Iyanla Vanzant - PeaceFromBrokenPieces

Now I present to you from our hearts

iyanla

Vanzant. Come on, good night, old Clinton, how do you look good? I can't really see the way these lights are set up, but that's okay, thanks for taking the time out of your day. your busy schedule because you all seem too busy to come and share some time. I'm getting ready to go back on tour, like I say, it's been eight years since I wrote a full book and probably ten years since I went on a book tour, so I've been at home being pampered and now to go back out into the world, I don't I think I would have liked to start nowhere else but here in Oakland with my good friend Blanche, who has been my editor. my supporter my cheerleader my personal angel so when I write to her I write and when she writes to me she signs it why PA your personal angel you know and I call her back the same what an incredible joy it is to have Blanche Richardson in my life what It's such an incredible joy to have a reverent Andreea Earl in my life, you know, and sometimes when people see you, once people see you on TV, you're not real anymore, you know you're not, they think like you will float or something like that, first of all, I think you're rich and that's not for fun, so they start giving you notes about the things they want you to do for them with your wealth, yeah, but then people like that they don't believe May you be rich. like real, you know, like once you've been on TV a lot and they stare at you and stuff, so it really tickles me when they see me at Walmart, that's really Stella and I tell them yeah, Sao Paulo is cheap here and tarjay.

You know I'd lose my women if I didn't go to Tarjay, whether he's rich or royal or not. I have to go to Tarjay, but the one that really gets them is Sam's Club, which they just can't get to. For me it's a spa so I'm real and I shop where it's affordable and I love being among people. Someone came to my house recently and said: you cook. I told him: have you seen my butt? Yes, yes, I cook, I wash my own clothes. also and it is also a you know my life my purpose is to be a teacher that is what I am I am a teacher for me teaching does not mean giving anything and it means drawing giving you anything means taking out what is already there And one of the things that I like to do is live where people live.

I like to be where the people are. I like to go through and be with people as we go through life because life is changing very, very quickly. the things that were once so absolutely critical and essential to us just aren't there and the things that we once thought we had to have we realized we really can do without and things are changing and some of us are doing very well and others are not and I just went through a seven year period in my experience called life where I really had to clarify what was significant and what was not, who I was, who I wasn't and who I wasn't.

It is going to be more and from that experience came this sharing that I am offering to the world at this moment called peace from broken pieces, how to overcome what you are going through, you see, because we all go through something and all of us at some point could be something internal it could be something mental and something emotional it could be something physical it could be something in our work it could be something in our relationship in our marriage it could just be something where when you just get to that point where you look at yourself and say "okay, this just doesn't work," whether it's because of the extra pounds on your hips or because of the way you live, the way you talk, the way you think, the way we feel.

We are all going through something you understand and the question is how to overcome what you are going through and come out on the other side better than you were when you came in, now that better doesn't mean you are thinner. If you have cleaner teeth or fresher breath, that better means you have another level of peace in your being. You know for me that's the most important thing and when I spell piece, I spell PE AC e because it was a moment. when it was the other kind of piece that I was looking for but we won't have that conversation I'm alone but I've really come to the place to understand that piece piece is piece it's just It's just being able to wake up in the morning and look at myself and it doesn't matter what I see , I'm okay with that, it's a part that I know I've done the best I could and even though it wasn't like that.

It seems like I thought it was going to look or turn out how I wanted it to turn out. I have peace with the fact that I gave it my best and I gave it my best and I gave it my all and everything is exactly how it needs to be. be even if it doesn't seem like I wanted to look I have peace peace understanding and know that I'm really NOT in charge I really want to be but I just say in charge and you know what almost days there is no one listening to me you know how you know so I have come to peace with the fact that I'm not in charge, I can't be in charge and I'm nobody's boss and even when I'm the boss of me when I look back and what my life was like, no one would really want to hire me to be the boss of their life.

If I had to tell the whole truth about the judges head, Soapy's broken pieces, how to get over what you're going through. Through means that we have the ability to see the broken pieces of our lives. There's a story in the Bible in the Gospels and it's about the disciples when they were in the sea and it was that huge. great storm and the storm was there and the Christ was there too and the disciples were sleeping and and they found themselves in the storm and and the raft, the boat they were on broke to pieces and they were in the water and I don't know about you, but sometimes The ship I've been on has been shattered, whether it's a dream, a marriage, a relationship or just a particular activity that I'm in and I look up and that thing is shattered now we have another option, well we could look at it and say: I can fix that, have you ever done that?

You don't even have Elmer's glue in your pocket, the thing is in pieces and I can fix that. because we really think that some of us, like me, really are in charge and not only are we in charge, but it is our duty, our right and our responsibility to fix things, change them or make them different than they were, so here we are. They are sailing in this dream this relationship this job this vision this whatever the storm hits and it breaks into pieces and that's what happened to the disciples there their boat broke into pieces and I don't know about you but sometimes when those things hit Me, when I got to that storm, the first thing that left me was my common sense.

It is very embarrassing to speak only of my common sense. You know, if something bad happens and the first thing you do is go well, that doesn't really help in the first place. You cover your eyes, that's not helpful, you know, and then you scream that that's not helpful, and if you give one of those blood-curdling screams, it scares everyone else in the room, so even if there was someone there who could help you. I'll support you now they're scared too and they got their eyes cut out, it's not really helpful, it's just common sense, it doesn't scare the people in the room, it's fine, but for me, common sense comes first and then, When I hit that storm and my dream, my vision, whatever it is, starts to fall apart, the other thing that temporarily says goodbye to me is knowledge, information, I don't know, it's like I'm stuck, it's just like if you knew like you were what they say when your computer crashes that happens to my brain it doesn't last long as you know when it happens to your computer you know someone sitting there though please when it comes leave it.

Don't let me lose my things, don't let me lose my snow god, please, yes, the same thing happens to my brain. I forget what I know, it just doesn't last long, but it happens and it's pretty scary like Who Am I? I'm now what the hell is this? It doesn't last long but in the middle of the storm yes, the same thing happened to the disciples: they forgot everything they had seen, everything they had been taught, everything that Christ had given them. the time they were together when that ship fell apart they forgot the other thing that leaves me I know you may not have this I can see in your aura the pieces that I can't see that most of you are really firm and grounded, any good, the other thing that tends to abandon me when the storm hits is my faith, oh oh, you mean someone understands me after I told myself I was alone in that, oh my gosh, yeah faith, just go out the window.

I can't think of our angel or Holy Spirit of Christ less Jesus or God or anything at that moment I'm there alone and that's what happened to the disciples the boat fell apart the storm hit the boat and they had been told before get in, don't worry, no matter what happens, you won't drown and they had been told that, but as soon as the boat, the storm hit the boat in the boats with the pieces they were and they started screaming, oh God. God, the boat, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?

What else are we going to do? Because you know, no, you lose your dignity. With you in trouble, of course, Commander, the English language, anyway, God, I can't think with computers. What else to do? And the voice answered them: do it in the broken pieces, you can do it in your broken pieces, in fact, most of us have done it in broken pieces, broken pieces of our identity, broken pieces of our families, broken pieces of our En the dreams of our visions, we have made them in broken pieces, the place where we seem to fall, having peace with those broken pieces and not wishing that those pieces were anything other than what they are, because as long as we want our pieces to be different from them we do not we're going to have peace and we're not going to make it we're going to go back to another experience like the other experience that gives us another chance to find the peace that we had to Learn about my broken pieces I had many, many broken pieces and I didn't even realize that some of the pieces were broken.

The first piece I discovered was broken was my self-image of who I was and who I thought I was and who. I had been told that I was one of the things I learned by coming to peace with my broken pieces was that there are family pathologies that we inherit. Pathology is the study of the science of discovering what creates disease and we have Many of us inherit things from people known and unknown, seen and unseen, that create diseases in our lives. So we go through our lives living in a state of illness identity and we don't even understand where it comes from.

He had a family. pathology a sick pathology that took away certain things from me and gave me certain things simply because I was a woman and while I had all my degrees in education I was still infected by the disease of that family pathology and I try as best I can. being able to live beyond certain beliefs and situations and circumstances, I could not live beyond the illness of that family pathology that told me as a woman that I was not as important as the men that told me as a woman that I had no right to have a voice now. , that's a very strange pathology for a public speaker, you're not supposed to have a voice, but what happened in my situation was that I was able to live beyond the pathology by sheer brute force.

I forced myself to do it. I struggled. to do it and the opportunities created were created in my life so that I could do it, but deep down, in the places between my toenails, my heel and my ankle, I didn't believe it, I just didn't believe it because it would mean that my grandmother and my dad were liars when they told me you're nothing when they said go somewhere, sit down and shut up, no one wants to hear what you have to say, why do you always have something to say. Why don't you shut up, your mouth gets on my nerves, why don't you do something with that mouth that was a broken piece and only by the grace of God was I able to live beyond that, I reached another place with that broken peace, but there comes a time. in which you have to reconcile your pieces there comes a time when you have to defend your pieces and if you don't understand what your pieces are you can drown.

I come from a family of pathology and my family was one of dishonor and dishonesty. I come from a family where people watched what was happening and saw what was happening and then talked about the weather, nobody wants to talk about that alligator that eats the leg of the table. The crocodile is eating a leg of the table and you are trying to card the turkey. What's wrong with them? shut up and and and and and sometimes you know it's a defense mechanism and sometimes it's the way people keep themselves safe but know that dishonesty is like a cancer and it erodes the fibers of your being so I lived in a pathology of dishonor and dishonesty.

People forgot to tell me that my mother was dead, you just know. Hey, she died when I was two. She didn't remember it. So what the hell disgraced me? But then they told me that someone else was my mother. and that was dishonesty, everyone in my family knew my grandmother was crazy as hell. She would be crazy as hell. Can you hear me? You know, the most loving thing I could do would be to say that she was. mentally ill she was mentally ill but her mental illness showed the infernal madness of her meaner than a wet cat can you hear me? she's going to be meaner than a wet cat and that energy had to be directed somewhere so when you put a talkative kid together with a crazy guy in hell you got some broken pieces and everyone knew my grandma was abusing me but they had her afraid because I was crazy like himno one was refinancing the mortgage I needed to build a bottom line so I ended up losing my house well I didn't actually lose my house God took the house back to make room for something else so here we go now I'm out of the Gnostic TV contract the husband the child is not a house the only thing i had not lost with those 15 extra pounds on my father that are not going anywhere why don't you come back, pick me up you know broken pieces broken pieces each one of them has a meaning each one of them they are calling us to a higher way of being broken pieces of our relationships I kept getting married my father was a broken piece broken pieces of our self-image I was raised from here to there I never really understood or knew what it meant to be a woman and what the role was of a woman and what her job was was that I didn't know what it meant to be a mother or to be a mother and I had taught myself and I had learned and I didn't really learn until I read my daughter's horrific diaries and she actually shared her experience with me. of my motherhood. a broken piece broken pieces of how we put things together and hold on to the things we think we need.

I didn't need that house. I'm so glad I got rid of that house. They took it, thank you because later, a year later, the market. It crashed I probably would have ended up losing it anyway It was a broken piece It was built It was the fruit of a poisonous tree Not that I loved it or needed it or wanted it It gave me a sense of value and meaning that really had nothing to do with who I was me, I was a broken piece, so here I am today, I'll let you read the other details in peace, just in peace and able to stay in the story, that's how you know you're at peace when you can completely stay in your story without excuses without any judgment without any heat be completely in your story this is what it is this is who I am this is what I did this is what happened and tada tada and you know it's not about Telling the story you know for the shock value or four or four pieces of news it's about telling it so you can see what part of it still resonates bothersomely in your being and that's the part you have to get into and that's the part you have to heal when I discovered that my love of 40 years was getting married or having a relationship with someone I met when her husband was dying.

I prayed for her, I sat with her and this was the woman who whispered about her, but then it didn't matter. It doesn't matter my people with her or with you, he went with me, so that was the point, so I keep driving. One day I drive home. I drive home, to my empty house that I was preparing to lose. I'm driving home, I mean, can you imagine work is gone, man, it's gone, I mean, it was really, it was really, it was really interesting and still people will call us, we want you to come talk to me, we don't even I can find my lips, so I am I was driving around the house and around the yard as I was driving home and I knew I knew the only thing I had to do about it.

I knew the TV show and Buena Vista and Bar Wall Productions and Oprah and my husband. and everyone in me knew that all I had to do was forgive should lead to peace that's your key to peace I don't care what you do you can skate you can dance all you want but eventually you will Come right back to forgiveness, yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta, you gotta do it and just so you know, I like things to move fast. I'm a Virgo, I'm a Mercury person. I'll be fine, come on. Got it, let's get this over with. but I give you yes, come on, let's solve it, let's forgive, that wasn't working, it wasn't working, because you know, the truth is that I didn't really want to forgive mmm, I wanted revenge or at least my house.

I knew I couldn't get my daughter back and I knew my pride wouldn't let me want him back, at least we could have a job around the house, a little contract, something, oh my God, so I had to forgive, so I'm leaving. driving home. and I'm driving around with my card uh just not particularly thinking about anything and not forgiving anyone on this particular day, you know, I'm just erasing mine and my face and I started crying, wait, wait, wait, wait weeba weeba weeba Uh huh and you know God loves me and God knows I have challenges so God says the Holy Spirit told me boo stop it doesn't really help you to hit a tree or another pillow stop the car baby just stop the car . falling I'm sitting loud because I'm happy I'm happy I don't really feel happy I was like wow yes I do I'm just a piece that's that piece I have joy I have joy I have joy, I have joy, yes, and I can, I heard the spirits say that yes and you're in love, I said, I'm with who, with her, eh, the best highlights, tae-ho, then I realized, yes, I loved. her because she made him happy when you really love someone, you want him happy whether it's you or not and she made him happy when I'm not, she made him happy when it wasn't important to me that he be happy.

She was so busy trying to heal and fix my own cell phone. He loved her because she put a smile on her face because I was flying around trying to heal all of you, leaving my husband alone at home and that made him miserable, right? and she put a smile on her face I loved her that's why I loved her because she gave him a place to be when I wasn't home but they weren't doing their thing, it wasn't my business but I loved him and that's why I had to love her and because I had forgiven my heart was simply open and at that moment I was simply in love and I loved myself because I never gave up and I loved myself because I could look at my good, my bad, my mistakes.

He loved me because he wasn't afraid. to say Yamla you need to work on that she loved me because there were people in my life that loved me and knew that she had rough edges people like me, oh my daughter, people like my prayer partners like Reverend Andrew and shahira Rayna Bundy. like Blanche Richardson Blanche Richardson wrote me a note on October 23, 2006 and the title of that note was you, arianna. I still have that note. She loved me and I loved her, so there, on the side of the road, I learned the power of forgiveness and I was there that day sometime in 2007 and I knew that I had to write this book and that I had to be transparent to the world, but someone It has to be a demonstration to us that who you are, just the way you are and no matter where you are, is okay. and that you can take those pieces from where you are now and have peace with them, someone and if it has to be me, oh well, oh joy, oh rapture, it has to be a demonstration that we are not made to suffer and that so many of these things that we demand and that we require we don't need at all that this is a journey that this is a process that this beautiful thing we call life then we make it much more difficult than it has to be it occurred to me That beautiful big house that I had invested in hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, and now I live on thirty acres of land and have a raccoon roaming my front yard and squirrels, deer, foxes and a sweat lodge. and I've watched all the Law and Order reruns and I love Project Runway and now I have scrapbooks.

I make scrapbooks and don't sell them because we tend to convert everything we're good at. turn it into a business to make money I scrapbook because I love it and I'm very good at it and I make soap my father was a herbalist my grandmother was a herbalist and I learned about herbs when I was very young and it's something I've never used them and that's why now I grow herbs, I buy herbs, I bake them, I cook them, I puree them with my own hands while I pray over them and I pray over water and Jamia was not an aromatherapist and she left me. all the formulas of their products and that's why I make soap and everyone wants me to sell it all over the world, you know, but you know what I carry with me wherever I am and if you want to buy some, you can and if not.

Well, because the love and joy that I put there I can't mass market and I won't, and I'm at peace and I still look good, you have the right to have peace in your life, that's okay, and it means you have to look at everything the good that you are, the good that you have, the good that you have done and celebrate it and not wait for anyone else to tell you that it was enough or that it was enough. It's not enough, it's celebrating celebrating you and what you've learned and what you know and who you are what you have what you don't have and what you gave up and what you look at you have a right to a Speas you have a You have a reason to have peace because stress makes you ugly.

I mean, I could give you something to let me play sound if you want, but I've never heard anyone running anywhere to get ugly. You have a reason to be a piece just to stare. well and feeling good you know do some Zumba yes go out and be a part and you have the responsibility a responsibility to be a demonstration for peace in the world look at our world look at our children look at our women sisters look at our men, wait, where is the peace? where is the peace? and it's not something we can wish for it's not something we can just talk about you know you have to know the process there is a process and that's why my reason now for doing what I do in the world is to teach people to process a piece that I want to share and I don't care if I'm on television I don't care if I'm on the radio I don't care if ten people appear or two people appear.

I want to teach people about the peace process, so I will do that that Monday for the heart and soul light center of the Reverend Andrea church, sharing with you some of the little things I have learned. about eliminating your pathologies or identifying them and moving to a place of peace. I hope some of you will come and join me on Monday, where we will be somewhere at the Hilton Garden Inn in Emeryville and what time is 7:00 p.m. but there is something else I want you to do for me in the midst of all the wonderful experience I was having.

The other thing that happened when I lost the TV show. I lost my contract with Simon & Schuster. Simon should have been my editor. for 20 years, but things are changing, you know, things are changing and they didn't need an author of my caliber anymore because the genres had changed and people bought books differently just like now, you know, pretty soon we're not going to do that. . We don't have difficult books anymore, you know it's going to be the Kindle and the iPad, which you know, I guess we want because we're buying them and we're doing it, so now I'm with a new publisher.

Smyly reserves a division of Hay House. and that it is run by my very dear friend Tavis Smiley and that is why Tabitha gave me a contract when the important people did not want me, that is really good, but I am also very clear that contracts are also a form of slavery. I don't mind. What type of contract is it? I can't look you in the face and we can't make a deal and we can't move forward on our word alone, so we don't need to do business, so piece of broken pieces will be fixed. It's coming out on November 15th and the copy, the cover price of the book is $24.99, but Amazon is selling it for 1647.

Can you imagine what that does to a place like Marcus Books? I just have to tell you the truth, you know, we've become so technologically advanced you know, but we forget what we gave up in the process. I want to ask you a favor. I want you to buy your book from Marcus and for that difference from the 1647 to the $24.99 I will give you a signed bookplate. sign it, I mean, most of you probably have my autograph anyway, but whatever, I don't know what you want me to do, you want me to do a lap dance, what do you want, what do you want me to do, what I just want you to do ? go out and buy it pre buy your copy of peace for broken pieces I'll sign the books you have I'll do that uh and a lap dance yeah, half down with the left I took a pole dancing class What would you better take? one, I know how to do it yeah, it's the skirt, it's the skirt, it's fun, hey, the knife is fun, you know, they'll throw the same dirt in my face if I live here and I don't have as much fun as they do every time I I have fun There's no special dirt for the old good end, these are the ones that live the good life, people give them some special dirt, no, you know, I have a good heart, I have a phenomenal relationship with God, I have people who loves me, people I love so much, imma. get the same dirt, okay, so I want you to buy your book from Marcus.

I want us to understand what is happening here in the world and I am for sale. You understand, but even as the author of the book. I pay $15 for the book. Amazon charges me $15 and that is my request to you. What else do I want you to know? It's been an incredible journey and I think I'm just starting to have fun. I want you to have some fun. Also don't be afraid to look at your patterns and your pathologies, no matter how old you are, because we have to make way for the next generation. Some of the things we suffer suffer with suffering and we have to eliminate them.

You can be the one to heal it, you can be the one to lift it, you can be the one to clean it, you understand, you can be the one and it doesn't require anything from you that you don't already have, what else to do? I want you to know I want you to know that I love you, I love you and that there is absolutely nothing you can make, from broken pieces, available everywhere. Smyly reserves you