INTERVIEW: Iyanla Vanzant Talks New Book 'Spiritual Hygiene', The Inside Fix, Leadership, Accountability + More

Summary

The Breakfast Club: Interview with Iyanla Vanzant – "Spiritual Hygiene," The Inside Fix & More

Original Air Date: January 15, 2026
Podcast: The Breakfast Club (iHeartPodcasts)
Hosts: DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God, Angela Yee, Lauren LaRosa
Guest: Iyanla Vanzant

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Episode Overview

In this insightful and candid episode, The Breakfast Club welcomes renowned spiritual teacher and life coach Iyanla Vanzant to discuss her new book, Spiritual Hygiene, her new show The Inside Fix, the difference between assertiveness and aggression in women, leadership, accountability, personal boundaries, grief, and healing. The conversation blends wisdom, humor, and vulnerability as Iyanla shares practical advice and memorable anecdotes about her journey, her teachings, and her ongoing growth.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Iyanla’s Relentless Drive & New Projects

• [03:43] The hosts greet Iyanla, noting her legendary status and constant productivity with recent projects: her show The Inside Fix and new book Spiritual Hygiene.
• Iyanla jokes about "not wanting to grow roots" and needing to keep her energy moving:
  • “I could be on the pole, but this is so much more beneficial.” (Iyanla, [04:25])

2. Revisiting “Fix My Life” and the Power of Self-Reflection

• [04:50] Iyanla explains The Inside Fix revisits previous topics and applies their lessons to current societal issues, especially struggles among women.
  • “We didn't get all the juice out of Fix My Life. That's why we can go back in and do it again today.” (Iyanla, [05:57])
• [06:39] She highlights the importance of understanding the deeper issues beneath sensational stories.
• The show now provides viewers with workbooks and worksheets to engage in self-work.

3. Feminine Leadership: “Lady Balls” vs. Masculine Aggression

• [07:21] Discussion on the concept of “lady balls”—feminine power based in assertiveness and nurture versus overt aggression.
  • “Feminine power is assertive. Masculine power is aggressive. Feminine power is nourishing… Lady balls are how a powerful woman stands in her power in a way that nurtures, supports, heals, grows other people.” (Iyanla, [07:51])
• [09:12] Her advice to women:
  • “Lead with your heart and not with your head. Lady balls don’t come from the crotch, they come from the heart.” (Iyanla, [09:12])
• She recalls learning to access her “lady balls” after losing her daughter and raising her granddaughter, finding peace in decisions made from the heart.
  • “A course in miracles says: I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace.” (Iyanla, [11:09])

4. Accountability & Truth in Relationships

• [15:59] On improving relationships at work, at home, or with friends:
  • Tell the truth
  • Be accountable
  • Know what you bring to the table
  • “One of the reasons our relationships are dying and drying up is because we lie about everything... In order for anything to grow and thrive, you gotta have some truth.” (Iyanla, [15:59])

5. Defining & Practicing Spiritual Hygiene

• [18:03] Iyanla details the daily practice of spiritual hygiene:
  • “It’s the daily, daily commitment and practice of clearing your mind, of cleaning your heart, of strengthening your spirit. Your spirit has to be maintained like your teeth.” (Iyanla, [18:03])
• She notes many people lack self-awareness, have “fungus in their mind,” and are “emotionally constipated.”

6. Religion, Prayer & Being Present

• [19:07] The difference between “begging” and truly praying:
  • “Most people beg, they don’t pray. What’s your relationship with God? They learn the function of the prayer but not the presence in the prayer.” (Iyanla, [19:07])
• Shares her childhood story about “rejecting” traditional baptism and only later cultivating genuine spiritual presence.
  • “Instead of going out, go in.” (Iyanla, [21:06])

7. Self-Awareness Exercises & Preventative Spiritual Hygiene

• [22:15] Practical exercise:
  • “Seven minutes, three times a day, for 21 days—shut your mouth, turn off everything, be still… The first foundational principle of spiritual hygiene is self-awareness.” (Iyanla, [22:15])

8. Emotional Literacy—Teaching the Next Generation

• [26:28] On raising her great-grandson:
  • “He is emotionally literate... He knows the distinction between frustration and anxiety, he knows when he’s happy, he knows when he’s frustrated. Why? Because I taught him.” (Iyanla, [26:28])
• Warns of how young people today lack emotional presence due to lack of connection and communication, urging adults to “talk with” not “at.”

9. Setting Boundaries, Accountability, and Grieving

• [32:02] Differentiating between protecting peace and avoiding accountability:
  • “Integrity. You know when you’re avoiding, denying, projecting… Protecting your peace looks and feels different than erecting a wall.” (Iyanla, [32:02])
• Shares her choice not to attend her daughter’s funeral due to family tensions, made “from a place of love and care.”
  • “She was still going to be dead the next day. I didn’t have to be there.” (Iyanla, [33:47])
• Rituals and cultural differences in mourning; importance of somatic (body-based) practices for processing grief.
  • “Where is the grief in your body?... My oldest daughter died on Christmas Day. I’ve turned Christmas into a whole thing… It’s there in celebration, not in mourning and remorse.” (Iyanla, [44:05])

10. Letting Go of Outcomes

• [45:10] Iyanla distinguishes between “assignments” and “cases,” noting she’s not attached to the outcome—her purpose is to deliver the process, not guarantee change.
  • “I’m not attached to the outcome. I’m attached to the process.” (Iyanla, [45:28])
• Discusses her role as a guide, not a savior; much depends on each person’s own spiritual hygiene and willingness to do the work.

11. Accountability, Healing, and Legacy

• [50:09] On the importance of personal responsibility:

  • “May my legacy be, if nothing else, that I gave people skills and tools to take responsibility for themselves… The mess that we’re in is because we were anticipating somebody else doing for us what we needed to do for ourselves.” (Iyanla, [50:30])

• [51:15] Pillars of growth:

  • “Awareness, accountability, and integrity. Integrity where your mind, your heart, and what you do are all aligned. Get in integrity, line it up, and be willing to piss people off to maintain your own integrity.” (Iyanla, [51:15])

• [52:12] On the “messiness” of real work:

  • “People want to intellectualize spirituality... but sometimes you are human and it’s okay... There’s so much depth to healing.” (Iyanla, [52:12])

12. Mortality, Health, and Living Authentically

• [56:20] After profound losses, Iyanla affirms her intention to live to 102, healthy and active. She refuses to let medical stereotypes for her age dictate how she lives.
  • “They wanted to do these weird things to me… because people your age… That has nothing to do with me.” (Iyanla, [58:08])

13. Love, Dating, and Spiritual Requirements

• [60:19] Discussing love after loss, Iyanla says her priority is her great-grandson. When she returns to dating, her criteria are clear: a partner with a good relationship to his mother and children (“because iyamala means great mother”), and ideally a younger man—no “blue pill” needed.
  • "Take your bluechew down in the basement, get out of here." (Iyanla, [63:29])
• She humorously recounts being approached by a much younger man:
  • “I got bras older than you.” (Iyanla, [64:22])

14. Closing: Uplifting the Community

• [65:01] Angela Yee and the hosts express their admiration for Iyanla. Iyanla affirms her pride in the hosts’ continued work and impact, encouraging them to keep representing the culture powerfully.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Lady balls don’t come from the crotch, they come from the heart.” – Iyanla ([09:12])
• “Awareness, accountability, and integrity. Line it up, and be willing to piss people off to maintain your own integrity.” – Iyanla ([51:15])
• “You can’t fall off the floor. So I was on the floor. To see how far I’ve come from how far down I was, it’s humbling… millions didn’t make it.” – Iyanla ([55:28])
• “Protecting your peace or creating a boundary looks and feels very different than erecting a wall.” – Iyanla ([32:02])
• “Instead of going out, go in.” – Iyanla ([21:06])
• “They wanted to do these weird things to me and I said, why? ...Don’t have nothing to do with me.” – Iyanla ([58:08])
• “Take your bluechew down in the basement, get out of here. I am not on the bluechew committee.” – Iyanla ([63:29])

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Highlighted Timestamps

• 03:43 – Iyanla’s entrance & energy
• 04:50 – Purpose behind The Inside Fix
• 07:51 – “Lady balls” versus masculine power
• 18:03 – Definition of "spiritual hygiene"
• 22:15 – Self-awareness exercise: 7 minutes x 3 daily
• 26:28 – Teaching emotional literacy to her great-grandson
• 32:02 – Boundaries vs. walls in accountability
• 33:47 – Personal story on not attending her daughter’s funeral
• 44:05 – Grief somatics and honoring the dead
• 51:15 – Integrity and not dimming your light
• 55:28 – Reflecting on personal growth through adversity
• 60:19 – Love after loss and conscious decisions for her family
• 63:29 – Hilarious exchange on dating, age gaps, and “bluechew”
• 65:01 – Mutual appreciation and encouragement for the show hosts

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Tone, Language, and Style

The episode is conversational, direct, and infused with both humor and deep wisdom. Iyanla Vanzant’s warmth, wit, and bold honesty keep the interview engaging, while the hosts’ genuine curiosity and occasional playful banter create a comfortable, respectful environment for her teachings and stories.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode offers not only practical advice (like daily spiritual hygiene routines and boundary-setting), but personal stories from Iyanla’s journey through pain, healing, and ongoing personal development. You’ll find laughter, hard truths, healing exercises, and encouragement to own your story, lead with your heart, and practice accountability—making this a must-listen for anyone seeking growth and inspiration in 2026.

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Contact/Upcoming Appearances:

• The Inside Fix premieres January 17
• Iyanla’s live appearance at MGM Theater in D.C., January 25
• Spiritual Hygiene available now

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Transcript

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[Iyanla Vanzant]

Hold up.

[Angela Yee]

Every day I wake up.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Wake your ass up.

[Angela Yee]

The Breakfast Club.

[DJ Envy]

Morning everybody. It's DJ Envy. Just hilarious. Charlemagne the guy. We are the breakfast club. Lauren LaRosa is here as well. And we got a special guest in the building. The legend, Ayanla Vanzant. Welcome back.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

How are you feeling? I am blessed. How are you?

[DJ Envy]

I'm doing amazing.

[Angela Yee]

Blessed, black and highly favored.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

All of this young energy, it just.

[Angela Yee]

I was born in 1978. If I'm young to you. Thank you.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah, thank you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

78. I got a bra that I bought in 78.

[Angela Yee]

Ms. Mon, you never stop working.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

No, no.

[Angela Yee]

You're here today cuz you got a new show, the Inside Fix. But you just put out a book, Spiritual Hygiene in December. Why can't you ever keep still?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, because I don't want to grow roots. I want to grow roots. You know, roots are not. Not helpful. Yeah, it's good, you know, don't we need it?

[Angela Yee]

Absolutely.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

We need the work, so we need the energy. So I'm out here. Yeah, I'm out here. I could be on the pole, but this is so much more beneficial.

[DJ Envy]

Let's see the first episode. Hilarious. So for people that don't know, it's almost like where are they now?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Where are we now? Not them.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah, where.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yes, where are we now?

[DJ Envy]

So break down the show. That's.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah. What I did was we went back into some of our highest rated shows.

[DJ Envy]

With the most memes.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

We did them, huh?

[DJ Envy]

With the most.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I know. I'm a meme machine. Yes, ma'. Am. And we looked at those shows for issues that are going on today. Because the way we deal with stuff today is very different than we did 12 years ago. 12 years ago, these six women had a problem, and they pull their. Their copy down off the Internet today, you know, that would be ig it f Facebook. They would be canceled. And so how we deal with it today. But the issue of breakdown among women is just as prevalent today as it was back then. So how do we deal with that? How do we address that? So that's what we're doing. We're going back into the shows and looking at how to take those issues and apply them.

[DJ Envy]

I love how you did it.

[Angela Yee]

Why did you find that more appealing than revisiting? I mean, why did you decide to revisit older stories instead of helping new families?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Because I'm old.

[Angela Yee]

You seasoned. You're not old. You're seasoned.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I'm old and seasoned. You know, because we just keep reinventing stuff, and we don't even really get all the juice out of what we got. We didn't get all the juice out of Fix My Life. That's why we can go back in and do it again today. The things that are applicable. Back then, I did shows with mothers and daughters, and now you have mothers divorcing or daughters divorcing mothers, Children not speaking to parents. That wasn't going on back then. So. Yeah. And also to let people know that sometime you don't even know what you're looking at. Ooh.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yeah.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Because people looked at that and got into the characters and the people, but they were looking at a whole nother thing. Just like in the world today, we don't really know what we looking at.

[Angela Yee]

Yeah, expound on that. Expound on that. We don't really know what we look.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You trying to get me shot? Do I look Somalian?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I don't want to.

[Angela Yee]

Could you stop?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Okay.

[Angela Yee]

I do wish DMX could have lived to be on this show.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

He wasn't ready. I think he was willing, but he wasn't ready. And you gotta be both. Can't be just ready and not willing or willing. He wasn't ready.

[DJ Envy]

You also talk about lady balls.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Lady balls?

[DJ Envy]

Does Jess have lady balls?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

What?

[Lauren LaRosa]

Who?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yes. Okay, all right, cool now. But we gotta understand that lady balls and testicles are different.

[DJ Envy]

Break that down quick.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Okay. Because testicles.

[Angela Yee]

Now you just said everything you see ain't what you see. Now what you say? No.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, the hair you see on testicles is real. It's really there.

[DJ Envy]

Break down lady balls before it just gets offended.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You see a lot of Women, because of the. The way we are conditioned and programmed and educated, take on masculine qualities, you know, and. And they think it's powerful. But feminine power is very different than masculine power. Feminine power is assertive. Masculine power is aggressive. Feminine power is directive. It's nurturing. It's nourishing. It's clear. And masculine power is often domineering and controlling and directive, as opposed to collaborative. So lady balls. You know, a lot of women today want to be the boss, and they want to be the diva and. And have no leadership skills whatsoever. Lady balls are how a powerful woman lives in moves and stands in her power in a way that nurtures, nourishes, supports, heals, grows other people. It's not testicles. Testicles are aggressive. They got hair, and sometimes they smell. Don't ask me how I know.

[Angela Yee]

You know, it's interesting, in one of the episodes, you point out that women don't know the distinction between assertiveness and aggression.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yes.

[Angela Yee]

How do you advise women to create a distinction between the two?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, lead with your heart and not with your head. Lead with your heart. That's. That's lady balls. Lady balls don't come from the crotch. They come from the heart.

[DJ Envy]

Did you come up with this term, lady balls? Did you come with. Because watching the episode was close to her.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You said it for so long. But then when I went to try to trademark it, people have said that, but I spell mine differently. And nobody else has a deck of cards. My team created a deck of cards so you can pull your lady ball card.

[Angela Yee]

Oh, you said deck. I was like, what the hell is a deck of cards?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Got him confused.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Just because we're Talking about balls, Mr. Willie doesn't have to show up.

[DJ Envy]

What do.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

What do you say to women who have, like. Because a lot of women shy away from leading with their heart because they're called too emotional, or they. They're scared to be vulnerable and make decisions based off of emotion because they think that they're not thinking clearly. Right.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Why do you think the heart is about emotion?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

That's what most people would relate heartfelt decisions to when it comes to women.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, who. Who? Men.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yes, men.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

And disagreements. Because most women are so far out of their heart, they don't even know what the heart does.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yes.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

The truth is that the mind was created to be a slave of the heart, but we've made the heart a slave of the mind or the intellect. Heart centered is grounded. It's clarity. And again, nourishing, nurturing, edifying. It's progressive. The Heart is progressive. The mind gets stuck in the loop. That's why we have therapy. Don't nobody go to nothing to try to get their heart fixed. They trying to fix their head. Yeah. The heart doesn't get stuck in a loop. The heart remains open because the heart is where God speaks. God doesn't speak in the intellect. God speaks in the heart. When.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

When did you realize how to best use your Lady Balls? Because I saw you talk about, you know, when you were raising your kids, you were being the father and you weren't the mother. You weren't the most nurturing. So when did you realize how to lean into that?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I think when I lost my first daughter and I had to raise her daughter, and I looked at all the mistakes I had made, and I didn't want to be. Continue to be a father, so I got a chance to be a grandma doing a mom's job. So that was really, really helpful for me. The other thing is that, you know, I'm a student of a course in miracles, and a course in miracles says I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace. So there comes a moment when we make a choice or decision, but we wrestle with it. We're not at peace with it. And Lady Balls allows you to be assertive and clear, grounded and peaceful. A lot of decisions I make with my head leave me in doubt and flux and craziness. But when I really do decide with my heart and I'm at peace, that makes sense, right?

[Angela Yee]

Absolutely.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah. So I think that's how I learned how to use Lady Ball's grandmother.

[DJ Envy]

Do you give yourself grace, though? Because when you talk about it.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Absolutely. I give myself a lot of grace. And when I say, like, I was a horrible mother, which I say in my book, or when I say I made a lot of mistakes with my son, with my children, it's from the learning, not from the condemnation. I don't judge it. You know, my kids chose me. I was just trying to get some nookie. They decided they wanted. They decided they wanted to be bored. So here they come, intruding in my lewd and lascivious activity. They chose me. So they came to learn, too. So we're teaching each other. Grace is very important, even with your.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Your pets. Because your new show is, you know, the inside fix. Right. So you said you chose to go back and, you know, to previous cases. Right. Do you feel at any time back then you got it wrong or you made it.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Oh, no, absolutely not. Not there. You know why? I prayed about every Show. And that work was my ministry that was led by spirit. One of the reasons we're doing the inside fix is because back then I did the work. Now I want people to do the work. Every single show comes with a worksheet. Ever had a television show give you homework?

[Angela Yee]

No.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

No. So that you can look at the show and say, where is this in my life? How do I do this? Where have I done this? Where is this going on? Download the work. Free. Free. Don't we like free, free worksheet? So I did the work then. Now you do the work.

[Angela Yee]

I'll ask you a question about what you said about women having masculine qualities. No. Yeah, masculine qualities, but no leadership ability.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

They want to be the boss and the diva, but they don't have leadership tendencies. Leadership training, Leadership. Not even qualities. Because you can have leadership qualities, but you have to have. A leader has to have a heart. We see what it looks like when a leader doesn't have a heart. Let me put my glasses on. I don't look. Somalia.

[Angela Yee]

Is that something you can learn or is that something that has to be in you? All right.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, I think that leaders are born, but they definitely have to be trained. Some people say leaders are trained. They're not born. I believe leaders are born.

[Angela Yee]

I agree.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Some people just rise into it. But there's certain qualities and characteristics that an effective leader needs. And the one thing is a heart, a heart for people. Another thing is a vision. Leadership isn't just about ordering people around and telling them what to do. A leader has to have a vision. And then you get people to buy into the vision and you lead them in that vision in a way that's whole and healthy for everybody.

[Angela Yee]

You see that in corporate America all the time. A lot of people in leadership roles and leadership positions, but they're not actually leaders.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

No vision. They're controllers, they're demagogues, they're bullies. There all sorts of things. And. And whenever money is the only thing that leads you, you. You're going to have a problem.

[DJ Envy]

What would you say to somebody who was like, say, in a workplace or in a relationship that wants that work relationship or real relationship to work? Right. One of the exercises you did on the first episode, which was from what, 2014. I love it, was you brought everybody to a department store and you made everybody shop for each other. You buy this person an outfit, you buy this person. And then when you did, you said, well, why did you buy that person? That.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

How do you look at them?

[DJ Envy]

So what would you advise for A couple or even somebody working to do to try to fix it because you can't be there or they can't afford you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I should say, well, they can read my book because in spiritual hygiene, I have spiritual hygiene for relationships, spiritual hygiene for parenting, and spiritual hygiene for the workplace. Here's the thing. In any relationship, three things. Number one, tell the truth, right? One of the reasons our relationships are dying and drying up is because we lie about everything. We lie about what we feel, we lie about what we want. Sometimes it's not a conscious lie, it's a lie driven by fear. Yeah, the fear of losing, the fear of being harmed. So we don't want to be vulnerable. But in order for anything to grow and thrive, you got to have some truth. The other thing is accountability. All the stuff that we're not seeing in the world today, tell the truth, be accountable, don't blame and project. Own your stuff, own it and be accountable for every choice, every word, every action, and know what you're bringing to the table. Particularly in the workplace, people go to work to make money. People go to work to, you know, very few people go to work to serve. So what are you bringing to the table that you want something in return? Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me. What are you bringing to the table? So I think that if we did that in relationships, if we did that in the workplace, we'd have a lot more respect and honor for if I can't believe that your mother, your grandmother didn't die again for the third time.

[Lauren LaRosa]

I use that one a lot.

[DJ Envy]

How you gonna look at me?

[Lauren LaRosa]

You know, I use that one.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

We working every.

[Lauren LaRosa]

She only died once, but if I.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Keep saying she'll die, you know, where do you, where can you look somebody in the face and believe that what they're telling you is the truth, that they're not trying to take you down or get something from you or it's.

[Angela Yee]

Can we stay? I want to stay here with the spiritual hygiene. First of all, I love the title of the book. What, what is spiritual hygiene and how do people tend to.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

It's the daily, daily commitment and practice of clearing your mind, of cleaning your heart, of strengthening your spirit. It's not a one time thing. It's a practice. Your spirit has to be maintained. Like your teeth. You know what? People brush their teeth every day and go years without an examination of their own thoughts. They got fungus in their mind. Many people are emotionally constipated. Still bad about, mad about something that happened in 56. How do you clean that up, you brush your hair, you wash your hoo ha, you know, but you don't clean your spirit, your heart, your mind. So spiritual hygiene is the daily practice of clearing your mind, your heart, your soul, your inner life so that your outer life can have a different appearance.

[Angela Yee]

So what about the people who pray? They go to therapy, they meditate, they sage, but they still stay toxic. Like, what are they skipping in that.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

What's the prayer? What is the prayer? Most people beg, they don't pray, you know, and all of that is good. But what's your relationship? What is your relationship with God? Source, creator, spirit of your understanding? What is your relationship? God doesn't want your, you know, tithes and, and service only. What is the relationship? And most people, many people, I won't say most, I'll say many, many people learn the function and the doing of the prayer, but they don't have the presence in the prayer. They don't have the relationship with the very thing they're praying to. Why I didn't. I grew up in the church, you know, I'll tell you a real funny story. They were trying to baptize me. I must have been five or six in the Apostolic Church. You know, that's o. That's. Everything's a sin.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes, ma', am.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Rolling your lip is a sin. Anyway, they're getting ready to baptize me. And, you know, they dunk you down in water and stuff and they say to me, will you take. Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior? Now, this is way back when. That's how old I am. When Jesus was still on the cross with the little droplets of blood on his hands. I, me, the brilliant child, I look up and I say, who him? He can't help me. Oh, my God. You know, I got beat into tomorrow. You know that, right? I said, who? Him? He can't help me because he's down off the now. You don't see him. But we were fed religion. We were told what to do. We weren't taught to build a relationship. And it took me a long time to know that it wasn't about the doing of it. It was about the being in relationship in the presence, being present in the prayer, being still and knowing.

[Angela Yee]

When did you learn to pray? And I begged.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

When the begging wasn't working. I just got tired of begging. And then I said, okay, what am I doing wrong? I'm begging and you're not paying attention. This is not the way a God is supposed to respond. When I learned Two things. How to be still and how to know how to be still within my mind, my heart. Spiritual hygiene and how to know when I was in the presence, not when I was reaching out, but when I was turning in. And that was it for me. Instead of going out, go in. We see a lot of self.

[Lauren LaRosa]

What are some of the preventative measures that you take so you can, you can actually grow, grow up with these things like, like good spiritual hygiene. Because a lot of people would agree that bad spiritual hygiene is everywhere.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Everywhere, everywhere.

[Lauren LaRosa]

But if people knew how to, you know, simple, simple, you know what I'm saying?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Like how seven minutes, three times a day for 21 consecutive days, shut your mouth, turn off everything, be still, seven minutes three times a day for 21 days. You know, many people would rather lose their front teeth than to shut their mouth and get off the phone. That's right, just to be still. Because in the stillness everything's going to rise to the surface. You can journal it out, you can speak it out, you just become aware of it. Because the first step, the first foundational principle of spiritual hygiene is self awareness. People don't know that they armpit stink. They don't know that they talk too loud. They don't know that, you know, people don't know nothing about themselves because they're looking for everybody else to tell them self awareness. Start there seven minutes, three times a day, every day for 21 consecutive days. It'll take you somewhere.

[Angela Yee]

Why do you think people are more committed to physical hygiene than spiritual hygiene? Because the spirit controls everything.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, yeah, but again, most of us were religious sized. We weren't spiritualized. And so we want to intellectualize the spirit as opposed to spiritualizing the intellect to go in there and get that up. And so we, we, we don't like everything else we're taught. It's a doing. We know how to do spiritual things. Do we know how to be in the presence of spirit? You know how to do that. And it's frightening. And the thing that frightens us more than anything else I think in my years of working with people is their own spiritual power. That I am Ness. You know, we are an eachness and the allness of God and that eachness is powerful. And people are so convinced that they're unworthy and less than until they have a difficult time embracing and stepping into the power and the greatness.

[Angela Yee]

I wonder why, like my daughter asked me that. My daughter said to me, my daughter said, daddy, why do we pray but we don't go to church And I said, because we are Jehovah's Witnesses. Like, we believe in spirit. We believe in spirit, not religion. Like, you know, going to church to me is a religious practice, but we are people that believe in the spirit.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

But can I ask you a question? Is it. Are you open to another possibility?

[Angela Yee]

Absolutely.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Praying is going to church. Praying is going to church. You're going in the temple. Know ye not that you are a temple, that you are the temple of God. So praying is going to church. Tell her that next time.

[Angela Yee]

I will.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

This is church, baby.

[Angela Yee]

Absolutely.

[DJ Envy]

That's about self sabotage.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I'm grandmothering now. I'm raising my great grandson. That's why I look so young and fabulous. That's right. And. And we pray at night before we go to bed. So one day he said, yay. Yay. That's what he calls me. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Who is it that I'm praying to? And I said, your higher self, your I amness. That thing that people call God. But it's not out there. It's in here. He said, where? Where is it? I said, it's in your heart, it's in your soul. It's in your DNA. It's in your bone marrow.

[Angela Yee]

Yes, ma'.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Am. So you know, that's how I'm teaching him. Nobody taught me that. They taught me the guy up on the cross with the little droplets of blood and that when I said to them, you know him, he can't help me. How's he gonna help me? And I got beat. Oh, that was. I just remember I'm being traumatized right now. I'm having a trauma memory.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But in moments like that, right, with your great grandson. Because then he'll grow up, he'll go through life. But you talk about in your book, like, even, like, ancestral trauma being a part of things that you gotta, like, cleanse from. When you're young, you don't even know what you're feeling. Even sometimes when you're grown, if you don't have certain experiences or pay attention. So how do you keep cleansing your spirit or yourself? Because at each level of life, things hit you different.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, he is emotionally literate. He will be an emotionally literate black man because I recognize I was raising somebody's father and somebody's husband. I wanted him to be emotionally literate. I wasn't raised that way. So he knows the distinction between frustration and anxiety. He knows when he's sad, he knows when he's happy. He knows when he's frustrated. Why? Because I taught him how to do that most of us are. Many adults are emotionally illiterate. We know happy, sad, good, bad, right, wrong. We don't know frustration, disappointment, exhilaration, bliss. Some of us don't even know peace or joy. So it's up to you. Do your work. That's your spiritual hygiene. In those seven minutes, three times a day for 21 consecutive days, call forth joy. What does joy feel like in my body? What does peace feel like in my body? What this? Where in my body is disappointment? The body is a living organism. Talk to it, it will respond. Yeah.

[DJ Envy]

I want to ask, you know, in this generation, sometimes I feel like.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Which, which one? Cause I spend many.

[DJ Envy]

This generation. I would say from. I would say maybe from 10 to 25. Let's, let's talk there.

[Angela Yee]

Right?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Okay.

[DJ Envy]

I feel like sometimes talking hard to them, it's. They don't understand it, nor do they get it right. It feels, they feel a lot differently. When I see some of your past shows and your new shows, you talk hard to people, you talk real to people. Do you feel like the new generation is too emotional or too soft when it comes to seeing things at face value?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I think you can add us in there too. The people in their 30s too. I think you can add us in that.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, you know what? Because nobody told them the truth. They talked at him, not with them. Talk with somebody. The greatest gift we have is a conversation. Most people don't know how to have one. But when you're going into somebody telling them what they did wrong, what's wrong with them, asking them why they do that. Come here, baby. Come here. Sit right here. Put that down. Stop it. You know, be present. One of the reason the young people today, and I would say 10 and up, are so emotionally disconnected is because nobody's present with them. They sit in the back of the car on a device, looking at the back of someone's head. Who's on a device. Many of them don't eat at a table. They don't know how to set a table. They eat out of a styrofoam box on their lap or in a car. So some of the things that kept us grounded and human and connected with, we've given them up. You know, a lot of them can't cook. I. I met a 23 year old who. He can't cook. I said, well, how do you eat? Uber eats. That is not a recipe.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Right.

[DJ Envy]

But it's like the. Not on my watch, you'd be human resources.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Not on my watch.

[DJ Envy]

You a teacher, you'd Be at the principal's office. But those are the things that my teacher said.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I wouldn't do that to a 10 year old. I wouldn't do that to the tenure. I did that to those disrespectful women because I. Those were my lady balls. Let me set this standard right here. Not on my watch. People will say that. They don't say the next part. Will you disrespect another woman? Yeah, they don't say that part. They just get on the. Not on my way. Am I putting on these little greasy fingerprints?

[DJ Envy]

That's okay, we wipe it down.

[Angela Yee]

Don't worry about it. Don't even worry about it. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. That's just the way the table set up. The way the table is.

[DJ Envy]

That's your fingerprints. We're not easy, lady.

[Angela Yee]

Don't worry about it. Don't even worry about it.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

They're not Somalian.

[Angela Yee]

We're going to be like Houston.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

But we. I wouldn't talk to them like that. You know, those women were conscious and intentional in their maliciousness and I was not going to accommodate it. Sometimes you have to tell the truth in this way. And sometimes it has to be cold water in your face. Sometimes it just has to be who.

[Angela Yee]

Holds you accountable when your hygiene is off, when your spiritual hygiene is off.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I have a whole team of people.

[Angela Yee]

They tell you when you stink.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Oh, hell yeah. This is how they say it, Mama, I don't mean no harm or. What I've taught them to do is to ask me for a hall pass. Because I'm the elder in the circle. You know, I have a whole school. I have a whole school. I have students, I have graduates, I have ministers, coaches. And so I say, listen, don't let me die. If you see me running out in traffic with, you know, toilet paper on my shoe, don't let me die. Tell me the truth. So they'll ask me for a hall pass. You know, in a hall pass you could go anywhere, right? They said, mama, I need a hall pass. I said, okay, let me get the brown liquor. And then we'll get. And then they'll tell me the truth. And because they love me, I can hear it. And it's nothing worse than to treat somebody how to be. And then they correct you when you ain't being that way. I love it.

[Angela Yee]

How do we tell the difference between protecting our peace and avoiding accountability?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Ah, good question. Yeah. Integrity. To tell the truth about it. Tell the truth because you know, when you're avoiding. Or, you know, when you're afraid or, you know, when you're denying or projecting, you know. You know, I don't have to ask you. You know, tell the truth about it. And protecting your peace or creating a boundary looks and feels very different than erecting a wall. And sometimes people erect walls and call it a boundary. No, no. A boundary is built to keep you safe as you let other people in. If your wall is up, you're holding people out. You can create a boundary. This is what I need you to do, because I want to be peaceful in our connection. That's a boundary. Or this is what I'm asking you not to do, so we can be peaceful in our connection. That's a boundary. No, you can't come up in here with that. That's a wall. That's a wall.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I saw you just sit down with Oprah, and you talked about your decision not to go to your daughter's funeral. You kind of put up your boundaries just because of some of the things that was happening within your family.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, not in the family with one particular grandson, her youngest son, who was just out of his mind. And I know it was grief, but I wasn't gonna put myself in jeopardy. I wasn't gonna give him the opportunity to disrespect his mother by disrespecting her mother. And I didn't know what he might do. But I was a trigger for him. I knew I was a trigger for him, and I had to tell the truth about that.

[DJ Envy]

How difficult was that for you?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, once I made the decision, because I made it from a place of love and care, I was okay with it. So I didn't have to go to the funeral. I went the day before. And I had my own thing with her. She was still going to be dead the next day. I didn't have to be there. You understand that the things that we do out of tradition, out of habit, that we don't even want to do. I'm not doing that. I'm too old. Oh. And I don't have wrinkles yet, so I don't want wrinkles.

[Angela Yee]

I don't do funerals either. You know what I mean? For the same reason that you just said, right? Like, I want to remember the person the last time I saw them. I don't want to remember them in the casket. Do you feel like funerals are necessary for the grieving process?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

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[DJ Envy]

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[Iyanla Vanzant]

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[Iyanla Vanzant]

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[Iyanla Vanzant]

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[Angela Yee]

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[Iyanla Vanzant]

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[Iyanla Vanzant]

If we, as people of color, we're doing our traditional burial rites. Oh, yes. I think it's very necessary to lay that spirit to rest to make sure that we're lifting that spirit and light. That's a very different thing. Burial rites are very different than a funeral. Can I tell you something? This is gonna sound totally disgusting, but I'm gonna say it. Okay. I bought my casket. My casket is bought. It's on. Not on layaway. Come on. Come on now.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Charlamagne got two.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Not on layaway. Not that I'm paying it off, but it's bought. Let me tell you why.

[DJ Envy]

I have mine, too. I bought mine, too. Me and my wife, we bought ours.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You bought it on. And was it like $2,700, $2,800?

[DJ Envy]

It was more than that. But yeah, I did. But the reason I did, because I didn't want that. That's one thing I didn't want my kids to have to worry about.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

What I think about, I didn't either. And also when I had to bury my daughter and they charged me $10,000 for a casket and I discovered that from the manufacturer, it was 2,300, I said, let me go down here and get me a casket. So I went down and bought my casket and paid for it. Me too. Exactly what I want. And when I'm not here anymore. All I have to do is call. They'll deliver it in 24 hours.

[Angela Yee]

Yeah, I got it in my stick wheel to get cremated. He cremated and throw my ashes somewhere. Cause you gotta think about it. In 100 years, our tombstones ain't even gonna be around.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

That is so on brand for you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah, I can understand that. I don't particularly wanna be cremated.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

How did your family feel about that? Like your wife and your kids?

[Angela Yee]

We're interviewing Ayanla.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

It's just a very.

[Lauren LaRosa]

But my thing is like if you buy a casket too early, right, and then you know what, if you skinny when you buy it, then you die big. It's like, damn, you still gonna have to pay for them.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

None of them. No. You then just take a little of the padding out. But I want to go back to you with this funeral because the funeral is. It really should be a celebration of the life and it's turned into this whole money making thing. And it's a. The hole in the ground is fifteen hundred dollars or more now. So what I say is if we're going to celebrate the person's life and if we're going to do the rights. For example, in my lineage and my tradition as a Yoruba, we once the person makes transition, we do a nine day prayer process, a 40 day prayer process, and then a one year prayer process to make sure that spirit is lifted and elevated as a, as a Tslaki, Cherokee or I walk in the nation of the Lakota people. They plan their funeral and they are cremated. Many of them, they don't go on the ground. They go back to the earth and they're singing and dance. It's. It's a whole celebration that doesn't have. And, and we do have food because I will say that funeral chicken is some of the best chicken.

[DJ Envy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Who cooks that. Food? Ain't no joke. It really isn't. And so if we're going to do that, then let's do that. But just to sit around and weep and you know, make ourselves crazy. And so many people get stuck in the morning. Bad spiritual hygiene. Grieving is natural. And I talk about grieving as a teacher and an initiation in the book Morning is bad spiritual Hygiene. Mourning says that there's regret, there's remorse. That mourning is a process of because this happened or I lost this, or this person isn't here, this part of me can no longer go on. Like, like when, when I lost my first daughter, I lost my mind. But with my second daughter, I didn't have the same feeling heaviness. And I didn't have that because I knew it was coming and I was prepared for it. And I can remember the days when I felt bad about feeling good. People think because someone dies, you got to feel bad. And I would catch myself feeling bad about feeling good. Bad. Spiritual hygiene, that's mourning. Feeling bad, bad and believing that your life can't go on, or you have resent or you keep resentment or remorse or because this happened, you can't do that, or you should have done this. That's mourning.

[Angela Yee]

But isn't that part of the grief process, though?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

It is a part of the process, but it happens organically, and it passes and, you know, takes different amount of time for everybody. But when you. I'll never love again. My life is over. I'm going out, need some worms. That's morning. That's a different thing.

[Angela Yee]

You talk about unresolved grief living in the body the same way bacteria lives in the mouth. What's the daily practice to clean it up?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Acknowledge it, Acknowledge it. You know, when you feel it, ask. And again, building that relationship with the body. Part of spiritual hygiene is somatic. You know, like, we have a body. There's a distinction between the physical body and the somatic body body. The somatic body is the energy and the feeling in the body. So we'll walk around and we know we have a physical body. Oh, this pain, that leg, this, that. But what is the feeling in there? Okay, your knee is hurting. Okay, what's happening? Knee? What. What are you doing here? So part of grief has to be somatic, and people will grieve and get in the bed and stay there. You can be in the bed, but then get up and stretch. Get up and move. Where is the grief in your body? You know, the grief for my. My babies, my daughters, it's in my heart and where it used to be in the center, now it's just around the edges, and sometimes it comes up. My oldest daughter died on Christmas Day.

[Angela Yee]

Oh, man.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

So I've turned Christmas into a whole thing. It was her favorite holiday. So Christmas for me is not a day of mourning. It's all we haven't for. I will have a tree if I got to go out and cut it down myself, you know, because that grief is there, but it's there in celebration, not in mourning and remorse. So get in the body where's. Everybody has grief about loss of something, something didn't go right. But do you. Are you in relationship with it. Where is it? So it'll show up and then you'd be cussing out the Uber driver. No, that's. That may be grief that was unexpressed and it's in the body. Get in there and find out where it is.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Ayleen, have you ever had a case, right, where you say, these people want.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Me more than me?

[Lauren LaRosa]

I don't think. I can't. You know what I'm saying? Like, after you've helped them and they went on, did you ever say, like, I need to check up on these people? Or maybe they need something far beyond what I can do?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Like, if you have a me, my own self. No, I'm sorry. See, it's hard to answer that question because I don't have cases. I have assignments.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Got you.

[Angela Yee]

Have the assignment ever been too great? You ever said, you know what you need Jesus.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Oh, you need Jesus. It has felt that way. And then when I get still and go within and get the same guidance that sent the people to me is the guidance I get to find out what to do. It always works out because I'm not attached to the outcome. I'm really not. I'm really not attached to the outcome. I'm sent in to do what I do, and I do what I do. What you do with it is your business. You know, you've seen the show. There were some people who fought me all the way. The poor little child that ran out and left and didn't, you know, she wanted to beat me up. She told me she was gonna cut me, and I was like. And my son was there, and he would have cut her, and that would have just been a whole thing. So I figured to just let her go. I've had guests walk out. Althea from Love and Hip Hop, she left. I had another couple. They said they didn't trust me. I left. You don't trust me. I'm out. There's nothing we're gonna do here. I'm not attached to the outcome. I'm attached to the process.

[Lauren LaRosa]

I think your work has gotten us attached to the outcome because so far, too many times I've seen. And that's also why I love watching your show as well, because I really love a person. Oh, let me stand up and show you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I'm shopping. I'm shopping. Just in the middle is this lovely voucher. Not covered thy sister's pants with my lady balls.

[Angela Yee]

You always have adhd.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

It did develop as I got older. The number of times I went upstairs and forgot what I was doing. Up there. And. Yeah, that's adhd. I'm sorry.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

The color, too. The color. Got you.

[DJ Envy]

She done went left, right, up, down.

[Lauren LaRosa]

But the reason why I asked that is because Kevin McCall, I was watching that. That's something that I remembered. And I had no idea that he had had. All we saw, all we see is Kevin's antics then and now.

[Angela Yee]

Right.

[Lauren LaRosa]

But I had no idea that it was attached to his upbringing. You know, you had. You had got him to reveal some things about his upbringing, that his mom, she wasn't the best mom, and how she was there not trying to take accountability either. And that's why. And when he'll go dormant for a while, then it'll come back and it's more antics. And that made me think of. I'm like, damn, well, I need to call Ayanla to see if she can talk to him again. You know what I mean? Like, that's why I asked you, do you ever, after helping somebody say, look, they need something far more than me? Or are you attached to the outcome like you say?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I'm not. And he got what he came to get. It's up to him to use it. Got you. That's his spiritual hygiene. Like, you go to the dentist, they fill your cavity. But if you now then go eat 55 pounds of gummy bears or when you have a temporary filling and you trying to, you know, eat popcorn, that's a problem. So in the same way with God, source, creator, he can only do so much. She, He. It can only do so much. And then the rest of it is on us. That's why it's the inside fix. We could only do so much. Kevin got. And every single one of my guests that was on that show, you know, I'm so grateful to them because the show really wasn't for them. The show was for the viewers. And I told them that I would tell them that. I want to be real clear, this ain't even about you. You were chosen, blessed, guided. To be a demonstration. And how you show up, it's not only going to help you, it's going to help the viewers. We told the viewers that.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I remember you did the. You had the really big daddyless daughter segments that you would do and you would talk about the un. Like, the things that they need to like or the words they need to know, like, daddy's gone. And just the reality of, like, moving forward from.

[DJ Envy]

And I remember you're not triggered right now, right?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

No, I'm not triggered, but I used to watch. I used to watch the show, because me and my dad at that time, it was like, early on in us trying to figure out, okay, he's new back into my life, how do I feel? Do I have questions? And I got to a point where I was like, all right, you weren't here. Here's where my life is. Like, I don't want to be a victim or like a product of that.

[Angela Yee]

She was daddy list is what she was.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I just said that.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Stupid.

[Angela Yee]

I just want to make sure she understands.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

But your series that listens, your series helped me, though, because my mom was one of the people that was like, very, like. She just act like it didn't happen. You were. You acknowledged that it happened, but you didn't let people live in it. So it helped me to realize, like, okay, what are we going to do here? Like, what are we going to do with the relationship? Or what are we going to do with yourself and. And how you feel about that? And if it's not accepted from him or responded to in the way you want, you just. You can only control yourself.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah, but you. Because you get to choose, and he gets to choose. And sometimes the shame of it, the guilt of it. A lot of dads, moms, people can't show up. Husbands who cheat come back and they can never get it together. Or wives, because. Did you know wives were cheating?

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes.

[Angela Yee]

Black men don't cheat, but boy, what, like, women, you don't.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Your nose is growing. Let me. Exactly. Yeah. But, you know, my. My hope, my prayer, and I appreciate so many people are so excited about the show, about the book, and may my legacy be, if nothing else, that I gave people skills and tools to take responsibility for themselves. Because the world we're in right now, the mess that we're in is because we were anticipating somebody else doing for us what we needed to do for ourselves. And so we gotta do the work. You have to do your work.

[Angela Yee]

Accountability is a hard concept for a lot of people to grasp, Ms.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Von Zein. Awareness, accountability, and integrity. Integrity where your mind, your heart, and what you do are all aligned. Very often people think one thing, feel something, and do something else. Get an integrity, line it up and be willing to piss people off to maintain your own integrity. Honor yourself. Don't dim your light. Don't set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. Don't dim your light like that. Take responsibility and just embrace everybody in the process.

[Angela Yee]

I got a couple more questions. You always say healing isn't pretty. Why do people romanticize spirituality but reject the mess that's required to actually evolve.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Intellectualizing the spirit. Like people think spiritual people shouldn't get angry. I'm from Brooklyn. I don't get angry. I get pissed the F off. And I'm coming for you now. Okay? All right. You know what I'm talking about. I grew up with the bodega on the corner, okay? So I just don't do that. I'm responsible for myself when I do it, if I do it, and I don't stay stuck there. And that's not going to become an identity for me. Me. Let me see you abuse a child. I'm coming for you all guns drawn, cussing like a sailor, and hit you in your head, punch you right in your throat. Okay? Disrespect a woman in my presence. I'm coming for you. You know, so even though I'm a deeply spiritual person, there's sometimes when you have to, again, throw cold water in somebody's face. But people want to intellectualize spirituality. Oh, you have to be kind and loving. Yes, you do. All but not. But sometimes you are human and it's okay in terms of it being healing, not being pretty. It's because most of us are not aware of the depth of healing that is required. We're not aware. We think it's just if he would behave or if they would come back or if they would say, I'm sorry, that it would be okay. It's so much deeper than. So much deeper. And most people are afraid to go in. And when I say most people, I'm not generalizing. I'm speaking about in terms of the years that I've been doing this work and what I've seen. What I've seen. Don't want to go within, don't want to look at within. Don't want to do the spiritual hygiene. No, no, no.

[Angela Yee]

Is there a difference between being spiritual, spiritually clean, and being spiritually sterile? And what I mean by that? Can we ever over sanitize ourselves out of just human connection?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Now that, I don't know, spiritually clean you, you're still among everybody. If you're not connected, then you're not spiritual at all. Because the deepest part of spirituality is connection. So I. I don't know about spiritually sterile. Let me write that down. Because, you know, I forget the only.

[Angela Yee]

Reason I was like, some people try to, like you said, they try to set so many boundaries and they intellectualized spirituality to think that they got to be away from people and be apart from people. That, to me, that's Not.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

But some of them do. I mean, look at the monks. Some of them, that's their mission. That's their ministry. That's what they do. They go out there. I'm. I'm not. I'm not on that committee. I'm not on that committee. I'm a. I'm on the people committee. But I. But spiritually sterile. I don't know. That's a good. Thank you for that. That'll be my next book.

[Angela Yee]

I love Spiritual Hygiene, man, because there's a rapper named DG Ola and he had a song, I call it a Negro spiritual called Ain't Gonna Let Up. And in the song he said, get yourself together. Go get your brain a bath. Go to church. Start listening. Get on the right thing path. And that's what spiritual hygiene is. Clean up your spiritual hygiene.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

And I, you know, I really. For me, the greatest thing was to see how far I've come because I wasn't spiritually clean. I wasn't. And to see how far I've come and. And look at the experiences that I've had. The divorce, the. The death of my partner, my. My losing two daughters, you know, all of it. All of it. And to see how far I've come. You know, you can't fall off the floor. So I was on the floor. So to see how far I've come from how far down I was. It's humbling. It's really humbling because millions didn't make it.

[Angela Yee]

How did all that death make you question your own mortality?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, I've decided I'm. I'm gonna stay here till I'm 102. And I'll still be walking in my low heels. See, I got on low heels now because I do believe we get to choose. I really do.

[Angela Yee]

I said 101.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah. I'm do 102, and I'm gonna go to bed, and I'm just not gonna wake up. I just have to remember to put on panties because I don't want. I don't want, like, my son to come in and find my. See my hoo ha. Because I think that would kill him if he saw his mother. Oh, my mama. Hoohah is hanging out. So I just have to remember I'm just gonna go to sleep. I'm not doing the same suffering and the sickness. Like, you know, when I. I stopped going to my regular physical doctor. I have other doctors that I go to because at my age, they, they. They want something to be wrong with me. I don't take a Pill for nothing. I don't have high blood pressure. I don't have the conkus, the bunkus, the husa, fada, nada.

[Angela Yee]

I don't do none of that here.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You know, my blood pressure is normal. You know, I. I don't have any of it.

[Angela Yee]

That's not real.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Right.

[Angela Yee]

I'm about to text my doctor like.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yo. And so they don't believe me. So the only thing they could think to tell me was, well, you are obese.

[Angela Yee]

They told you that? You're not obese.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You're 20 pounds over the. What the white said I'm supposed to be, but, you know, my butt is the size of white boys want for my whole body to be. So I'm not worried about that.

[Angela Yee]

They pay for what you got nowadays.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Okay. But so I just not going to do all of that sickness stuff. And I'm not going to live up to the standards that they set for me. Like, they wanted to do these weird things to me and I said, well, why are we doing that? They said, because people your age, I don't have that. Don't have nothing to do with me. That has anything to do with me. I'm not doing that. You are not sticking that up there now. Not doing that colonoscopy, you mean? No, I've done those.

[Angela Yee]

Oh, okay.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah. Because my daughter died of colon cancer. So I take. But other things. Other things. Oh, no, I'm not doing that.

[Angela Yee]

And this queen is 72, by the way. For anybody out there wondering.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

But I have a relationship with my body.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yeah.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

And you know, God is so merciful because I'm a Virgo. I'm a hypochondriac.

[DJ Envy]

Me too.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

You too? Both. Every little thing, you know, a headache is a brain tumor.

[DJ Envy]

Oh, my God.

[Angela Yee]

But the bad thing, I don't even gotta have the headache. I can see somebody else. Somebody died from aneurysm. I work with the check right now.

[DJ Envy]

I work with one. So we go back and forth and.

[Angela Yee]

Be like, yeah, I gotta go to the doctor. I'm like, I gotta go to the doctor too. I called him this week. I said, hey, I just got scared from head to toe. I said, the doctor doing brain aneurysm scans. Not everything.

[DJ Envy]

And I set my appointment.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Right. So you understand what I'm saying? Absolutely. So God didn't give me any of that because I would survive. I would live in the doctor's, have a box in the corner by the stove in the doctor's office. So I don't have that. But you know, People want you to line up with what they think you should be. What you. Even as a spiritual person. You know, for years, and I say this, I've been doing this work since 1988, okay? For years, I was a demon. I was all sorts of things. They would not let me in a pulpit in the church. And then when my books started selling and people would come in, the offering plate would be bigger. Then I became welcome. Why? Because I didn't do it the way they did it. But that's not how God told me to do. I don't have to answer to you. When I get wherever I'm going, if I have to answer to anybody, it won't be you. So I had to follow my purpose, my mission, my life.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Have you been able to find that love that works for you yet? I remember in an earlier episode of Ayala Fix My Life, you were saying you stayed with a man for 14 years, but then you left him because you didn't want to have to teach 13. I'm sorry. Teach somebody how to love you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Right. Well, you know, because I. Right after that, I left that relationship. He passed. And right after that, I got my great grandson. So I've been grandmothering him now, and I want to be fully present for him. This is a kid who doesn't have his mom or his dad. His grandmother, my daughter was raising him. She's gone. So now he's with me. And so I made a conscious choice right now. I don't want to say, that's my man, because I don't, you know, that's your focus. But he has my heart because the three hearts that were closest to him, he lost. I don't want him to have to compete for my heart. Yeah. So right now, he's my focus. He's eight now, so I. You know, hopefully I. Everything will still be working and in order.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes, ma'.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Am.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes, ma'.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Am. By the time he's 10. And then, you know, because even to date, I don't want to bring. Because people coming in out of his life has a totally different meaning. His mom's gone, his dad's gone, his grandma's gone. So I'm dating somebody for three months, and then they're gone. What does that do to him? Yeah, so I'm consciously parenting in a way that I didn't do it. My kids. So I. I'm. I'm. But, girl, I got. There's some eye candy out there because.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

A lot of people be exhausted by. Outside the streets be exhausting.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Some people Huh?

[Charlamagne Tha God]

A lot of people be exhausted by the dating life right now. You're looking forward to getting back to the date.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

But see, I want to create what I want and call him in. I know what he looks like. I'm not doing this, you know, on the line speed dating kind of stuff. I'm sit right in my home and I'm going to let my lady boss hang out and I'm going to meditate, call him in and he going to show up.

[Angela Yee]

What about them spiritually transmitted diseases, though? Trying to get some pee pee. And then he doesn't put all his negative spiritual height.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. He got. No, no, he, he, he can't. Because my qualifications or what I desire in a partner, number one, I want to make sure he has a good relationship with his mother and his children. That's number one. Because if you can't be in relationship with your mama, iyamala means great mother. I don't have a chance in hell. You gotta be in relationship with your mom. You got to be in relationship with your kids. And I don't care how old he is. Although I'm going younger, I got to go a little younger.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Okay, yeah. You ain't trying to get that.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah, yeah. No, you know what? Because, right? And, and also because my experiences, a lot of brothers in my age category.

[DJ Envy]

I have ed.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Okay, Yeah. I can't do the blue pill thing.

[Angela Yee]

It's a OG out there right now. Say, I'll put that blue chew on you right now.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

No, you will not. Take your bluechew down in the basement. Get out of here. I am not on the bluechew committee.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

What age are you looking at?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Like 50, 40? No. Oh, girl, that's robbery.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Oh, okay.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

My son is 55.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

I just was asking.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I. I think for 70, I can do 68. You know what? My what? I said, could he have babysat my son? See, if he's 68, he would have been 13. He could have watched my 10 year old.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Gotcha.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

That's how I'm doing that. Is that good? That's good math. Yes, ma'.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Am.

[DJ Envy]

One of them young boys gonna put it on you, though. Listen, they gonna be in your DMs.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I had one roll up on me in the gas station and I was so out of it, I didn't. And when I reckon, I said, are you, are you hitting on me? He said, yes, ma', am, I am. I said, how old are you? He said, 37. I said, boy, please, I got bras older than you. He said, I would like to see it.

[Angela Yee]

Did you get a number or not?

[DJ Envy]

Did you get a number?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

But I couldn't stop laughing. Oh, yes. He said, I would love to see it. Yeah. Boy, you wouldn't even recognize it. You wouldn't even know what it was. But yeah.

[Angela Yee]

Oh, we love you, man. And we value you and we appreciate you. Just thank you, man. I'm glad that God created you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Thank you. And I'm glad you're here. And I'm really, really happy about. You're going to Netflix, right?

[Angela Yee]

No.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

January 26th of this year.

[DJ Envy]

Yes.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Well, I should have waited. You go to Netflix January 26th. I'm going to the MGM theater in my first public appearance in since 2019 was that I'm at the MGM Theater in D.C. in D.C. on January 25th.

[Angela Yee]

Appearance in 2019.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Wow, that's amazing. Congratulations.

[DJ Envy]

How can they get tickets?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Go to the MGM theater thingy there. I'm so excited.

[Lauren LaRosa]

MGM theater thingy.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

That's right.

[Angela Yee]

You took a break to grieve.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

No, I just, you know, was Covid.

[Angela Yee]

Okay.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

And then I wasn't on the show and then I was grandmothering and then I just, you know, I've done little things here and there, but me on the stage doing Iyanla.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Oh, I haven't done that since 2019.

[DJ Envy]

Get your tickets. Also, the Inside Fix premieres on the 17th of this month. And thank you for joining us.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Thank you for having me.

[DJ Envy]

I really a lot of fun and I.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Can I say this too?

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

First of all, you are absolutely gorgeous. Thank you know that, right?

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes, ma'. Am.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Don't let Charlamagne tell you anything. Anything.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Okay.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Okay.

[Lauren LaRosa]

Yes.

[DJ Envy]

Can you tell it to Lauren too?

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Yeah, well, she knows she's the baby girl. She just a beauty. Little funkin in her face.

[DJ Envy]

I mean, told Charlamagne don't bother her.

[Angela Yee]

That's what.

[DJ Envy]

That was the part.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

I mean, don't bother.

[Angela Yee]

I don't bother.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

Yes, he does.

[Angela Yee]

I'll be trying to get her to get her spiritual hygiene, clean.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Calm. I'm gonna give.

[Charlamagne Tha God]

And it's the MGM national harbor website. Bring your tickets, you can go.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

And let me say this. I am so proud of you.

[Angela Yee]

Thank you.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Really, as an og, I am so proud of you and the way that you present. I mean, sometimes you all do a little controversial, but that's okay. I'm og, but I can do this. My little ones keep me up to date. Continue to represent yourselves and us in this really powerful, productive way. I was so excited when I heard about Netflix.

[DJ Envy]

Yes.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Good. So just continue to do it. Okay?

[DJ Envy]

All right. There you have it. It's your breakfast club.

[Iyanla Vanzant]

Good morning. Yes.

[DJ Envy]

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[DJ Envy]

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[Charlamagne Tha God]

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