While Oprah Winfrey is no stranger to donating to charity, the star has revealed just how hard it was to auction off some of her most prized possessions back in November.
The 60-year-old raised $600,000 for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy College Fund, but said letting go of some of her material possessions was certainly a learning experience.
“For just a split second, I considered bidding on my own folk-art needlepoint rug with the lovely leaf design,” she told O magazine.
“But knowing what you need is more than knowing what you want.” The media mogul joked she had a “mid-level anxiety attack” when it came to decluttering her life.
“When you’re coming into your own, nobody ever teaches you how to ask for less,” she said.
“But over the years, you begin to make distinctions; you start to focus on what’s important, and you start to realize what’s superfluous.”
Oprah gave up a number of ‘meaningless’ objects at the Santa Barbera auction which turned out to be her biggest yard sale yet.
It featured more than 300 of her household items including some Jetson electric bikes, still-life paintings and a hand-made Persian rug that fetched $6,150.
“What I need is dogs and books, light and space. Instead of feeling walled in by stuff, I want to feel surrounded by calm,” she said.
The idea for the auction all started when Oprah attempted to remodel her bathroom around the her much-loved single-piece onyx bathtub which she realised had come to represent wealth for her.
She began questioning why an inanimate object meant so much to her.
“It made me feel special. Lots of people have nice houses, but not many have a hand-carved-out-of-one-piece-of-onyx tub,” she writes in the magazine.
She says the auction not only helped those who benefitted from the funds, but helped herself to let go of a number of other belongings she had become attached to and realise what really mattered in her life and her home.
“You realize that a single piece of art that really speaks to you can be far more powerful than a wall filled with “important” works,” she said.
“That a meal eaten with feet up and pajamas on is usually a lot more pleasurable than any fancy-schmancy food at a black-tie gala… that less actually is so much more.”
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