Iyanla Vanzant
Iyanla Vanzant
Iyanla Vanzantis an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, life coach and television personality. She is known primarily for her books, for her eponymous talk show, and for her frequent appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She can currently be seen on television as the host of Iyanla: Fix My Life, and as a frequently featured guest teacher of Oprah's Lifeclass on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Show Host
Date of Birth13 September 1953
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The ego does not want to be wrong, ever.
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.
Never underestimate the ruthlessness of the ego to keep you in a state of suffering in which you voluntarily participate.
The voice I had accepted as Divine Guidance was actually the voice of my ego leading me right into destruction.
Have the courage to speak your mind and tell the truth from a position of love rather than anger or fear, being open to accept the views of others without feeling threatened or defeated, relinquishing the ego's need to be in control by demonstrating the willingness to do whatever it takes to establish peace.
The ego encourages you to constantly prove yourself and what you already know. When you are in the presence of someone you feel the need to impress, the ego's automatic response is 'I know.' The moment you say 'I know,' you are demonstrating that you don't know. You can learn something valuable from everyone, in every situation.
To honor life, we must be willing to grow through what we don't know yet, and outgrow what we know no longer fits us. We must be willing to give in to the process, moment by moment, realizing a new plot may be unfolding.
People have a right to change their minds and it has absolutely nothing to do with you. People change. As people change, their needs change. When people have a need, it is their responsibility to themselves to see their needs are met. And it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
Any time there is 'un-forgiveness' between people who love each other, there is suffering. Any time people face challenges that they really don't understand... there is suffering.
I grew up in the Holiness Church, where prayer was an event.
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.
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.
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.
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.