Super Soul Special: Elizabeth Lesser: The Healing Power of Love

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1:06I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Elizabeth Lesser has been on the cutting edge of the personal growth movement for more than three decades. She was born in 1952 in New York City. She was the second oldest of four daughters. Her family wasn't particularly religious, but as a child, Elizabeth found herself drawn to spiritual life. She would pray in secret and tag along with her Catholic neighbors to church.

1:52That hunger for a spiritual path reawakened reawakened while Elizabeth was a student at Barnard College. A free spirit, she began visiting churches, exploring Eastern traditions like Zen Buddhism, firmly establishing her lifelong vocation as a seeker. Her search for something more eventually led her to upstate New York, where she helped form a spiritual commune. She married young and had two boys. In 1977, she co-founded the Omega Institute, set in the hills of the Hudson Valley. It's become one of the leading education centers on spirituality, creativity, and social change in America. Elizabeth is the best-selling author of two of my favorite books, The Seeker's Guide, Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure, and Broken Open, How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.

2:44We had you on the Oprah show several times for one of my favorite books called Broken Open. And, you know, what I was trying to deliver or offer to the Oprah show audience at the time was this idea that you convey in the book so well that oftentimes things happen in our lives when challenging things happen in our lives. Those things have the opportunity to crack us wide open. And so we've had wonderful conversations about that. But one of the reasons why I wanted you here to invite you under my oaks is because I think you probably, because of what you've been through personally in the past year, are more cracked open and could do, I don't know, an epilogue to that book.

3:31Yeah. Could you not? Yes, I could. You wrote it and now you have lived it in a way. Can you share with the Super Solars what you've been through? Well, I wrote it because I had lived it. You know, like you think, I'm going to learn from this difficult experience. My first big one was divorce. And then you think, good, tidied up, done that, learned that. But that's not the way life is. You're always given these opportunities to either break open into the mystery or to shut down. So about seven years ago, my younger sister, Maggie, was diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma that's very hard to treat.

4:10and she was treated with chemotherapy and seven years later it came back. The news of the recurrence was particularly difficult because there was only one option for treatment, a high-risk bone marrow transplant. The lengthy and painful procedure would involve harvesting stem cells from a matching donor and transferring them to Maggie's body. It was a last resort but offered Maggie her only hope. The critical next step, finding a donor. And so we all got tested, and I tested the match. My other sisters did not. And so we have been on this journey, my sister and I, where I had my bone marrow stem cells harvested and frozen.

4:54And then she had intensive chemotherapy and later radiation and more chemotherapy, getting her to a place where she had none of her own stem cells left, all killed off by chemotherapy and radiation. so she could receive my new ones. And now she's in the long journey of having my stem cells engraft into her and become her. Interesting. And heroic on both of your parts. So I remember you sent me an email, which I have here. It was quite something to see my blood leaving my body, entering my machine, and being spun, and then coming back into my body over and over for five hours. At first I was nervous, and also the poking around in the veins had been painful, but once I calmed down, it was really quite miraculous.

5:47Maggie came to visit midway into the procedure. She got to kiss the bag of stem cells that was collecting and hanging above me. Having her there made it all seem very real and very meaningful, and dare I say, holy. What a day. What a day. What a day.

6:11Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the Summer Splash event. With great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert, they have yellow sales signs on ready-to-cook beef or chicken kebabs, too. Level up with savory marinade, spices, and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad. available at the prepared foods counter. Get summer splash savings now at Whole Foods Market. While every other channel is fighting for your customer's attention, podcasts are where they've already given it. No one accidentally listens to a podcast for 45 minutes.

6:50They choose to be here. They trust the voice in their ears. And when that voice talks about your brand, it doesn't sound like advertising. It sounds like a recommendation from a friend. Acast gives you that trust at scale. Digital precision, post-read authenticity, and performance data that proves it worked. Don't fight for attention. Buy it with ACAST. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.

7:16So what was going through you emotionally, spiritually at the time? Well, I love science, so I had educated myself about the process. And I felt, first of all, What an honor. What a privilege to be able to actually save someone's life. And I took it really seriously. And I know for myself, I know how when I'm stressed, when I'm upset, when I'm angry, I know it affects my own body. I know my state of mind affects my own cells. And science is researching this now. Absolutely. The mind-body connection. And so I thought, those are going to be my cells in her body. I want to purify my cells of any bad intention toward her.

8:12And I want her to totally accept me. And we're sisters. We're loving sisters, but we have a long history of competition, of not being in good places together, all through childhood, all through adulthood. So I asked her, and she's not this type of person. I've always been the weird spiritual kind of person, and she's much more of a nurse and a scientist. And I said, would you do a session with me, a spiritual therapeutic session where we come into a field of love and acceptance together? So I think this is so important that psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, not just physically am I going to give you my cells, but psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, I want to be clear.

9:08I want everything between us to be clear so that my cells will be clear and you will be in the clearest space in which to accept my offering. And if you have any feelings of rejection toward me as a person, which we all do as humans, and especially as siblings, a lot of baggage of childhood jealousies and underspoken. How did you know to do that? I know that we all go around carrying these stories in our heads about each other. Most of the stuff we think about each other, we've made up. They're stories. Yes. And even though we're both loving and good and smart people, we had really never cleared a lot of stuff.

9:55And I thought, wow, isn't this amazing? It takes someone almost dying for me to come into a whole and beautiful and cleaned and loving relationship. But if ever there was a time to do it, now's the time to do it. First of all, how did it change your relationship with your sister? How did it? Totally. Totally. And it just, just thinking about it, it just makes me cry. Fills you up. It fills me up because we went, we had the help of a wonderful therapist who really brought us through the stages of our life from childhood all the way up, where we kind of cleared each year. and the misconceptions each of us had about the other.

10:45Petty things like, I didn't like that we had to share our birthday party and you made mom do that. Things like that. It was like, really? No, that's not. Every step of the way to more serious things. We, all that happened was, I didn't mean that. I love you. I love you. All I want to say is, I love you. And it changed everything between us because I know now that she loves me. And she knows I love her. And we kind of knew that, but we didn't really know it. Like, I know it. What do I know for sure? I know my sister loves me and I know she knows I love her. So I was able to give her my cells. I was able to give them in love and release them into a field of love.

11:37and love heals. And I felt that's the best I can do. And now I give it up to the universe. Would you say this experience has transformed you as it is also transforming Maggie? Yes. Yeah, it has. All holy and difficult, arduous experiences are there to transform us, you know, if we so choose. To break us open. To break us open. Uh-huh. And I felt it gave me a lot of courage to come more fully into my own skin. Mm-hmm. Because what I went through with Maggie in cleaning up our relationship and getting rid of the stories, I felt this sense of, like, I want to do this in my life as much as I can with everyone.

12:31I don't want to live in the storyline anymore because my relationship with everyone else isn't as life and death. Yes. But it's important who we are with each other, what we say, how we show up at work. You know, people sometimes think, I want to do important work in the world. I want to, when I'm done being an insurance person in this office, I want to go out to Africa and save people's lives. And I think, and I say, especially now, don't wait. There are relationships waiting to be healed. Right where you are. In the person in the cubicle right next to you. In your own backyard. In your own backyard.

13:09Correct. In your place of work. There are conversations you haven't had, stories that need to be unraveled. And if we all do that in our backyard, in our office, in our families, have the difficult conversations, miracles happen. So what has this process taught you? It's taught me that I am enough just who I am. Just showing up for my sister, who I am is enough. And it really brought me very deeply into that teaching that my soul is enough. Not what I do, not who I am. When I showed up there with my sister, she didn't care my credentials or where I'd been or who I know or what book I was writing.

14:00She wanted me. And that was very hard for me to really wrap my heart around. You mean I'm enough for you? You really want me? And I think we all struggle with that. Like, we think we have to be somebody, do something, say something. where really our souls, our golden, radiant core... Is enough. And that's what people want. They don't want you to impress them with your wisdom, and they don't even want you to do anything for them. Just come be with me and be your true self. Be your genuine self. We want each other. I want you. I just want the real, deep you. Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the Summer Splash event.

14:55With great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert, they have yellow sales signs on ready-to-cook beef or chicken kebabs too. Level up with savory marinades, spices, and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad. Available at the prepared foods counter. Get Summer Splash savings now at Whole Foods Market. Do you keep hearing podcast ads like this one, for example, but always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization? Well, it's easier than you think. We're Acast, and we give you the platform to do it all yourself.

15:35Browse thousands of popular podcasts, choose the shows that match your perfect audience, set your budget, and launch. And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at Acast.com slash advertise.

15:58Maybe it's because we're sisters in our 60s. As you know, as we're taping this, it's on the eve of my 60th birthday. and as we were walking down to the Oaks, I was saying to you, it's the birthday that I've actually thought the most about. It's the one I've taken the most seriously. And at one point, I was planning a birthday party. And I was doing this because I recognized that the reason why I was having this big birthday party is because someone had asked me months ago, what are you going to do for your birthday? And I think I just blurted out, oh, I'm going to have the biggest birthday bash ever.

16:32Now, instead of just saying, I really don't know, I hadn't thought about it, I felt that everybody else is thinking about it, so I should do something. So I started this idea of this party and recognized that a big party with over 400 people was the last experience on Earth I really wanted to have. I mean, if I were leaving the Earth tomorrow, that would be at the bottom of the list of things I would want to do. We begin to think like that at 60. Is that what happens? I think so. Because I was like, that isn't what I want to do. What do I want to do? I really just want to be whatever. I'll have a cup of tea, a cup of chai, a cup of...

17:12I'll be with Stedman, I'll be with the dogs, I'll call over a few friends, but 450? Nah, that's going to give me great anxiety. I will have to tell you, that's one of the most liberating things I've done. Well, I think it's appropriate for at least the way I've been feeling in turning 60 is I'm feeling both more simple and more grand. But the grand is a soulful grand, grandeur, which is ever more myself, but also nobody. I'm both more who I am, and I don't really feel like anyone. I just feel part of everything. Wow. That's really wonderful. That's really wonderful. If 60 means anything, it really, really means being able to sit within the seat of your soul, inside yourself, and say, what do I really want?

18:16That's right. So when you think back to your younger self, we were walking down here talking about, gee, both of us are 60. You're 61. I'm 60. Did you imagine that 61 would be like this? That you would feel this great? that you would look this great? No. No. I imagined 60. 60's the first age that feels kind of like old. You know, when I turned 50, it didn't feel that way. At all. But I feel, I definitely feel the gravitas of age. You know, I feel like maybe I do know something. Yeah. And, but as I said, I also feel free, more free. Yeah. It doesn't even mean anything. Well, that is what I wish for myself.

18:58I wish for the freedom of, you know, other people's expectations and other people's anything. But also, I would agree, I feel that it is significant and worthy of sitting with it and acknowledging it and being with it and knowing. And when people say, do you tell, do your grandchildren call you grandma? as if that would make me feel old. I'm like, well, what else are they going to call me? And do you tell people you're 60? And do you feel like an elder? And I want to get comfortable with, yeah, I'm an elder. I'm an elder. And I feel more and more like my role is to be there for people coming up.

19:47Yeah, I do too. I've had such a great life. Who can you lift up? Yeah. But also, this is what I also refuse to allow to happen to me, because I know it will in the media, is for people to put you in a box as to what that is supposed to look like. I think it's really important for you, for me, for anybody who's turning 40, 50, 60, 70, 75, Jane Fonda, 80, Gloria Steinem, is to define that in your own terms and to make it your own. Because that is what women have fought for. Absolutely. That is what women have fought for, is for you to have the right to make it whatever you want it to be. Yes. And the easiest way to do that is just check in every day.

20:30Who am I? What do I feel? And to do it. Yeah. So your ability to introduce other people through Omega, through your own learnings, has that been one of the reasons why your own spiritual growth has been so profound, do you think? Yeah. You know when you, they say you learn the most when you teach? Yeah, yeah. I certainly feel that. And they also say you teach what you need to learn. Yeah, absolutely. I feel that for myself. And also one of the things I've... Teaching it keeps me in the vein of it. It keeps me constant with it. It keeps reminding me. It keeps me... And looking for language... Yes.

21:13to wrap around concepts that really are not describable. You know, what is the soul and God and cosmos? Our brains are poor divining of the grandeur of what's really happening. So to search for words that are plain and fun and easy to use, that makes it easier for me to practice. And that's why I'm blessed that I've had the chance. You're the one who introduced me to Hazrat Inayat Khan, who was one of the leaders of the Sufi movement. I would say if there's a religion that I would... It's not even a religion, though, is it? Well, it's a branch of Islam, but it's really gone way beyond that. It's a way of life more than a religion.

22:06You sent me an email recently by... Hazrat in Yat Khan about how the soul is covered by a thousand veils. So Elizabeth and I have these conversations where she'll send me a passage or read a book or a poem or a piece of thing and say, what do you think of this? And I had to read that thing over four or five times out loud, translating it to myself, trying to get my brain to comprehend. But what do you think that means, the soul is covered by a thousand veils? I think it means everything you need to know is in that line. Everything you need to know is in the line, your soul is covered by a thousand veils.

22:47What it means to me is that you have a soul, first of all. And that soul is like the music, God's music, your song, your song to sing here on this plane. That is your soul. It's precious. It's yours. It's unique. But you come here to Earth, and then you're raised by parents. None of our parents are perfect. You're kind of maybe a loud and lively kid. They think you should be quiet and genteel, especially if you're a girl. Yes. It's like, don't be powerful. Don't be big. Look who she thinks she is. Or maybe you're a shy person. Maybe you're a recluse. Maybe your goal in life is to be, your soul song is to be a monk.

23:34but you're always being pushed. Excel, see your sister be like her. The sister who's loud is told to be quiet. The sister who's quiet is told to be loud. Veil, veil, veil. You go to school. Another veil. You get wounded. You're a man who's told not to have emotions. Veil. By the time you're an adult, your song, that beautiful soul song, is covered, covered. So spiritual work, spiritual practice, isn't about getting anything. It's about uncovering. That's why spiritual work... Because everything goes back to Dorothy, Glynda the Good Witch. You already had it. You already had it. And really, that's what the journey's all about, isn't it?

24:17That's what it's about. It's uncovering and peeling back the veils. And there's so many wonderful ways to peel back the veils. That's why I think things like psychotherapy or coaching, like what Brene Brown does, that's holy work. That's veil peeling. Yes. And so is getting healthy. You know, some of the worst veils we suffer under are unhealthy bodies. So healing work is veiled. It's a literal shield. It is. It's a literal shield. Yes. So spiritual work is taking care of your body. It's taking care of your psyche. It's doing meditation to quiet all of those stories we're telling ourselves. And however that meditation takes form for you, I think, you know, One of the wonderful things we've been able to do on the web with Deepak is the 21-day meditations.

25:03That's not for everybody. I meditate daily, regularly, but I also have many different forms of meditation. Sometimes just walking in silence and just sitting and being. Or for many people, it's with a piece of music that lifts you up. It's dancing. It's going to church. Prayer. Prayer is a tremendous veil buster. You know, because you pray to God, remove the veils. That is my prayer to God every day. Remove the veils so I might see what is really happening here and not be intoxicated by my stories and my fears. Do you find that the spiritual path gets easier? Yes. The longer you're on it, does it get easier?

25:53Yes, absolutely. Let's say it's, you know, they call it spiritual practice. Yes. Because it's like basketball practice or scales. You practice not to become a great scale player or drill doer. You practice to become an artist. And spiritual practice actually works. Meditation, prayer, whatever you do. Practice and gratitude. I would say, I've said this many times, I cannot say it enough because if you didn't hear it the first time, and also maybe you didn't try it. But gratitude is the single best way I have ever discovered of changing your personal vibration. Yeah. You can instantly do it with gratitude.

26:35I love this Latin term, amor fati, love of fate, instead of bemoaning your fate. And sometimes our fates are terrible. But we love our fate, amor fati. It's a way of being grateful. I'm going to love what happened to me because I trust that it's here to remove a veil. I'm going to search for what's happening to me in this time so I can take away yet another misconception. And what is your own personal spiritual practice? Ye who's run Omega, the institute for it all. Ye, oh, yes. I would have to say love. Is your spiritual practice. When all else fails, love, love of my fate, love of the other.

27:26You know, there's such a knee-jerk reaction to other people. You're different from me. You're not of my tribe. You're not who I want you to be at this moment. Judgment, fear. I find the thing that busts through otherizing is love. And not saccharine love. Yeah. but that sense of heartfulness, opening my heart, softening my heart to the world. As you were just saying that, I was just thinking about, as a friend, how you've shown your love to me. Do you even know? No. No. It's going to make me cry. Okay. Hello. Don't cry. You know, when I was starting up this network, and there were a lot of people who were saying a lot of discouraging things, and mean and unkind things.

28:18And I really didn't even read them all. But I happened to open up a paper one day and the line was, Oprah not quite standing on her own. And for some reason that struck me so deeply because I was thinking, gee, that's all I've ever done is stand on my own. And so I didn't read anything else. But certainly I was aware that there was lots of stuff. And then I thought, well, this is a great lesson for the thing that I say I want to most learn is not having, not worrying about what other people think and being focused on, you know, what is the next right move and the next right move with my team. But your love came to me through such encouraging words.

29:01Just every now and then you would just send me an email or you would see something on this show or you would send me a passage or a piece of poetry that you read and share with me. And I cannot tell you how that lifted me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Really. Thank you for telling me that. And that's what love is. That's what love is. And that's what will save the world. Okay? That's all we have to do. It's not that hard. It's like... An encouraging word. An encouraging word. You see, you asked me, what is my practice? Now, certainly for years, my practice really was meditation and prayer and physical healing.

29:55That is, and psychotherapy, I'm not poo-pooing that. But my practice now is love. Is love. And how can you put that into being? And it's not phony. It's like I wouldn't have sent you encouraging words if I thought you were doing the wrong thing. That wouldn't have been a good friend. Right, right. But I look for ways, and everyone can do this, and many people do it. Look for a way to lift someone up. And if that's all you do, that's enough. OK. You were saying earlier how hard it is to say what the soul is. Do you have words? Well, I also found myself saying earlier that the soul is like a silent music inside.

30:42Quiet, beautiful song that you were given to sing here on earth. That universe, God, wants you to sing your song. That's the soul, the song. Spirituality versus religion. How do you define it? You wrote a whole book about it. Mm-hmm. You're the one, you're the reason we asked this question. because in The Seeker's Guide, there is spirituality and then religion. What's the difference? Well, okay, I'll start with spirituality. Spirituality is this kind of fearless, seeking nature. Like it's the part of us that says, whoa, what made a tree? Who am I? Where did I come from? What made something out of nothing?

31:34Where do I go when I die? How do I live? How am I supposed to live? That's spirituality, the seeking of truth. It takes fearlessness to seek after truth. Sometimes we'd rather just live, go through the paces. So that's spirituality. Religion are our attempts to answer the questions. And some of those answers are great and beautiful. And some of them are just dogma and rules that get us into trouble. My rules are better than your rules, and then we fight about them. So spirituality are the questions, and religion are attempts to answer them. What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn?

32:16I'm still learning it. Love, acceptance, not judging. Do you see a purpose in suffering? What's the purpose of suffering? I think we create suffering. but once we've created it, it's to help us learn. Can we learn as much from joy as we can through suffering? Yes, we can. Yes, we can learn as much from joy. Spirituality is not about suffering. You know, sometimes people are so serious, so, oh, I'm such a serious seeker. But joy is a great teacher as well. All right. How do you stay awake?

32:57How do I stay awake? I stay awake by paying attention to the amazing feedback loop that's always there. There's an amazing system in the world. It's called karma, but it's happening at every moment. Who you are, what you just did, what you said, its reactions are happening all around us to other people. Stay aware of your effect on other people, of your effect on the earth. Don't be afraid to admit mistakes. And that's how I stay awake. I stay aware of my effect in the world. What do you think happens when we die?

33:44I was thinking about what happens when we die. I think about it all the time. But I was thinking about it when I was about to get on the plane to come here, and I was noticing how whenever I'm about to go somewhere, I'm always resisting it. Why am I leaving home? I like it here. Like, I don't want to go there. Believe me, I feel that. Yeah. And even if things aren't good at home, there's always this resistance to change. And then you get on the airplane or the train or whatever, and you're like, what was I afraid of? This is an adventure. And I think that's what will happen when we die. It will be we resist, we're afraid what's coming, and then it will turn into an adventure.

34:25And such a surprise. And a surprise. That's what I think. You know, it's what Whitman says, it leaves of grass. That's right. It's going to be such a surprise. Yeah, death is not what we think it is, is what he says. Yeah. What do you know for sure? I know for sure that when in doubt about what to do, and we often are, be loving. Don't be phony about it. but love it it's it's the it's the great answer to everything look for ways that you can offer it that's what i think yeah look for ways that you can be be it to be it be love yeah be love that's what i know for sure that that that that that is a good game plan love that thank you that was great That was great.

35:42and Jane Fonda, just to name a few, share what they've learned about life and their own insights into their personal stories and challenges. I believe that there's something to be learned from every experience and everyone can use their life as a class. Oprah's Masterclass Podcast will be available July 19th on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe now and listen free. Go to applepodcast.com slash Oprah's Masterclass. I'm Oprah Winfrey. and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast.

36:26Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.

36:35Do you keep hearing podcast ads, like this one for example, but always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization? Well, it's easier than you think. We're Acast, and we give you the platform to do it all yourself. Browse thousands of popular podcasts, choose the shows that match your perfect audience, set your budget, and launch. And if you want a hand, our podcast specialists are there to help you launch with confidence. This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com slash advertise.