Iyanla Vanzant

“Fear wears so many clever disguises it is virtually impossible to always recognize it. Fear disguises itself as the need to be somewhere else, doing something else, not knowing how to do something or not needing to do something.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Everyone has a purpose because God is a purposeful God.”

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

“When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else.”

“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.”

“when you have something to do life will not allow you to move foward until you do it.”

“One way to eliminate self negating thoughts and behavior is by gaining more understanding through realizing that you cannot force others to see that what you feel is real.”

“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”

“The road of life is strewn with the bodies of promising people. People who show promise, yet lack the confidence to act. People who make promises they are unable to keep. People who promise to do tomorrow what they could do today. Promising young stars, athletes, entrepreneurs who wait for promises to come true. Promise without a goal and a plan is like a barren cow. You know what she could do if she could do it, but she can't. Turn your promise into a plan. Make no promise for tomorrow if you are able to keep it today. And if someone calls you promising, know that you are not doing enough today.”

“The voice I had accepted as Divine Guidance was actually the voice of my ego leading me right into destruction.”

“I'd been taught not to like myself,because the people around me didn't, for whatever reason like me.”

“In the process of planning and having a wedding, I forgot there would actually be a marriage, a union of minds, bodies, souls, and issues that would come together as soon as the ceremony was over.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.”

“You have set standards for how you want to be treated and what you expect from yourself and for yourself.”

“The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don't want.”

“ choice is a divine teacher, for when we choose we learn that nothing is ever put in our path without a reason.”

“Remain open. There is something bigger than you know going on here.”

“Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.”