Iyanla Vanzant Quotes

Do not allow yourselves to be made to feel inadequate or frustrated because you cannot do everything others seem to be accomplishing. Only you and your Father in Heaven know your needs, strengths, and desires. Around this knowledge your personal course must be charted and your choices made.

In the antiseptic world we try to purge ourselves of difficult things. Don't dwell on it, switch off the light and go home. But this is home. I have to be a home to myself. I am the place I come back to and I can't keep hiding difficult things in trunks. Soon the house will be full of trunks and I perched on top of them with the phone saying, "Yes, I'm fine, of course, I'm fine, everything's fine." The trunks shudder.

As a therapist, I know that when you're vulnerable, the best way to move on is to admit your vulnerability, don't beat yourself up for it, and try to find a way to analyze your vulnerability. Pull up your socks and try to do better for you and your family.

The biggest parts of healing and making myself whole is to accept all of the many parts of myself.

It is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past and can learn new ways of responding. Forgiveness is love practiced among people who love poorly. It sets us free without wanting anything in return.

Self-awareness is value-free. It isn't scary. It doesn't imply that you will subject yourself to needless pain.

Don't let your wounds make you become someone you're not.

It's OK to feel pain and experience it. I'm not trying to fix myself. My suffering has given me so much.

The 1930s Hollywood was capable of hurting me so much. The things about Hollywood that could hurt me (when I first came) can't touch me now. I suddenly decided that they shouldn't hurt me - that was all.

Each human being can at once be a fighter and forgiver. When self-doubt tortures him, he most play the role of a fighter. And when his own ignorance humiliates him, he must play the role of a forgiver.

Forgiveness works two ways, in most instances. People have to forgive themselves too. The powerful have to forgive themselves for their behavior. That should be a sacred process.

Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.

If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider.

And freedom comes with grace, kindness, understanding, and love. Don't take anything personal, folks. Whatever is said about you or rumored or you heard something - you haven't done anything wrong and it's not your fault. That is your own self-invisible anchor that will stop your boat of life from going forward.

You can accept or reject the way you are treated by other people, but until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed. You can bandage the bleeding with food, with alcohol, with drugs, with work, with cigarettes, with sex, but eventually, it will all ooze through and stain your life. You must find the strength to open the wounds, stick your hands inside, pull out the core of the pain that is holding you in your past, the memories, and make peace with them.

One cannot let the events of one's past murder one's future.

I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.

Learn to accept your limits and you'll become a happier person.

I said that love heals from inside.

I love myself for all my mistakes and missteps. They have been very valuable to me. They have taught me many things. It is the way I learn. I am willing to stop punishing myself for my mistakes.

How we carry what has gone wrong for us is essential to being at home in ourselves, and present to the world with all of its failings.

Women shouldn't be burdened by what existed in their past, we should all learn how to turn pain into strength.

Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.

Our job is to become OK with who we are and what our life has been - and keep enduring.