Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [105]
I felt a little embarrassed and a little ashamed. How can I run around trying to heal the world when I am still so wounded? Isn’t that being dishonest? When I thought about it for a moment, I remembered what my godfather taught me, “You can only teach what you need to learn.” Then something Maya Angelou wrote came to mind: “Take a day to heal yourself, and then go and heal somebody else.” Realizing how much I have learned, how much healing I have done, I knew that I had nothing to be ashamed of. All that I learn, I teach. All that I teach opens the way for deeper learning. Although it seemed that I was learning the same lesson over and over, I realized it was at a deeper level each time. Each level held a new way of looking at things. Each level offered an opportunity to put a theory into practice as a teaching tool and a standard of learning.
Rhonda had mastered all of the wrong lessons. She was a master of living in pain, struggling for recognition, dishonoring herself, and covering up what she was feeling. She was trying to get my attention. Unfortunately, she had mastered the art of attracting negative attention. Attention that caused her more pain. Attention that further dishonored and devalued her. Unconsciously, I had embraced her patterns. I had failed to recognize and acknowledge them as they played out in my life.
Rhonda had no concept of who Iyanla was. The life Iyanla knew had unfolded moment by moment, as a function of her faith and what she believed about herself. In many of those moments, I, Iyanla, found myself running to catch up with my life. Things were growing and unfolding faster than I could imagine. Rhonda, the old me, was also running, trying to catch up. She did not want to be left again. More important, Rhonda was trying to figure out what was going on. Iyanla’s experiences were totally foreign to her. Loving, caring people surrounded Iyanla, because that is what she believed she deserved. Rhonda never knew love that was not attached to pain and suffering. Iyanla has an abundance of good things. Rhonda was taught not to expect good, and that she did not deserve to have anything good. In response to what she had been taught, Rhonda expected the worst, and usually, that is what she experienced.
Finally, I understood why Karen had come into my life. She had come to help me heal Rhonda. She had come to show me what Rhonda believed and to give me an opportunity for a deeper level of healing. I had not done a good job of integrating Rhonda’s experiences with Iyanla’s experiences. I had not honored the role that Rhonda had played in Iyanla’s emerging life. Had it not been for Rhonda, Iyanla never would have been born. I needed to forgive myself for ignoring her and for being mad at Karen. I also needed to go back and see how the breakdown between Rhonda’s consciousness and Iyanla’s consciousness had occurred. Before I could do that, I needed to give Iyanla a little boost.
There is something magical that occurs when a woman turns forty. She becomes more attractive in a sensual and seductive way. It’s not that her body gets better, but I think she becomes more comfortable with her body and learns how to maneuver it better. At forty, a woman’s eyes begin to sparkle. Not with lust or excitement, but with wisdom. She has seen some things, done some things, and learned some things that show through her eyes. At forty, although there are things on a woman’s body that lie down, at the same time, other things stand out. They become clear. A forty-year-old woman finds her voice, gets her vision and her footing. When I turned forty, I became too old to try to be somebody else, so I stopped trying.
As I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t have any sense at all until I turned forty. At twenty-three, I thought I had all of the answers. When I turned