Tonight’s Oprah Lifeclass has a lesson that is easy to get and if you think about it, it can change your life and of your world. Ask yourself…Do Your Eyes Light Up When Your Child Walks in the Room?  Tonight, Oprah reminds us the power that we have to change the world by showing people that they matter and by really being present and seeing someone…really seeing them and who they are.  If there is one lesson to get, it’s this one.  It will change lives…by simply lighting up and being present.  Here are my notes…

• Oprah reminds us of a lesson from Toni Morrison – “When a child walks in, does your face light up? That’s what they are looking for. Let your face speak what’s in your heart.”  People – children – learn your value by what you feel from the people who are most important in your life.
• Remember that ­­children value themselves based on others’ reactions. Validation. Value.  ,*Personal Note: This might be true for adults too.  We value ourselves based on the reactions of our key people around us. Are you teaching them how to value you by the way you value others?*
• Case Study:  Gayle King.  Oprah has watched Gayle and how she has raised her children.  Each time they would walk into the room, it didn’t matter if she was on a call or in a meeting, she would stop and light up.  THIS is amazing.  *Personal Note:  Gayle did this for us at OYou as well.  When we came up to meet her, she stopped, took a moment and made us feel like she really cared about how we were, how was the hotel that she booked for us, how was the conference?  This is something that anyone can do – make people feel like they matter.  Stop and see them. 
• Case Study:  Raising Children. A father and husband gets the lesson from Toni Morrison and realizes the importance of showing the people in his life that they matter.  Lighting up is essential for raising children with great self-esteem. Do your eyes light up? Don’t focus on what your kid’s haven’t done when you first see them…but on your JOY for seeing them.  This will change your world and theirs.
• A common denominator in our experience is that we all want to be validated.  Everyone is looking for validation.
• Mirror back in your relationships and let people know that you hear them and understand what they are saying. People are looking for validation.
• Case Study: James Cameron and Avatar. One of the basic lessons in the movie includes that we are all connected as human beings. “I see you. I see who you are.” Everyone just wants to be seen and be heard. Do you see me and understand me and what I am going through?  Stop a moment and look at somebody and acknowledge their Being (Being with a big “B”)…See them, hear them, and have a moment of understanding with them.  *This is humanity at it’s best.
• Extending yourself to show compassion changes all of your relationships exponentially.
• When one human being validates another’s inner experience, that’s what bonds, strengthens, and expands human connection.
• Case Study: Mom and Daughter: Choosing the abuser over the daughter.  Oprah shows this study from TOWS of a father who sexually abused his two daughters for years and the mother didn’t notice.  While this was the first betrayal of not seeing what was going on, the ultimate betrayal came when after the father was put in jail for just a few months, the mother let him come back to her home “because he was sorry.”  The fumes from Oprah can be seen as she sits there with Dr. Phil trying to shake the mother into getting it and the message that she has given her daughter.  Oprah calls this, “the ultimate in not validating her daughter.”
• Lesson: When people can’t give you what you need, you just need to find a way to move on. When they cannot give you what you need them to say or be what you need or say what you need to hear, then you need to find a way to move on and heal yourself.  Find some other validation.  *Note: It is not you, it’s them and their inability to get to that place where they can be who you need them to be.  They may never be able to get to that place.
• Case Study: Harville Hendrix and his Imago Theory and Therapy – A therapy where you literally mirror back what the person is saying. Lesson:  You image into your relationship that in which you most need to heal from from the past, from your parents, or whoever was the prominent guiding force in your development as a child. 
• You carry the energy of your childhood into every relationship in your lifetime. *Note: Heal that energy, heal your life.
• When a child experiences their parent experiencing them in a positive way, it impacts them forever.  When you are made to feel invisible as a child, that energy is taken out on others in your life.
• We are all looking for the same thing. To be seen and validated.
• Case Study: Oprah’s moment of connection. Oprah talked about when she gave David a Porsche on her show.  Her moment of connection came with him during that moment.  I see you, I see who you are. I see where you’ve been. I see who you are trying to be. The validation of one person to another. It says everything.  It says that you’ve been seen and that you matter.