Iyanla Vanzant You Quotations

In my deepest, darkest moments, what really got me through was a prayer. Sometimes my prayer was 'Help me.' Sometimes a prayer was 'Thank you.' What I've discovered is that intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through because I know my support, my help, is just a prayer away.

Begin within. If it shows up in your life, it's coming to tell you something about you that you're acting like you don't know. Something about yourself, or your relationship with God.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Before you find out who you are, you have to figure out who you aren't..

There is nothing you need to do to make yourself more acceptable to God. You don't have to work harder, nor do you need to change the kind of work you do. You don't have to give more money to charitable organizations. The reality is, God doesn't want you to give anyone anything if you only do it to impress God! God does not love you or find you acceptable because of anything that you do. God loves you and accepts you because you are a part of God.

Everyone is always looking for their beloved. Well, why can't you be your own beloved? Fall in love with yourself.

You must be ready in mind, body, and spirit before you can make a change. People cannot convince you to do it. You cannot force you to do it. Everything you think, say, and do until that happens is just preparation. So love yourself right now. Honor yourself. Keep talking to yourself. Keep thinking ready thoughts. In the meantime, try to remember you will not be ready until you are ready.

Create what you want as opposed to being stuck in what you didn't have.

I'm not sure where I heard it or why I believed it but when I was in my mid-twenties, a few words changed my approach to and experience of prayer. The words were these: 'Every thought you think is a prayer. Every word you speak is a prayer. Every act in which you engage is a prayer, because the Spirit of God lives in you.' Now, how awesome is that?

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.

Always remember who you are. Know that you are never required to apologize to anyone for being yourself.

I learned that telling the truth was a big part of loving yourself.

The beloved is one who nurtures you, trusts you, supports you, encourages you, loves you without conditions. That's you.

Every choice you make supersedes and overrides every other choice you make.

You cannot get to where you are going until you have learned all there is to learn about where you are.

You are not being tested! You are being fortified! Remember, you cannot fail!

We are distracted from our greatness because are greatness is what scares us. Right where you are…God is.

In love, there is a total acceptance of self, and a willingness to give of self without an expectation of receiving anything in return. When you love, you are not afraid to share the truth of who you are, and you accept the truth of others without judgment.