Iyanla Vanzant, born on September 13, 1953, is an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, and author renowned for her role on the Oprah Winfrey Network. She gained fame through the show “Iyanla: Fix My Life,” where she assists individuals in overcoming personal challenges. Vanzant, who faced her own adversities, transformed her life and became a motivational speaker and spiritual teacher. Her work focuses on spiritual and personal development, encouraging individuals to confront their past, heal emotional wounds, and lead more authentic lives. With numerous books, including “Acts of Faith” and “In the Meantime,” she shares wisdom to inspire positive transformations.
Iyanla Vanzant Quotes
1. “The way we do one thing is the way we do everything.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
2. “Gratitude is like a magnet; the more grateful you are, the more you will receive to be grateful for.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
3. “The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
4. “You have to meet people where they are, and sometimes you have to leave them there.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
5. “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
6. “When the time comes for you to make a change or to grow, the universe will make you so uncomfortable you will eventually have no choice.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
7. “When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
8. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
9. “I am just an ordinary person committed to doing extraordinary things.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
10. “Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it’s the place where we find the deepest heartache.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
11. “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
12. “Be patient with yourself. Be gentle with yourself. Know that all things are working in your favor. If you take one step toward the light of Spirit, Spirit will take five steps on your behalf.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
13. “Life will let you get away with something for a while, but sooner or later, you will pay the price. Everything you do in life causes the effects that you experience. When you get the bill, be prepared to pay.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
14. “Do what brings you joy, and your purpose will unfold.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
15. “I’m okay, you’re okay. Now let’s go to work.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
16. “If you don’t have a vision you’re going to be stuck in what you know. And the only thing you know is what you’ve already seen.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
17. “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
18. “Comparison is an act of violence against the self.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
19. “If it’s not your story to tell, you don’t tell it.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
20. “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
21. “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
22. “When you don’t show up as who you are, people fall in love with who you’re not. Then when they find out who you are, that’s when they leave.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
23. “Stay in your car in your lane on your road in your world. Stay in your own lane. Don’t be minding other people’s spiritual business. Stay in your car. In your lane. On your road. In your world.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
24. “When you are in alignment with the desires of your heart, things have a way of working out.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
25. “People you don’t love can’t hurt you.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
26. “Use your time, energy and talents to do the best you can right now. Spend no time wishing it were better.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
27. “Love people enough to tell them the truth and respect them enough to trust that they can handle it.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
28. “Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
29. “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
30. “You are the light of the world. You are an instrument of the Divine. You are the greatest miracle in the world. Life is graced by your presence.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
31. “I am not my sister’s keeper. I am my sister.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
32. “I now know that nothing in my life will change until I change the way I see my life and myself.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
33. “We set the standard of how we want to be treated. Our relationships are reflections of the relationships we have with ourselves.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
34. “You’ve got to be willing to lose everything to gain yourself.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
35. “Love is not all that is required in a relationship. It needs understanding, openness, kidness, patience, long-suffering.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
36. “It’s time for you to move, realizing that the thing you are seeking is also seeking you.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
37. “The best students get the hardest lessons.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
38. “You work for God Incorporated.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
39. “Know thyself. Accept thyself. Love thyself. No matter what you have done, where you have been, know, accept, and love who you are.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
40. “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
41. “Until you heal the wounds of your past, you will continue to bleed.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
42. “Parents are teachers, guides, leaders, protectors and providers for their children.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
43. “The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don’t want.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
44. “Today, I choose awareness. I choose to be aware of the beauty of life and living. I choose to be aware of the simple pleasures in life. I choose awareness of joy, awareness of peace, and awareness of love.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
45. “If you are afraid to take a chance, take one anyway. What you don’t do can create the same regrets as the mistakes you make.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
46. “Right where you are is where you need to be. Don’t fight it! Don’t run away from it! Stand firm! Take a deep breath. And another. And another. Now, ask yourself: Why is this in my world? What do I need to see?”
— Iyanla Vanzant
47. “You have a right to your thoughts and feelings. Your feelings are always valid.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
48. “Your divine mate already exists. When you get to the place in yourself that is peaceful divine love, your true mate will be revealed.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
49. “If you see crazy coming, cross the street!”
— Iyanla Vanzant
50. “If you don’t enjoy your life, sorrow, sadness, suffering, fear, shame and guilt will.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
51. “Accept and acknowledge your own brilliance. Stop waiting for others to tell you how great you are! Believe it for yourself and about yourself.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
52. “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
53. “Every day is your day if you claim it.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
54. “A man who is not accountable to anyone is a danger to himself.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
55. “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
56. “I have a body, but I am not my body. I have a face, but I am not my face.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
57. “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
58. “Black Girls rock because we have no other choice.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
59. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
60. “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
61. “You are the only one who can do it like you do it. You are the best. You have what it takes. You have the power. When you put your mind to something, you get it done. So what are you waiting for?”
— Iyanla Vanzant
62. “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
63. “When you can tell the story and it doesn’t bring up any pain, you know it is healed.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
64. “The goal isn’t to be perfect, but to be authentic!”
— Iyanla Vanzant
65. “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
66. “We can think, speak, and bring the best possible outcome into existence by focusing on where we are going, not on where we think we are.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
67. “The remedy for life’s broken pieces is not classes, workshops or books. Don’t try to heal the broken pieces. Just forgive.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
68. “Religion is the rules, regulations, ceremonies and rituals developed by man to create conformity and uniformity in the approach to God. Spirituality is God’s call in your soul.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
69. “Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
70. “When you’re the strong one, people don’t give you permission to hurt.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
71. “Don’t get hung up on the hard times, the challenges. Tell your story by highlighting the victories. Because it’s your victories that will inspire, motivate, encourage other people to live their stories in grander ways.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
72. “When you find yourself in a new situation, everything that requires healing is going to rush to the surface.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
73. “Everyone has a purpose because God is a purposeful God.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
74. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
75. “You will stumble at time, forget what you want, fall headfirst into your old habits and beliefs. Fear not! Always remember to be patient and loving with yourself and others because that is what God does all the time.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
76. “All things are lessons that God would have us learn.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
77. “Trying to prove something to someone is never a valid reason for doing anything.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
78. “When you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
79. “You don’t get to tell people how to love you; you get to choose if you want to participate in the way they love.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
80. “Always remember who you are. Know that you are never required to apologize to anyone for being yourself.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
81. “We have a tendency to always test people’s love. ‘I want to see how badly I have to behave before you’ll leave me. Because I don’t really think you want me anyhow.’”
— Iyanla Vanzant
82. “Anger simply means that your personal power – your personal space, your personal sense of being – has been violated.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
83. “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
84. “Transformation doesn’t have to be deep, dark and mysterious. If you screw up, fine – laugh at yourself, learn and move on.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
85. “When your way doesn’t work, don’t be disheartened. You must be willing to try another way. A closed door doesn’t mean you have been cut off permanently. It is a challenge, an obstacle, a tool to be used.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
86. “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
87. “I gave myself permission to feel and experience all of my emotions. In order to do that, I had to stop being afraid to feel. In order to do that, I taught myself to believe that no matter what I felt or what happened when I felt it, I would be okay.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
88. “Our beliefs are what create our experiences. As we change our beliefs, we alter our perception, our version of reality.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
89. “You are always being prepared for something better or protected from something worse.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
90. “I am the one I have been looking for.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
91. “Dear God, Please untie the nots. All of the can nots, should not, may nots and have nots. Please erase from my mind the thoughts that I am not good enough.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
92. “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
93. “Once you get clear on who you are, what you do, and what you have been CALLED to do, you become powerful.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
94. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
95. “When two broken people bring their broken pieces together, chances are they will never become a whole anything.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
96. “You cannot experience the fullness of your authentic self or life when you live to avoid hurt. You will never know the joy of love or the peaceful satisfaction of being loved if you hide from hurt.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
97. “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
98. “Learning to trust yourself and what you know takes time and work. You cannot expect to eradicate a lifetime of misguided information overnight. You must make a continuous, conscious effort to get on good terms with you.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
99. “There are two emotions: love and fear.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
100. “In my mind, marriage is a spiritual partnership and union in which we willingly give and receive love, create and share intimacy, and open ourselves to be available and accessible to another human being in order to heal, learn and grow.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
101. “What will support any relationship is clear, complete and conscious conversations when upsets or breakdowns occur.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
102. “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
103. “Forgiveness is not about the other person or what they did. Forgiveness is for YOU and about YOU.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
104. “In speaking the truth of your experience to another, it will serve you well to realize that how they choose to respond is not your responsibility.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
105. “Choice is our point of power.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
106. “Love is the voice of God whispering to you from within yourself.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
107. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
108. “No whining, no complaining about anyone. Everybody in your life has come to teach you lessons.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
109. “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
110. “No matter how painful your past has been, you have made it through.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
111. “Be aware that who you are and what you have to offer can be a beacon to some lost soul.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
112. “Sitting alone, listening to the sound of your breath, the beating of your heart is a reminder that you are sacred and blessed.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
113. “Live your life in PEACE, not in PIECES…”
— Iyanla Vanzant
114. “Who you are is strong enough to bare your pain.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
115. “Sometimes on the journey, you step in dog poop. But you don’t let the whole journey be about the fact that your shoe got poop on it.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
116. “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
117. “We think we have to do something to be grateful or something has to be done in order for us to be grateful, when gratitude is a state of being.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
118. “In all relationships, regardless of their nature, there comes that moment when you understand that there are some things you will never understand. When you are standing in that moment, just be right with it.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
119. “Authenticity means that you must do what you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same courtesy.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
120. “Lives fall apart when they need to be rebuilt.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
121. “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
122. “When you can look a thing dead in the eye, acknowledge that it exists, call it exactly what it is, and decide what role it will take in your life then, my Beloved, you have taken the first step toward your freedom.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
123. “Price writes that money is a function of My Own Natural Energy Yield. In essence, whatever we hold in our minds and hearts will either enhance or obstruct our ability to receive – not just money but all that we desire.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
124. “I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lived it and I’m still here to talk about it and help someone else if I can.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
125. “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
126. “Each of us was born to fulfill a divine purpose. As we open our hearts and minds to a new way of being, the purpose of our lives unfolds organically.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
127. “One thing that prevents a man from being a good father is he hasn’t completed being a boy.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
128. “What looks like a failure teaches us what not to do, what does not work. We have lessons to learn from our experiences.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
129. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
130. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
131. “If you don’t have a test, you won’t be able to have a testimony.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
132. “Pain is pain, hurt is hurt, fear is fear, anger is anger, and it has no color.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
133. “Everything God does is purposeful. And since God is in each of us, each of us has a purpose.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
134. “When we pray, it opens our minds to the divine consciousness of God. Prayer opens your mind to answers that have always been present.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
135. “I’m focusing on healing lives and teaching people that they can heal – giving them tools to heal.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
136. “I let go of the past and choose to accept every situation as being for me and not against me.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
137. “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
138. “Everybody does not have to like you. That is not their job. Liking you is not anyone’s purpose in life except yours.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
139. “The voice I had accepted as Divine Guidance was actually the voice of my ego leading me right into destruction.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
140. “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.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
141. “Yesterday, I cried. I came home, went straight to my room, sat on the edge of my bed, kicked off my shoes, unhooked my bra, and I had myself a good cry.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
142. “You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
143. “To me, freedom means having the power, the inherent right, the capacity and the ability to make choices that honour who I am.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
144. “You know why the road curves as you’re driving along? It curves because if God showed us the distance from where we are to where we’re going, we’d think it was too far.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
145. “Beloveds, you are fine, just the way you are! Perfect in your imperfection! You are divine! Growing brighter and more brilliant each day, you can accept the truth of who you are.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
146. “Never underestimate the ruthlessness of the ego to keep you in a state of suffering in which you voluntarily participate.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
147. “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
148. “When we have peace in our hearts and minds, we draw peace into our lives.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
149. “Your eyes will adjust to the level of deficiency.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
150. “Without the a test you don’t have a testimony.”
— Iyanla Vanzant
