BARBARA TAYLOR’S
INTERVIEW
by Oprah on Super Soul Sunday on 9 November 2014 - Live global simulcast
(non-verbatim due to real-time transcript)
Barbara Taylor and Oprah Winfrey
Interview based on her latest book:
Learning to walk in the dark.
“ Oprah: It is fascinating
as some of us fear the dark and live solar spirituality. We have wanted to avoid the dark places at
all times.
Barbara: She knows
when to run through her instinct. Is the
divine presenting itself in the darkness.
Yes to her. Oprah feels that
darkness is in direct proportion to how far you are from the light. Light is where God abides. When she feels darkness she feels she needs
to feel the light and not to swallow embrace the darkness. She can say I am in the dark place now why
and ask herself why am I in the dark place now.
This is her lexicon.
If sitting outside and looking at the stars and take three
breaths one feels like they are in a giant thing. That’s kinder tall. It is wondrous and how one feels and sees the
bigger picture of the world. In her
lexicon, she is faced with e.g her fathers death was the darkest part of her
life and knew there was no other dark moment to be in. This culture we live in, in the world has labeled
darkness and conditioned it as a bad thing.
A lot is said eg. Spirit is good, body is bad, there is a lots of division of labeling
and is not useful to humans life.
She left her church – why?
Break - Enjoy the moment, perfectionism is a fallacy. Just
like a house cannot be perfect so are our relationships and homes. Just be in the present moment.
Barbara, 1997 as the first priests , she left her ministry
but remained a minister. In the first
pulpit , she was not a natural public speaker.
She left her church not church.
She went to a church she loved and a church that could call a woman a
pastor. She grew in the small church but
she left and went to teach college. For 16
yrs has been a professor at a college. She
loves to teach adolescence - for trying out things out. They ask all sorts of questions. Adolescence
is a lab for learning about life. We like life to be like a train but it turns out to be a sailing boats. There are current changes, wind changes etc. As such life is not a train, but ought to pick ourselves up and move on. Nice metaphor. You have to check where the wind is, sometimes
storms come in. Think
of your life like a sail boat.
She has written 13 books.
Page 75 - what if you can trust
your feelings and follow your fears in the bliss, take a breath and keep
going. What if she can learn to be in the
moment instead of being in a worrying
state like what if what if… To fast forward is to fast forward to the unknown and then
you find anxiety.
City behaviors – is where the title of her new book came
from. She took the physical and made it
into the metaphysical. A lot of our live
is learned behavior and of what learned she asked herself - how much of that
does she do on the emotional level - she
read the anatomy of melancholy. She cured
it by going to yoga and reading. She
took 30 minutes breat to stop being melancholic. She can be with her sadness or regrets but
how long can you be with that before it becomes destructive? Signals are widely published and it is time
to get help when you get signals. It is good to know what our danger zones
are. Not running away from dark - It is like when negative movements come in
you try to move yourself to a higher vibration so you don’t feel that
darkness. In sadness the right thing to
do is to feel it, eg if it is a kid and ask them to tell you about it. (their sadness). Instead of ignoring it eg
sadness from their darkness. Ask them to
tell you about it….. the tendencies is that you wanna do something but to sit
in the sadness is very hard as you wanna bring in some light. Angelo said “People will not remember what you said but wont
forget how you made them feel.
Sometimes as a child says oh baby and a shared tear that child
remembers. Give yourself permission to
be with the feeling and not do anything.
Break - morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
What is giving you light?
One thing you can do:
write on one wide of a paper things I know gives me life and on the other
side reasons you don’t do them.
She calls herself a detective of divinity. She has learned the package is valuable as
she has learned and teaches religion but has also learned budhism, hindu etc.. She honors the Sabbath and she does the
things that give her live and never had time to do. Eg cook supper. Try and put yourself in the space “WHAT IS
GIVING YOU LIFE? It is a great question to ask your self daily. To feel alive, she is cooking organic food
and slowing down in life, having friendship.
Friendship is a spiritual calling and knowing how to be human on the
nonproductive life. Are we not here to
do that? All the experiences dark and light
are here to embrace our humanity fully. We
are trying to be more human. Religions talk about this. Here are many ways to be human but there are
days when one doesn’t want to be human.
There are things we use to numb ourselves. When anything is dark you can use religion
and verses to get out of that side by passing, keeps people alive and some
people cling on things they can’t face. They
want to bypass it.
The dark night of the soul is where we can learn or have opportunity
to grow in anyway spiritually, emotionally.
Do we have more than one calling in life? Yes we are constantly moving forward.
Break -
Parents – don’t have to worry what is your calling as this
is your calling and vocation. We have personal,
professional callings and it is possible to be called away from things called
into. There are goodbyes and hallo’s as
we are constantly moving forward. We
ditch one calling to pick up another.
When we hear a calling, we should listen. She rarely resists listening. It is a life boat. How can we
pay attention to yourself.
Being a mother to your kid is the most sacred thing in the world and to nurture and support that. Some pp thing there is a big calling yet
there are small things that call your attention around you, little stuff around
you. To focus on
greatness is ignoring living the world you have been given. Resisting the journey! Why are you ignoring the present moment that
you have. If you are on a journey it’s
not about the destination you will be there one day, you also should be interested
in walking the journey, the companion right now, but if you are interested in
the greatness and dismiss your life now it is a waste of life if not a day. Enjoy the present moment! “
Soul moment:
Soul and spirit are different – spirit has capital S –
intuition , pushes me etc. Soul is my
creation grows larger day by day depending on what I am feeding it on.
Religious tradition has turned into a treasury of a
tradition. Spirituality is the individual
hunger or lack of, it is like a trampoline, where I will go and practice in
life.
Longest lesson to learn -
she will never be all that she ever wanted to be, i.e learned
intelligent as she wants to be, but what she is, is great enough.
What happens when we die?
- She doesn’t know. It is good to
accept there are places we don’t know, like we don’t know the dark. It is good to accept what happens about death
is beyond me it is a giant trust walk. Agnostic
– whatever happens is bigger than me.
The world needs: We are
all concentrated in something there in the future, better house, being someone
else, better life. People need to stand and say what is the best that I can make
of this moment and situation right now.
She believes in the goodness of the human heart. PP are acting redemptive to each other’s
lives.
Her greatest joy is when she is with her dog.
Compassion is willingness to laugh with others when they
laugh and weep with others when they weep.
It is to suffer with, it is empathy and it is the most important
capability.
Darkness is a place of unknowing and out of control and may
be vulnerable to danger and vulnerable to of her frontal lobe.
Breathing place:
Night sky – look up as it fills us with wonder. Looking at time and space! Today why don’t you take a moment and turn
off the lights."
Source courtesy of:
Reference:
Supersoulsunday: live
simulcast aired on 9 November 2014, www.facebook.com/supersoulsunday