“The Baby is Coming!”

I went to the live taping of Oprah’s Lifeclass yesterday.  It was me and 9,000+ fans.  From where I sat, I saw a tiny green speck that was Oprah Winfrey.  There were screens everywhere so I could see her.  I really enjoyed the whole experience.  Even the waiting in line portion of the day.  I arrived at the South side of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre an hour and half and proceeded to walk around the block close to John Street.  I took my place and waited 3 hours or so to be let in.  Apparently there was a commotion at the front of the line which is why we were delayed a bit.  At one point while waiting a lady ran down the street screaming “It’s Oprah! It’s Oprah!” everyone craned their necks looking around.  I didn’t see her if she was somewhere close by.  Then later I heard it was actually Iyanla Vanzant.  Finally we were let in.  I chose an isle seat in the centre, as close as possible which wasn’t actually all that close but I could more or less see the stage if I craned my neck and whoever was speaking wasn’t directly in front of the camera people.  Since I went there with myself I didn’t want to take to much time being too picky about where to sit.   Oh as we were being let in I saw Jill…one of producer’s from Season 25.  Side thought: it was be weird to be a ‘famous’ producer, I wonder if it would hinder or help you do your job if you constantly had to be escorted by security everywhere, but maybe they had to do that before the show aired.  I feel like it would be annoying to be a producer and be recognized all the time, unless it helped your project get money than I guess it’s worth it.

The MC for the evening was Jessica Holms, she used to be on Royal Canadian Air Farce.  I didn’t realize she was a motivational speaker.  I enjoyed her impressions of Celine Dion and Liza Minnelli.   I felt really lucky to get to see all 4 amazing guests: Deepak Chopra, Iyanla Vanzant, Tony Robbins and Bishop T.D. Jakes…and then of course seeing Oprah was great too.

These are my favorite quotes (or major paraphrases) from the evening:

Deepak Chopra

• Spirits to spirit
• We are all luminous stardust beings
• stop, smile with your entire being, observe, proceed with loving kindness
• find the gift in that shadow

Iyanla Vanzant

• A vision will pull you forward
• Your eyes will adjust to the level of deficiency in your life
• Be still.  Listen for instruction instead of begging for direction

The fun part about Iyanla was that she came from the back to some upbeat song that I can’t remember.  Then she had us close our eyes and imagine that there was an orange in your hand, then peel it and open it up but the orange represents your vision whatever that vision may be and then we ate our vision/the imaginary orange.  So now the vision is inside us.  I know this sounds like craziness and there’s a comedy sketch waiting to be written about this entire event but I enjoyed myself.  For me, in this exercise 2 visions were vying for my attention: Nobody’s Idol and my one woman show.  Looks like I’ve all but forgotten about being in a musical.  Guess that’s not important to me anymore.  I ultimately have not decided between the 2 because I believe I can do and have both.  I can focus on both visions cause I’m sure they’ll feed into each other.

Tony Robbins

• Strategy. Story. State
• You get what you tolerate
• 3 kinds of love: Baby Love (where if you don’t get what you want you won’t give love); Trade Love (an exchange..i’ll love you if you do this and you’ll love me if I do that); Real Love (it’s real love, unconditional) Dalai Lama Love (where you love the world…he didn’t call it that but that’s what I remember).

I don’t actually remember any of the great quotes because we were up and jumping around and having a lot of fun…which I really enjoyed and appreciated…what I took away from the Tony Robbins portion was that the part about changing how to change your emotional state and to change your story about your life as well as the strategy or the how you plan on getting wherever

Bishop T.D. Jakes

• The baby is coming!
• I am no greater than the thoughts I think

I’d never heard of this guy before the Lifeclass and I really loved all the wonderful things he said.  He had this whole thing about how we’re all pregnant with ideas and the more pain you feel the closer your vision/baby is coming into fruition.  And how like other people can’t see or understand the seeds of your vision.

Then the actual live taping part of the evening was all about forgiveness.

I felt very energized by the time I left.  Some of it has carried over for today except for the part where my energy is really low.  So went home early from work.  I would usually try and stick it out but I decided to take care of myself and allow myself to go and rest.

So in conclusion: the play/musical is coming; the one woman show is coming; the new apartment is coming; the improv stuff is happening.  And those are the current babies on board.