Top 40 Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

Talk about your negative experiences with the father, with your girlfriends. Not with your children. And bite your tongue when it comes to diminishing, denying, dismissing, name-calling.

I surround people in unconditional acceptance and love to such a degree that everything that is unloving about them rises to the surface.

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.

I took my kids everywhere. I didn’t have money for child care, so I took them to college with me and they sat in the hallway.

I have a daily message, ‘Stimumail,’ which I use to stimulate the mind and heart. I have the opportunity to touch over 60,000 people I have never met. I also use Twitter and Facebook.

I really don’t have any weaknesses. I do have areas of my life that I am working on to grow, heal and evolve. Giving myself permission to rest is an area I am working on. Not rescuing my children and grandchildren is another area.

At birth, we are like cartilage – soft, flexible tissue. By the same natural process by which cartilage becomes hard bone, the soft, tender heart of an innocent child can become hardened by the circumstances into which she is born.

I try not to set myself up as different or as a celebrity or special. I have a husband that can get on my nerves. I have kids that test my patience. I’ve got a cat I can’t keep off the sofa. It’s real. On a bad day, I’m reading ‘Acts of Faith.’

I’m focusing on healing lives and teaching people that they can heal – giving them tools to heal.

My father never kissed me, hugged me or told me that he loved me. As my only living parent, he became the filter through which I saw myself, the possibilities for my life, the world and all men. He was a conflicted and dark filter.

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.

In 2002, my daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of colon cancer. And it was such a shock, a surprise to us.

I realized it was happening, but most people didn’t realize it was happening. I mean, because as a self-employed person, when there is a recession or a cutback in the economy, we feel it first. Because many self-employed people provide services that are nonessential.

I came from nothing. I came from the projects and welfare and ended up a millionaire with no frame of reference. I was bound to hit a wall sooner or later.

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.

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 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.

Talk about your negative experiences with the father, with your girlfriends. Not with your children. And bite your tongue when it comes to diminishing, denying, dismissing, name-calling.

After being on ‘Oprah’ for a couple of months, I got my first royalty check for $1,478,392.17. I will never forget it. At the height of my career, I made $3.3 million. Unbelievable. From welfare in the projects to $3.3 million.

I had no preconceived idea what fame would be like, because I never thought I would be famous. I just wanted to do my work. Hell, I just wanted to pay my rent on time.

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.

In order to feel loved, be respected and stay connected, we humans have a tendency to lie. We lie about who we are, what we want, what we need, what we have done or will do. Perhaps ‘lie’ is too strong a word. Let me say that what we do is withhold the truth.

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.

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.

All things are lessons that God would have us learn.

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.

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.

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.

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 grew up in the Holiness Church, where prayer was an event.

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.

People say I’ve had a difficult time in life. I think I’ve had an exciting time in life.

The show is ‘Fix My Life!’ Get it? Life. I do not fix people.

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.

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.

All of us have ways in which we mask and cover our pain.

Begin within. If it shows up in your life, it’s coming to tell you something about you that you’re acting like you don’t know. Something about yourself, or your relationship with God.

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.

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.

Pain is pain, hurt is hurt, fear is fear, anger is anger, and it has no color.