Iyanla Vanzant Quotes And Sayings

Iyanla Vanzant is an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, life coach and television personality. She is known primarily for her books, her eponymous talk show, and her appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2000, she was named one of the “100 most influential Black Americans” by Ebony magazine, which said that “Her books, lectures and television appearances have made her a multimedia high priestess of healthy relationships.” Vanzant is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

In My Deepest, Darkest Moments, What Really Got Me Through Was A Prayer. Sometimes My Prayer Was 'Help Me.' Sometimes A Prayer Was 'Thank You.' What I've Discovered Is That Intimate Connection And Communication With My Creator Will Always Get Me Through Because I Know My Support, My Help, Is Just A Prayer Away.

I Had To Stop Traveling Alone Because I Missed So Many Planes. When Somebody Runs Up To You In The Airport And Begins To Tell You Their Life Story, You Can't Say, 'Excuse Me, Boo,' As They're Weeping On Your Bosom.

I Gave Myself Permission To Feel And Experience All Of My Emotions. In Order To Do That, I Had To Stop Being Afraid To Feel. In Order To Do That, I Taught Myself To Believe That No Matter What I Felt Or What Happened When I Felt It, I Would Be Okay.

What Will Support Any Relationship Is Clear, Complete And Conscious Conversations When Upsets Or Breakdowns Occur.

All Of Us Have Ways In Which We Mask And Cover Our Pain.

In My Mind, Marriage Is A Spiritual Partnership And Union In Which We Willingly Give And Receive Love, Create And Share Intimacy, And Open Ourselves To Be Available And Accessible To Another Human Being In Order To Heal, Learn And Grow.

I've Always Wanted People To Know Who They Are From The Inside. Then They Can Create The Life They Desire And Deserve. I've Always Believed That My Job Was To Facilitate The Evolution Of The Human Consciousness.

I've Seen The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Lived It And I'm Still Here To Talk About It And Help Someone Else If I Can.

I Wasn't Ready For Fame And All That Brings To Your Life. It Was An Amazing Experience, But So Overwhelming, Because No One Can Tell You Beforehand When It Will Happen Or How It Will Impact You. So No One Can Tell You How To Handle It, Being Stopped Everywhere You Go Because People Saw You On 'Oprah.' It Took Me Over, And I Wasn't Ready.

Gossip Is When You Have A Malice Of Intent Or Mindless, Third-party Conversation To Someone About Someone, Something You Haven't Said To That Someone.

I'm Moving Into That Eldership Age, You Know? I'm At The 'Wise Woman' Age Where It's Not About Learning, But Utilizing The Information That I Have In A Way That Serves Other People. That's A High Calling And It's A Great Responsibility.

A Stable And Nurturing Childhood Is Essential For The Healthy Psycho-emotional And Spiritual Development Of A Human Being. While We May Understand What Is Supposed To Happen To Us Physically, We Must Begin To Better Understand What Happens To Children Mentally, Emotionally And Spiritually As A Result Of The Families Into Which They Are Born.

We Really Don't Know How To Love Each Other Because We Haven't Really Learned To Love Ourselves. In Many Instances, Not All, It's Not Malicious. We've Just Been Conditioned To Such Bad Behavior.

I Hope That My Story, I Hope That My Life Is... An Encouragement For People, Especially In Brooklyn. I Feel Humbled And Blessed.

Some Of Us Pray Demands. Some Of Us Pray Complaints. Some Of Us Pray Knowing, And Some Of Us Pray Not Knowing. But Prayer Is The Attitude That You Hold In Your Heart.

The Thing I Always Tell My Audiences All The Time Is That I'm Just Two Steps Ahead Of You On A Good Day. And I Might Be Two Steps Behind You On A Bad Day.

One Of The Ways That People Avoid Taking Responsibility For Their Role In Their Own Pain Is What I Call The Bps - Blame And Projection.

I Surround People In Unconditional Acceptance And Love To Such A Degree That Everything That Is Unloving About Them Rises To The Surface.

Why Can't Women Get Along? Because We're Afraid. We're Afraid To Be Vulnerable. We're Afraid To Be Soft. We're Afraid To Be Hurt. But Most Of All, We're Afraid Of Our Power. So We Become Controlling And Aggressive And Vicious.

At Times I Have Long Conversations With God. Sometimes I Ask Questions. I Admit That There Are Also Times When I Let Out My Frustrations, Fears, And Anxieties In Less Than Honorable Ways. No Matter What I Pray About Or How I Pray About It, The Result I Always Get Is Comfort.

If You Are A Card-carrying Human Being, Chances Are That You Share The Same Fear As All Other Humans: The Fear Of Losing Love, Respect And Connection To Others. And If You Are Human, In Order To Avoid Or Prevent The Pain, Trauma And Perceived Devastation Of The Loss, You Will Do Anything To Avoid Your Greatest Fear From Being Visited On You.

Everybody's Got A 'Thing.' Some 'Things' Are Nice And Quiet. Some 'Things' Have Fangs And Claws. Some 'Things' Stink And Have Slobber Everywhere.

All Things Are Lessons That God Would Have Us Learn.

I Have Learned The Hard Way To Mind My Business, Without Judging Who People Are And What They Do. I Am More Troubled By The Lack Of Space Being Provided For The Truth To Unfold. Humans Cannot Seem To Wait For Or Honor The Truth. Instead, We Make It Up Based On Who We Believe People Should Or Should Not Be.

You've Got To Know What Your 'Thing' Is, And You've Got To Call It A 'Thing,' Whether It's Meanness, Nastiness, Un-forgiveness, Arrogance, Ego, Resistance, Rebelliousness Or Defiance. Everybody's Got A 'Thing,' And Once You Call Your 'Thing' A 'Thing,' We Can Give It A Place To Be Or Dismiss It.

The Remedy For Life's Broken Pieces Is Not Classes, Workshops Or Books. Don't Try To Heal The Broken Pieces. Just Forgive.

I'm Focusing On Healing Lives And Teaching People That They Can Heal - Giving Them Tools To Heal.

Pain Is Pain, Hurt Is Hurt, Fear Is Fear, Anger Is Anger, And It Has No Color.

I Don't Think There's Such A Thing As A Selfish Prayer. Prayer Puts You In Communication So You Can Talk About Whatever You Want To Talk About.

I Think As Men Begin To See Things That Address Them, They Will Feel That They Can Relate. They Can't Relate To 'Basketball Wives,' 'Housewives Of Atlanta.' I Am Not Judging Or Criticizing Those Shows At All; What I Am Saying Is The Perspective Is Not Necessarily The Male Perspective. 'Iyanla: Fix My Life' Is Inclusive Of Everyone.

My Purpose Is To Teach And Demonstrate What Is Possible. To Demonstrate Love Of God And Good. Remember What My Role Is As A Woman: To Be... Good. My Role As A Mother: To Teach, Support And Nurture My Offspring. My Role As A Grandmother: To Remind Everybody - Right Where You Are, God Is.

Order Is The First Law Of Heaven, And You Have To Have Order To Survive On Earth. Figure Out What Has To Be Done Each Day, Each Week, Each Year And Develop A System To Achieve It.

Oprah Winfrey Gives You The Stage? Shut Your Mouth. I Said, 'I'm Sorry For Taking Over Your Show.' She Said, 'No, That's Why We Have You Here.'

Be Willing To Share All Of Who You Are. So Many Of Us Want A Partner, But We're Not Willing To Show All Of Us.

You Have A Right To Say No. Most Of Us Have Very Weak And Flaccid 'No' Muscles. We Feel Guilty For Saying No. We Get Ostracized And Challenged For Saying No, So We Forget It's Our Choice. Your 'No' Muscle Has To Be Built Up To Get To A Place Where You Can Say, 'I Don't Care If That's What You Want. I Don't Want That. No.'

If You're Not Willing To Let Your Partner See Your Cellulite Or Know Your Biggest Fears, Then You Aren't Really Ready To Share Yourself.

Everyone Has Something That Blocks Us From The Full Experience And Expression Of Our Nobility.

I'm The Person That I Always Was, But In Terms Of How I Approach My Living, I'm Not The Same Person At All. At All. I've Buried A Child, I've Ended A Marriage, And The Grandson That I Was Raising Is Now Grown. My Family Has Totally Shifted.

I Knew All Of The Childhood Prayers I Uttered On My Knees At The Side Of My Bed. Many Years Of Sunday-school Attendance Had Etched Certain Psalms And Rote Prayers Into The Fibers Of My Brain. However, Somewhere Deep Inside Of Me, I Had The Secret Belief That I Did Not Know How To Pray, And That Frightened Me.

I'm Really Not That Fierce.

Comparison Is An Act Of Violence Against The Self.

You Know, If You're A Human And Living On The Planet, It Doesn't Matter What You Do; You Are Not Immune To The Challenges, The Trials, The Difficulty. And That Fact That I Happen To Be A Coach And A Minister And A Spiritual Teacher Doesn't Mean Anything. I'm Still Human.

Sometimes We Pray In Our Heads And We Never Get A Real Opportunity To Solidify What It Is That We're Praying For Or What We're Praying About. So Once You Write It Down, It's Like A Flow. It Comes Out And You Solidify The Thought Or The Idea Or The Request.

It's About Your Heart And About Your Consciousness. It's Not About Length Of Time You Pray. Some Of The Most Powerful Prayers I've Ever Heard Come From Children, Who Can Barely Speak.

When You Gossip, It's Self-hexing. Because When You Do It, It Comes Back To You. Everything Starts With The Word. The Word Is Demonstrating A Condition Of The Mind. If It's In Your Mind And Comes Out Of Your Mouth, It Will Be Created.

There Is A Lot Of Healing Going On. Really! More People Are Vegetarians, More Are In The Green Movement, More Of Us Are Tearing Down The Old Paradigms And Embracing Same-sex Marriage, Single Motherhood, Men Raising Babies.

For Most Of My Life, I Believed That My Father Had Broken Many Of My Bones. They Were Emotional And Psychological Bones; Things No One Could See, Things That Caused Me To Limp Through Life Clutching For And Holding On To People And Situations That Often Rendered Me Immobile.

Whether At Work, At Home Or In Public, We Have Been Trained To Believe That Who We Are At The Core Of Our Being Is Often Unacceptable. As A Result, We Work Diligently To Live Up To - And Sometimes Down To - What Others Have Made Us Out To Be, Whether Or Not It Is An Accurate Reflection Of Who We Are.

I Think Most People Think That A Spiritual Path Or Growing Spiritually Means That All Of A Sudden You'll Be Able To Forecast The Six Lotto Numbers And All Your Bills Will Be Paid.

The Show Is 'Fix My Life!' Get It? Life. I Do Not Fix People.