When singer/songwriter India.Arie reached out to Oprah to share candid details of her transformative spiritual breakthrough, the Grammy Award-winning artist had one fear she couldn't seem to shake. During her appearance on "Super Soul Sunday," India.Arie not only confesses the fear, but also realizes that the fear wasn't just tied to her spiritual shift; it also affected her life in a very public way.
"What I was afraid of was being judged," India.Arie confesses to Oprah. "I realize now that I have always been so judgmental."
India.Arie says she hadn't previously thought of herself as judgmental, per se. "To me, it's just like an opinion. But I realize I go really hard with it," she says in the video. "I'm really judgmental, especially about things that I feel make my life harder."
As an example, India.Arie says that she works hard to make her "spiritual work be commercially viable" and passes judgment on other musicians who seem to care more about selling out -- but India.Arie had the tables turned on her this past spring when she was accused of lightening her skin on the cover of one of her singles. She explains, "I see someone who's just making music and they're just being commercial and selling themselves for it and being naked or whatever... I judge it so hard. And that's what I got. I got judged... [The public] thought I was bleaching my skin to be one of those people who I had judged so hard."
"Wow," Oprah says. "The judgment that other people were placing on you was a result of the judgment that you had placed on other people."
"I strongly believe that is the truth," India.Arie agrees.
"That makes my eyes water," Oprah says, fanning her face. "That's deep, girl. That is deep."
"Super Soul Sunday" airs on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET on OWN.
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