Super Soul Special: Janet Mock: Redefining Realness

0:00I'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. Janet Mock has been at the forefront of what Time Magazine calls a transgender tipping point. Janet Mock says this is only the beginning of a much deeper conversation. So the reason why this is to me a deeply spiritual conversation is because the search for your authentic self is the search that all of us holds as the pathway on our journey to becoming the highest vision of ourselves.

0:51And I think it's so interesting that it took you the time that it took you to become comfortable with telling your story. And when you finally did for Marie Claire 2011, very few people knew at the time that you were trans. And you kept it quiet because you said you didn't want to become othered. Othered. And now we're sitting here on Super Soul Sunday talking about what that all means. Do you feel that you've now been othered or have you transcended that? I don't know if I've transcended it yet. I still think that for most people, the most interesting part about me is my transness. And so for me, I still feel like there is an othering about that.

1:37But I think there's a lot of power in saying that I will proudly and unapologetically embrace that part of my identity for once. The one part of my identity that I was taught growing up to be silent and shamed about. Right. And so to own that label and to say that it is mine and I will stand here in that complicatedness of like existing as a person, as a trans person, as a trans woman, I think that there is power in that. But there's still an othering attached to any kind of labels. I think that that kind of qualifies personhood or human. But I do think that your book, Redefining Realness, is the beginning.

2:21We're on the verge of a new way of thinking about sexuality and gender. And not just sexuality and gender. The reason why I think this book applies to, you know, any person who is human is because we get othered in multiple ways throughout our lives. And your desire to redefine realness, I think, is what everybody is really looking for for themselves. Do you not? I do. I think that we're all searching for truth. I think that there is, there's so much that people are telling you about who you are. Yeah. And I think that's where the othering comes in. I was constantly as a person going through this, going through this society trying to figure out who I was in relation to what people were telling me I should be.

3:09And so for me, redefining realness was about tapping into my most authentic self. Who am I to me? And I think that, for me, realness is about authenticity. It's about searching and seeking truth. It's about being okay in the nuance of the messiness of figuring out who you are when you may not have the answers yet. And that's no matter what your gender is, no matter what your sexuality is, no matter where you are on the path. Right? Yeah. Now, something, let's start at the beginning, because I was so struck by the very beginning of the story where you are in kindergarten, and you're standing there.

3:55Actually, you took me back because I went, oh, yeah, I remember those cubby holes. Where you have to place your shoes in the blue cubby hole for the boys or the pink or red one for the girls. Can you take us back to that moment? Oh, my God. I remember that was the first time in my life where I had to, where I was told, this is where you're supposed to be. This is the box, the literal box where you are supposed to exist in. Yeah. Even though I had an inclination or wanting to draw towards the boxes that said Darlene or Covey, all the people that were my, all the girls that were my friends who I played hopscotch with and, you know, played jacks with.

4:34Yeah. And so to be put in this blue box labeled Charles, none of these decisions I made. There was a, I guess, a chasm between that, between wanting to step across that line that I knew. I knew from everyone else was wrong to want to even cross that and to go and remove that name, put a new name there and put my shoes in this box. So as early as in kindergarten. Five years old. five years old, you feel this desire that you want to be able to put your shoes in the red box and not the blue box. But the interesting thing is also, I knew it was wrong to do that. That's how much I had internalized all of the messages around me.

5:18Yeah. I love how you say that I can't pinpoint to a pivotal aha moment, grew taller and bolder despite the cues, rebuttals, and certainties of those around me who told me through a slightly ferrored brow or a shake of the head that even attempting to cross that void was wrong. I just thought that I was so moved by that because I think of your five-year-old self and there's something in you that knows I can't do that or somebody is going to be upset with me for doing that. Exactly. Exactly. And it's also interesting too in the sense of I couldn't fault the people who are telling me that because that's how they learned the world.

5:58That's all they knew. That's all they knew. I love this next sentence too. When I look back at my childhood, I often say, I always knew I was a girl since the age of three or four, a time when I began cataloging memories. No one, not my mother, my grandmother, my father, or my siblings, gave me any reason to believe I was anything other than my parents' firstborn son, my father's namesake, but it was my first conviction, the first thing I grew certain of as a young person when I say, I always knew I was a girl with such certainty. Tell me what that felt like. Confusing. It was confusing because I didn't have language yet.

6:43I didn't know how to articulate what I was feeling in rebuttal to the people who are charged with my care. I came into the world supposedly knowing to trust my mother, knowing to trust my father. You know, as a young person, you have not much, you don't have much agency or decision making. That's right. And so you just go wherever people pick you up and take you and say that this is the way the world is. And something internal inside of me told me constantly that what they're saying is wrong. And so it creates this dissonance with who can you trust if you know that inside, as a five-year-old, that this is how you know yourself to be.

7:21So you knew that something was different, right? Do you think they knew too? Oh, yeah. They all knew. They all have their stories now. Yeah. Right? My mom talks about the first time when I put her earring backing in my ear and it fell down and I had to go into the surgeons and get it suctioned out. My father talks about the times in which he would watch me with a side eye, skeptical, wondering why I moved the way I did around the world, around our little community. Because you were saying in the book you describe it as your, why you held your wrists that way. Why I held my wrists, why I had a little swish in my hips.

7:57I had no idea why I was performing self in this way, why I was expressing my gender in this way. I didn't have language to understand that. And I don't think my father did either. All he knew was that that's not how a boy is supposed to act. Not my son. Tell me about that moment when, I can't remember whose house you were at, but you were playing... Oh, Smear the Queer. I'd never heard of that game. Is that a game? Yeah, it is. Wow. Okay. So it's basically like a roughhouse version of football. My brother was playing it first, and my father saw me on the sidelines with my cousin Michelle cheering.

8:31Yes. And he didn't like that. He didn't want me to be the cheerleader. He wanted me to be the player. He was determined to butch me up, as we would say. So he walked over to me where I was on the sideline watching my brother play, He grabbed me up from my shirt and he said, get in the game. I got in the game with my brother Chad. My brother Chad was like, if you get the ball, just run as fast as you can. I got the ball. I ran. And right before I got to the finish line, the goal post, I was slammed down. Dirt went into my mouth. And I was hurt. But I never saw my father prouder of me. Because you were hurt.

9:04Because I did what a boy was supposed to do. I did what he wanted me to do. But that had nothing to do with me. That was the thing that I even knew even back then. It had to do with the performance that he had to make with his friends to show that his son was not this sissy, was not this sissy boy child. Yeah. So what is going on in your family this whole time? Because they can obviously see and you are trying to hide your femininity. And what is anybody saying to you about it? my father was the most vocal for sure especially when i would have um when i would do things that was against his definition of how it was supposed to be yeah so when i was in the second grade and we were told what do you want to be when you grow up and you said secretary i said secretary because to me from what i learned in culture that's what women did women were you know they assisted men in their dreams.

10:03And then I went home with a note to my father from my teacher, and I thought it was going to praise me. And instead, it was basically like, I think this is something you should be paying more attention to. And that just triggered my father on so many levels. His own insecurities about me. Yes, it triggered your father because now your father recognizes that not only do I see it, I see the femininity in my son, but now his own teacher is now sending me a note home saying, take note of this. So what happened? And so everyone basically gets on board that the way that we need to do, what we need to all do is to fix this.

10:37How do we get this out of this child? And so my father started lecturing me. It was my first lecture from my father about the way I should act in the world, the way that I should be. Boys do this and girls do this. Girls do that. And boys are not secretaries. No, boys are not secretaries. Boys are football players. They're Dallas Cowboys. That's what they do. So then did you try to conform for them? I started compromising. When they weren't around, I would express myself. When they were around, I would sit quietly and just do my homework. Wasn't there, I won't say a seminal incident, but there was a moment when you were still in Hawaii.

11:18There was a dress on the line. There was some clothes on the line. Tell me that story. So that was, it was playing truth or dare with one of my closest girlfriends at the time. We were both six years old. We're laying underneath the clotheslines in her grandmother's garden. And she goes, I dare you to put on my grandmother's dress, the mu 'umu, drape it on and run across the parking lot and tap the garbage can and run back. So I put it on. I didn't really think anything was wrong with doing that. You know, I'm five, six years old. And then my sister, Corrie, here cackling. I was like, oh, I want to get in trouble.

11:54And so then I run back quickly. My grandmother said, get your butt over here. I go to her and she smacks me on my butt and makes me go and sit basically quietly until my mom comes. And then I get a lecture from my mom around gender performance. I said, I got in trouble for stealing a dress. She goes, no, you got in trouble for putting on a dress. But what is so interesting to me is that you describe in the book how you felt in that moment with that dress on. that that dress, even at five years old, felt like it was... Yeah, this hideous, hibiscus-covered dress. That dress made me feel like I was presenting for the first time as who I knew myself to be.

12:38Wow. And what I think is so interesting for any child that is just trying to express who they are, figure out what that is, it was stamped out of me. And I think that all of us get these cues, all young people get these cues, that who we know ourselves to be should be hidden. So you put that away. You put that in a compartment, and you do it at another time. You do it when you can leave the home. You don't do it within my house. But in spite of that, you say in the book and how so many other people respond to the fact that you still loved your parents because you knew your parents were loving you the best way they knew how to do.

13:09They knew no better. They knew no better. Yeah. And I think that my whole purpose with writing the book, it was to show that they were flawed, that they were people who had pains and dreams that had failed them. And I had to hold them accountable to what they did to me when they were trying to do right, when they thought that they were doing the best thing for their child. But this is what's amazing to me, and I think to anybody who reads Redefining Realness, is that at 15 years old, you made a decision, after meeting your friend Wendy, that you were going to go to school as a girl. that you basically transitioned in your own heart and that you had the courage to step out and do that at 15 years old.

13:56Yeah. You went into school your freshman year as Charles, and by your sophomore year, you are now Janet. Full-time. Full-time. I come back after ninth grade, and I was like, I'm not going to present in a way that makes anyone else comfortable. I'm going to present in a way that makes me comfortable. And so I had just been elected class treasurer. And so I stand on that stage the first day of school, our sophomore class, and I say, hello, everyone. I'm Janet. And did everyone just accept it? I wouldn't say accepted it. I think a lot of people tolerated it. I think that's pretty amazing. I marvel at it now.

14:37At that time, it seemed like the only possibility, the only pathway. All I had, you know, growing up, I grew up poor, I grew up as a black child in communities that are already suffering. And so the only resource I had was my truth, was myself. That's the one thing I could control in the world, is to present and be who I knew I was. And I knew that living authentically and being myself would be the first step towards any kind of success. In the process of stepping into yourself, where do you think you got the courage for that? I think it's twofold. I think somewhere within myself, the way that I was raised from my father and all his dysfunction and his flaws, he was very selfishly himself.

15:29He didn't care about what his girlfriends thought, about what his mother thought, about what his sisters thought, about what his children thought of him. He was fully himself, flaws and all. I think I learned that a lot from him. But I think the other layer was I did it in community. You know, going to Hawaii, growing up in this culture where there was a vast spectrum of gender expressions and identities. Okay. So you're just trying to step into the truth of yourself. We were talking about the courage that it took to do that. And you meet this woman who actually, she was a girl at the time, you meet Wendy.

16:07You can see that this person is like you or feel it, right? There's no way to miss Wendy. Okay. Who came into my life at 12 years old, who told me to stop lying. She would wear these super short shorts with socks pulled all the way up. She'd prance around school. Yeah. So I always saw her and I was afraid of her. Wow. Because? Because I knew that she was reflecting me. That's right. And I didn't want to see myself yet. I wasn't ready. And she would call you out. Oh, she did call me out. Yeah. And that was my first interaction with her was, are you mahu? That's what she asked me. And mahu is a term within Hawaiian culture, kind of loosely translated to transgender.

16:46And I just, I clenched up. I was like, wait, someone is seeing me. Someone is calling me out for who I am. And I wasn't ready to face that. And it took a few months. And I saw her and she asked me kindly the next time. She goes, do you want to play volleyball after school? And that was the start of our friendship. and Wendy was the first person to tweeze my eyebrows, which was my first act of intimacy as a young person, having someone to finally, like, take care of me. Mm-hmm. And I was like, wow, this is what friendship is. And to see you. And to see me. Yeah. And to see me. At 12 years old, I was given the gift of having a best friend who saw me.

17:25Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that was pivotal in my life. At a time where everyone else was butting me. Yeah. She saw me. I get that. I get that. So at what point did you decide that you wanted to go all the way? What does all the way mean? Meaning you wanted to go to, I think it was in Bangkok? Was it? Oh, to have, like, medical care? Yeah, yeah. Oh, see, and so that's where I think it becomes a little bit more complicated. I think all the way for some people, right? And I think that's why I asked, like, what do you mean by all the way? Yeah. Because some people don't even, some trans women or trans people don't even want to have any kind of surgeries.

18:15They're fine with how their bodies are. You know, the thing is, I came away from your book, and I am so darn confused now. Yes, ask me all the questions. Okay, good. Yes, ask me all the questions. So trans is the right word? Trans is the word that I tend to use. Okay. But you can be transgender and still have body parts of another sex. Yeah. Or whatever your sex is for yourself. Okay, so because I think the best way you explained it, I can't remember where in the book, is that who you go to bed with is your sexuality. Right? Who you go to bed as is your gender. That's a tweetable moment. Now, I never thought about this before.

18:56and I consider myself to be really open and accepting. So all these years of doing the Oprah show and now on OWN, in all my conversations, I've considered myself open-minded and understanding that homosexuality or sexuality, sexuality, heterosexuality, that that is a spectrum. I was really proud of myself for figuring that out many years ago when we were doing, you know, coming out day and people were saying it's a sin and all of that. I could see that it's a spectrum, and you can't really define it because people are different places on the spectrum. Never occurred to me that there's a spectrum for gender, because I either thought, you're a man or you're a woman, and then...

19:40And that's the way we tend to tell trans stories, right? We say that someone's going from a male to a female. Okay, so is that wrong to say that? No, because some people, that may be their journey. They may have lived their lives and been perceived as men in the world and transitioned into womanhood. Right? And that's the way that they would define it. But I think that the most dramatic stories we tend to tell are coming from this space that was completely opposite than where it's at. Where some people, they may just kind of be right here. And that's where they may hover for a while. And that's where they exist.

20:09Okay. So, am I correct? Because you say in the book that, I think it's actually the first page, first chapter, where you say you were a boy. right am i correct in saying you were a boy um i guess i would complicate that a little bit more okay okay i am not correct in saying you were a boy you were not a boy named charles i was a child okay who was named charles i was certain i was a boy just as i was certain of the winding texture of my hair the deep bronze of my skin it was the first thing i learned about myself as I grew aware that I existed. So I said, okay, so you were a boy. That was my understanding of it when I was a child.

20:52That was your understanding. Okay, so now how would you say it? I was a baby assigned a sex at birth based on the appearance of my genitals. Because of the appearance of my genitals, I was told that I needed to love a woman and I needed to be masculine. As I gained agency in my life, Yes. I decided to rebut that and say that I know myself to be a girl, despite what you think you know about me. I hear that. She's like, uh-uh, no. I hear that. I hear that. I hear that. I'm processing. I'm taking it in. But I don't know what else you're supposed to... Okay. And I do think, everybody just stay open, everybody just stay open.

21:42I do think that if we say, coming up next, or we're going to commercial, whatever, we say, you know, you lived your life as a boy, that would be a wrong thing to say? No. I presented as a boy. You presented as a boy. I presented as a boy, and I was viewed as a boy. That's true. Is it wrong to say Janet, who used to be a boy? That is wrong. That is wrong, because you never were a boy. That's not how I see my childhood. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I think this is more of a conversation around what becomes fact? Is what the truth that I felt as a child fact? Or is it what society says is fact? Got it. Because you always knew you were a girl.

22:25Yes. Right. But you can forgive those of us who didn't always know that you were a girl and who might have known you when we thought you were a boy. Yes. I can forgive that. I can on a personal level. But I think that because so much of who I am is representative of an entire community of people, it becomes a bigger debate than I would take it for myself on a personal level. Okay. When trans people, say, get upset around the narratives that we tell around trans people's bodies and lives. It's like, you were once this and now you're this, and so stay tuned until the next commercial break when we talk about how she transformed and then went to Bangkok and had this surgery.

23:08And now she's a woman and we'll accept her that way. That's always the way in which we tell trans stories lives. And so when someone is going through that process and they're still in that and they see that in media, it becomes triggering to, I think, a lot of people. um and what does it trigger i think it triggers that no one will ever see me as i am now they will always qualify it with the way in which my past was and so my past becomes more important aha than who i am now so i sit here and i tell people i'm janet mock you know yes i was born my parents as firstborn son that is the truth that's the truth of our experiences that probably was the root of a lot of my conflict growing up and the dissonance that I felt and my journey and identity.

23:57But we worked through that. My grandma got it and she was 70 something years old. She embraced me. She got over it and we moved on. But the world has not moved on from that part of my story. Yeah. Is it because you think the world is still trying to get used to the idea of the spectrum. Yeah, and the thing that's so interesting is that I'm the basic level of the spectrum. You're the basic? My journey is so basic, in a sense. I went from being this little boy child who transitioned as a teenager during puberty, and I became a little girl, right? A teenager, a young woman. And I fit perfectly into what people's idea of what a woman is supposed to look like.

24:42Yeah. So that's a basic story. Now, there's some people who exist in that middle part of the spectrum that we don't even talk about often. It's a lot more complicated. And there's people who look like me, who have different body parts, who then would just, everyone's minds become a bit more, they're like, wait, that's not what I thought. I thought you wanted to go all the way. I thought you wanted to have the surgery. I thought you wanted to do this. And it's like, no, I'm fine. I'm fine being a woman who has a penis. People then get confused. And so that's where the combination. Well, that does is confusing, Janet.

25:11That is. I must say. But then are we basing gender on body parts only? I think we have to a great extent in the culture. And I think you are the trailblazing leader of this movement because you're getting us to see that redefining realness means redefining also the way we talk about it and the way we think about it and the way we discuss it. Because I recognize even in reading the book, wow, this is new territory. and so my approach with you is very different than it would have been 20 years ago when I was interviewing my first transgendered person because then believe me the producers would be back and they'll be ask about the penis ask about the penis do you have it do you not have it instead of the spiritual journey and what it takes to be the kind of person to have the courage to stand inside yourself and say, no, this is not who I am, but this is who I am.

26:09I think that because the conversation was promoted in such a way, it became the blueprint for how we tell trans people's stories. And I think a lot of the frustration, I would say, from the trans community and from a lot of allies to the trans community was that, why are we still having this conversation about what's in our pants? I really do understand that. I really do understand that. But I would have to say I wouldn't have understood it had I not read this book. Because for the first time after reading your book, I'm not going to cry. Ah! I just had an aha moment. But for the first time, I understand that the conversation is the same conversation every human being wants to have.

26:51It's I want you to see me for who I really am. It's not about looking at your genitalia. It's not looking about who you choose to go to bed with or who you don't choose to go to bed with. It's about I want you to see me for who I am. That's what I got out of your book. You talk in the book about the first time you looked in the mirror after your surgery. You said you felt authenticated and closer to whole for the first time in your life. Was that an overwhelming moment? It was. I was 18 years old and I made so many sacrifices and compromises. and I got my girl. I went out in the world and I got her and I liberated her.

27:34And I went through a whole underground railroad of resources to get to that space where I could stand in that mirror for the first time naked and lay bare in my truth. This is who I am. And I did that on my own. And so to have that at 18, that gift, nothing could stop me after that. That's what I felt at least. And so you discovered that all of us carry, you say, many layered identities that we silence every day. Like what? Oftentimes when I sit down, I often only talk about one part of my identity, which is my transness. You know, and my transness is complicated through race, through class, through economic resources, through so much.

28:21I'm a woman, but I'm a trans woman. You know, most people, when I walk around in the world, they don't see that visible difference. They don't see that. All they see is, oh, who's that black girl with the big curly hair? That's what they may see. Or they can say, you pass so well. That your life is easy. That your life is easy, and you feel that to be reductive. To a certain extent. Yeah. The fact that you can pass so well. Yeah, but that's also true. Yeah. Because I can pass in the world, most people are not rebutting me when I walk around. They accept me. as a woman. So it offers me safety. It offers me access.

28:57It offers me a level of comfort. As opposed to somebody. Okay, let's just get real. Opposed to someone who is, who is, who does not present in the way that I do. Yeah. I mean, being pretty helps. Would you not say? Uh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you for saying it. I hate it when pretty girls always say, no, it really doesn't make a difference. I have, you should see my cellulite. Pretty privilege is real. Pretty privilege is real, girl. We're all judging people on the way that they look. Yeah. So if somebody is transitioning, is that a good word? Yeah. Okay. So if somebody is... I love how scared you are.

29:30Don't start tweeting me. Listen, I'm just trying to have a conversation. Stay open. Stay open, everybody. Is that a good word? Transition? So I've seen it. I've done shows with people who are transitioning, who obviously, you know, had this idea of what they thought they would look like as a woman. You can tell someone is trans. Yes. Yeah. Then it becomes a debate. Then it becomes about, so did you go all the way? Did you do this? What did happen? Oh, wow. What did your family think? What was this like? And so the person spending most of their time not being seen as a person, but being gawked at.

30:05And so I think that most people, most trans people are often rebutted. But don't you think, Janet, because you have started the conversation, don't you think that we're on the frontier of this, in the same way that we were in discussing people being gay or straight 20 years ago, 30 years ago. I think we are. Yeah. We talked about sexuality for so long. And now I think it's time to have a conversation around gender. What does it mean to exist on this spectrum? So did you ever feel, did you ever think that you could find the love of your life that would enhance your life the way you and Aaron have been able to enhance each other's life.

30:50Did you ever think that was possible? No. No. Because at that time I didn't really know myself. I didn't really love myself yet. I'd gone through all the emotions to become myself. Yeah. But I hadn't yet told myself my own story. As soon as something would happen, I would put it into a compartment and move on. But from the moment you saw him, you knew that there was something, that there was a deeper spiritual connection, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He really wanted to know me. And that was bizarre for me because I could, like, I would often rest on pretty and kind of, you know, keep men at a distance.

31:27I had that down. Like, I knew how to thrive and have fun in a three-month relationship. And then to end it, because I didn't want anyone to know me, end it, not really go to the point of intimacy, and then. Right. But he was not having that. So when you had the conversation with him, when you say, I have something to tell you about my past, did you think that that could end it forever? That he would go away and maybe that would be the end? And not be able to accept you fully? What's so interesting about that moment is that all my fears was exactly how you framed it. It was about him rejecting me.

32:06But as soon as I sat there, I realized, as I sat there and I opened up to him, I was opening up to myself. So it wasn't so much about the rejection point at that point because I had already come and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to accept it as what it is. And what I needed to do was tell myself the story. And that's what I did in his bedroom that night. That was the gift because I had never, at that point I was 26, I'd never told myself my own story. That's how much the shame and the silence was internalized within me. I was going through the motions. I was doing all the things that people said was brave and courageous.

32:45But I had never really sat and reflected on all of the stuff. And that's what my relationship with Aaron enabled me to do, was to reflect. What did he say to you after you told him? Can I hug you? I love that. Because he understood how big of a deal it was for me to do that, to trust him. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so I always think about Their Eyes Were Watching God from Zora Noe Hurston. I think about... Janie. Janie sitting there, washing her feet, eating her friend Phoebe's food, and telling Phoebe, girl, let me tell you what I went through. And that's what I had with Aaron. I was like, let me tell you what I went through.

33:33And so I feel that in this relationship, I've been given the keys to my own promised land. You know? Meeting this person who just sat and listened and affirmed me every step of the way, who believed in my vision. What's the calling you came to earth to fulfill, do you think? She came to liberate. That's what I want people to say. She came to liberate. Yeah, she came to liberate. I don't know why that keeps on coming in my head. But I think so much about the work that Harriet Tubman did. It seems so bizarre, but that's what I come to. It's like, what does it take for a person to go get their own freedom?

34:25And then to come back. Yeah. And show people the way. Wow. Tweet, tweet. That's a powerful moment. Okay, what would you tell that courageous little child, Charles Mock, about the future? I would say you are right. What you feel is real. Keep going. People will call you by the name you choose. People will respect you, and you will be validated, affirmed, and heard. Believe it. What's your relationship with your parents like now? My, I would say that me and my father, we don't really know each other. But I think that we can appreciate the experiences that we went through together. Yeah. And hasn't he accepted you?

35:27Oh, yes. Yeah, that moment when he comes to the airport a decade later. and he brought everyone to stand witness to that. We're going to accept Janet as Janet. This is Janet. This is my baby. No matter what. No matter what. Yeah. Okay, here comes the biggie. Okay. Your definition of God. God is everything. God is love and truth. And I think for me, my spiritual quest is to figure out how to find God in me, which is love and truth, and then how to give people space to figure out the godliness in themselves. Perfect. You are perfect. Just perfect. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been a dream.

36:21I'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. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.