Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

Changing your attitude from self-centerdness to understanding requires desire and commitment to always try to see things from the other persons point of view.

Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing.

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.

In the movie I realized, I had the luxury of getting to see how the other person feels.

Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.

I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

I'm fortunate enough to have learned not to waste time getting frustrated with my kids, or co-workers, or friends and family for not doing everything I wish they would. If someone doesn't respond to me the way I want them to, I understand that it doesn't have anything to do with me.

It's important to determine not just the quality of your mind but the fullness of your heart.

You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.

If you operate under the premise that everybody already has some experiences that could be sources of empathy for them, I wonder if there's some process of coaxing people into tapping into that knowledge.

Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.

We think empathy is innate, but it's not. It's a muscle you're working.

Empathy is a skill like any other human skill - and if you get a chance to practice, you can get better at it.

You can't force people to feel in a certain way, and the sooner you understand that, the better. I feel everything has its way of working.

Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.

I mean really wonderful. In teaching. Personal epiphanies. About life. About different perspectives-help with different perspectives that you have. You know what I mean? Relationships to nature. Relationships with the self. With other people. With events.

There are moments when the inner life actually 'pays,' when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.

That's where the fear comes from-from your uninvestigated thoughts.

In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self.

I want to be older. I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older. I feel way better now than I did when I was 20. I'm stronger, I'm smarter in every way, I'm so much less crazy than I was then.

It's really about connecting to your own humanity and your own behaviors, and getting to a level of self-awareness so that you can have perspective and step outside of yourself and transform and become another person.

Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives

It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are.

The more that we self-analyze ourselves, the nicer we are to people and to ourselves, and the more we understand each other.