As Iyanla Vanzant wraps up the final year of her OWN TV series, “Iyanla, Fix My Life,” the revered life coach sat down for an interview where she spoke about the show’s impact after its 10-year run.
She says the current series will have much more to offer. The spiritual life coach described what she feels her role is on the show while mediating between families.
“I think that it’s so important as a coach, as a minister, and as a teacher, to look for areas where there is resistance – that’s where the healing is required. People are resistant to the masks. My hope is that we will look at the things that are masked within our society by our fast moving, fast paced life,” she explained to the publication.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the summer of 2020 have shaped much of the nation’s perceptions regarding race.
“Racial injustice was masked for a long time. The denigration and dishonor of women and feminine energy has been masked. White male superiority has been masked for a long time. Dishonesty in our thinking, in our speaking, in our leadership and in our way of being has been masked for a long time,” she continued. “So my hope is that we look at the things that have been revealed during the pandemic and we take the masks off them and deal with them. We have that going on right now with the Derek Chauvin trial and George Floyd. But what happened to Breonna Taylor? Trayvon Martin? What happened to Eric Garner? Those masks were still on and now they are being ripped off. My hope is that we move forward in a new way.”
The trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds until he lost consciousness and died, is currently underway.
Despite coming to an end, Vanzant is aware of her show’s legacy.
“Each story has shown where I have really done the healing, where more healing was required, where things I didn’t know need to be healed. It was eye-opening. Whenever you stand out in the public, you have to realize that if it’s in the chair, it’s in the room. If my guest was in front of me, it was a part of me,” she asserts. “I needed to be able to recognize that. I believe that’s why I was able to go hard on some guests because I recognized some part of myself and knew what was possible”.
Click here to read the full interview.
