Oprah and Friends Share Words of Wisdom at Politically Charged ‘SuperSoul Sessions’

Oprah Winfrey recently held class at UCLA for OWN’s third “SuperSoul Sessions” speaker series, which features motivational messages from a range of authors, spiritual leaders, including Tony Robbins, Pastor John Gray and Glennon Doyle Melton.

People from all walks of life attended the day-long event, which included 90-plus minute lectures from a unique range of speakers.

For this installment of the SuperSoul Sessions, Oprah welcomed Tony Robbins, international speaker, entrepreneur, philanthropist and author; Glennon Doyle Melton, bestselling; Wes Moore, war veteran, Rhodes Scholar and best-selling author; Gabrielle Bernstein, international motivational speaker, life coach and author, Pastor John Gray, associate pastor at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston and star of the OWN docu-series “The Book of John Gray”; Angela Davis, an All-American track and field athlete, fitness evangelist and motivational coach; and with spiritual icon and author of “Seat of Soul” Gary Zukav, who sat down with Oprah for a Q&A that covered a range of topics, including fear-approach governing by some of our political leaders.

“We’re living in a world of fear-based leadership,” Oprah said. “Which is only going to lead to more fear and more fear, and create more fear ― unless we, the people, can authentically align with ourselves.”

The comment prompted one audience member to yell “Oprah for president!” To which, Oprah politely responded “No, thank you,” quelling the roaring applause from the audience.

Zukav encouraged the audience to stop pointing fingers at our politicians and instead play a proactive role in solving the problems in this society. “The only way to change it is to contribute something new to it,” he says. “That is authentic powe,,that is love. If you hate those who hate, you step into the darkness with them. If you have no compassion for those who have no compassion, what’s the difference between you and them? So, the only way to change the world is to change yourself.”

Tony Robbins, the headliner for the evening, offered the audience a tutorial on how to “end their suffering” through a process of reflection, appreciation and positive-thinking. For about two hours, Robbins delivered an energetic and interactive lecture, asking audience members to get up and jump several times.

Pastor John Gray humorously discussed how to find common ground with people who may have different political views than you.

Glennon Doyle Melton spoke candidly at the event, taking a moment to specifically address white women during her SuperSoul Session.She asked the white women in the audience to not forget their privilege, reminding them that the current struggles in many U.S. communities have been present for generations.

“What we need to remember is that this is just a touch of the pain that so many marginalized people in this country have been feeling for ages,” Glennon said “From black people and brown people and trans people and gay people and Muslim people and Native Americans and poor people, right? This is just a touch of what they’ve been feeling, and what sucks is that it took us being personally affected to finally show up.”

Oprah Winfrey presents SuperSoul Sessions, is a series of life-transforming talks from spiritual thought leaders, changemakers and wisdom teachers. Previous Sessions speakers include Elizabeth Gilbert, Deepak Chopra, Iyanla Vanzant, India.Arie and Kerry Washington.The most recent Session talks will air on OWN in May and available online at SuperSoul.tv/sessions.