Fixing our Lives with Iyanla Vanzant

so when I get there, I'll be flying. Hi. Everyone, Welcome to another episode of Cheeks and Chill. I'm your host, Cheeky's and today's episode is about something I'm very passionate about, spirituality and self help. And our guest today is someone who has been working in the space and helping people for a very long time. So let's jump right into this episode of Cheeks and Chow. Sitting right in front

of me today is even Vat. She's incredible. She has a really interesting story, which we'll hear more about in just a second, But first starter, she's a spiritual life coach, host of the hit show Illanla Fixed My Life, which I love. She's a New York Times bestselling author, and she even has her own podcast, it's called The Our Spot. Well, first of all, thank you so much, thank you for your time for being here. I'm so excited. I have to start off by saying that I'm a huge fan.

I have your apps, I have The Awakening, I have mine matters. I'm a huge, huge fan. So thank you. It means a lot to me that you're here. Um, So, I don't know, let's start off with with your life. There's a lot of things that I didn't know about you. Where did you grow up. I grew up in Brooklyn. I hailed from the Nation of Brooklyn, and I am a New Yorker forever. I will always be a New Yorker. I had an older brother, I had an older sister, was a baby of a family, and so, you know,

classic poor black folk upbringing in New York. My grandmother, who raised me from the time I was five until I was eleven, was a Native American to slakey Cherokee, who was passing as black because it was easier for her to be black than it was for her to be a Native American in the late forties early fifties, and so she really kind of hid her her heritage and her culture from the world. She hid it in the church, she hit it in the way she presented

herself in the world. But at home, you know, she taught me so many things about my culture as a woman of color, Native culture, indigenous culture. She told us that she couldn't read. She never went to school, but she read the Bible, and she would read the newspaper. And I would say to her, well, if you can't read, how are you what are you doing? She if somebody told it to her, she remembered it, and that's how she began to put words together and could do simple sentences,

very articulate. She would never know she was a woman who couldn't actually well, she says, she couldn't read, but she could put simple sentences together. And and it was not too long ago. I never saw my grandmother write anything other than numbers. And she knew how to sign her name, but I never saw her write anything other than numbers. She never wrote anything down. And she used to say, you gotta have a good memory. I don't have to write things down. I got a good memory.

You know that's actually better probably having a better memory. Good memory. Yeah, yeah, when did you know that this was your calling, Like, was that you think through your grandmother, like having those conversations with her. Absolutely not, I'm a criminal defensive attorney. That's high school early childhood education. I spent two weeks in the classroom with about kindergarteners and I said, Okay, just cut my throat right now, let me die. Not for me. Early childhood psychology and education

is my undergraduate degree. And then I went to law school. I wanted to be a nurse all my life. I wanted to wear the white uniform. Years ago, nurses wore white uniforms and they had little hats. But um, one day in nursing school let me know that I was going to have to dissect the pig. And I left. That was he said, No, I got through the frog in high school. I did. God, I don't know how I got through that. I remember gagging and wretching over

the frog. But I was not gonna stick my hand down in a jar from Aldehad and put out a baby pig. That wasn't ever gonna happen in this life time. So I left and I went to law school. When I was thirty two, I graduated from college and I went to law school, and I really thought I was going to be a lawyer, and um, I wanted to be the black female Perry Mason get all my clients off. And as a criminal defense attorney, you spent a lot of time in jail, so because that's where your clients are.

And since I had never been arrested, I'm thinking, why am I in jail every year? And so I left and I had no clue what I was gonna do. It just kind of unfolded. As I was collecting unemployment and a friend of mine asked me to come in. Would I be willing to teach life school skills life skills to women who were being transitioned off of public assistance,

which is exactly what happened to me. So I went in and I started teaching life skills and my first book, Tapping the Power Within, is the workbook that I wrote for the women that I was teaching life skills too. And one step at a time, it just kind of unfolded. I mean, what what do I do? What do I call? What I do I do? I what do I do that I would have to look forward at a career fair I don't know, you know, I wasn't. I'm an author. I'm a I am a spiritual life coach trained. I

am a minister, you know, seminary trained and ordained. What I called myself um because I think it's always best to define yourself and not to try to fit into the boxes that people want to stick you in. I am a spiritual technician. If it has anything to do with the human spirit, the human soul and connection to consciousness,

I'm a technician. I have a technology that's going to support you and and fixing, healing, repairing, aligning, expanding, growing, healing, anything that has to do with your spirit, your soul and your mind. Just right up my alley. That's exactly what I love. You've been through so much since you were nine years old, you know, And did you ever question maybe God or the higher power of the universe, like why did this happen to me? Did you ever

have that moment? No, that's great. I didn't even know I was raped at nine. I didn't know it was called rape until I was thirty. Oh, I didn't even know. I didn't know what I mean, it had never happened. I had never seen it. Nobody ever talked about it, you know. As an indigenous culture, you don't talk about things like that. And in the black culture too, you know,

you don't talk about it. That's why so many girls and boys, or young women and young men suffer because this thing has happened and it's horrible, and they don't feel free to talk about it, so it becomes repetitive. That wasn't my case. It happened one time I told and the results of me telling about it were almost worse than if I hadn't said anything, because the results were he called me a liar, and nothing else was ever done. Nothing. So I grew up believing that it's

okay for people to treat me badly. What happens to me doesn't matter. I'm not important. And so those were lessons that I, you know, had to unlearn in my life. And I didn't even because nothing was ever said, and they don't do in my era, they didn't do sex education. So that was like thirty years old looking at a TV show and I said, well that happened to me, Oh my god, I was raped. I didn't know. I

didn't know that's what you called it. So as I said, I wanted to be a nurse, Nursing is a healing profession. Nurses take care of you when you're sick and you're not well. Uh, And that's what I do. I just instead of doing it to your body, I do it for your soul in your mind. That's what I love. And you never held any resentment or anything like did you ever feel you had to forgive that person or it was just kind of like an out of sight,

out of mine situation. But the time I realized that that was not a normal thing to happen, I had to forgive myself for everything that I told myself about it. I'm not important. What happens to me doesn't matter. It's okay for people to treat me badly. I can't talk about the things that hurt me. I mean, I did that to myself. Nobody told me anything. So by the time I understood the power of forgiveness and what forgiveness was all about, it wasn't even about forgiving him. Plus

he was dead. I was alive and I was suffering, and that's what I wanted to heal up. That's what I always say. Forgiveness is a gift for yourself. It gives you, you know, like the wings to fly into sore is how I feel. I was actually sexually abused by my father. My dad never admitted to it, we never asked for forgiveness. For a long time, I wanted to hear it, you know, I wanted to hear, yes, I did it, You're not a liar. I'm sorry. He's in jail. He's going to be there for another I

don't know, seventeen years or something like that. But now I'm like, you know what, I because of that, the same thing I would think I was. I was dirty, I'm not worthy. I I so many things that happened and I thought and yeah, I mean, at the end of the say, I'm gonna forgive you, and I'm also forgive myself for thinking those things and thinking that the things that you said were correct, that I was a liar. You know. So anyhow do you feel that everything happens

for a reason? Oh? Absolutely, I don't feel that that's universal law cause and effect. Yeah. I think one of the hardest concepts for people to get is that you know, we come here and that part of us that is alive, that soul, knows what you need to learn, unlearn, what you need to do, not do knows your purpose, knows your everything, and we're so busy out in the world till we don't go in UM. One of the reasons I can work with almost anybody around anything is because

I've been through most of it. So I'm not teaching you from theory and pragmatism. I'm teaching you from experience, and I continue to take it deeper and deeper. Everything is exactly as it needs to be. Of course, the miracles UH teaches that all things are lessons that God would have us learned. So we're always learning, always learning. Once you get back it gets exciting. Well, my husband left me. Well what am I learning today? Yeah? I fell out? Oh what am I learning about this? Yeah?

That's what I always tell people, Like, you know what, you're in a tight situation. You can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. But it's it's kind of like exactly that, like they're you're going through that to learn something about yourself about the situation. So okay, I'm good. I think I'm on the right track. I have a very odd question, and you don't have to answer it if you don't want to, obviously, But do you drink alcohol? By any chance. I absolutely don't. But

let me tell you why. My mother was an alcoholic. Okay, so I think I drank so much looking the wound, I didn't have to have no more when I got into physical body. Really, I never, I have never, you know, when I was a teenager, of course, you know, everybody goes out and you're drinking. We used to drink uh saying grea with fruit in it. That was yeah, yeah, So but I've never. I've never. No, it's not my thing. And I smoked a lot of happy flowers. I love

happy flower baby. I have smoked. I'm happy hours. When I had my last child, I was twenty one years old, it just, you know, it's like it just went away and I've never. I never touched it again. Now it's legal. You know, back then we were buying a nickel bag and hiding it in fifty two shopping bags under the bed. And you, I mean, you fix so many people like do you have a life coach, do you have a

mentor or something that someone that helps you out? Well, first of all, let me just say, I don't know what anybody else says. I haven't helped anybody. What I've done it's given people information and support so that they can help themselves. I don't help you. I'm too busy trying to help my own self, and you get helped in the process of my healing. Go for you. I'm just trying. What has happened is throughout my my healing process. I've taken copious notes, really taking copy. I have notebooks

and revelations and understandings. But I do I have a coach. I have two coaches. I also have of what I call a prayer partner UM, and I have UM. I don't know what Peter is. Peter is a coach. You know, he's a clinical psychologist, but I don't go to him for therapy. We do coaching together. And then my greatest coaches are those people that I've taught and trained because they keep me sharp when I'm going off the deep end, they say, wait a minute, didn't you teach us? Or

don't you know? And when they repeat back to me stuff that I taught them, I just want to punch him in the throat, right in the throat. That's terrible when your students are teaching you with what you taught them. So didn't you say this right? Uh? No, this is how they usually said. They said, somebody once told me, and then I know I'm getting ready for the SmackDown. So yeah, but I do have two coaches and a prayer partner. I am to find myself a prayer partner.

That's what I need. Yeah, always say this, I'm not a religious woman. I'm very spiritual. I have a connection with God. I like to meditate and I feel like that's like my main coach. But I do. That is your religion if that's what you do. You know, religion is people's beliefs and opinions about God's source, creator, whatever you want to call it. That's all religion is. It's people's opinions and the dogma or the theology that's set up based on the faith path that you walk is

what you do based on that theology. All religion is about how to get us in relationship with the God of our understanding. So of meditation, yoga, you know, some for some people it's tai chi. If that is what gets you in connection with the creative, your understanding, then that is your religion. I want people to really get clear about that and stop saying I'm not religious, but

I'm spiritual I meditate. Well, then you're religious, but I'm religious. Yeah, My religion is called love and faith, right, Okay, I'm in love the great religion that there is. You know. I'm getting ready to teach a class. I have a community I call the Spiritual Study Sanctuary, and I'm getting ready to teach a class on how to love the Bible from a metaphysical perspective, not a religious perspective, because it is one of the most powerful treatise on human development,

character development, spiritual development. But because of the way it's been used and weaponized or diminished or just pigeonhole to be about Christianity, people miss the wisdom that is in there, and there's so much wisdom in the scriptures. I want to see if you can help me break something down because I've I've tried to put it into words, and I feel like I know what this means, but I want to see if you can break it down for for our listeners. Actually, I think I heard Beyonce say it.

I think I'm pretty sure it was her. What she said, there's a little bit of God in all of us. God lives in me as me, and I try to tell my grandmother that, and she's a very she's a Christian woman, and she didn't understand. She didn't really like it. She was like, no, how can you compare yourself to that? I'm like, no, I didn't know how to explain it. So I want to see if you can help me. Well,

Grandma's never gonna understand that unless she wants to. Okay, my grandmother told me forever when I started talking about spirit and meditating, she said, oh, you're going straight to hell. That's what I'm going straight to hell. And so you know what I did. I went out and bought a beautiful dress. So when I get there, I'll be flying. I just decided I'm not gonna be afraid of hell. You see, I was married to a man who beat

me every day for nine years. That's hell. Leaving him at three o'clock in the morning with three babies and three shopping bags, that's hell. So wherever I'm going when I leave this body, wherever I'm supposed to rest, I want the party. So I got little dress. I'm going to Hell. Okay, I'm a little good. So the thing is, And that is part of the challenge with religiosity and church unity. Religiosity says that somebody else tells you about

your relationship with the God of your understanding. Most of us inherited the God we believe in. We didn't find it on our own. And then church yanity where you've gotta go and have somebody else tell you how to be in relationship with the God of your understanding. All of that teaches us to pray to an external god. God is out there, you know. In the Christian faith, that's Jesus. He's on the cross, and you know he's

all He's going to do it for us. And it's such a dysfunctional level of codependence when we're relying on Jesus to help us treat each other nice. We don't do it because it's in we grow the quality and a heart kindness, loving, kindness, compassion. We don't grow this in a heart. We do it because we're trying to please Jesus. That's a little off, I think to me anyway, I don't have no problem with Jesus. Me and j

C are cool. But when you understand what he said, these things I have done, you should do this and even greater, Well, how how how am I gonna do that? When he said, it is not I, but the spirit of the Father within me that does the word. When he said I come that you may have life and have it more abundantly, not by waiting for me to do it for you, but by you learning how to do what I did. What did he do? He prayed

a lot. He went away a lot every now and then you read in the Bible and said Jesus went away. I wonder if he was in a vacation club or something, because he was always going. He was always going on Why he went into silence, he went into stillness. He

developed his relationship with the God within. It's not me, it's the Father within me that does the where he said it so, God is not external, whether it's God, divine Mind, divine Mother, whatever it is, that is of your understanding, because the creator wants you to understand what it is and where it is, who it is, how it is. But Grandma, like my grandma, you know, they've been indoctrinated in the matrix of Churchianity and religiosity, and

they don't have to take responsibility for their salvation. It's on Jesus. If I do what Jesus says, If I do it what Jesus wants then. But now in this new age, this new millennium, the Aquarian age, we're taken responsibility for ourselves. Are I am ness our souls and we don't want to pray to an outside God. That's not satisfying us anymore because we're a different breed in this era. So yes, this spirit of God is within me. And those who worship God must worship God in spirit

and in truth. In spirit, so we have to understand what spirit is. There's only one spirit. God is spirit Spirit, not a man out there or you know. And it's so funny that all of us walking around with breast and vaginas and we're looking at a man and say, I'm made any image and the likeness of Gay, well is he trans What? How did I get this? Because the domma doesn't tell us about the feminine energy and expression of the Creator. So if I had to explain

it to somebody, this is what I would say. Take a breath, focus within, and ask God to reveal itself to you. I'm not gonna try to explain the unexplainable. Okay, okay, what's the secret or is there a secret? In your opinion to over overcoming hardships and and coming out on the other side. Well, the first secret is don't call them hardships. Go back to what we were saying earlier, which is, Okay, what am I learning here? You know? Recently, I have you know, all these modern fend angle dulies.

So I have a geo thermal heating system so that my house is heated from the warmth of the earth, not from oil or electricity or whatever. And my geo thermal heating system went out, the coils went out and whatever. So we're talking about digging down twenty ft in the earth, and that's quite expensive. Well, the day after the geo thermal system went out, my stovetop cook thing went out. My stove just wouldn't cook. It just it wouldn't. It wouldn't do nothing. So it's one thing right after the

one thing right after the other. And the good news is I can buy a stove top, and I can put the deal thermal system on a payment plan, you know, and pay it off, you know, and whatever. But not to look at that as childs and difficulties and and to say, okay, God, how are we gonna get this done? This is quite interested. So what am I learning. I'm

learning trust, I'm learning patients. Because at the same time, I went to Chipotle to get my grandson some tacos, and I'm standing in the line and I get to the cash register and the lady says, he paid for your food. I go to the supermarket, I mean, and to the Starbucks, and I'm standing in line. I get to the register and she says, you're good. I said, what do you mean you're good? She said, the lady

back there paid for your drink. I went to the market yesterday and I'm standing in line and the gentleman in front of me, he says, can I pay for it what you're getting? I was buying a pretzel from the Amish market and I said, but I don't even know what I'm in And yet he said, that's okay. He said, I'm gonna give her twenty dollars. Get what you want, and he says to the woman, you keep

whatever's left. I was getting a three dollar pretzel and you got a seventeen dollar tip from him buying near pretzel. You know. So, yeah, the the seeting systems broke and the I don't have a stove, and you know, it's very annoying and blah blah blah. But somebody I don't know bought me a pretzel, uh Starbucks and pay for my tacos into pola. You know. Okay, okay, I got your back. I got your back, bull I got your back, we got your we got this. Let me handle this.

But if we go into break down and hysteria and whining and complaining, that energy in and of itself creates more problems than the original problem. Here's what they taught me. When I say they, I did my master's degree rein spiritual psychology at the University of Santa Monica and I was taught this. How you handle the issue is the issue. But here's the real thing. How you handle yourself as you handle the issue is the real issue. How you know, how am I being with myself? How am I speaking

to myself? How am I talking to myself? What am I thinking about myself? What am I telling myself? How I handle myself as I handle the issue is the real issue. So yeah, it's important. Well, I feel like I've learned so much. I'm assuming the listeners as well. But is there any are there any tips that you have that can I don't know. I mean, you've given us so many, but something, something that you feel in your heart right now to tell the listeners something that

I mean, I'm sure it's going to help them. Well, I think that the universe is saying it to us. It said it to us in one Go home, Go home, Be still. We are so busy, so busy between the technology and running up and down the roads, running out, and be still, go home. And home is where the heart is. And for me, that says what brings you joy. One of my coaches said something to me about two weeks ago that I'm still working on. I had to clutch my pearls. I clutched my prols so tied, almost

choked myself to death. He said. He said, Okay, so you're doing all of that for my ministry. You're teaching this, and you're doing this, and what is the ministry doing for you? What? So I would say to people to be real clear about what you're giving out and what

you're getting back. Oh, because we all spend so much time preoccupying ourselves, but what we have to do for the job and the this and the that, But what is that thing bringing back to you is it bringing anything home to you, because home is where the heart is. Corona said, go home, go home, and get still. So if you want to, you want to know what all of this giving out you're doing, get still and see

what you're getting back. And when I realized was my ministry wasn't doing nothing for me but giving me some more work to do. So I have to stay. Wait a minute, hold up, let me reach. I got to restructure this because I have to get something back from all the giving that I'm doing. That's why those people in the stores well buying everything for giving me back. So that's what I got back from my ministry. I got a caramel ribbon crunch and I got three tacos, and then I got a presser from now can we

get bigger? Can we get some more? The other thing I think people need to know is look around in the world right now, whether you're looking at the political scene or you're looking at the economic scene, whether you're looking at you know, just at the level of against nous and meanness is just amazing to me. But whatever you see out there, ask yourself, how do I do this? How do I lie? How do I bully people? How do I shut people down? How do I take and not give back? How do I push my way? How

do I co opt people? I mean, because this is what we see out of there? Where is my against nous? Where am I dug in? What's my position? Because whatever your position is, that determines how you're going to see a particular thing. Your position determines your perspective. So if your position is this is wrong, you're gonna see it all is wrong. If your position is this is right, you're not going to see what is wrong or what

could be improved. If your position is I'm right there wrong, then you're not going to be even able to see their perspective. So what is your position on anything? Gets still and get clear about that. The other thing I would say is anything that you're against, anything you don't like, anything you don't want, anything you complain about, whine about. Invite that thing to tea and let it talk to

you and find out what's really really going on. Just let me sit let me sit down with my pro life philosophy, my uh you know, uh, anti abortion philosophy. Let me sit down with my democratic philosophy and let me have some tea with it, and let me see what it's really giving to me. Let's giving to me, and what is my position on it. It's exciting to me. It's so much work that we need to do on ourselves as individuals to make the world a better place. Then we don't have time for all of the wahala

and conflomeration. If you just then sometime with you, you don't have time to be on Facebook canceling people canceling and black on TikTok, dancing on the poles. Set yourself down somewhere. Look at you. You're speaking to me. You're speaking to me because I feel like my soul has been telling me to just sit down and be still. And I'm gonna take a few weeks off because I've been feeling a little depleted. I really have with with work and I feel like I've been giving so much

it's crazy. I'm like, you're you are got is speaking to me through you right now? Now before I forget the the our Spot, talk to me about it. That's your podcast. Oh yes, listen. I used to do the Our Spot every Tuesday on YouTube where I would go in and answer people's questions about relationships because the truth is, relationships are our salvation. We're in relationship with everything. You're in relationship with people, your relationship with work, your relationship

with the Ironman, you're in relationship with money. You are in relationship with everything. And a lot of the challenges that I see or have encountered in my work with people over these thirty five years is that we have very dysfunctional relationships. We have dysfunctional relationships with people, with our lovers, with our kids, with our money, with the world, with God. We have dysfunctional relationships. So the our spot is that place where we come to talk about relationships,

all kinds of relationships. I don't care what it is so because what I learned for myself in my own dysfunction was it I meant good, but I simply didn't have tools and skills. I didn't, you know, I watched a womanizing father and an emotionally unavailable father and a broken, wounded grandmother raised me, you know, with with no I don't even know what I think. Most of the time,

I was the healthiest one in the house. And then I went into uh family environment with a domestic violence and alcoholic uncle that's the one who raped me, and silent dysfunctional onto it was. You know, I could go on and on, but I didn't know anything about relationships other than they were supposed to make me feel good. I like you, you like me. We do the wild thing, We smoke a lot happy flowers, and then we pay

the rent. Okay, you're gonna pay the light bill. Know, we just talked about happy flowers and we didn't talk about raising kids and light bill and spiritually all of them. It's just crazy. So my intention, because I think intention is the greatest tool we can have, is to support people in developing the skills and the tools required to build healthy, fulfilling, lasting, loving relationships in every area of their life. Somebody accused me of something the other day.

They said, will you call so and so will be? I said, no, no, not me. You will never hear out of these mouth this mouth right here. I don't know what you think you heard, but I would never call another sister a be never. I would never do that unless we're using it in a context of healing and growing, because that word has a different context for me. But in anger to say that to her, said I would never say that. I want women to have a better relationship with each other. I want women to have

a better relationship with men. I want men brothers, brothers. You are my sister. You are my sister. So come to the our spot. Let's talk about your relationship with each other, with people with money, with your pets. Now, how can people treat their pets better than they treat other people? It's that's so true. We got I don't know how many children hungry in the world, and people are walking around pushing their dogs in a in a stoller.

You could have take that stroll of money and fed some hungry children somewhere with all of the level of food insecurity that we have here. That's just my perspective. I'm ready to shift my position. So you guys heard it here. You guys have to listen to the our I definitely am. It sounds right like exactly what I need in my life. Where can they find you? Share

your social media, your website. Please Yama dot com. Particularly if you want to do to how to love the Bible a metaphysical interpretation, I'd love to have you Yama dot com. You can find out about all my classes and everything. Then I have Masterpiece Body Therapy, which is a line of natural body products made with herbs oils and African black soap so that as you clean your body, you clear your energy because everything is energy and you

can hear. They are spot on, I Heart Radio, Shondaland Media, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast, just put my name and spell it right I Y A N l A, because if not, you're gonna get Isaac. When people spell my name, what comes up is Isaac. Yes. Yeah, but any place you listen to podcasts you can get the RSPO. Okay, well I'm excited, I really am. Thanks again, and you guys know we always finished the episode of Chickens and

Chill with a motivational quote. Today's quote is you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. That is my quote for you. Thank you so much for staying for listening Chickens and Chill. Do you need advice on love, relationships, health, emas. I'm so excited to share with you that my Cheekies and Chill podcast will have an extra episode drop each week. I'll be answering all your questions. Just leave me a

voice message. All you have to do is go to speak pipe dot com slash Cheeks and Chill podcast and record your questions. I can't wait to hear from you. This is a production of I Heart Radio and the Michael Dura podcast Network. Follow us on Instagram at Michael Dura Podcasts and follow me checks that's c h i q u i s. For more podcasts from my heart, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.