Open Letter to Oprah and Others Who Are Embarrassed about Their Weight!

Here’s an arresting question to ponder. Have you ever been to a memorial? That’s probably a rhetorical question, as we’ve all lost special people in our lives. I went across country once to attend a friend’s funeral, as I wanted to hear a leaderless memorial. People stood up as they pleased and spoke about the relationship they had with the man who died. Some cried when they said that they would continue to miss hearing his voice on the other end of the phone, as he was so supportive and nurturing. Others talked about how they would miss his mentoring, which had meant so much. Some spoke of his caring and consistent friendship. Not one person mentioned his looks, money, how much art he had collected, how big his home was or how many times he had been married. Those things did not matter to the people who had come to pay their respects, to remember him, to share their feelings. The participants came to talk about how much they had cherished their friend and how much they would miss him for his support, his wisdom, and his emotional generosity.

I am writing this, because the older I get, the more it becomes obvious to me that our inner landscape matters much more than how we look on the outside! I saw you, Oprah, on the news and in your own O Magazine talking about how embarrassed you are to have gained back some of the weight you had lost and how mad you are at yourself for "falling off the wagon." I think that you are beautiful at whatever weight you are and I’m sure there are thousands like me who watch you and listen to you. I think that being mad at yourself for how much you weigh is tough for us to hear, for it almost like you’ve dismissed the rest of you.

Where did this cultural fetish about being so thin come from? We’re losing people, younger and younger, boys and girls, men and women, to their eating disorders. Where does our need to be judged by others come from? When will be able to feel good about ourselves no matter how we look or what others think of us? When will we judge ourselves by our kindnesses to each other, by our generosity with each other, by our honest and ongoing inclusion of each other?You have contributed so much to so many. You have triumphed over your earliest childhood traumas, memories and events. You have given countless writers a platform from which to be heard and bought. You have brought families together who would not otherwise have had the opportunity for a reunion. You’ve created movies which have served to enrich the lives of their audience.

You’ve built an especially wonderful school for girls in South Africa. You went to great lengths to give selected young girls the opportunity to learn to be leaders, to acquire an extraordinary education, to excel, to contribute to the future of their country and of our planet. And childhood is where we need to have opportunities to amass successful experiences for approval. Self-approval fuels how we feel about ourselves internally forever and ever. To gain self-approval as adults, we often have to treat ourselves to major healing processes of cleaning out bad attention and others’ bad belief systems.

Oprah, we have watched you, and we salute you for your sensitivity, for empowering future generations, for the positive attention you pay to everything and everyone. And I know you have done much more to support and "cheerlead" humanity than what I’ve mentioned.
Today, particularly, with the tragic financial crisis we find ourselves in, we all have to make changes. We have to learn to spend less, to create more out of what we already have, to rethink our disposable mentality, to nurture our relationships with special time and attention. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could truly learn that who we are means more than how much we have or how we look?

Perhaps, this financial mess we’re in will give us the opportunity to rediscover that what really matters is how we treat each other.You have become such a vital, positive role model for our globe. Please know we really don’t care how much you weigh. You radiate interior beauty with which you contribute abundantly to so many who are less fortunate than you. We just want you to keep on keeping on with all your good works and showing us that actions truly do speak louder than words.