"Thank you." They're just two small words, but Oprah says she believes there is no better way to create abundance in your life than through being thankful for what you have right now. On "Super Soul Sunday," she and best-selling spiritual author Anne Lamott discuss why saying thanks is a powerful form of prayer.
"Life is a phenomenon," Lamott says in the above video. "To have been born is a miracle. What are the odds? And to just go, 'Wow. I don't get it, but thank you. Thank you.'"
Oprah says the greatest lessons she's learned about saying thank you is from Maya Angelou. Oprah was upset one day about a story in the tabloids, and Angelou told her to stop and say thank you.
"I was like, 'Why am I saying thank you? This is horrible. It's not true.' And she was saying, 'Say thank you because you know that there's a rainbow in every cloud, and wherever you are right now, you're going to come out on the other side of whatever it is and all you've got to do is walk right through it. So say thank you right now for allowing me to walk to the other side.' That has been a great lesson for me."
Lamott says when she expresses gratitude when she prays. "I say to God, 'Thank you in advance for your tender mercies, and I'm living in the hope of that."
She says everything is an opportunity, from meeting strangers at the airport to standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. "If your heart is open, you start flirting with people," Lamott says. "If you're a person who's here because you understand we're so hungry for giving -- we're not hungry for getting, we're hungry for giving -- so you start flirting in line at the DMV. People start responding. You create the love you weren't feeling. You create this energy. You get in a good mood, right?"
"And you get a better photo," Oprah laughs.
"Super Soul Sunday" airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET on OWN.