Why can't women get along? Because we're afraid. We're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to be soft. We're afraid to be hurt. But most of all, we're afraid of our power. So we become controlling and aggressive and vicious.
Iyanla VanzantRead
You know when I was 20 and 30, they were insecurities. Now they're just a new normal. I'm 60 years old, so my expectations of who I am and how I look and how I show up in the world had to shift. Not because I couldn't help it, or not because I did anything wrong, but because I had to get into the natural flow of my being as a woman.
Interpretation
Aging brings acceptance and a shift in self-expectations.
In this quote, Iyanla Vanzant reflects on how her understanding of self and appearance has evolved with age. What once were insecurities in her youth have transformed into a sense of normalcy as she embraces who she is at sixty, recognizing that growth necessitates a shift in expectations, allowing her to align more authentically with her true self as a woman.
In practice
During a workshop on self-acceptance, this quote can help illustrate the journey of embracing age.
Why can't women get along? Because we're afraid. We're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to be soft. We're afraid to be hurt. But most of all, we're afraid of our power. So we become controlling and aggressive and vicious.
Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on.
Feminine power is silent, dark, mysterious, healing, nurturing. A woman can walk into a room and control it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth if she knows where her power is.
Your greatest adversary is also your greatest teacher. Like it or not, it is the job of certain people to bring out the worst in you. What they trigger is already in you. They are here to reveal the sore, tender wounded places in your heart and mind, and they are providing you with a wonderful and divine opportunity for healing.
You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid 'no' muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it's our choice. Your 'no' muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, 'I don't care if that's what you want. I don't want that. No.'
When we find ourselves in the same situation repeatedly as a result of our conditioned responses, we must stop and do a new thing. The situation may look different. The route we take there may be altogether different. The lesson we must learn does not change. Get honest! Pay attention! Change what you do to create a change for yourself!
Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.
Never let your soul be silenced. Live life out loud. Every day tell your truth not with words but with actions from your heart.
Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind.
if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.
Faith is a fine invention When gentlemen can see, But microscopes are prudent In an emergency.
Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
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