Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

Spirituality is not about what you know. It is about growing, deepening, evolving and becoming a living reflection of your spiritual identity.

Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now.

If you want peace, be peace. If you want wealth, be wealth. Think it. Talk it. Prepare yourself to have it. Have faith enough to seek guidance and authority from within.

Feminine power is silent, dark, mysterious, healing, nurturing. A woman can walk into a room and control it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth if she knows where her power is.

Your purpose gave birth to you. It has molded and shaped who you are and what you do. Your purpose is the reason you live and breathe. Your purpose guides your heart, hands, and head. It is alive in you. It is there, within, that you must seek to know it and live it.

You can't just cry about the pain. You can't just pray about the pain. You must eliminate the pain.

You are the love you seek. You are the companionship you desire. You are your own completion, your own wholeness. You are your best friend, your confidant. 'You are,' as poetess Audre Lourde wrote, 'the one that you are looking for.' You are the only one who can do what you are looking for someone else to do.

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'm focusing on healing lives and teaching people that they can heal - giving them tools to heal.

Planning is the only way to keep yourself on track. Plan your moments to be joyous. Plan your days to be filled with peace. Plan your life to be an experience of growth. When you know where you are going, the universe will clear a path for you.

I'm okay, you're okay. Now let's go to work.

I am not my sister's keeper. I am my sister.

You have a right to your thoughts and feelings. Your feelings are always valid.

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.

Everything we experience-no matter how unpleasant-comes into our lives to teach us something.

At your worst point, the quickest way to move through it is to be a contribution as opposed to focusing on your problems. If you focus on your problems and keep giving them attention, they're going to grow. If you ignore them and do something else - I don't mean act like they're not here - but do something meaningful, it helps you work through it.

If you don't ask for what you need, the need will keep getting bigger.

Spend more time in daily reflection, contemplation and meditation. Had I done that at 20, things would have been very different in my life. But things really were as they needed to be, because I had to learn ... how important it was.

We make our days pleasant or miserable. If we insist on being miserable, irritable and nasty, more than likely the day will give us exactly what we give it. A day is too valuable to waste on misery and unhappiness.

Just give yourself permission to tell the truth to yourself.

You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people. But until you heal the wounds of your past, you are going to bleed.

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

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.

It’s self-full to be first, to be as good as possible to you. To take care of you, keep you whole and healthy. That doesn’t mean you disregard everything and everyone. But you want to come with your cup full. You know: ‘My cup runneth over.’ What comes out of the cup is for y’all. What’s in the cup is mine. But I’ve got to keep my cup full.

Tell your story because your story will heal you and it will heal someone else.

Healing is the application of love to the places inside that hurt.

Comparison is an act of violence against the self.

I love a vision board. I have one hanging over my desk right now. Because what you see, you become, and it reminds you when you start getting busy in the day, about your vision. I like words more than pictures. I have a card sitting on my desk right now that says, "I only give out that which I wish to receive in return." It's one of Louise Hay's cards. Words remind me more and it gives me something to hold onto when I'm frantic about something else.

A man who is not accountable to anyone is a danger to himself

Each of us face a moment in our lives called 'the breakdown moment.' This is the time when you must stand toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with the very thing you have tried desperately to avoid. In that moment, when there is nothing standing between you and the thing you fear the most, you will be forced to step into your greatness, because that is what life is demanding of you.

If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.

Most of us have just learned to exercise our survival muscle. It's time to build our victory muscle.

Everything God does is purposeful. And since God is in each of us, each of us has a purpose.

The key to success is not what you do, it is how you feel about what you are doing.

I am just an ordinary person committed to doing extraordinary things.

When you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief.

When we want to move beyond the pain, when we want to feel better, when we are ready to move beyond where we are, emotionally and spiritually, we must forgive.

Faith without challenge is nothing.

You must be willing to examine and explore your dark side. You must acknowledge how bad you can be and how horribly unloving you can behave. When you know how deep and dark your dark side is, it helps you stand a little taller in the light.

How do you spell peace? P-R-A-Y-E-R! Anything you believe you need is available to you through prayer. We are not talking here about a magic formula of proper and distinct words. Oh no! We are talking about opening your heart and your mouth, saying what's on your mind, knowing that once you do, the answer will be revealed.

The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination. ... until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life.

Rather than beating yourself up for what you are not doing, appreciate and celebrate the things you are doing. When you shift your focus away from what you do not want, you can create a vision for what you do. Don't fight with yourself - focus on what you do, can do, choose to do, are ready to do.

Mistakes are lessons that you need to learn!

Sometimes you have to lose everything in order to gain yourself.

From where you sit, it may seem that certain people should know better. People are who they are and do what they do whether or not you like it or agree with them. We each have different lessons to learn. We each take a different path to our lessons.

I hope that my story, I hope that my life is... an encouragement for people, especially in Brooklyn. I feel humbled and blessed.

You must be willing to give total unconditional love to everyone, under all circumstances. That means being willing to be totally responsible for what you do and how you do it.

When you are open to receive what God is able to do for you, you stop doing. You learn how to "Be still and know!" You know that your good is on the way, according to God's nature and willingness to give. You also put your faith in the fact that God is always on time.