(Photo: Courtesy O Magazine)

In the May 2012 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, Oprah Winfrey dishes some words of advice to her teenage self. The 58-year-old appears on the cover with a 21-year-old version of herself, but inside pens a letter to a 19-year-old "beautiful brown-skinned girl."
"You've spent too many days and years trying to please others and be what they wanted you to be," she writes. "You will have to learn that the wounds of your past — rape, molestation, whippings for 'stepping out of place,' and not being allowed to show anger or cry afterward — damaged your self-esteem," she says. "Even then you understood that success was a process and that moving with the flow of life and not against it would be your greatest achievement," she says.
Seventeen other celebrated figures also share the advice they'd give their younger selves including actress Octavia Spencer, who writes, "Hello Traveler, As you make your way along life's tumultuous highways, it's important to note that you should always carry a map, have plenty of fuel in the tank, and take frequent rest stops."
The May issue of O hits newsstands April 10.
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