Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [117]
“Honor yourself!” He was staring at me. He was screaming at me, “Admit what you feel. Learn to trust and to honor yourself as a divine and unique expression of God by telling the truth. Learn to love yourself enough to tell the truth exactly as you know it at any given moment. Do you love yourself?” I took too long to respond.
“Of course you don’t! How could you! No one ever told you that you were worthy of love. Well, I’m telling you that you are worthy, and that what you think matters. Do you believe that?”
“I’m not sure. I think so.”
“So are you going to tell me what you think about what that gentleman over there just said?”
“Say what I am thinking, out loud, in a room full of people? A room full of white people? You have got to be out of your mind!”
“No. You are out of your mind. You are in your ego. You are in your fears and your judgments. What I am asking you to do is to learn to trust yourself.” He wasn’t yelling anymore. “What do you think?”
It’s really rather hard to think when your brain is frying and your hair is falling off! “Well …”
“No wells!” He yelled at me. “The minute you say ‘well’ or ‘I don’t know,’ you are saying you don’t want to talk about it! You are here to talk. So talk! What do you think about what he just said?” I could feel all fifty eyeballs in the room on me. I could hear Grandma’s voice in the back of my mind: “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.”
I could see Nett’s eyes darting across the room at me, giving me that look that said if I opened my mouth I would be swiftly put to death. I could smell my brain matter burning. I could hear Grandma, see Nett, and here was this big person, an adult, standing there and demanding an answer. The words escaped from my mouth before I could examine or censor them.
“I feel the same way. I don’t think you have to yell and scream at us to get your point across. We are not deaf. We have paid to be here, which means we are willing to learn. It is hard to learn when you are afraid.”
“Are you really afraid of me?” he asked gently.
“No, not really. I think I am more afraid of what you will say or do if I don’t give you the right answer.”
“What is the right answer?” He was pushing it a bit, but it felt good.
“I feel like the right answer is the one that pops into your mind at the moment. The big question is how do you give that answer without hurting or offending the other person?”
He got down on his knees and looked me directly in the eye. “Honor what you feel by saying it the way you would want to hear it. When you say it honestly, with love, your job is over.”
The rest of the workshop went smoothly. On the last day of the workshop, we were informed that if we were not satisfied with what we had learned, the tuition would be refunded. They hadn’t cashed the checks! They were still in possession of the check I had given them on Thursday. I considered saying I wasn’t satisfied just to get the check back. Build your character, Iyanla! I decided against it. Instead, I left with an armful of books by Charles Filmore, the founder of the Unity movement. Two days after I completed the workshop, I received a telephone call from the radio station. Someone was going on vacation. If I could sit in, I would make $500. I asked for the money in advance. The check for the workshop and the books was covered in time.
After I completed the two weeks at the radio station, a client asked me if I would come to her job and talk to her students about self-esteem. She was an instructor in a job readiness program for women on welfare. She knew that I was once on welfare, and she knew that I had worked my way off welfare. It wouldn’t pay much, but she would see if she could arrange for me to come in once or twice a month. The weekly consulting job turned into a full-time position