “I am tired,” “I am frustrated,” “I am lonely,” you’ve invited that in. So the principle is to turn it around and invite what you want into your life. Oprah: So whatever follows “I am” will eventually find you. Joel: Yeah. I think a lot of times you’re going to say how you feel. I am lonely. I am tired. There’s a balance to it. I don’t think you’re denying the facts. Otherwise, I’m just hiding my head in the sand. It’s not so much that, it’s just not magnifying the negative. I talk about “I am the masterpiece,” “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” “I am strong,” “I am talented.” That is speaking more to the core of what God put in each one of us. He has equipped us, he has empowered us. We have what we need to fulfill our destiny. But I do think that we have to bring it out. And you can’t bring it out being against yourself. And I think that is what keeps us from our destiny. Oprah: So we’ve heard that phrase, “Speaking truth to power.” It feels like when you understand that whatever follows “I am” is going to eventually find you, that if you start speaking all the positive aspects of yourself—“I am secure,” “I am valuable,” “I am approved,” “I am determined,” “I am generous”—when you start allowing what you want to be your truth, you begin to speak truth, the truth of “I am” to the power of what can be.

For so many people searching for peace and purpose, the most debilitating source of pain has been the struggle to forgive. Having experienced the trauma of childhood abuse and personal betrayals at different points of my life, I have great compassion for anyone facing what might seem like an insurmountable hurdle. The journey to release all grudges, to relinquish the quest for revenge, and to let go of the fantasy of what might have been is one of the most difficult spiritual challenges we’ll ever face. But I promise you, it is also the most rewarding. Because the other side of forgiveness is freedom. There was a time when I believed the act of forgiveness meant accepting the offender, and by doing so, condoning the act. I didn’t understand that the true purpose of forgiveness is to stop allowing whatever that person did to affect how I live my life now. I only began to see a different path for myself after an expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Gerald G. Jampolsky, shared his definition: “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could be any different."

If you have gratitude, you don’t have room for fear. And that was one of the biggest things—that fear holds us back so much. Fear is what causes so much of our bad behavior and our poor choices. And gratitude can’t live with fear in the same way that love can’t live with fear. So if you’re grateful, you move to that place of love. And trust is soul, right? Trust is God.

Sometimes when we wake up to spirituality, and you’ve seen it everywhere, the you-know-what hits the fan. And everything falls apart. Those are the moments when we get to work. Those are not the moments when we drink. Those are not the moments when we go back to the addiction. Those are the moments when we get to work. Because those moments are showing up to help you show up. Pay attention to the assignments that are coming to you, and show up for them! Everything comes up so it can be healed.

Caroline Myss I need you to be fully present and appreciate all that is in your life right now. No matter where it is. You are in the depths of despair, and still I need to say to you, 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. 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. People hold the idea of being ordinary in absolute contempt. “Please, God, make me anything, but not ordinary.” And because they do that, they feel like they should be protected from ordinary things. So when something happens like an illness, poverty, any kind of catastrophe, they think, I can’t believe this happened to me.

Everybody has a calling. Your real job in life is to figure out why you are here and get about the business of doing it.

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on service. Ask yourself, what are the gifts and talents you can share to raise the collective consciousness of all that you encounter? Making that shift from self to service will bring an immeasurable amount of fulfillment to your job, your relationships, and the vision you have of your own best life. Gary Zukav brilliantly describes this as the moment you discover your authentic power: “When your personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul.” Fulfilling your purpose, with meaning, is what gives you that powerful spark of energy unique to only you. The result is an electrifying current of clarity rising from the deepest part of yourself. By tapping into that source, you will no longer feel like the salmon swimming upstream. Instead, people will finally see the highest, truest version of you and stand in awe, wondering how you achieved your dreams. As you read this chapter, my hope is that you will find the courage to tune out the negative voices telling you all the reasons to give up. Make the choice to turn up the volume to your unique calling, the glory that is your own life.

Paulo Coelho Oprah: One of the running themes throughout The Alchemist is one of my favorite all-time quotes. And that is, “When you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to get it.” I think that’s what actually conspired in helping me be here today. I’ve been trying to do this interview for ten years. But where did that idea, those words, that theme, come from? Paulo Coelho: Well, what I experienced in my life is that when I really wanted something, I always got it. Positive and negative. Because the Universe does not think. You have this subconscious mind that sometimes is attracting tragedy. Attracting bad things, you know? Because you want to be a victim. Because to be a victim is to justify a lot of frustrations and failures in your life. The Universe is helping you. You want to be successful. The Universe is helping you. Oprah: Based on how you think, how you truly think, consciously and subconsciously. Do you believe every person has what you call a personal legend? Paulo: I’m 100 percent convinced. Which is totally different than I believe that every person is going to fulfil his or her personal legend. All right? Oprah: Okay. I would agree. Every person has a personal legend. First of all, what is a personal legend? Paulo: It is the reason that you are here. It’s as simple as this. You know? You are here to honor something called the miracle of life. You can be here to fulfil your hours and days with something that is meaningless. But you know that you have a reason to be here. It is the only thing that gives you enthusiasm. And you know when you are betraying your personal legend, when you are doing something without enthusiasm. And, worse, you know that you have this good excuse. I’m not ready. Which is just an excuse. You know? No, I’m not ready. I have to wait for the right moment. You know, now I have to feed my family. Come on. Your family wants to see you happy. Your daughter. Your husband. Your wife. They don’t want to see you there sitting in a work that you hate. Even if it gives you tons of money. Oprah: Okay. So you’ve just given a really key clue to how to know you’re pursuing your personal legend. It is that which in life gives you enthusiasm. You call it personal legend. I call it personal calling. Everybody has a reason why you’re here. You’re called here. And you know if you’re on the path to it whether you’re enthusiastic about it or not. That’s how you know. Paulo: One hundred percent. We know our reason to be here. We don’t know if we are taking the right steps towards it. But if we are honest enough, God is going to guide you. Even if you take some wrong steps, you know? God will recognize that you have a pure heart. And He puts you back on track. Oprah: Because Life rises up to meet you. Paulo: Absolutely.

We are busier than any other generation we have seen in the last three to four hundred years. We are so busy. And we think because we’re busy, we’re effective. But I want you to challenge your schedule for a minute and ask yourself, are you really being effective, or is your life cluttered with all kinds of stuff that demands you, and drains you, and taxes you, and stops you from being your highest and best self? And are you substituting busyness and all the chaos that goes along with busyness for being effective?

All of us are seeking the same thing. We share the desire to fulfill the highest, truest expression of ourselves as human beings.

The most valuable gift you can give yourself is the time to nurture the unique spirit that is you.

The great American mythologist, author, and philosopher Joseph Campbell once said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” I believe your true purpose here on Earth is to align yourself with the great spiritual force, your divine inner compass, already at work in your life. I hope that The Wisdom of Sundays will illuminate your path to becoming all that you were meant to be. Embrace and enjoy the journey!

Elizabeth Gilbert Sartre said, “Exits are everywhere.” But I feel like entrances are everywhere. And I think that the world would be an even more cruel place than it already is, if the only people who are allowed to go on spiritual journeys were people who could afford a plane ticket to India, you know? Because we all know that people find access to God through those thin places in the Universe and the thin places in their lives where they come very close to the divine, in all sorts of situations. You know, in prison, in their house, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a bad marriage, in the middle of a traffic jam. It’s always there. There’s an entrance that you can slide through. But I really do feel like the one non-negotiable thing that you need is to be able to find a tiny little corner of your life, of your day of stillness, where you can begin to ask yourself those burning essential questions of your life. Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What am I here for? And for that you need to find a sacred moment of silence to begin to look for that journey. And that’s available to everybody.

Pastor Wintley Phipps If you’re going to really love somebody, that means you’re going to have faith in them. If you’re going to love somebody, you’re going to have to have the integrity and the goodness. If you’re going to love somebody, you have to learn to be patient with their strengths and with their weaknesses. Love is when you choose to be at your best when the other person is not at their best. Love is when what you want is never important, but what the other person needs and wants is always paramount. That’s what true love is.

The true power of staying in the now means that you resist projecting what might happen in the future or lamenting past mistakes.

I consider reading a book a sacred indulgence.

My goal is to live my life as a more awakened, vibrant, alive human being. My prayer is to not let any moment pass without my acknowledgement and full experience of it. In order to do that, I’ve got to practice.

I stopped listening to that little voice in my head that was trying to convince me of what other people thought. I made the shift to listen to the truth of who I really was, telling me what I really wanted. This shift can happen for you, too. Before you agree to do anything that might add even the smallest amount of stress to your life, ask yourself, What is my truest intention? Give yourself time to let the answer resound within you. When the intention is right and the answer is yes, I guarantee, your entire body will feet it.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear and then recognize them.

Because so many times what keeps us in that valley of depression, what keeps us in that valley of frustration, is our response to a moment and not recognizing that it is exactly that. It’s a moment. It’s one scene of your movie. And what makes a great movie are scenes that are put together of great conflict.

Tony Robbins Oprah: What is the number-one rule you would offer someone to becoming their most authentic self? Because that’s really what we’re all looking for. How do I just be more of me? Tony Robbins: I think it’s allowing yourself to be spontaneous instead of responding to how you think you’re supposed to be. We’ve all developed an identity, a sense of who we think we are and who we’re not. You define yourself not only by who you think you are but also by who you’re not. And those definitions were usually made ten, twenty, thirty, forty years ago. And we rarely upgrade them unless we have an abrupt experience that makes us reevaluate our lives. So to consciously decide, “Who am I today? What do I stand for? What am I here for? What am I here to give? What am I here to learn? What am I here to grow? What am I here to enjoy?” And then to spontaneously try things. Because I think the most important decision is saying, “I’m gonna enjoy this moment right now. It’s the only thing I have that’s real. And life’s too short to suffer.” And if I just keep doing that with each moment, things unfold in a way that’s, as you know, beyond magnificent. And it’s easy to teach, harder to apply, but it’s a discipline. And if you do it, and you start measuring it moment to moment, you will get addicted. It will be a positive addiction because the liberation is beyond what you can describe with words. You have to experience it.

Marianne Williamson Part of that is this fear that we might offend somebody else. That somehow if I have, then you have less, rather than realizing that if I’m living in the light of my own true being, it actually subconsciously liberates you to live from the light of your true being. You know, what’s true in the material world is the exact opposite of what’s true in the spiritual world. So in the material world, there are only so many pieces of the pie. If I have a piece of the pie, you have less. But in the spiritual world, the more I’m able to actualize—and that’s what enlightenment is; it’s self-actualization, actualizing the love that is in our hearts—the more there is a field of possibility for others.