The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose(2)

The years following the end of the show brought many unexpected possibilities, and I had some daunting moments when creating a new cable network, OWN. Stopping to consider my own advice of turning challenges into opportunities is what allowed me to move forward.

This is the lesson I hope you take away from this chapter: Your life is not static. Every decision, setback, or triumph is an opportunity to identify the seeds of truth that make you the wondrous human being that you are. I’m not talking just about what you do for a living. When you pay attention to what feeds your energy, you move in the direction of the life for which you were intended. Trust that the Universe has a bigger, wider, deeper dream for you than you could ever imagine for yourself.

Growing up in the church, one of my favorite Bible parables was about the mustard seed: If you have faith, even if it’s as little as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Anything is possible. As a child, listening from my seat in church, this brought me so much comfort—just as it did when I was struggling as a reporter in Baltimore and as it still does today. The mustard seed is such a tiny speck of a thing. I am emboldened by the belief that all I need is a mustard seed of faith and no matter what, I am going to be all right.

As you begin to identify the seeds of knowing along your own path, the first question to ask yourself is, What do I believe?

Do you believe that you are worthy of happiness, success, abundance, fulfillment, peace, joy, and love?

What I know for sure is you become what you believe.

—Oprah





SUE MONK KIDD


I think life is a process. You wake up. Then you wake up some more. One self dies. Another is born. It’s an evolution of consciousness. If you look at the way God created the world, it’s always about a seed and a sprout and a flower. And then it goes back to seed. It’s always about process and unfolding. We’re on a journey of greater and greater consciousness, becoming more compassionate, more loving, and that is a lifelong spiraling process.





TIM STOREY


You are a mighty person in the making. You are a miracle in motion. Motion is movement. We’re not there yet. But we’re in motion. At all times, we are all going through recovery and discovery. Some people stop their lives because they are in recovery. But you should be in recovery and discovery at the same time.





Dr. SHEFALI TSABARY


Whether we like to recognize it or not, even the most unconscious person, against their greatest will, is on a process to evolve. Life gives us opportunity after opportunity to ask, Is this my truest self? Or am I living the inauthentic self? Becoming conscious means to recognize when that moment arrives. And it’s coming and it’s coming and it’s coming.





Pastor A. R. BERNARD


OPRAH: Do you believe that everybody has a calling?

PASTOR A. R. BERNARD: Absolutely.

OPRAH: How do we open ourselves to that calling? How can we be more open to hear and more open to find the path that is our calling?

PASTOR BERNARD: First we have to believe that we do have a purpose. Every individual has a purpose. And when we begin to think that way, we will appreciate the sacredness of life. And not be destructive to any aspect of it. We’ll respect people better. Too often people think purpose is that one thing for which I was born. But what happens if you achieve that at age twenty-seven? You have no reason to live beyond that. Purpose is dynamic. Purpose continues to be applied throughout your life. Because your gifts, your talents, and your abilities that are given to you by God remain consistent throughout your life. But how you apply that changes as you live life from one level to another and you go through stages of life.





ELIZABETH GILBERT


There are still huge swaths of women who never got the memo that their lives belong to them.

There’s this instinct that they need a permission slip from the principal’s office for anything. You are allowed to ask yourself some really important questions about your life. You are allowed to take accountability and ownership for your own journey. You’re allowed to ask what serves you. I know you’ve been trained up to serve everyone. But you’re allowed to turn that on yourself and honor your own life that you were given.

Here’s the question. What have I come here to do with my life? That’s the question that begins every single quest. What have I come here to do with my life? There’s no one who hasn’t had that question come to them. That’s the call. Now, you can choose to ignore that question or you can pursue it. And the pursuit is the beginning of the journey.





Bishop T. D. JAKES


If we can get the clutter out of our mind, if we can get the guilt out of our mind, if we can get the shame out of our mind, if we can get the worry out of our mind, if we can get the busyness out of our mind, then all of a sudden we’re going to have ideas which are seeds. And the seed of an idea gets planted firmly in your mind when you believe in yourself and you believe in your potential.





CAROLINE MYSS


If you have life, you have purpose. If you have life, one drop of life. One. That is enough. One atom is as purposeful as our planet. What is in one is in the whole. It can’t be otherwise. It cannot.





DEEPAK CHOPRA


If you’re rested, if your mind is in peace, and if you’re full of love and compassion, if you come from being and then feeling, and then self-reflection, then things will synchronistically fall into place. That’s how nature functions. Like the seed. In every seed is the promise of thousands of forests. This is your karmic seed. Harbam means that you have unique gifts. Focus on the gifts. Don’t focus on the weaknesses, because there are other people who will complement your weaknesses, and you will complement theirs. You recognize the gift when you’re expressing yourself in that unique way, giving out your gifts, and you lose track of time.