A Teacher
Iyanla Vanzant
Inner healing and self-worth as the ground of a changed life
The transmission
Iyanla Vanzant was born Rhonda Eva Harris on 13 September 1953. After a difficult early life, she trained and practised as a public-interest lawyer before turning to writing and spiritual teaching.
She became an ordained New Thought minister and adopted the Yoruba-derived name Iyanla, drawing on both the New Thought tradition and Yoruba and Ifa spirituality in her work. Her teaching centres on inner healing, self-worth, forgiveness, and the conviction that transforming one’s inner life is the precondition for changing one’s circumstances.
Vanzant rose to wide public recognition through her bestselling books and her appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her 1998 book In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
From 2012 to 2021 she hosted the OWN television series Iyanla: Fix My Life, in which she counselled guests through personal crises. She is among the most prominent voices in contemporary Black New Thought, bringing its language of self-creation and healing to a broad popular audience.
What they gave
Black New Thought visibility: Brought New Thought principles of self-worth and inner causation to a large Black and mainstream audience, broadening the tradition’s reach.
- Healing-centred practice: Reframed mind-power teaching around emotional healing, forgiveness, and self-acceptance rather than primarily material acquisition.
- In the Meantime (1998): A number-one bestseller that popularised the idea of inner work as preparation for the relationships and life one desires.
- Media translation: Used television and Oprah’s platform to model belief-and-identity change as a public, conversational process.
In their words
We must put faith in our ability to use mind and spirit and picture our lives the way we want them to be.
Change means identifying what you are doing, recognizing when you are doing it and gently guiding yourself to do something else.
No matter what is happening in your relationships, fear nothing and no one. When you walk with the consciousness of the Creator, there is nothing to fear.
Honor your own Self. Meditate on your own Self. Worship your own Self. Kneel to your own Self. Understand your own Self. Your God dwells within you as you.
Remain open. There is something bigger than you know going on here.
There is only one way to shift your consciousness from painful conditional attachments to peaceful unconditional love.
You must create new love expectations based on honor, respect, and support.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: The New Thought tradition of mental causation, Yoruba and Ifa spirituality, and the amplifying platform of Oprah Winfrey’s media.
- Taught / Influenced: Contemporary Black New Thought audiences and the wider self-help and life-coaching culture that absorbed her vocabulary of inner healing and self-worth.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Tapping the Power Within1992
- Acts of Faith1993
- The Value in the Valley1995
- In the Meantime1998
- Yesterday, I Cried1998
- Peace from Broken Pieces2010