Oprah on Committment!

this has obviously been a theme with me lately as a couple of you know!!! I like this!!


Nothing happens until you decide. Years ago on my show, a young mother shared her frustration with getting her son to go to bed. Her son was 3 and ruling the house. He wanted to sleep in her bed and refused to lie down in his own. The more the mother insisted, the more the child resisted—yelling, screaming, and literally dropping from exhaustion.

We showed a tape of the two of them wrestling it out. When our expert, Dr. Stanley Turecki, finished watching, he said something that made the hairs on my arm stand up: "Nothing happens until you decide." The reason her 3-year-old didn't sleep in his own bed was that the mother had not decided it would happen. When she did, the child would go to his bed. He might cry and scream and rant until he fell asleep, but he would eventually realize that his mother had made up her mind.

Well, I knew he was speaking about a 3-year-old, but I also knew for sure that this brilliant piece of advice applied to many other aspects of life: Relationships. Career moves. Weight issues. Everything depends on your decisions.

For years I was stuck in a weight trap, yo-yoing up and down the scale. I made a decision two years ago to stop wishing, praying, and wanting, wanting, wanting to be better. Instead I figured out what it would really take to improve my life. Then I decided to do it.

When you don't know what to do, my best advice is to do nothing until clarity comes. Getting still, being able to hear your own voice and not the voices of the world, quickens clarity. Once you decide what you want, you make a commitment to that decision. One of my favorite quotes is from mountaineer W.H. Murray:

"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. / Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

Make a decision, and watch your life move forward.

turbulent Tuesday!

okay folks. Today my mantra has been "today was difficult, tomorrow will be better." it's taken from one of my favorite childrens books ever called "Lily's Purple Plastic Purse." Anyways-today's word to the wise comes from "eat,pray,love" by Elizabeth gilbert. I (like the masses) absolutely fell in love with this book! here is one of my favorite quotes:


"There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts."

manic manic monday!

remember all: this is "what Oprah knows for sure"-there seems to have been some confusion! I promise I'll be original when I find the time and the words!!!

I had recognized for a long time that I was responsible for my life, that every choice produced a consequence. But often the consequences seemed out of line with my expectations. That's because I was thinking one thing but intending another. I wasn't aware of the consequences of my deepest intentions. My intention of always trying to please other people, for example, produced an unwanted consequence: I often felt taken advantage of and used.

So I decided to become aware if my every intention in order to create a different outcome. That meant doing only those things that came for the truth of who I am—and only doing for others what pleased me to do.

What I know for sure is that whatever your situation is right now, you have played a major role in setting it up. It is you who have created your circumstances. With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice. And beneath each of those thoughts and choices lies your deepest intention. If you are feeling stuck in your life and want to move forward, start by examining your past motivations.

the quick list!

1. What you put out comes back all the time, no matter what. (This is my creed.)

2. You define your own life. Don't let other people write your script.

3. Whatever someone did to you in the past has no power over the present. Only you give it power.

4. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. (A lesson from Maya Angelou.)

5. Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.

6. What you believe has more power than what you dream or wish or hope for. You become what you believe.

7. If the only prayer you ever say is thank you, that will be enough. (From the German theologian and humanist Meister Eckhart.)

8. The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give.

9. Failure is a signpost to turn you in another direction.

10. If you make a choice that goes against what everyone else thinks, the world will not fall apart.

11. Trust your instincts. Intuition doesn't lie.

12. Love yourself and then learn to extend that love to others in every encounter.

13. Let passion drive your profession.

14. Find a way to get paid for doing what you love. Then every paycheck will be a bonus.

15. Love doesn't hurt. It feels really good.

16. Every day brings a chance to start over.

17. Being a mother is the hardest job on earth. Women everywhere must declare it so.

18. Doubt means don't. Don't move. Don't answer. Don't rush forward.

19. When you don't know what to do, get still. The answer will come.

20. "Trouble don't last always." (A line from a Negro spiritual, which calls to mind another favorite: This, too, shall pass.)

Hard Work!

If there were a shortcut to having a healthy body, I'm sure I'd have the secret by now. Since that day so many years back when I decided I wanted to get into my size 10 Calvin Klein jeans again, I've fallen prey to just about every diet scam known to womankind—anything that represented a quick fix. A magic pill or potion. An easy way to get what I wanted without having to step onto that StairMaster every morning.

Whether we want to lose weight, reach a career goal, or improve our relationships, it's human to look for the easy way out—the shortcut. One woman I met on my show reminded me of how we can delude ourselves. She was planning her wedding, and she and her fiancé disagreed over the exorbitant cost. He wanted a simple, inexpensive affair. She wanted the fairy tale: the perfect dress, a pricey photographer, hundreds of guests. No matter how he tried to reason with her that they couldn't afford the $40,000 cost, she wouldn't hear him. She was so fixated on planning the event that she'd forgotten to prepare for their life ahead—for the real work of their marriage. The wedding represented the yellow brick road that would lead her to a perfect princess life on the other side of the rainbow.

What I know for sure is this: The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal for this year is, you can get there—as long as you're willing to be honest with yourself about the preparation and work involved. There are no back doors, no free rides. There's just you, this moment and a choice. Will you persevere when you most want to quit? Will you pry yourself out of bed for a morning run months after you've made your New Year's promise?

One thing I find helpful is making a formal commitment to myself with a contract much like the one Bob Greene designed for Get with the Program. Each time you make a decision to move toward the life you say you want—whether that means sticking to your own fitness contract or choosing to be patient with your 2-year-old—you are doing your most important spiritual work. I call these daily choices your "holy moments."

This year, have the boldness to tell yourself the truth—every bit of it. We all know that if you don't attend to your relationships, they will wilt; you can be certain that if you invest all your time in work you don't care about, your spirit will die; if you raid the fridge every night and never hit the gym, I guarantee your hips will spread. And if you decide to rise up and create a new experience for yourself, I know for sure that you can attain it the old-fashioned way—through hard work.

It's Friday, I'm in Looove!(not really, but boy, I do love singing that song!)

Oh, my little Emeri at 2 months!!! Isn't she the cutest!!!!


The one time I lost my balance before a show was the day of my live interview with Michael Jackson in 1993. In the weeks leading up to that prime-time conversation, the hype had reached dizzying heights—Michael, who hadn't given a television interview in 14 years, had agreed to talk with me. I wanted our exchange to be spontaneous, so I hadn't even prepared questions.

But a few minutes before the cameras rolled, a wave of fear rose up inside me. My mind raced. What should my first question be? Will I go completely blank during the interview? What if I don't recover? When Michael arrived and we prepared to go on-air, I was so tense that the first question I asked him was "How nervous are you?" He looked right at me and said, "I'm not nervous at all." That simple exchange was enough to transport me back to the present: If he could stand before the world and tell his story without fear, why should I be afraid? I could feel the tension drain from my body as I drew in a breath and began what I'd done a hundred times before, trusting the energy of our conversation to carry me from one moment to the next.

Every challenge we take on has the power to shake us—to knock us to our knees. And yet, what's even more disconcerting than the jolt itself is our fear that we won't withstand it. When we feel the ground beneath us shifting, we panic. We forget everything we know, and allow fear to freeze us. Just the thought of what could happen is enough to throw us off-balance.

What I know for sure is that the only way to endure the quake is to adjust your stance. You can't avoid the daily tremors. They come with being alive. These experiences are really gifts that force us to step to the right or left in search of a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a different way to stand.

Balance lives in the present. The surest way to lose your footing is to focus on what dreadful things might happen. When you feel the Earth moving, bring yourself back to the now. You'll handle whatever shake-up the next moment brings when you get to it. In this moment, you're still breathing. In this moment, you've survived. In this moment, you've found a new place to move your feet so you can step onto higher ground.

when it rains...it pours(blog posts!!)

okay all! My good friend AD let me in on a little "greys" secret! Every week, the writers keep a blog-explaining the inner workings or what have you of the episode. I happened to fall in love with these blogs and feel I must share this one with you! the website is greyswriters.com if you'd like to check it out yourself!!

here goes:


Absurd. A flood. In a hospital. Those absurd, desperate writers. I know that’s what some of you are thinking. But here’s the thing… Back in June, when we were just gathering together to begin early discussions of season five, my sister Jennifer came over for dinner. Jenn is a shrink. I’m sure she has a more official title than that, but I go with shrink cause she’s my sister and she lets me. She works in a psychiatric hospital in the San Fernando Valley and her patients are mostly low functioning schizophrenics. So she came over for dinner and I said “How was your day?” and she said, “You mean aside from the hospital flooding?” And I looked at her like, seriously? And she said, “Yeah, we had to move all the patients to one wing. All the schizophrenic patients, piled on top of each other in one small wing of the hospital. That was my day.” And I said, without skipping a beat, “And that is my episode. Just so you know.” So as absurd as it may seem? Real. And in real life it was even weirder cause all the patients were CRAZY PEOPLE. Awesome.

I think it’s appropriate that Jenn inspired this episode because in a way, this episode is written as a love letter to therapy. What it all comes down to for me is what Dr. Wyatt says to Meredith in the elevator, “And happiness in the face of horrible is not the goal. Feeling the horrible stuff and knowing that you’re not gonna die from the feelings? That’s goal.” Nothing better than a good shrink. I love therapy and I love what’s it done for Meredith in the short amount of time she’s gone (and I’m bummed she quit before she could get to the really good stuff.) It’s hard – to peel away the layers of the onion that is you and look at all that juice cause it burns your eyes and makes you cry and makes you hurt and makes you feel…but it also makes you better. (Oh my God, talk about a tortured metaphor. Sorry. I’m tired. We’re in the room breaking episode 12.)

Point is, I’m proud of Meredith that she got as far as she did. And I love that last scene where she stands up to Derek. She doesn’t get drunk. She doesn’t freak out. She doesn’t walk away. She doesn’t ignore him. She doesn’t leave him. She just stands there and tells him her truth. And that is so so so hard and so so so scary for her (as it is for a lot of us.) And what I love most is the look of shock on her face when it works. It’s so hard to change. For everyone I know, change and growth are deeply difficult tasks. And so it makes me happy for Meredith and Derek that they are taking baby steps toward happiness and function.

When we were shooting that scene, Ellen expressed concern to me about her question to Derek at the end. “You still love me?” She was concerned that it sent a message to the girls and women who watch our show that a man’s love is the thing that matters most. (But she didn’t say the girls and women who watch our show. She said “the future Coco’s of the world.” Cause Coco’s my daughter, and Ellen’s no dummy, she knows how to get a writer to listen!) But my feeling is this: I was not trying to say that a man’s love is what matters most. I was trying to say that the ability to know and trust that you (and by you I mean, me, Meredith, all of us) are lovable. To be willing to stand in your truth, stand in your vulnerability, stand in your fear, stand at your breaking point and hold on to yourself – that’s what matters. And that’s what surprises Meredith. She’s shocked that she’s allowed to be herself and someone loves her anyway. Those of us who grew up in the sometimes loving but sometimes terrifying and sometimes cataclysmic way that Meredith grew up? We sometimes need to learn, and need to be reminded, more than once, that we are lovable just as we are. Ellen got on board – and I thought she delivered the moment beautifully.

Tell you what else I love in this episode: Alex. On the porch. When he says “Hello” to Izzie. I tell you, that Justin Chambers can do any freaking thing you throw at him. There was some discussion when the script came out of whether or not we should change that “Hello” to “Hi” which sounds more like Alex. But Justin? He pulled it off so beautifully. He made it sound like Alex and then some. The vulnerability under that one word... The subtlety… I just thought it was exquisite work.

Speaking of psychology, which I wasn’t just now, I was speaking of Justin but I’ve learned that when you say “speaking of” something, people usually go with you. It’s lazy, but I’m tired so… Speaking of psychology, how ‘bout Cristina? (I’ve never sat around with my sister Jenn and diagnosed the characters on this show the way I’ve sat around with her diagnosing every member of my own family, but I bet that would be a fascinating conversation.) Cause we know there’s actually a good and caring person somewhere inside Cristina. I mean, she cares enough about Meredith to storm Wyatt’s office, right? And Wyatt gets right away how vulnerable she is. How scared she is. (Even if she can’t admit it) But still – she totally stole Izzie’s apartment! And she didn’t even mean to! Izzie thinks she’s being evicted, and Cristina somehow convinces herself that Izzie pulled that flyer off the wall for her! I love it. We’re currently breaking episode 12 of season 5 and I’ve been here since episode 1 of season 1 – and I never get tired of writing these characters. And you know why? It’s cause so many of them so badly need a good shrink!

Derek, who’s generally a pretty great guy and who just promised Mer he’d take baby steps, assumes her roommates are moving out. Just assumes it – without even a discussion. I mean, seriously, entitled much???

Alex, who clearly still has feelings for Izzie, is as mean as he can be to her until the very end – when maybe he’s thinking his luck’s gonna turn. And even then, all he can say is hello.

Mark Sloan, a double board certified ENT and plastic surgeon who normally doesn’t give the time of day to an intern, stops to listen to Lexie’s diagnosis. Which either makes him a better teacher than we thought or a guy who simply, physically cannot walk away when a pretty girl is talking (I’m still not sure which.)

George is about to have some kind of actual breakdown in anticipation of his test (and it makes me giggle that the proctor finds him “a nice quiet room up in psych.”)

Lexie is codependent to an almost pathological degree – turning down Sloan’s surgery so she can help George with the Chief’s scut.

Izzie who is generally the happiest person we know, has ended up somehow all alone.
Callie and Erica seem to be discovering some real truths about themselves pretty late in life.

And the Chief? The Chief is basically watching while the hospital crumbles around him because his fear and pride won’t let him acknowledge that the hospital is crumbling around him!

And Bailey – her lack of power is TORTURING HER. I love that little moment when she goes to the gallery to get a quiet moment and you can see her giving herself a tiny little talking to… I imagine her saying, “Do not quit! Do not tell the Chief to go screw himself! Do not say out loud ANY of what you’re thinking, Miranda Bailey!” And then of course the ceiling caves in giving her the ultimate vindication. I love these characters. I love the messiness and the layers and the fact that they absolutely refuse to behave or to “get all whole and healed,” as Meredith would say. I think if I wasn’t a writer, I’d be a shrink. Jenn and I could open a practice together and then sit around every night and laugh about how crazy we all are. That would be fun.

I have to add before I go how much I loved the guest stars in this episode. The actor Jim Ortlieb who played Jack O’Brien (get it? Jack O Brien. J.O.B. Job. Biblical. Whatever.) was so funny and subtle and heartbreaking and that lovely actress Samantha Quan who played Shelley… I watched them shoot that scene plus I’ve seen this episode 3 or 4 times now plus I wrote it and I still cry every time she breaks down at the unfairness of getting terminal cancer in your 20’s. And Daniel Travanti who played Mr. Patmore? His breakdown? Kills me every time. I did not expect that performance. I did not script that he would cry. I pictured something totally different. And then I got the dailies of that scene and it just wrecked me with it’s awesomeness. I love good actors. Yay, good actors!

I am rambling. I get that. I’m tired, like I said. But I hope you liked this episode and I hope more than that that you had a lovely summer. Because life is weird and hard and scary sometimes. People are diagnosed with terminal cancer in their twenties and people get debilitating pain for reasons no one can diagnose and hospitals flood and ceilings collapse and lives fall apart, sometimes out of nowhere… So I hope very much that you are all enjoying the quieter moments, the moments in between the breaking points. I hope you kiss your kids a lot and tell your spouses and parents that you love them a lot and buy yourself flowers a lot for no good reason. I hope you love your life. And if for some reason you don’t or can’t – I hope you find a really good shrink like my sister Jenn or Dr. Wyatt. Cause therapy rocks.

End of love letter.

what she knows for sure...

until I can come up with some original stuff(there is plenty of it in my head, just no time to process and put it on paper)-i'm gonna sustain this dying blog with my favorite column of O! It's called "what I know for sure." Although, I quasi boycott Oprah, I still love this column...so I'll be sharing my favs with you until I get myself together!! Hope you like!

What I Know for Sure
"A healthy relationship brings joy—not just some of the time but most of the time."

I was clearing out a drawer the other day and came across 12 pages that stopped me in my tracks. It was a looove letter I'd written but never sent (thank God) to a guy I was dating. I was 29 at the time, desperate and obsessed with this man. It was 12 pages of whinin' and pinin' so pathetic that I didn't recognize myself. And though I've kept my journals going all the way back to age 15, I held my own burning ceremony for this testament to what I thought was love. I wanted no written record that I was ever that pitiful and disconnected from myself. The guy was just not that into me, and I couldn't see it.

When Sex and the City consultant Greg Behrendt appeared on my show last fall, he spawned a revolution with those words: He's just not that into you. Greg told the women in the audience one by one that they were giving themselves up for men who clearly didn't give two hoots about them. And one by one, the women admitted that they'd been settling for crumbs.

I was rootin' for Greg because I now know that a relationship built on real love feels good. It isn't selfish; it doesn't cause you anxiety. When someone really loves you, he understands that you're lovable just because you're here. How he treats you underscores that understanding.

Yes, a relationship requires work. But if it's healthy, it should bring you joy—not just some of the time but most of the time. It should never require losing your voice, your self-respect, or your dignity. And whether you're 25 or 65, it should involve bringing all of who you are to the table—and walking away with even more.

I know for sure that in the final analysis of our lives—when the to-do lists are no more, when the frenzy is finished, when our e-mail boxes are empty—the only thing that will have any lasting value is whether we've loved others and whether they've loved us.