Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

If you can't help me grow, there's no point with you being in my life.

As you learn who you are, you can better surround yourself with friends who make you a better person, and that sometimes only happens when you disassemble old relationships.

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.

There was some sadness in how that could happen, Tai thought: falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had? But if you didn't change at least a little, where were the passages of a life? Didn't learning, changing, sometimes mean letting go of what had once been seen as true?

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

If a train doesn’t stop at your station, it’s simply because it’s not your train. Don’t try to flag down the conductor and convince them to stop there, even if their own map says that they should just keep going. You may not realize it, but there’s another train trying to come toward you, unable to get into your station because a train that doesn’t even belong there is being delayed there by your intensity.

I am free now to detach myself from what used to be.

Things change when you learn to loosen your grip. I think one way and the future is desperate. I think another way everything is in sight. Trees bend so branches don't have to break. We mend the wounds of our last mistake... I live one way holding onto the fence post. I live another way sliding off into space. Each life is loosely assembled... Birds swim, fish do fly. Proud man begins to cry. Birds swim, fish do fly. Things change, so why can't I?

You've got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old - whatever "the old" means for you.

Some things need to be let go before other things can be let in.

How well we have learned to let go

We can't hold on to anyone or anything, you know. We lose everything except that which we carry within us.

Don't get too comfortable with who you are at any given time - you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be.

It's hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I've learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

If there is someone in your life who is not serving you or making you better, give yourself permission to move on.

Believing: it means believing in our own lies. And I can say that I am grateful that I got this lesson very early.

I feel like I've started a new chapter in my life, and I need to leave the past behind.

Big will always be a part of my life. But I'm still on this Earth, so I have to live my life for now and the future.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

There is a lot of learning I have to do and a lot of growing up I have to do.

It always surprises me when people say, 'I don't regret one thing about my life. I wouldn't change anything because it's all led me to where I am today.' I would want to change certain things that have caused others pain.

I can't constantly live in the past, thinking that 'Oh my God, I was Miss Universe.'

I know myself, I'm learning myself. I'm growing, I'm maturing.