TONIGHT

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Archives
• Young Voices
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Inner Visions
• Ms. Vanzant talks with Tavis on NPR

E-mail a friend

Tavis: It is a pleasure to welcome Iyanla Vanzant to the program tonight. She's a best-selling author, lawyer, ordained minister, inspirational speaker, and founder and executive director of Inner Visions Spiritual Life Maintenance Network. Ahh. That's a mouthful. Nice to see you, Iyanla.

Iyanla Vanzant: You didn't say I'm your best friend.

Tavis: My best friend, and--and more importantly, go ahead and say it.

Iyanla: We share the same birthday. These things are important.

Tavis: The important stuff. September 13. Virgo. There you go. Um, my mom was like, "God ain't into that. Jesus ain't into that Virgo thing." Sorry, Mom. September 13. Nice to see you. You doing ok?

Iyanla: Moving through.

Tavis: Yeah, you know, I know you so well. We've been friends for years, so full disclosure there. Um, but I wanted to write this down, 'cause I didn't want to skip over any piece of this, because your story for me is so fascinating, and the reason why you connect with so many millions of viewers and readers around the world is because of the fact that you're always willing to put that story out there to empower and to help other people. So, for those who don't know your story--and I suspect most do after watching you all these years on Oprah and even your own TV show--born in the back of a taxi...

Iyanla: Yeah.

Tavis: Your mama died when you were 2.

Iyanla: Right.

Tavis: Raped by an uncle until you were 9, pregnant by 16, married at 18, 3 kids by 21, an abusive marriage for 9 years, and like Tina Turner, you left in the middle of the night.

Iyanla: Yes.

Tavis: You then go on to become a best-selling author, TV, radio. Last December, on Christmas Day, your daughter dies--on Christmas Day--Gemmia--and you're back out on the road trying to help other people still.

Iyanla: I'm really trying to help myself, but since they'll pay to hear me...

Both: Ha ha ha ha!

Tavis: Since they'll pay to hear you, you're gonna help yourself and help them, too, huh?

Iyanla: It's really, really trying to help myself.

Tavis: This is just the most fascinating journey, and I use that word journey 'cause I suspect that's what it is for you. It's a journey, huh?

Iyanla: Always. Always a journey. Always a new door, a new valley, a new opportunity. I think this last, um, experience, losing my daughter, uh, for weeks, it was just unspeakable--unspeakable to--to have to imagine life without her. She was my best friend. She was my child. She was my business partner. She was my confidante. She was my secret voice in all books that I've written. To watch her surrender her life, um, the blessing is that she did it with such grace and such elegance and such incredible faith in God till the very end. Till the very end, such grace in God. Um, so I know that from this point on, my life has to be in honor of her work. She was 31 years old, and when we did her obituary, it was 6 pages long.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. At 31. Yeah.

Iyanla: At 31. I was, like, "Wow. I was there. I did that. We did that. Yes. We did that." And she left a 9-year-old daughter who, um, has an incredible foundation. So, for me now, my life, the next chapter, the next pages of my life will be about living and exemplifying and demonstrating the faith that Gemmia, um, demonstrated as she surrendered her life.

Tavis: Your fans and your readers, again, in this country and indeed, around the world, 'New York Times' best-selling author any number of times are you--as if you don't already know that--uh, but your fans, I know, um, share, to the extent they could, that pain with you.

Iyanla: Yeah.

Tavis: And you've now been on TV shows talking about this. I'm glad you're here, but how after counseling folk all these years with their own problems, um, you were doing your best, I suspect, to counsel them, but again, not always having--you've had a lot of experiences--but not always having the experiences that they had, you tried your best to counsel them. What was it like being on the other side now where you've lost your daughter, on Christmas Day, no less?

Iyanla: Christmas Day. 10:18. Um, everything that I believed in, everything that I taught, everything that I held on to went out the window.

Tavis: Oh...after all that.

Iyanla: After all of that. Totally went out the window.

Tavis: Everything you told everybody else.

Iyanla: Everything that I told everybody else. Um...I was a mama bear, and my cub was in trouble, and I would have scratched, clawed, dug--you know, anything--I would have given anything to save her. And everything that I would have told everybody about how to do that didn't make any sense to me. Ha ha ha! And then, you know, any moment can be the moment that you become in-sane, and that doesn't mean lose your mind. That means come into your sanity and remember the truth that you know. So I had to go and read my book. Ha ha ha!

Tavis: Ha ha ha! You had to read your own stuff?

Iyanla: Oh, I had to go read my book...'Acts of Faith.' July 17 says people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

Tavis: Did your stuff make any sense to you, though, in that moment?

Iyanla: In that moment, in that moment. You know, God is a moment, on time, moment by moment, as you need, very specific presence. So, um, she will be in my life for a lifetime, and I had to remember if--it was Christmas Day. If God's son could hang on the cross for millions, who am I? My daughter surrendered her life in her home that she owned, surrounded by her family--her mother, her sister, her brother--all of the extended family that loved her--in her home, fully paid for, by people she loved, surrounded by prayer and song...in peace, in peace. There are mothers who lost their children to drive-bys, mothers whose children just disappeared in the night, and those mothers are still--who am I?! Who am I? Who am I to complain?

Tavis: So now you're out on this "How You Living?" tour.

Iyanla: How you living?

Tavis: How you living? What you saying to folk on the "How You Living" tour?

Iyanla: That's it. I see this as the paramount question people need to ask: how you living? How are you living day to day? In Gemmia's final moments, she demonstrated to me how you have to live: faithfully, peacefully, uh, out of debt, uh, forgiving, compassionately. There are so many people today, Tavis, who are living in absolute wretched pain that has nothing to do with the dis-ease of the body. It has to do with dis-eased living. It has to do with a dis-eased consciousness. How you living? How you giving? And it really grows out of your symposium--strengthening the African-American family. Because unless we do that, how we are living is going to continue to deteriorate.

Tavis: Living these days isn't so easy, though. We live in, uh--I'm reminded of the bible verse that says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and of a sound mind." Um, but we live in a world where it's not so easy to live. Things are very evil. People are doing evil things. Um, the world is a dangerous place. People, I think, are afraid, many of them, with legitimate reason, you think?

Iyanla: How big is your god? How you living? With a little god or a big god? And I think that people have been hypnotized by what could go wrong, what is going--we've been hypnotized, so we're walking around in this kind of state, this hypnotic fear of "What next? What next?" But "How You Living?" Is going to remind us of the things we really know. Re-mind us. Bring us out of the craziness into in-sanity, that means into our sanity, our right mind, our right consciousness about how to live an ordered life, how to live a peaceful life, how to live a life in a family. You know, these days, dysfunctional and family seem to be redundant.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! Certainly not oxymoronic. Yes.

Iyanla: So we've got to get this family together. We've got to bring fathers home. We've got to bring couples back together. We've got to restore marriages. We have to restore family. We have to. We got to bring Grandma out of the nursing home back into the kitchen to take care of the grandbabies. We've got to stop the mama drama and the baby-daddy mess and--oh, please, we must.

Tavis: I got to shift gears. I've only got about a minute and a half. You gotta come back again and do this. Jonathan Butler is about to come up here in just a second. It's 10 years, as you know, after apartheid in South Africa. What do you make of this? Can you believe it's been 10 years?

Iyanla: 10 years? No, I can't. I can't believe it's been 10 years. And that shows you how quickly things can turn around. Come a long way, still have a long way to go. We've got to keep our ear to South Africa, keep our heart to South Africa, and not be hypnotized and distracted by other things that keep us from really looking at and knowing what's going on. I bless them, and may they have a mighty and powerful 10 more.

Tavis: Yeah, and I bless you. I love you.

Iyanla: I love you back.

Tavis: Nice to see you. You're looking well. I've got to come see you. You're traveling around the country on the tour?

Iyanla: Not yet. We are gonna do it, though.

Tavis: You let us know when you're gonna do it, though.

Iyanla: Yeah. You're part of it.

Tavis: You're gonna be going everywhere on this tour, though, so I want to make sure people know where you're gonna be. I know they're happy to see you on TV. Nice to see you. That's Iyanla Vanzant. Love that girl. Up next, we'll close out the show with a musical tribute to a free South Africa, with the very talented Jonathan Butler. Stay with us.

Tavis: I wanted to end tonight's show with a song in honor of the tenth anniversary of the end of apartheid in South Africa. And so, here is Cape Town, South Africa's own, Jonathan Butler, accompanied by Kurt Lykes, performing 'This Is Love.' Good night, enjoy, and keep the faith.

Jonathan Butler, singing: Ohh ohh ohh, oh oh oh ohh, da da dum, da dum, dum dum, Lord, thank you for all you've done for me, showing me things I didn't see, just because you love me, how could this be? This is why I write a song that sings your praise, I'm gonna lift my hands and say, thank you, Lord, for the joy you gave to me, this is love, love, love, love, kind of love that's more than enough, this is love, love, love, love, I never knew I never had, all I know, everywhere that I may go, your love will keep me from the cold, side by side, loving you, loving me, ohh, oh, I'm not afraid of what may be, 'cause greater is he that lives in me, they may say that I'm a fool for you, Lord, this is love, love, love, love, kind of love that's more than enough, yes, it is, this is love, love, love, love, I never knew, never had before, there's no one else but you, I have searched my whole life through, when I arise, there you are, you're never far from me, ohh, ohh! Oh, love, love, love, I love you, Lord, yeah, it's more than enough, I'll say it again, ohh, love, love, love, that I never knew...

Kurt Lykes, singing: Never knew...

Butler: Never had before, thank you, Lord, love, love, love, sweeter than honey to me, it's more than enough, oh...