Iyanla Vanzant famous quotes

Everything you have done and been through is valuable and important. In order to be who you are, to know what you know, to be where you are in this moment, you needed to go through what you went through.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Order #Be Who You Are #Important

People are hurting. People are suffering. But you can not get everywhere.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Hurt #People #Suffering

If you really want to live your life to the fullest and realize your greatest potential, you must be willing to run the risk of making some people mad. People may not like what you do, people may not like how you do it, but these people are not living your life. You are!
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Running #People #Mad

I am not seeking anything but service to my creator. I do not need a house, I do not need a car, I do not need any of that, but to be present with each guest that sits across from me, and I am committed to a bigger thing than me, which is the vision of own, because own is going to outlive all of us.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Car #House #Vision

If someone has offended you, insulted you, or disappointed you, let it go! If you are remembering all the ways you have been hurt or forgotten, let it go! Ask yourself, what good does it do for me to hold on to this?
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Letting Go #Hurt #Let It Go

I pray because I am real clear that what I am doing and how I am doing it is my service, is my ministry, and so I want to be in perfect alignment with my creator. I do not care who you are. If I do not get the okay on the inside, you will not be showing up on the outside.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Real #Perfect #Ministry

You cannot make your life move faster than it's moving. No matter how urgent your situation may seem to be, things are going to happen when they happen, not a minute sooner. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with others. Be patient with life. Patience always pays off.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Moving #May #Pay

You can't look outside of yourself. You must look within yourself, and address all of the things that are going on within you, and clear out the things that are not useful. Whether it's fear or anger or shame or guilt or whatever it is - clean that stuff up.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Guilt #Looks #Addresses

Gratitude is like a magnet; the more grateful you are, the more you will receive to be grateful for.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Gratitude #Grateful #Be Grateful

Tell the truth about who you are, what you feel, what you want, what you're up to. Tell the truth about that first to yourself and then to anybody else that'll listen.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Want #Firsts #Telling The Truth

You can direct the outcome of any situation you face through the power of thought. Keep your thoughts focused on the best possible outcome for everyone involved and never allow yourself to be pushed where you don't choose to be.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Outcomes #Faces #Situation

Everything that's happening in our world is a function of what is going on inside of people. We are violent in our minds. We are violent with one another. We walk past one another in the street and don't even look nor make eye contact - don't speak. We can be outraged about the missiles and the planes. I'm more outraged that somebody will walk past me in the street and not look me in the face and say good morning.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Morning #Eye #Past

Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Inspiring #Empowering #Darkness

Thinking is the problem. Thinking is hazardous to your progress in life. Don't think - feel.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Thinking #Progress #Problem

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

#Challenges #Be Prepared #Grows

The event is not what you should be working on. You should be working on your response or reaction to an event. You either react to it - that means you become victimized, and you say this thing is happening to you - or you respond to it and say the solution must come through you - that's where you stay focused, not on the rightness, wrongness, fairness of the event, but on the appropriateness of your response.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Mean #Events #Fairness

You have to meet people where they are, and sometimes you have to leave them there.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#People #Sometimes

Anything that threatens, hinders, obstructs, denies, delays your capacity to stand fully up for yourself, within yourself, take it down.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Delay #Deny #Capacity

Are you aware that your spirit needs to be fed? Did you know that your spirit would be delighted to partake in a feast of spiritual food? How about a plate full of prayer? Or maybe a few hours of succulent self-reflection. Perhaps a piping-hot selection of spiritual literature, served by the side of a lake or under a tree, would satisfy your spiritual hunger. Can you imagine feasting for a few hours on spiritually uplifting music? What about some forgiveness à la mode, topped with compassion? You cannot imagine how much your spirit would enjoy it.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Uplifting #Spiritual #Prayer

Many self-employed people provide services that are nonessential. So whether you get your hair done less or your hair cut less, or your nails done less, as a writer and a speaker I was very clear that corporations weren't being as open and as generous and I wasn't getting the kind of work that I usually got.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Cutting #Hair #Self

Criticism does not make you smarter or better than the one you are criticizing. In fact, the stuff you are critical of in others is the same stuff you don't like about yourself.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Criticism #Doe #Stuff

Stuff your feelings because feelings buried alive don't die. And that fear or that upset or that anger or that whatever it is, it'll turn into something inside of you. So you want to get it out.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Upset #Feelings #Alive

Anger simply means that your personal power - your personal space, your personal sense of being - has been violated
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Mean #Space #Be True To Yourself

The way you get more is by having a daily spiritual practice.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Inspiring #Spiritual #Practice

Forgiveness is a process of giving up the old for something new. Old experiences and memories that we hold on to in anger, resentment, shame, or guilt cloud our spirit mind. The truth is, everything that has happened had to happen. It was a growth experience. There was something you needed to know or learn. If you stay angry, hurt, afraid, ashamed, or guilty, you miss the lesson. You will be stuck in a cloud of pain.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Hurt #Giving Up #Pain

Changing your life does not always mean that you stop doing certain things. It may mean that you start doing certain other things. What you really want to do is nurture the attitude that you are open to learning more about yourself. Accepting more about yourself. This is what will inspire you to do something new.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Attitude #Mean #Inspire

My vision is to elevate the consciousness of humanity one mind, one heart, one life, one spirit at a time. They are married.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Heart #Humanity #Mind

Staying focused on a project or plan is one of the most difficult challenges we face. There is always the house to clean, calls to make, laundry to fold, deadlines to meet. Actually, there is only one thing that keeps us from our goals - lack of focus. And very often, lack of focus is caused by fear.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Goal #Focus #House

As people, we have forgotten to be people. We know how to be doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, we know what to do, we know what to buy, but how do I just sit with you in your pain? How do I sit with you in your vulnerability and not betray you, not abuse you? We do not know how to do that, even in our homes.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Teacher #Pain #Home

Crying purifies and cleanses. I once read about a scientific experiment which demonstrated that there are 38 toxic chemicals in a tear of sadness, while only one toxin exists in a tear of joy. As you cry in sadness, fear, or confusion, you cleanse the body and spirit of toxins which cloud the mind and prevent it from accepting the truth.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Sadness #Clouds #Confusion

The ego does not want to be wrong, ever.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Ego #Doe #Want

Nothing destroys self-worth, self-acceptance and self-love faster than denying what you feel. Without feelings, you would not know where you are in life. Nor would you know what areas you need to work on. Honor your feelings. Allow yourself to feel them.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Acceptance #Self Worth #Self Love

It takes a lot more courage to let something go than it does to hang on to it, trying to make it better. Letting go doesn't mean ignoring a situation. Letting go means accepting what is, exactly as it is, without fear, resistance, or a struggle for control.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Letting Go #Struggle #Mean

No storm can last forever. It will never rain 365 days consecutively. Keep in mind that trouble comes to pass, not to stay. Don't worry! No storm, not even the one in your life, can last forever.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Rain #Worry #Forever

Everything happens when it needs to happen; everyone is always where they need to be. You will never miss out on what is meant for you, even if it has to come to you in a roundabout way.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Missing #Needs #Way

Have the courage to be exactly who you are without apology. Admit your mistakes without beating yourself up. Release all shame! Release all guilt! You cannot live if you are hiding behind what was. Focus on what is, right now, and that is you!
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Mistake #Apology #Focus

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Responsibility #People #Mind

Loving yourself has nothing to do with being selfish, self-centered or self-engrossed. It means that you accept yourself for what you are. Loving yourself means that you accept responsibility for your own development, growth and happiness.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Selfish #Mean #Responsibility

You set the standards for how you will be treated. People will treat you the exact way you treat yourself. So be good to you. Take time for yourself. Rest. Play. Shower yourself with affection, support, and gifts.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Play #People #Support

Be patient when it seems things are not going right and may never be right again. Accept that what is yours will come to you in the right way at just the right moment.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#May #Way #Patient

Change doesn't have to be hard, and healing doesn't have to hurt. Surely by now you know that every thing happens for a reason! There is something better awaiting you on the other side of this.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Letting Go #Hurt #Healing

It's important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#People #Giving #Important

Acceptance means that you know, regardless of what happened, that there is something bigger than you at work. It also means you know that you are okay and that you will continue to be okay.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Mean #Acceptance #Bigger

One of the greatest challenges in creating a joyful, peaceful and abundant life is taking responsibility for what you do and how you do it. As long as you can blame someone else, be angry with someone else, point the finger at someone else, you are not taking responsibility for your life.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Responsibility #Creating #Long

Affirm: I now willingly release all negative beliefs about myself, my life and all other people. I now forgive myself for thinking I ever did anything wrong. I am now filled with the love and the Power that I am. For this I am so grateful! And so it is!
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Grateful #Thinking #People

THE KEY TO SUCCESS is not what you do, it is how you feel about what you are doing. Success begins with a positive attitude, it is the most valuable asset we may own. Success begins with a good feeling about where we are and a positive attitude about where we want to be.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Attitude #Keys #Feelings

When there is breakdown in a relationship, you must have the hard conversation. It may not be pretty and it may not feel good. But if you are willing to listen and tell the truth, it will open up.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Feel Good #May #Telling The Truth

Each day, focus your attention on what you want. Each day, take one step that will bring you closer to it. ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! The key is to identify it, claim it for yourself, and believe that you are worthy to have it.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Believe #Keys #Focus

Have you doubted your progress, regretted your choices, put yourself down? Remember that you are doing just fine. Remind yourself right now that no matter what it looks like, you are doing the best you can. And getting better. Encourage yourself, support yourself, and celebrate every little thing about yourself.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Choices #Support #Get Better

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Dark #Light #Loving You

Release and detach from every person, every circumstance, every condition, and every situation that no longer serves a divine purpose in your life. All things have a season, and all seasons must come to an end. Choose a new season, filled with purposeful thoughts and activities.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Purpose #Divine #Release

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

#Inspiring #Feelings #Thoughts And Feelings

Every day is your day if you claim it. If you wait for somebody else to make it for you, you're going to be disappointed.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Waiting #Claims #Disappointed

Just for today, allow yourself to embrace all that you are every moment. Know that you are a vessel of light. Allow yourself to release all doubts about your ability, the mistakes of the past, the fear of the future.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Letting Go #Mistake #Past

Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it's the place where we find the deepest heartache.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Safe Haven #Family Love #Heartache

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Giving #Honor #Plot

Comparison is an act of violence against the self.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Positive Thinking #Self #Violence

Do not be afraid to experience your emotions; they are the path to your soul. Emotions erupt to remind us we are alive, that we are human. And to let us know we are growing. Trust yourself enough to feel what you feel.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Soul #Alive #Growing

What do you do when it seems as if people want to stay in their pain. They have a story to tell and they tell you every chance they get. Well, believe it or not, they may like where they are. Our job is to leave them there. You can point the way out of pain, but you cannot force them to get out. You can support the move beyond their limitations, but you cannot make the move for them.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Jobs #Pain #Get Well

The goal of life is not to win. It is to play the game with love. The rules of the game are: have a strong desire to win, believe that you are worthy of winning, have faith that you will win, and, as long as you are alive, never believe that the game is over.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Strong #Believe #Winning

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Faith #Giving #Doing You

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Love You #Desire #Companionship

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Fighting #Appreciate #Focus

When you need to be loved, you take love wherever you can find it. When you are desperate to be loved, feel love, know love, you seek out what you think love should look like. When you find love, or what you think love is, you will lie, kill, and steal to keep it. But learning about real love comes from within. It cannot be given. It cannot be taken away. It grows from your ability to re-create within yourself, the essence of loving experiences you have had in your life.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Lying #Real #Love You

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Pain #Responsibility #People

When you can tell the story and it doesn't bring up any pain, you know it is healed.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Pain #Fear #Stories

When we have peace in our hearts and minds, we draw peace into our lives.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Heart #Mind #Heart And Mind

We're all in prison. All of us are in prison, but some of us have a key.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Keys #Prison

We all want to be liked, loved, or needed. That is fine. What is not fine is what we are willing to do to make sure we are liked, or loved or needed. When we make the needs and wants of others a priority in our lives, we devalue ourselves.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Priorities #Needs #Want

Set an intention to heal any unexpressed anger that may be present in your life. Go to a quiet place with pen and paper. Take a few deep breaths. Ask your anger to speak to you. Write down the thoughts and feelings. When you are finished, forgive yourself for holding on to the anger for so long.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Writing #Long #Feelings

Until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Past #Heal #Wounds

You can't do anything as long as you are afraid of what might happen. Fear clouds opportunities, erases possibilities, and limits the ability to move beyond the place in which the mind is stuck. No matter how difficult we think the problem is, we must muster up the courage to face it.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Moving #Opportunity #Thinking

Many of us have a need to be right. We then set out to make ourselves right by making someone else wrong. We must get right with ourselves. Once we do, we will have so much to do, we will not have time to keep track of who is wrong.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Track #Needs

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

#Spiritual #Reflection #Identity

We set the standard of how we want to be treated. Our relationships are reflections of the relationships we have with ourselves.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Positive Thinking #Reflection #Want

Lives fall apart when they need to be rebuilt.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Fall #Needs #Falling Apart

Until you are willing to accept total and complete responsibility for every aspect of your life, your life will keep sending you experiences designed to get your attention.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Responsibility #Attention #Accepting

No matter what is going on in your life today, remember, it is only preparation. People come and go; situations rise and fall; it's all preparation for better things. You must stretch, reach, grow into your goodness. Without the preparation we receive through adversity, disappointment, confusion, or pain, we could not appreciate the goodness when it arrives.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Pain #Disappointment #Fall

Your greatest adversary is also your greatest teacher. Like it or not, it is the job of certain people to bring out the worst in you. What they trigger is already in you. They are here to reveal the sore, tender wounded places in your heart and mind, and they are providing you with a wonderful and divine opportunity for healing.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Teacher #Jobs #Healing

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. That's why we have a weave, we're wearing Spanx and everything is 'fine.' 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...
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Want #Share #Partners

You must earn what you have. Life does not give you anything. You must give in order to get. You must stand up to the very thing that challenges you, look it in the face, get clear about your intention, order your thoughts and your life, and proceed without fear or hesitation. Life is not unfair. Along the way, you will always find bits of information and support to guide you to purpose.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Order #Giving #Support

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.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#People #Different #Lessons

There comes a point in time when you must know that everything you have already given or done is enough. This is not something anyone else can tell you. You must know. Giving without receiving doesn't prove anything except that you know how to be taken advantage of.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Taken #Giving #Receiving

Joy is what we are, not what we must get. Joy is the realization that all we want or need in life has been etched into our souls. Joy helps us see not what we are "going through," but what we are "growing to"-a greater sense of understanding, accomplishment, and enlightenment. Joy reveals to us the calm at the end of the storm, the peace that surpasses the momentary happiness of pleasure. If we keep our minds centered on joy, joy becomes a state of mind.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Accomplishment #Joy #Understanding

Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Self Esteem #Believe #Thinking

Parents are teachers, guides, leaders, protectors and providers for their children.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Teacher #Children #Parenting

In silence, we have an opportunity to reflect, listen, and gain new insights about ourselves. In silence, we can think, feel, and most important of all, breathe. When you seek guidance, understanding, clarity, or peace of mind, the first step is to master the art of silence and to rethink the value of solitude.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Art #Opportunity #Thinking

The rules of the game of life are quite simple. Always tell the truth. Never live in fear of anything or anyone. Be conscious of what you are thinking so you can always think positively. Do everything that you do for the love of doing it. If you devote yourself, your time and your energy to following these rules, have no doubt - you cannot lose!
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Simple #Thinking #Games

It is important to acknowledge all your feelings and not beat yourself up for having them. Your feelings are not good or bad, they just are.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Feelings #Important #Beats

So many of us invest a fortune making ourselves look good to the world, yet inside we are falling apart. It's time to invest on the inside.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Fall #Looks #World

In the process of planning and having a wedding, I forgot there would actually be a marriage, a union of minds, bodies, souls, and issues that would come together as soon as the ceremony was over.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Issues #Soul #Mind

The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Way #Firsts #Helping

Education does not take place when you learn something you did not know before. Education is your ability to use what you have learned to be better today than you were yesterday.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Yesterday #Doe #Use

Comparing yourself to others is an act of violence against your authentic self.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Self #Violence #Compare

Listen for the instruction, instead of begging for the direction.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Instruction #Begging

The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don't want.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Letting Go #Want #Way

You have set standards for how you want to be treated and what you expect from yourself and for yourself.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Want #Standards #Treated

Remain open. There is something bigger than you know going on here.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Bigger

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.'
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Choices #Want #Saying No

It is not your duty or responsibility to change the minds of other people. The nature of their thinking is advanced or limited by their experience. In your presence, they have an opportunity to learn about you and, perhaps, to grow.
-- Iyanla Vanzant

#Responsibility #Opportunity #Thinking