"Starting Over" with Iyanla Vanzant
Originally Published in Healing Garden Journal (January 2005)

“I’m on a mission to prove that we can use television for powerful, personal growth and transformation,” she enthusiastically stated from the podium of the recent Omega Institute’s Women and Power conference in New York City.” Iyanla Vanzant, New York Times bestseller author, acclaimed speaker and larger-than-life personality, is living her passion as she believes we all can, by serving as a life coach to six women who want to dramatically change their lives on daytime TV’s newest ‘reality show’—Starting Over. One quick view of the show indicates that Iyanla has a different approach in motivating people to make the big changes they desire—she’s gentle but straight forward, compassionate and warm, not the typical stuff of what reality shows are made. By the show’s soaring ratings and the testimonies of a number of women who have ‘graduated’ from the ‘Starting Over house,’ their approach seems to be working, and lives are being dramatically altered because of it.

“I know better than anybody, maybe, how to start over. I’ve done it so many times in my life,” Iyanla claims. From childhood abandonment to physical and emotional abuse to living on welfare, this powerhouse of a woman knows what it means to be down and out and, very practically, how to rise above it all to live life to its fullest. She earned a degree in law and went on to become a legal advocate for the powerless, always a special place in her heart for women who are struggling to come into their own. “We all have many, many opportunities in our lives to start over. When we come to that place when we see that what we are doing is not in alignment with our desires, our authentic self, we have to stop and start over. I’m doing that again right now, personally. I live in Maryland, I am in L.A. for my work, and to pick up from a familiar environment and community and move into another community, here without my support system of women, without family, grandchildren, and husband, that is a new start. I’m learning how to be on my own and still be connected to all the things and people that really matter to me. That is a ‘starting over’.”

Monday through Friday on your local NBC affiliate, you can see Iyanla doing what she does best. The series features six women living under the same roof, each striving to meet challenging goals and improve their lives while living together. They are supported by “life coaches” who offer guidance and direction. Each woman is expected to reside in the Starting Over house for six to twelve weeks, depending on the scope of her “project” and her rate of progress toward her goal. The ‘reality’ of it all is if she cannot seriously work towards achieving her goals, or causes problems within the household, she is asked to leave. Some viewers may find this approach a bit tough but, upon further reflection, it supports what we all know about personal growth—if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. No one can make you change. Change comes from within and until you decide ‘Today is the day,’ no amount of coaching will help.

“To make powerful changes in your life, there are three areas you have to look at, to develop new awareness about,” says Iyanla. “The first is Intention. Ask yourself, what is your intention in making the changes? What do you really desire? When we set a clear, powerful intention for the shift we wish to make, we can expect a more positive result.

“Commitment to yourself and the things that matter to you is the second key. You must be willing to release or surrender those things that don’t support the changes that you are willing to make.

“The third key is Investment. We make so many investments in other people, things, activities. You will need to start to make more investments in yourself, body and mind, in your spirit. You have to shift your perspective of how you invest your time, your resources, your energy—physical, mental and emotional. You must learn to become more self-supportive, self-nurturing, self-loving.

“On the show, these are the things we hope to help the women start to get clear about.”

Critical to the success of Iyanla’s efforts with the women is what could be construed as spiritual practice, though it is not labeled as such on public television. The women are often assigned activities that help them get in touch with their personal center, the peaceful, knowing place inside them, “the place that helps you build inner reserve,”as Iyanla calls it. She may introduce the idea of saying affirmations out loud or in the case of one of the women, Kim, be assigned to take a day of silence. “It’s about awareness, the inner practices make you externally aware.”

“All of the women are also asked to journal, and though you may not see them doing it all the time, they do. To really begin to examine and explore yourself—what you’re thinking, what you’re saying, how you’re feeling, what you’re doing, so you can begin to self-reflect, then self-correct. It is crucial to your growth process to do this.”

Any given episode, you may also hear Iyanla offer her trademark response to someone who is eluding self-awareness, or as she calls it, “parroting your history,” saying things like, ‘Well, I’ve always done it this way,’ or ‘I need to have it like this.’ Iyanla’s no-nonsense response? ‘Until today.’ Followed up by, ‘Are you open to the possibility that that can change?’ Like fairy dust sprinkled over believing heads, these two statements seem to work magic in lives ripe for change.

Iyanla continues, “It’s as if we have to help these women build a whole new “home” to live in. We have to, in some cases, lay a whole new foundation too. Your inner home is constructed by your very earliest experiences in life, mom and dad, care givers, and so on. You continue to furnish that structure with your thoughts and emotions. Your experiences reinforce those furnishings.

“In my own life, because my beginnings, my foundations, were laid haphazardly and laid unlovingly, abusively, I had to build a totally new foundation within myself. First, I had to tell the truth about my earliest experiences. Not coloring it or covering it up, then asking myself, ‘Do I want more of this or do I want something else?’ I didn’t want more verbal or physical abuse, rejection or betrayal, so I had to look at those ways that it was done to me and the ways I had done it to myself as a function of the way my foundation had been structured and furnished. I had to take a good look, tell the truth, become aware and set new intentions, make a commitment to those intentions and invest the time and energy to make them a reality.”

Her zeal is evident when Iyanla speaks of how important it is for each one of us to start over when life asks us “to get real with ourselves, to go to the places we fear, to go to new places within our own hearts and minds we’ve never been before.” If we set the intention, make the commitment and invest in ourselves, she believes, without a doubt, we will get there.

Where is “there?” “Home,” Iyanla explains, “in the present moment where joy and inner peace are found. Home, where we are living authentically, living as our truest selves. We can all get there, in fact, it is our destiny—to remember who we really are. And when we do, now that is something to celebrate!”

Iyanla Vanzant is the author of ten personal and spiritual growth books, five of which were New York Times’ best-sellers, including Faith in the Valley, One Day My Soul Just Opened Up and In the Meantime. She is also the Chief Executive Officer of Inner Visions Worldwide, Inc. in Silver Spring, MD, a network of spiritual and holistic practitioners who believe that all individuals must be empowered. For a programming schedule or information on their Certification for Spiritual Coaching program, visit www.innervisionsworldwide.com or call 301-419-8085.