Oprah's Lifeclass is GRATE! ... Link to it; overview

Oprah's new program/"Lifeclass" is wonderful.  After seeing the first episode, these are my thoughts:

Oprah and her team have structured "Lifeclass" as a five part class for self growth, and in the first episode did a great job of integrating her life examples about 'ego' related to her self (weight loss), her significant other (Stedman), and her show.  I see how what you've written about and posted, above, 'dovetails' with what I was about to write about related to this interesting class inspiring over a MILLION people today!  (I provide a link, below, to encourage people who want to learn more to do so.)

The key concepts covered in the first episode is about the 'ego' and having people identify where their ego is getting in their way.  The 'ego' is something rather difficult to explain, but they do an excellent job of it.  If you took psychology classes in the years I did, they taught the "Id, Ego, Superego" and my overall impression is there are many wonderful philosophers and teachers who have been applying and 'spinning' these formative theories that we 'grew up with' when schooled in the 20th century.  This 21st century is just booming with hundreds and thousands of brilliant people who are writing books, being on the Internet, 'getting the word out', and one of those is Oprah, who reviews scores of things and brings amazing people to the cameras to promote their story and work.  Millions have been affected and it's making significant changes in the world, I believe, particularly in the U.S.

The distinction was made that YOU are not your possessions or your 'positions' / (opinions) -- conflicts often arise when people verbalize an opinion and someone disagrees with it and the 'ego' gets in the way of people having a discussion about things.  A person with an ego that's 'getting in their way' will hear an opinion and take it personally, turning nothing more than an opinion into a conflict.

Eckert Tolle is included in this first segment and naturally does a wonderful job discussing these concepts; I was one of the millions turned onto his books by Oprah; my copy of A New Earth has a Sams pricetag of $8.72 and I remember taking it to the live Fibromyalgia Forum in the spring of 2008 to encourage people to start following Oprah's education of the public with these types of books and experts. 

Having a person get in tough with them SELF is so critical; in order to be in any sort of relationship with another person they need to be able to hear the other person, but if they're messed up themSELF, they cannot receive what another person is saying, no matter how brilliantly it is put forth by the other person.  

I believe the base to that comes from meditation, and that's why I would start my patients off on the first day typically with learning how to sit comfortably and breathe and pay attention to that they were breathing -- and let whatever came to mind bubble up.  This is all it takes to get started meditating! We have much good information here on Lumigrate in the mind/body forum about this and leads people to resources for learning more.  Naturally, Oprah's website does the same and that's GRATE! As long as people get the information! If people need some assistance, we have coaches who specialize in various things to help assist you.  The basics are so important -- it's like reading and needing to know the alphabet first! So I very much encourage people to look at that first. 

If a person cannot listen to their "self" well, they likely won't be very effective "just hearing" what their parent is saying to them! In looking to apply this information to Lumigrate's 'followers'/customers, who have an interest in chronic illness/wellness and aging / caring for aging parents, I wanted to bring my perspective to things here.

I've seen situations where the patient/parent had thought things through and really knew what they wanted, and some of the team around that person was able to 'get on board with that' but another adult child of the patient (when it was an older patient), or a parent (with a younger patient) hadn't done the work to have the distinction of a 'person' versus 'possessions' and 'positions', and it becomes quite difficult.  

Petie the OT, who turned 75 yesterday, wrote about that recently as well here in the Functional/Occupational Therapy forum about a situation she was involved with where similar issues were going on, so it's clearly something that comes up a lot and I wanted to address it here - providing examples of how these lessons from Oprah's lifeclass can apply directly to the core information on Lumigrate people are following.   

The link at Oprah.com to Lesson 1 of Oprah's Lifeclass (which I very much encourage people participating with)

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-1-The-False-Power-of-Ego_1 [4]

Tuesdays class, part 2, was about anger.  They used examples from the Oprah show of past that demonstrated the concept: Terry McMillan, author of How Stella Got her Groove Back, and her ex husband had come on the program after their publicized divorce and lawsuits, and again years later before the Oprah show wrapped up, and the anger that Terry had resolved between those two shows was clearly evident.  I liked that they brought up the time, energy and money 'costs' to a person when they are in a legal process, and that Oprah really clearly said 'it keeps a person in an angry place for a long time', essentially.  

Link to Part 2 of LifeClass at Oprah.com:

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-2-Letting-Go-of-Anger_1 [9]

This was my FAVORITE episode so far of Oprah's Lifeclass; perhaps because it had a lot to do with trusting your SELF and what YOU know is your truth.  In my time with Lumigrate, I've sometimes experienced those who you respect not believing in you OR trying to take advantage of you --  when someone you've never met 'getting it', or because she visits Ralph Loren at his ranch here in western Colorado and my 'distant' connection in the past to that area, and to people who know Mr. Loren.  

She also re-cycled her Oprah shows of years past where comedian and film star Jim Carrey surprised her and became 'one of the shows greatest teachers' of all time! When he was financially struggling, and just getting started in LA, he would drive up onto Mulholland Drive (sp?) and say to himself "I have this, I haven't gotten to it yet".  He wrote a check to himself for $10m, "For" film acting services rendered, and dated it Thanksgiving of an upcoming year.  He received $10m at that time for a film he had done in between his time 'forecasting' on Mulholland Drive and the date of the check.  

My 'connection' to her piece about Ralph Loren was a deep one.  For one, it was a huge deal for Oprah to have been invited there -- she'd been past his miles and miles of fence on the road between Ridgway and Telluride, many times, she said, and thought about how many ties he had to sell to buy the ranch, which was way back in the early 1980s; 1982 I believe they said.  I fell in love with the area in 1994, on a trip with the NEW man in my life then, who wanted to retire to Ridgway.  We looked at a beautiful but small lot that looked over the Dallas Divide, which is the backdrop you see in the Oprah footage of Ralph Loren's ranch.  I was going to become an OT and would work in Montrose most likely, so I suggested purchasing a multi-acre lot down in the valley, and that turned out to be very good advise; he purchased the lot and I was going to then pay for the house on it and we'd figure it out and get legally contractually involved at that time.  I was in OT school at the time, wasn't able to work so was taking out student loans and living on my savings and (very good) credit.  

Ridgway is a small town and Dennis Weaver had moved there years before and brought a lot of 'Hollywood cowboys' with him.  He was a good man, very dedicated to the environment and I'm pleased to say he was the first person to show me the new decking materials made out of recycled plastic! My 'beau' and I were in Ridgway the summer before I graduated from OT school, after I'd done a one week internship in the area, figuring that would pave my way to a job in the area and pay for the pavement to the house .. AND the house!  People had wondered who had bought 'the last good piece of property in town' and so we were invited to a SURPRISE WEDDING at Dennis Weaver's Blue Barn.  The wedding was going to be for a woman who was marrying her ex husband's brother (and I'll let SLIDE the opening for a joke about how few people there are to date here in the West).  Since that was going to be 'weird' for a family, he'd decided to throw a SURPRISE wedding for his bride, who worked at the Blue Barn.  How can you resist an invitation like that????

So we went!  The 'story' to throw the bride-to-be off, was that Ralph Loren was having a birthday party for his niece at the Blue Barn, and she needed to go get ice cream for the birthday cake.  The store in Ridgway was in on it and took all their ice cream out of the freezer in the store and put up a sign saying 'sorry, you have to get ice cream in Montrose', which is half an hour away!  AND IT WORKED!  We all arrived, the flowers arrived and were set up on the dance floor and those people covered every detail of a wedding! She came back with a bunch of half melted ice cream and was led out onto the dance floor, where her fiance asked if she'd marry him right there and then.  He had a dress and white cowboy boots even! He even thought to buy her a new bikini for the honeymoon they were going to take off for --- back up at the airport in Montrose (where Oprah flies in and out of apparently, since she goes past the Double RL ranch on the way to her home in Telluride.  

Beau and I had always wondered what our lives would be like in Ridgway when we moved there; in Fort Collins we went out on Friday nights for margaritas and dinner with his coworkers from a high tech company and then over to dance at a blues bar called Lindens. So I was eager to see the band after the ceremony was done.  By the way, we were asked by the next sheriff of the county and his girlfriend, so that's who we were 'hanging out with'.  The stage was set up for a normal band, and it was "Ralph Dinosaur".... okay.... Keep in mind, I'm a mountain girl but not a 'cowgirl' and I don't know how to two-step; I was more a rock and roll and blues dancer/listener at the time.  Well out comes a guy in a dress with a guitar and the band lit into music that had the cowboys two stepping around the outsides, the hippies twirling in their own zones in the middle of the dance floor and the rest of us doing our 'usual thing'.  I had THE BEST TIME, and felt like my life was almost perfect, I'd had some health concerns that were responding to changing foods as I found I was allergic to wheat, dairy and eggs.  I just needed to graduate, make it through my 'challenging' fieldwork placement in Denver (which I chose in order to be in the area and available to help my father who was starting to have some health problems) and then we could MOVE HERE! 

Sadly, that was not to be.  My beau had, for months, since the time I was given a workup to see if I had MS -- which I didn't, it was food allergies -- been contemplating breaking things off.  He waited until after I completed my course work and graduated, because I was living for $0 with him, he even covered the automobile I drove.  In the years since we met, I'd become a different person; I'd gained weight despite good eating and lots of exercise (we'd gone on a two week bike riding tour of Alaska the summer before), which was due to hormone changes and problems that went on for a while before someone competent came into my path to help me figure it out.  I'd had expectations of the intimacy and emotions in a relationships based on my previous very loving but controlling relationship/marriage, which he rightfully said he'd never be able to 'be'.... he was one of those God-given talents that are on the autism/Asperger's spectrum who are creating many of the technologies we have at our hands today with I.T.; he'd designed one of the first chips for one of the first Macintosh computers back in the very early part of his career.  (Hence the $ allowing him to retire at age 40!).  

Lindens and the Blue Barn also are no longer in existance -- times change, the places we love change, people we love die or our relationships otherwise 'end'.  I think there is much related to how a person learns to grieve loss in this discussion about life and wellness that is not being brought out YET by Oprah.  Perhaps that will come in Lesson 4 and 5, which I am eagerly looking forward to! However, Lesson 3 is well worth participating with -- Ralph Loren's interview was amazing.  I used to drive past the miles of fence and think about a rich man who sold a bunch of egotistical ties and created the Polo brand; he seemed so genuine in the interview AND inspiring.  to hear his story of companies trying to take advantage of him, or put him down, or relegating him to a DRAWER in the Empire State building -- and he succeeded!  He thrived, he WON -- makes me HAPPY for him to have been able, in 1982, to purchase that beautiful ranch.  And I'm thankful for Oprah and her team for seeking him out, recording him, so that I could hear his story. It inspired me, because I saw the similar story in his business and to mine.  And when people have said 'you should (have a drawer, you're not worthy of a room)', I've done just as he has.  Whether Lumigrate will be "the Polo of Internet medical information", will remain to be seen; but no matter what, I am grateful to having shared, for a time, a memory and a town in western Colorado which is so beautiful.  

~~ Mardy

The link for Lesson 3 at Oprah.com:  

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-3-You-Become-What-You-Believe [12]

On this lesson, they returned to 1997 and Oprah's playing a part in Ellen Degeneris' 'coming out', with other stories about other people who were gay/lesbian to support how that is so significant.  And relatively common these days.  

Another segment was a woman who had been raised in poverty and moved to New York City, completed her high school education, graduated college and had a high profile career and marriage to a wealthy man, yet her parents lived on the street due to alcoholism and mental health issues preventing them from holding jobs.  She ended up 'getting real' about that and told people the truth about her family. People were suprisingly accepting and she realized she wanted to live rurally instead of in the city an has found true contentedness.

I believe there was much in this segment, and like the others, encourage you to follow the link and go to the page for it at their website and look at the exercises and excerpts.  Being your authentic self and not putting up facades is essentially this segment's core, and one of the examples Oprah gave which I liked was people who are buying lots 'stuff' -- perhaps to project an image of themselves or to fill voids, and that leads to a discrepancy which the person knows and is pulled down by.  There's a wonderful moment when Suze Orman was guesting that is worth watching with a younger woman whose husband left just as their house was being foreclosed upon.  The lesson was that a home is not a house it is the people you have as 'family' and being together, and that knowing that 'makes you the wealthiest woman in this room'.  They followed up with the woman who has a life 'on track', including 'paying it forward' and teaching a class in financial values.  

So here's the link for today's lesson at the Oprah.com website.  May you be FREE! 

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-4-The-Truth-Will-Set-You-Free [14]

This was a pleasant show to watch, as it focused on the JOY Oprah has felt when she did giveaways, tracking back to the amazing barista at Starbucks who had two handfulls of kids -- they started out going to give her some things to help make their lives better then realized it wouldn't 'do' in the little apartment they all shared, including several per bed, so they bought her a house.  Then the big car giveway when over 300 people in the audience received a new car -- there were a lot of teachers that day as that was what the show was 'supposed' to be about.  It was heart warming to see some of these high LIGHTS from her years of those types of shows.  

Many of the people who read at Lumigrate have chronic illness, fatigue, and pain, etc.  Lumigrate is about the mind/body/spirit paradigm of health care, so naturally happiness and joy are part of what we're 'about'. It is difficult to maintain joy in your life when you don't feel well.  By learning meditation and utilizing thinking about joyful things, or watching things that are joyful (such as these shows), you can affect the mind/body in a positive way.  

This show and the information at the website (link below) for this segment, and working the program at the website, can help YOU find what's keeping you from having joy, or not having it as much as ideal.  That might mean coming to terms with what is keeping you from it by changing how you look or interact with a problem in your life, or solving that problem! Here's to MORE JOY.  

I watched this when it ran originally on Friday evening after having worked on bringing an award-winning author's work to our Forums, and messing it up how I did it, knowing I was going to need to fix it on Saturday.  I'd just been out running errands, which included appreciative mail to writers whose birthdays were last week (BIG ONES -- 25 and 75!), and I realized for ME, I felt JOY being able to give something to someone -- simple birthday 'gift' of appreciation.  Finding (or creating) a NEAT card, a stamp, an address and putting it all together and knowing that something is on it's way to light up someone's face.  

Knowing the amazing Martine Ehrenclou's books and pieces about them will help Lumigrate's users in regards to how to be proactive patients, including if they're hospitalized.  In writing up why I'm SO EXCITED about her joining us at Lumigrate, which has to do with my history with a snaffu after my "Hysterical Hysterectomy" in 2007 and my husband's almost dying of MRSA in his brain/cerebral spinal fluid in 1986, I realized how the connection truly exists that I didn't want to admit for so many years: my body bears the burden of the years of stressful situations I was in.  

Getting back to WELLNESS, therefore, has to everything to do with managing stressors on the body, mind, spirit.  And beyond 'managing the bad', it means bringing in the GRATE -- JOY being part of that.  Now, I'm going to go find some 'bliss'.  I have the radio onto a show that's on once a week, after I eat breakfast I'm going to NOT work, as has been my usual for a while, and go back to how I used to run my Sunday mornings: picking up the house, having something special to eat and drink, picking up the house and cleaning.  Strange, but that's what I did in the past, and it brought me joy.  To each their own!  (If you want hints on cleaning with chronic illness, I wrote that up this past week as well.  Look in the forum on occupational/functional therapy).   As above, I highly encourage people following these links and checking things out at Oprah.com ongoing.  Today/Sunday her spirituality shows start.  They're getting recorded since my RADIO show comes with no DVR!  

Here to Joy and much healing and wellness coming from working the Lifeclass or other things you find at Lumigrate!  THANKS OPRAH and the OWN 'team'.  ~~ Mardy

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-5-Joy-Rising-The-Car-Giveaway [16]

Here's the link to my 'starting point piece' on Lumigrate related to housekeeping strategies and mindset, which has a link to get people going to reading about "Mardyrella" -- yes, I'm sister's with Cinderella!   SINCE I was talking/above about what brings me JOY.  You see, I'm just happy to be physically well enough again to DO these things again!  I have to do them in adaptive ways, and in the last 1-2 years, I've even done other person's floors in exchange of having an amazing homemade meal (and good wine).  So when I talk about trading with people, that's a way to bring more JOY into your life! 

www.lumigrate.com/forum/your-house-keeping-you-cleaning-challengessolutions-basics-standards-and-team-building [18]

I really liked this episode.  Oprah emphasized how every person has a reason related to the overall world that is what they're to be 'doing' with their life, and that doesn't have to be something on a grand scale when compared to others.  I have also suggested to people if they're uninspired by how they're earning their living ('vocation') to find other occupations to bring them joy and fulfill that sense of deep purpose: anything that occupies time is an 'occupational'. As she said, it's even better if you can earn your living doing what is your calling in life.  

She talked about those jobs being what is the foundation for us frequently: she was asked to anchor the news when she was 19 in a small city, when she had failed a design class in college, as 'I couldn't draw a straight line'. This was in the years I was in high school, being instructed by my father that I was going to go to college and study business -- I didn't really have many choices in my family of origin.  Oprah talked about her father telling her 'you better not quit that job -- you've got good pay, where else will you make $23,000 when you're 22 years old".  That's kind of the same kind of thinking my father had -- it was very 'logical' advise and good from that standpoint, but it didn't factor in what I was interested in, what my passions and strengths were.  (Which were TWO different things, in my case.)  I ended up dropping shorthand, as I could draw curly lines () and that ended up leading to my teacher remembering me the next summer when a secretary for the Statistics program called to ask about students who could work typing for their office/program.  From there, I was hired away from the University for a full time position after I'd gotten married and truly did NOT know what I wanted to study; in purchasing a home from a student graduating and marring an occupational therapist, I learned about the OT program at CSU.  I make it well known here at Lumigrate the shortcomings we had in my education to prepare us to be good therapists and how I've gone about filling in so many gaps by learning through experience as I went, and continually studying.  (I didn't read a book for 'pleasure' for many years and continue to mostly read work-related things.) 

As for the way the messages about what your calling is and how to find and follow it, which Oprah says might be a feeling, not so much 'the burning bush talking to you', I believe she said, came to mind and I thought I'd share it here for your benefit in our audience at Lumigrate. I was being asked eight years ago right about now, to come for November and December to Grand Junction until a skilled nursing home could get an OT permanently hired or a 'traveler' agency contracted.  I only knew one 'traveler' in my whole career up until then and he called me after I'd arrived, asking about Grand Junction as they were asking him to fill the position.

I made a hasty decision to ask for the position, which I regretted within a year when the facility literally fell apart, as they often do (then hopefully get new administration and etc., and come around to being okay or good again, JUST as overall health care is going through right now.)  I found out about a highly respected outpatient PT clinic which had moved into a new building and needed to expand to include OT, so that is how I ended up starting my own business.  From there, I had years of experience in marketing and program building and saw what I was doing over and over through my OT visits no matter what the diagnosis: education about the "occupation" of health care overall.  So many were flailing around not knowing where to turn for information when what their doctors said to them didn't make sense or 'work'.  

In that time frame, I co-founded and co-lead a group which decided to call itself "Fibromyalgia Forum" and people poured out of the woodwork to come and learn. But about 1 in 10 people who wanted to come could be there the day and time we'd meet and have presenters, and I wished one day for the money to start a website, and thought "how hard could it be".  In the past I'd done all but the technical aspects of brining in graphics and video equipment and staff, and I had all these experiences over the tumultuous years in the medical profession since finally graduating at the age of 36 with a degree in occupational therapy.  

Unbenownst to me, there was a check from the estate of relative who had died and left her monies distributed to about a dozen of us! I'd expected her to leave it all to the profession SHE had been a legendary part of, but that got a 'share' equal to mine and the others.  All I can say is I felt it to the core of body and soul that I was to start a website with it: I paid off all my debts, upgraded my vehicle so I wouldn't need to have that expense until the website was up and making money, which takes years.  And I was going to have half of the money as my savings/cushion for the business.  But things didn't go as planned within the integrative center we had been the first to sign a lease in, where I was going to be seeing patients for what I'd been doing related to occupational / functional advising (and support myself). I was very stressed, and to say I've had some very rough and meager times getting through this is putting it mildly.  

However, this made me do things differently in the way I have with Lumigrate and there have been many benefits to that; as things were NOT going as I'd planned, my left brain/logic was getting VERY upset and I literally had a wave come over me which was the realization that I wasn't 'driving the bus', G-d (as Yenta writes it) was!  My job was to just get on the bus every day and figure out where to sit, who to talk with, and when and where to get off and then go from there. And I've continued to use my own monies to support myself and Lumigrate; I consider it a big part of my 'job'.  I have worked as many hours as I did in my 20s when I had a job for a research project that ended up making big changes in air quality in the United States: A job that was NOT something that touched my soul but I knew I was getting a foundation of experience.  I had NO idea how much that was going to have to do with what I was going to do in my middle adulthood! So if you feel you might be in that situation, perhaps you're getting the foundation for what you'll do NEXT.   

This segment made me feel very 'confirmed' about what I have done, as in my late 40s I had gotten 'in touch with' what my calling was and I have a good sense, I believe, of what I have come to this life to 'do'.  This has actually been very different than the way my father and family operate, and it lead to a lot of conflict which has only served to provide opportunity to me to test my resolve.  Suffice it to say, I passed the test, and as Lumigrate continues to gain a proactive, progressive audience and providers of content, I do feel that we're reaching people in significant ways, not YET in the massive numbers Oprah has, but again, we're not here to compare ourselves to others who are on their own path and at their magnitude. 

She goes on to use examples of a social worker who started a business for babies that were without a place to go after being born with complex medical issues and Lady Gaga.  I very much like their varied examples and hope that adding mine has helped if you're reading along.  I suggest you go to the link and see what they covered if this segment resonated an interest for YOU.  The link, is: 

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-6-Who-You-Were-Meant-to-Be-Everybody-Has-a-Calling [20]

With health care concepts, it's often what's on the OUTSIDE that people are more concerned about, which then leads to a better understanding of what's going on in the inside and the connection between the two.  Personal growth can perhaps be the same; I am happy to see that Oprah brought this episode for episode 7.  

She uses, a great deal, the interview with Cybil Shepard (sp) from her past interview show (4,561 of them she did, they lead into the lifeclass with, to point out ALL the interviews they have to pull from to have this wisdom they profess).  Cybil was the first to answere the question about outward 'beauty' honestly (in Oprah's opinion) and said 'yes, I was given beauty and it was helpful and hurtful to me in this that and the other way' (essentially).  They had a good discussion about it.  They also brought the interview with Love Story's star, Ali Macgraw (sp), who was in her 70s at the time of the interview and verbalizing her contentedness with herself increasingly with age.  

It's helpful to me to see these older women who I have always followed and enjoyed as movie or TV stars; I'm in my 50s now and making my choices about how I'm going to age: I've stopped coloring my hair blond, letting the natural dark colors sprinkled with grey 'be'. I'm working on my SELF, as always, but perhaps increasingly as I'm in a period of life transition which has not so much to do with 'age' as it does having the last of my parents deteriorate and die in the last decade.  Being looked to as an example as the director of Lumigrate and needing to make decisions about what we do, who we do it with, how we do it, is something I take very seriously and feel it is my 'life's work'.  

While I have for many years had patients who looked to me for guidance, that would be maybe 20-30 people a week.  Now there can be twice that many people reading at Lumigrate at any one point in time! I believe I have the wisdom now to do this well -- we're now three years since the time I was pulling together what seminars to record in video (see videos tab), and on a daily basis I pat myself on the back for having selected what we have to offer people.  For anyone who knows what went on the scenes with getting those recorded, I REALLY pat myself on the back, including having gone on my gut related to hiring who I did to help with the tasks!  We were 'three blond girls' (average age mid 40s) and I hope they are as proud of what we accomplished as I am.  

This show, by having Oprah talk about mistakes she's made and how she's dealt with it, is helping me with what was one of the hardest things for me to do in my middle adulthood, which was related to not having enough money to sustain the staff and office space, but I am extraordinarily appreciative of how I have gotten from then to now and my increasing sense of security that has less to do with money but my SELF.  Lumigrate teaches ME much as well, just as Oprah's businesses have been powerful vehicles for her self growth.  

As for myself, I was beautiful in my youth and that has changed; due to the way I was treated in my family of origin, I did not have the self esteem to feel 'beautiful', and due to no money being spent on me for clothes or haircuts, jewelry, etc., I basically learned to value what was on the inside with people, and for that I'm grateful.  At least I haven't had to struggle in my middle age with 'beauty changing'. This is worth a look and working the questions; here's the link to Lesson 7.   

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-7-Aging-Beautifully [22]

In this episode, Oprah reviews her important connection and history with author Maya Angelou and how important it was to her to meet and become a mentee of Ms. Angelou's.  It made me want to say to women who are older than younger women, to take someone under your wing.  I'm appreciative to "Petie" who did that -- I was years into my career as an OT before I felt I had a mentor! That was not good!  I'd been doing 'fine', but really needed someone with more experience in the things I was needing to develop my skills in, which at the time was hand therapy.  When you're an OT in skilled nursing, you're expected to do some hand therapy and that had not been part of my schooling at Colorado State in the 'new' program they devised in the mid 1990s.

The medical world was making a lot of changes occur in who does what: PTs were getting into hand therapy more and OTs were becoming specialists in only applying what the PTs did with the physical body to function/occupations.  (How you occupy time is an 'occupation'.)  So there was this huge gap, as you can see.  The other big change had to do with wheelchairs; the physical therapist is the one to determine what mobility device a person needs to assist them with ambulation or mobility .. cane, walker with wheels or not, etc.  Then the OTs would reinforce what was learned with the PT to function/occupations.  Wheelchairs fall into that category of mobility device BUT it's very time intensive to do wheelchair positioning and so PTs, who are typically the discipline that manages therapy teams, shifted that to occupational therapists.  The history of that is that PTs used to be mostly male, OTs mostly female, plus there have always been about 2-3x as many PTs on a team for every OT (and then even fewer STs/speech and language pathologists).  I also had only one hour of class and lab related to wheelchairs, really quite trivial.  I had to learn that 'in the trenches' as well, and was every so relieved when a new on call PT walked in and said she was nervous as she hadn't had an ambulatory patient in over a decade, she was a wheelchair specialist! 

I had been forced to work in a SNF that had an unhappy contractee due to the OTs response about a wheelchair positioning issue she was having to deal with for a VERY complex patient with neurological 'tone'.  She was a classmate of mine and had done a good job, she was beautiful and kind of 'cool' feeling, and people just didn't 'like' her. She called me every weekend bemoaning her job's problems and I hadn't wanted to trade facilities with her, but my employer insisted on it and said if I did, they'd give me a benefitted position.  I needed benefits as my COBRA from my old job in driving rehab was going to run out soon, and then they reversed on that when they found out on my insurance paperwork that I had fibromyalgia.  I'd learned a GREAT deal from a YOUNGER woman about wheelchairs at that job, picked up my friendship with Petie who was doing hand therapy for the company, and all I can say is MANY TIMES, I have thought and repeated to others "when you know better, you do better." 

Again, please follow the link and look at this lesson on Oprah.com and think about what I said about taking on mentees, no matter what your age. They brought back the "Skinheads" that had walked out years before in a taping of Oprah -- two of them had changed their ways and apologized to Oprah.  I think it goes a long way to realizing how EVERYTHING we all do to make changes adds up to making the societal changes we see overall.  Lumigrate is one part of that, and I thank you for being with us reading this.  I hope it makes some difference for YOU. 

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-8-When-You-Know-Better [24]

Oprah opens with this this:  You are responsible for YOUR life, and if you're sitting around waiting for someone to fix you, even help you. Only YOU have the power to take the responsibility to change your life.  It doesn't matter where you come from, Oprah's seen people that have walked out of the desert, or had mothers with PhD ... What matters is NOT, this moment, your willingness to accept it, see the past, forgive, and move forward. 

Paula Deen was an unexpected teacher for Oprah when she came on the Oprah show. She had a time when they lost EVERYTHING; they had no house, no car, and she worked on cooking and dreamed about how she could take care of herself and her family.  Out of her Savanna, GA home she used $200 to start a business when her sons were in junior high.  They 'reduced themselves' as she said, to peddling sandwiches she was making in the upstart. 

"I worked like a damn dog", Paula said, to make that $200 into $20m she is now worth.  She views it as that God blessed her life. Her idea of success was being able to buy groceries before payday. She took responsibility, had a dream and then surrendered it to 'that which is greater than yourself' and allow it to move in the direction of your greater advantage.  Oprah wanted to remind the audience that each person has a different ultimate life purpose and not everyone's going to end up putting lots of work and $200 and have it end up in a multi-million dollar business, but it will result in being with your life's purpose and the satisfaction and happiness that comes from that. 

All of life is about energy; what you put out, what you draw to you.  You actions, who you chose to be in the world, and it draws into your field people who are like you to reflect back to you who you are. 

It turns out she was also agoraphobic -- fear of being out in public.  Her sons were unaware, they said "I thought mom just liked to stay in the house".  It was so bad, they dropped music lessons for the boys.  She used "The Serenity Prayer" one day, and uses it to this day.  "Paula, do not ____________" (whatever is going on in her life related to business, or whatever challenges).  When she accepted her death she was able to start living again; due to her parents dying when she was newly married, and with her being raised as Southern Baptist, where "everything happens for a reason", and she said she doesn't believe that anymore.      

She accepted her ultimate death and that of her children someday, then she was able to start living again.  The profound effect of her parents dying when her brother was still in her teens, and 'all the security' that went with the parents being alive, is what set up the underlying anxiety; utilizing The Serenity Prayer allowed her to go forward. 

I'd covered The Serenity Prayer elsewhere in the Forum on Lumigrate and am going to also place the photograph of my treasured version of it: It's something I believe I bought at the bookstore at Colorado State University when I was taking preparatory classes in my 30s, hoping to be one of the few admitted to the occupational therapy program, considered at that time to be one of the top three in the United States. 

They went on to cover the case of a woman brain scientist, Dr Jill Bolte Taylor (PhD), who has written a very good book I've read parts of, My Stroke of Insight, related to her having a very significant stroke.  She described the time when she was unable to speak and was not fully interactive with the medical providers coming into her room and how it made her feel to be treated the way she was. When she was on the Oprah show, she had said "we are responsible for the energy we bring into a room".  

This was reinforced in it's importance by a woman attorney who had seen that and changed how she interacted with the very contentious, stressful meetings that were part of her work.  

Oprah talked about the sense she gets from a person, 'their energy', and she talks about the first time she realized how this 'stuff' worked in her life about energy: She was carrying around a copy of the book The Color Purple and, as we all know, ended up getting a call to be in the movie! 

John Diaz was one of the survivors of a Singapore Airlines #006 crash, who had a feeling before getting on the plane that he should not board.  But he went ahead and boarded. The plane made a wrong turn and collided with another plane on the runway. He witnessed many people dying in the plane as it burned and witnessed the auras of people, and they had various colors and brightnesses.  He now works to increase his energy so that when he dies, he has a bright aura! 

What you are putting out into the world is coming back to you, all the time.  Oprah said that her goal is to have the brightest light possible at the end of her life. When Gwen Pettit or I or other therapists and coaches work with people, we ask for long term goals.  That's a GRATE example of a long-term goal. 

She then went to an old Oprah show where she and Bob Greene went to Mississippi, the state with the highest obesity in the United States, to inspire people there to get on board weight loss.  She interviewed a man who was at least 770# at his heaviest. Jeff said it was about needing to exercise every day, cutting back from three platefulls of food to one, and watching how he fixed the foods -- he now 'bakes and grills', whereas everything previously was fried.  "The greater the challenge, the greater the reward". "You'll either put effort into changing or you'll put energy into defending where you are" Bob Green said. They checked back in with Jeff a year later, and he was teaching a water aerobics class for people where were 100# overweight or more, and continued with his regimen of working out at a gym, lifting weights, riding a bike, and pool work.  He was proud to report he was able to tie his own shoes now, which he could not before he began losing weight.  

They interviewed a woman who was inspired by seeing Jeff on Oprah, and how he inspired her to make changes. It takes an awful lot of courage for Jeff to do what he did to change, and to be on television sharing it.  As with the woman, who has lost over 200# and has a goal to lose another 100#.  "I know what I need to do and I'm going to do it".

Lastly, they reviewed an Oprah show where Dr Mehmet Oz was a guest (in his blue surgical garb before he went to dressing in business attire).  The show was on medical errors, and he had said 'you are the expert on your own body'.  The woman was home recovering from a double mastectomy, and she pressed her doctor at the follow-up appointment where she sensed she had a lump, "every cell in my body was screaming" that the lump was the same cancer and the surgeon had made a mistake.  So, because of her standing up for that, she has now had a successful recovery. 

Oprah closes saying something significant.  She reflects upon what she can see in her journals -- "how crazy I was, how uninformed, how I was giving my power away", and how she was looking to God to bring things to her, but she now realizes you bring what you ask for to you by taking responsibility for yourself, your energy, and that will bring you closer to God and what you want to you. 

Here's the link to this lesson at Oprah.com - I encourage people going to their website and looking at what all they have as the lesson highlights and questions to ask yourself to work on becoming YOUR brightest light!

www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-9-Youre-Responsible-For-Your-Life [26]

In episode #10, it was a huge Joyfest thing -- they're making Fridays FUN, something we try to do at Lumigrate's facebook too.  So check out the website if you're interested in that.  It was ALL about the big Flashmob the staff surprised Oprah with at the start of her next to the last season on the Oprah show on network TV.  Very fun to watch and the people WHO WERE THERE report it was a life changing event.  Which I think attests to the importance of getting out in the 'real world' as when we truly connect energy-wise with others, something that doesn't translate through the Internet, it's just the very best! 

Episode 11 is at the following link www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-11-Your-Life-Speaks-to-You-in-a-Whisper [28].   She covers the past shows of the girl who was kidnapped in S. Lake Tahoe and held for 18 years with 60 visits from government-paid workers to check on the parolee-kidnapper who was holding her AND their two daughters after they were born.  He went to UC Berkeley police to discuss a plan he had in his head for an event and the two woman officers saw the girls and became suspicious and made the call that ended up with his finally being caught.  

They also reviewed Tracy Gold's drunk driving/crash episode and Oprah's example of taking the offer of someone who twice asked to be the driver for her when she went to a margarita party where she was planning on only having one drink; but when the person kept asking and she had the thought in the back of her head that 'maybe I should listen to this', she accepted the offer.  

Another portion was about the woman who started noticing things here and there, increasingly, that were odd about her husband or the food and water at her bedside at night.  He was poisoning her through those things AND the condoms they used (they had two young boys).  

The energy that you're putting out and what's coming back to you and you being an OBSERVER and paying attention to what is going on.  There are so many signs coming at you all the time.  It's signaling you to try to get better.  Pay attention .. if you get it in the 'whisper', then it won't go on to be a brick wall. 

What I'd add to it is to not just listen to your whisper, but to the words of people surrounding you who might have a more objective vantage point.  When it's someone we have a history with or a major relationship with, we might not want to see that they're doing us harm.  And while it's hard to say 'you were right, thank you, I was missing something', it's better than, as Oprah says, dealing with the brick wall when it falls down on you! 

 I was liking the 'commitment' of following this show each day and summarizing it but then a friend's family had an emergency I went to help with related to my medical background for shepherding/support.  "I'm good at giving advice but not taking it, but I'm taking it from you", my gal pal said on the phone before I left.  

SO, apologies for the departure on this, but I truly encourage everyone to check out this show / series, and the website and 'do the work' that appeals to you.  I feel it's too much for every day -- it would be perfect for me to have one a week.  I initially thought it was only a five day series, I didn't know it was ongoing! But I presume they'll rerun and then it'll be good to review and then focus on things that resonate.  To  your growth! Mardy