4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Catch the whisper, Jan 8 2009
This review is from: The Oprah Winfrey Show: 20th Anniversary DVD Collection (DVD)
On January 29, 1954 Oprah Gail Winfrey was born. Oprah had a mountain of obstacles already in front of her as a newborn baby... she was born to unwed teenage parents, female, she was black, and she was poor.. not just poor...po!
Oprah's mother was an eighteen-year-old housemaid. Her father, a twenty-year-old doing duty in the armed forces: his name - Vernon Winfrey.
For her first six years, Oprah was raised on a Mississippi farm by her grandmother. Oprah credits living with her grandmother as saving her life.
At the age of six, her mother, Vernita Lee, wanted to care for her young daughter and Oprah was sent to live with her in Milwaukee, from ages six to thirteen. She was raped by a cousin when she nine and later molested by a male friend of her mother's and by an uncle. She never told anyone about the abuse. Instead, she held her anger and pain inside and rebelled, repeatedly running away and getting into trouble.
Her mother elected to put her into a detention home. Fortunately for Oprah, she was denied admission to the home because there were no openings. So, luckily she was sent to live with her father Vernon Winfrey in Nashville. Before she ceased her promiscuous and wild behavior, she became pregnant and gave birth to a stillborn baby boy when she was fourteen. The death of her baby devastated her and she vowed to turn her life around.
Oprah Winfrey began her career in 1973 in Nashville, Tennessee, as WTVF's youngest -- and first-ever African-American -- news anchor, before moving in 1976 to Baltimore's WJZ, where she took over the chat-fest People Are Talking in 1978.
In 1983, Winfrey moved to Chicago to host AM Chicago, which within three years would become The Oprah Winfrey Show, roll out nationally via syndication, to become what it is today.
From an interview on learning from life-- "And what I found is that every time you have to repeat the lesson, it gets worse. I call it God trying to get your attention. The universe trying to get your attention. "Sooo we didn't get your attention the first time. We are going to have to hit you a little harder this time." So I'm still doing it. I'm still learning.
And it seems worse because it gets worse. I say, the universe is always trying to get your attention. Sometimes it starts out -- any major problem you encounter -- as a whisper. By the time it gets to be a storm, you've had a pebble knock you upside the head; you've had a brick; you've had a brick wall; you've had a house fall down. And before you know it, you are in the eye of the storm.
But long before you are in the eye of the storm, you've had many warnings, like little clues. So now my goal in life is not to have to hit the eye of the storm, but to catch it in the whisper. To get it the first time. I think the thing, the one thing that has allowed me to certainly achieve both material success and spiritual success, is the ability to listen to my instinct. I call it my inner voice. It doesn't matter what you call it -- nature, instinct, higher power. It's the ability to understand the difference between what your heart is saying and what your head is saying. I now always go with the heart. Even when my head is saying, 'Oh, but this is the rational thing; this is really what you should do.' I always go with that little... feeling. The feeling. I am where I am today because I have allowed myself to listen to my feelings."
The six-disc collection follows her impressive career, starting with "The Beginning," which outlines the early days of her show; "Heartprints," offering her most emotionally affecting interviews; "Aha!," focusing on moments that provided lessons; and the "Stars, interviews with celebrities. Everything is a highlight.
Harpo Productions full share of the net profits from this DVD's sales gets donated to Oprah's Angel Network.
For me personally, the big moment came after a Dr Phil segment. A woman was planning to commit suicide because she could not process her daughter's violent death 10 years before. Dr Phil turned it around by changing her focus. Then Oprah said afterwards: "I could see that shift in her perceptions."
I realised that that is all I needed to do, at any time, in any situation, is shift my perceptions, and I learned how to do that. Learning NLP offered me further insights into his exact strategy in the situation. That single phrase was one of the impactful on my life of any I heard. That was my major aha moment, but I feel confident you will find many of your own. I hope you find this review helpful.
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