I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of

the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.

Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right

now.

Elamat was born in 1954 to San Francisco intellectuals Kenneth and Dorothy Lamat. She was the middle

child and their only girl. Her father, a writer, was raised in Tokyo to Christian missionaries.

It was a religious upbringing that he found cold and unsupportive. So when he had a family

of his own, he turned away from religion and God, encouraging Anne and her brothers to

instead put their faith in books, in music, and nature. They were a family of non-believers,

except for Anne. As early as age five, she says she secretly began to pray, believing in

her heart that someone was listening.

I'm so happy that you're here, you know? You're a person I was so excited to meet, I actually

followed on Twitter. Oh, thank you. I'm one of your followers.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, it happened for like over a year now, I think. Yeah. I just started

last March, I think. Yeah. Now it's my life. Yeah, it's your life. You give really intelligent,

thoughtful, writer like tweets, I must say. Oh, thank you.

And also so happy to talk about this book, Help Thanks Well. It's so interesting that so

many of the teachers that have appeared on Super Soul Sunday come from parents who were

atheists. Yeah. Your parents were too. My parents were atheists. My mom was raised in Liverpool.

She was actually baptized Church of England with her twin sister and then she came over

here and she, I think to have my father's love and respect sort of renounced the belief

of not just Christianity, but just a spiritual way of life. So I would take her to midnight

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