You Must Be It, Before You Can Have It

Published Jul 5, 2023, 10:00 AM

This week, a struggling woman calls Iyanla looking to learn how she can be happy being single, but as Iyanla learns more about the caller’s situation, it becomes apparent that there’s more to the story. The caller shares the heartbreaking experience of her father’s death, and learns that her relationship being transactional might have some huge consequences for her happiness going forward.
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I am a Yamla. I've been very open about the fact that I was not always good at making my relationships work. I have been divorced three times, twice from the same person. In other words, I have seen a lot and failed a lot in my relationships. So I am here to share with you what I learned along the way, because I did take copious notes. Welcome to the r Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. I think one of the most challenging questions women have at a certain age is why can't I find somebody to love me? And particularly in that twenty age group twenty to twenty nine, even nineteen to twenty nineteen to twenty nine, yeah, that ten year span. They want to be chosen. They want to be the one that gets picked. They want to be the one that somebody chooses because their dream is to be connected. Their dream is for companionship, for joy. They want to know the power of a commitment. But if those women are bringing in their mother's unhealed business, their mother's unhealed issues, which they do, which we do, what we're born into, what we're born from, what we're born with, matters, And what we don't understand is wherever our mother was when she got pregnant with us, how she got pregnant with us, how she lived throughout the pregnancy, how she felt, how she thought. That's what we're born from, that's what we're born with, and that's what we're born into, and we may have to spend those first twenty twenty nine years cleaning up what we inherited. We don't understand that, and we try to boil it down to why doesn't anybody want me? And it's just it's a bigger question. It's a bigger question, and my caller this morning has some really really big questions. Take a listen, Greetings, we love it, and welcome to the R Spot. What is your relationship challenge, issue dilemma that we can dive into today.

Well, first of all, Wow, what an honor and a privilege it is to speak to you. I'm calling you in because I'm twenty eight right now, going on twenty nine, and in my single season of my life, and I'm not happy about it. It's actually something that brings me great pain and I cry over it at night. It frustrates me, and I'm trying to connect the dots as to why this is causing so much devastation on me emotionally, because I feel like I have everything that I need to be at peace with myself in the season, Like I have wonderful, amazing, loving friends. I'm a woman of faith. I go to church every Sunday, I read the Word every day. I'm also in therapy, and I still feel like I'm doing everything that I can and it still isn't enough. And I'm already feeling like pressureus from you know, family, to you know, why haven't you found a man yet yet? You're almost twenty nine. It's time to start settling down and working your way like towards that you know, the future of having a family, and which is something that I want as well. So I just want to ask you, like, what can I do internally to clean up whatever it is inside of me that is preventing me from being at peace and happy in the season of my life and just move forward.

Wow, that's a lot being at peace and happiness. So that would say to me that you're not at peace and you're not happy. I'm It's very interesting because you are in the cycle of life that we call the bride cycle, which really runs from twenty twenty to twenty nine, and the bride cycle is when you're moving from being just a girlfriend into just to being a bride, a wife, really a bride, and there's a distinction between being a bride and a wife. The bride just wants to be chosen. She wants to be the one that's picked and chosen from among all the other The bride isn't really focused on or thinking about what it means to be a wife. She's focused on the connection. She's focused on the wedding, she's focused on the companionship. So that's the cycle you're in age twenty to twenty nine when you want to be receptive to love, when you want to be in a committed relationship, and the ritual that the bride has to do really it's prayer. Prayer for the right companion, prayer for the strength to be a wife and be a mother. You're moving into that thirty to thirty nine year cycle when motherhood and wifehood those things happen. So you're a right where you need to be wanting a companion warning a relationship, but the question is do you want it for the right reasons? Do you want it? Because you're really ready to integrate and your life, give up your freedom as a single woman, and begin to make joint decisions with the right person. So on one hand, you're exactly where you need to be, and this is a time for you really to get clear. What I'm more interested in is why you're not at peace or have happiness being with yourself. That's number one. And number two, you said, you pray, you go to church, you read the word, and why aren't you getting what you want? You don't go to church to get what you want. You don't read the Word to get what you want. You don't do those things to get what you want. You do those things to build your relationship with God. So if you have a transactional relationship with God, because that's what it is, if you going to church, reading the word and being the right person and doing the right things to get something in return, that's transactional. So where else are you in transactional relationships?

Wow, that's kind of hard for me to identify. But immediately, just whatever whatever came to my mind just in this instant, was I would say with my mother, our relationship at this point is definitely transactional, and I feel like it's transactional because that's that's the only way that it can operate in order for us to even have some sort of connection with each other. Like we don't have a good relationship at the moment. It's been very unstable and dysfunctional for as long as I can remember, and I find myself constantly being in the pursuant role in terms of like initiating conversation, you know, initiating like quality time like spent together, and it's it's very frustrating, but I could say that for certain, that's the number one transactional relationship of my life right now.

So you want to become a wife and a mother when your relationship with your mother is not working, So what will be your model.

Right, I honestly don't know. Even when it comes to romantic relationships. I don't have a positive model of that either, because my father, you know, he took his life before it was born, like in front of my mother. She was, you know, very depressed for a very long time for the first I would say, like ten to twelve years of my life. And that also contributed to why you weren't able to have a connection So I've never seen a healthy relationship between you know, a man and a woman in general, especially because of my situation with my parents. So I feel like I'm just now, as an adult, like trying to identify what that looks like for me.

And maybe that's that's why it hasn't shown up yet. Maybe life, the universe, the Divine Mother, whatever you want to call it, God, Christ, maybe they're giving you an opportunity to clarify your vision about what a relationship is before you get plumped down into one.

Oh No, I've been in dead and dead end after relationship, like all of them just has not worked. I mean, I'm grateful for those experiences, but every relationship's ever been in has just been dead end after dead end, and over time, I try to remain optimistic about, you know, being eventually aligned with someone who will love me and respect me, but it's starting to affect like my ability to have hope and have faith that I'm going to get to that point because of all of the back to back of misalignments and rejections.

Well, because you're looking out and not looking in, I want to point out something to you that's in your speaking that reveals what's in your consciousness? Okay, okay, you said my father took his own life in front of my mother. Is that not a dead end?

It is?

Oh, take a breath. And then you say, every relationship that I've been in comes to a dead end. So did I hear you accurately when you said before you were born? This happened between your father and your mother when.

She was nine months pregnant with me.

So that pattern, that pathology of dead end relationships was born with you. You came in with it, your mother saw it, she felt it. Who knows what she went through. She nursed you on it, she fed you on it, she raised you in it. And now here you are living the pathology that you were born with. So there's nothing wrong with you wanting it. There's nothing wrong with you having as Again, you're in the bride cycle twenty to twenty nine. That's what women twenty to twenty nine focus on. That's what they want a companion. But we've got to create a new vision for you because the one that you have is dead end.

Say that again, it's just absolutely truth.

Okay, we'll talk more about it when we come back. Welcome back to the R Spot. Let's get back to the conversation. We have to create a new vision for you because despite the fact that you want this in your mind and you see it and you desire it, the vision that you have of it, the vision that you brought in about relationships is dead end. It ends at death and ends with death. It dies. Yeah, So we have to create a new vision for you to have a relationship that brings you the companionship, the joy, the acceptance, the cooperation that you want. But do you have to have a vision for that because the one that you're currently living is that relationships come to a dead end.

Well, I'm not entirely sure at this point. Like what more I can do to flesh out that vision? Because I've asked, like.

You care, you can't do you can't do anything. You have to be it. You have to be receptive, you have to be a companion, You have to be committed, You have to be willing to cooperate. You can't do anything doing as outside and as opposed to do have B. Let me do the right thing so I can have a relationship and then I will be happy. Do have B. You want to be be Let me be open, be committed, be a companion first to myself, then to my creator so that I can have that. At the physical level, you want to be the thing so that you will have the thing that you want in order to I'm sorry, be the thing and do the things that are required to keep it alive so that you can have the thing. So you've got to be happy first. You've got to be peaceful first. So instead of the do have B model, you want to be have do mind and right now you're doing so you can be and have you got it backwards, So the question becomes, how do I be happy? How do I be peaceful? How do I be joyful? Because if you want to be in relationships so that you're not alone, so that you're not unhappy, so that you're not unpeaceful, you're going to create another transactional relationship. Let me have you so I can be happy, Let me have you so that I can be at peace. Let me have you so I can be a mother.

No, I don't know. I guess we're our struggles that even in my current situation right now that I've been celibate for several months now, I haven't really been dating. And the last person that I was dating. We were dating for three months. You were in you know, a situationship, and I was so devastated when that situationship came to a close, ultimately because I wanted to commitment and he wasn't ready to commit. But I felt like, wow, this is the first time where I feel like, you know, intellectually, physically, sexually, like I'm just attracted to this person on multiple levels. And in my past relationships there was always one of those elements that were missing where you know, there's a great sexual, physical connection, but I can't talk to you about anything of substance or death or you know, vice versa, where we can talk about like you know, politics and the stars and astrology, anything under the sun. There's a great, you know connection there mentally and intellectually, but you know, when there's the sexual connection, you know, I'm it's splatlining. I'm bored. So I felt like, wow, this is the first person I ever met that that checked eighty percent of my boxes with the exception of commitment. And then ever since that situation, I've just been encountering other men even where the connection isn't I'm strong, but when it comes to the commitment, they're not willing to meet me where.

I'm at dead and dead end.

You're right.

The question becomes, how do I be okay with myself? How do I be at peace with myself? And then and then I can invite someone in or receive someone that increases my peace, my joy, my happiness. But as long as you're functioning in the same paradigm of I've got to be in a relationship to be happy, or a relationship makes me happier, or I've got to be committed or whatever it is, as long what do I do to make that happen? As long as you're in that paradigm, you're not going to attract the very thing you say you want.

I hear you. I have a lot of work to do.

Well, not necessarily, not necessarily a lot of work to do. There you go more doing the psychic Yeah, well, I mean you've got a divine opportunity here. I want to support you in the shifting of your consciousness. And then, how do you be okay with the way your relationship is with your mom without believing you have to do something to make it better? How do you just be okay? My mom is a woman who was pregnant by a man who took his life in front of her, how selfish, how angry? And what has that done to her heart? And was she not able to give me? And how can I give it to myself now?

I don't know, Yalla. I feel like I've exhausted all of my options with my mother, Like I've tried to, you know, encourage her to join me in therapy, and she's not recessive to that. And when I was much younger, like when I was in my early twenties and even my teenage years, I had just reached a point where there was no relationship. I had completely just shut myself, you know, out from dealing with her in any way. And then as I you know why, I just feel like it doesn't matter if you're my mother or not. If you're not loving and respectful towards me, I don't feel the need to be in a relationship with you. And I apply this logic to every relationship with my life, like whether it's a family members a friend, if I don't feel like love and warmth, because that's those the two ingredients that I've been missing from our relationship my entire life. She was very detached and cold and distant, towards me. I don't know what else to do, and it's frustrating, like having to constantly I feel like I have to accept this behavior just because she's my mother. It's just I just don't want to accept that. I'm having a hard time. I'm accepting that I should say.

Well, again, transactional. You want to do these things and hopefully she'll do something in return. So let's just take a look at that for a moment. That's probably the same thing that the men you're in relationship would feel from you, because that's a condition of your heart. Father represents mind, mother represents heart. Right now, your heart is transactional. So let's just take a look at that. Are you open to that for just a minute. Yes, I'm not saying that your feelings are not valid, because they are. I'm not saying that your experience is not real because it is.

So.

How old was your mother when she was pregnant with you? Nineteen? That's called the princess cycle. The young woman who's the visionary. She sits and she sees a vision of the future. She has a lot of hope in what's going on, just confidence in herself, and she's seeking unconditional love at nineteen, that's what she wants. I'm assuming they were not married. Is that actually now?

The sweetheart?

So she had this vision of how her life was going to be with him and what they were going to do and how they were going to be together. She's a princess. It's all about her. It's all about what she wants and what she sees, and everybody is to serve her. And then, one day, without any warning from anything about anything, or maybe there was some warning, we don't know, her high school sweetheart ends her vision. Her high school sweetheart puts a condition on their love. Her high school sweetheart destroys all hope she has for the future and ends his life in front of her, and does this while she is pregnant at nineteen with his child. Do you think happened to her heart? Take a breath? What do you think happened to the princess's heart that day?

The blood just stopped pumping into it. It just okay, flattened doubt.

Yes, So, the vision that we're gonna ride off in the sunset, We're gonna have this little baby, and we're gonna my everything, her vision, her hope, her experience, of love, her laughter, because all of that is in the fourteen to nineteen year age. That's where she's pumping at. In a moment's notice, it's flatlined. And I can almost guarantee you her mother didn't know how to help her repair her shattered heart. So now she's got a constant reminder that her vision, her hope, her dreams for the future are shattered. And that reminder would be you. It ain't personal. I know that sounds bizarre.

No, I've thought that before. That's why she's been so cold to me, because I remind her constantly of that situation.

And in the meantime, she has this life that she has to nourish when she's not being nourished, nurture when she's not being nurtured, Teach when she probably hasn't been taught. I'm not making excuses for your mother. I'm trying to give you the picture so that you understand there is nothing you can do to change that. She first of all has to be willing, She has to ask for the help. She has to know she needs to help. Did she clothe you? Did she clothe you? Did you have something to eat? Every day? I did, and and did you learn how to tie your shoes and spell your name.

I did, Yes, I did.

That's probably all she had to give. Doesn't make her wrong and you right. Doesn't make you wrong and her right. I want you to understand what you're asking for and what you're trying to create. Twenty eight years later, you're probably not going to get it. So there's nothing you can do to repair the shattering of her heart that she passed on to You can't do anything. You can pray for her, but not pray for her because you want her to be better for you. Pray for her because you want the pain of her shattered heart to be healed. She probably doesn't even think that's possible.

Now she does it. She's very negative. She's an most pessimistic person I've ever met in my entire life, Like I feel like I have.

Let's wait a minute, wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's relanguage that she's not negative. She's broken.

He's broken.

You're judging it as negative because you're not getting what you want from her, and she's giving you all that she has, even if that is feed you, clothe, you tie your shoes, If that's all she has. Can you be grateful? Yes? Did you ever live in a shelter?

Never? Uh?

This is what I say to people when they have this negative perspective of who their mother is and how she is. The first thing I said is know her story, not as your mother, but as a woman. Know her story. Your mother has a tragic story. So think of this. You need something that your mother can't provide you, and she says, I've got to go uptown to get it. You live downtown, What you need is uptown and they're six inches of snow on the ground. Just naturally, a mother is going to give her children what she thinks they need. So with six inches of snow, she goes out, braves the weather, and walks three and a half miles to get uptown to look in the garbage can. Because the only thing she can do to give you what you need is get it out of the trash can. So she walks the three miles in the snow, digs through the trash cans at the fanciest buildings, on the most ritziest blocks, gets what she thinks you need, and then walk back three miles and gives it to you. And you look at it and say Oh this is trash, but you know what, it was the best trash she could find. And she walked three miles there and three miles back in six inches of snow. Yes, she's giving you trash, but it's the best trash she could find. Could you be grateful?

I am grateful for the best trash she could find. Yeah, I'm grateful.

Well, you don't have to be, but it would probably be in your best interests. Yes, you can. You continued, You can continue to long for what you didn't have. You can continue to judge what she's giving you. You can continue to do that, and that's not going to turn out well for you, So you don't have to change. But if you want to change your life, I would suggest that you say, oh, well, my mama gave me trash, but it was the best trash you could find, and she didn't even know it was trash. And I can't expect her, ask her, require her, demand of her to give me anything different, because the only thing she knows how to give me is the best trash she has. I know it's trash. She doesn't. She don't even know it's trash. As a mom, she gave my she did what was required to give the child what it needed. She has no idea that even though it came from uptown, it's still trash, no idea. That's your mother's story as a woman. So don't pray for her to get better so she can give you something different. Pray for her to get better so that she can have the peace and the joy and the happiness that you desire.

That's going to take some work. I'm gonna be honest.

With you were born from and into a shattered heart. Hear me. You were born from a shattered heart, born into a shattered heart, nurtured, nourished, fed, directed, guided by a shattered heart. That's your pathology. So until you neutralize that, you're going to keep creating a shattered heart a dead end. Start here. If my situation were to never change, and if I'm gonna be single from twenty nine to ninety nine, what do I need to do to have peace? What do I need to do to have happiness? We'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome back to the r spot. Let's pick up where we left off. Nothing's ever gonna change. I'm gonna be by myself from now till I till I turn one hundred and sixty two, I'll never get no more nookie. I'll never wake up to a warm body in the bed next to me. You know, I mean start there, because that is what's going to bring up for you, all of the things that you tell yourself about being with yourself and with God. If nothing in my life were to ever change, if my life were to be like it is right now to the end of time, what do I need to do? How do I need to be to have peace, to have joy, to be in happiness. God's not a matchmaker. Praying to God for the right man. In God's eyes, all men are the right man. Do you think God is saying, no, not him. That's my son and I love him, but he's a little crazy. No, no, not him. That's my son, and he's on the journey, but he's gonna make you crazy. And do you think God is saying that he's not a matchmaker. He's saying, this is my son and whom I am well pleased. This is my daughter and whom I'm well pleased. Let them get together and let's see what they're gonna do. Wow, what you're creating with is all relationships, all my relationships and in the dead end, leaving my heart shattered once again. That's what you're creating.

With Oh, I never thought about it like that before.

Reprogram your DNA so that you don't continue the pathology of your mother and your grandmother and her mother and her mother. Step out of the ancestral pattern so that you can be do different and have different And the way you do that is start where you are. God, my life is never going to change. If my life never changes, if I never find the right partner, if I never have a companion, show me how to have peace, Show me how to have joy. Teach me how to have peace and joy right where I am, within myself, not outside with my lovely friends.

I can do that. I'm ready.

Listen, you did it again. I can be that. Not I can do that. Do that.

I'm going to have to repeat this self in the mirror over and over again.

The distinction is being is within Doing is without deal with your shattered heart. You've got a shattered heart too, because you weren't mothered. You grew up, but you weren't raised. So go tell your therapist everything I said. I will.

I will tell her, y'ama said.

I gotta be it and stop doing it. Tell her that, Tell her I got Yama said, I got to heal my shattered heart because I was born from a shattered heart into a shattered heart, and I need to clean that up. How do we clean that up? How do I eliminate the judgments of my mother? A lot a lot, a lot, a lot of a lot of a lot of forgiveness. Work and forgive your father for his selfishness, for his anger, for leaving your mother. Forgive him until you can get to the place where you don't judge him or blame him, because that's in there too.

It is I have to take a breath for a moment, because I just saw something come up. When you said that, I was like, oh.

Take a deep breast, Yeah, what came up?

I think I've struggled for a long time with the question of the question of why wasn't I enough for you to work through whatever you were going through at that time? You want to stay here and be present for my mother and for me, because he knew that my mom was pregnant obviously, and it didn't it wasn't enough for him to want to say, Okay, I'm going to fight for my life, and you know, whatever model I have internally, I'm going to get the help that I need in order to you know, be there for my child and for my mother. So I'm working that out through therapy of that you know, why wasn't I enough? Why didn't that matter? And I think also to that belief is trickling into how I navigate relationships as well, because like, even when that person I was dating a couple of months ago, he wouldn't commit. It was just so devastating to me. It's like, I think it's because my mind is automatically rerouted to that belief of like, you know, I'm not enough, and that's why he didn't want to stay as opposed to we just weren't compatible. You weren't a good fit, and that's why it didn't work out. But I feel like I have a battle constantly between what I intellectually know and what my heart is.

Feeling because your heart is shattered. Your heart is shattered, and you keep trying to put the little pieces together. You have made your father's suicide personal. It won't personal. It ain't had nothing to do with you. Your father was in pain. But most people who take their own lives. Don't want to die. They want to stop hurting, and they don't know how to stop hurting. And since they connect the hurt to life, they figure, if I end life, I'll stop hurting. They thought doesn't go any further than that. You've taken on all of these things into your shattered heart. I'm telling you he was hurting. It didn't have anything to do with you. He had to stop himself from hurting. So it's not why am I not enough? That is the wrong question. The question is I am enough? How do I live it?

Wow?

I am important? How do I live it? I do matter? How do I live it? That's what you take to God, because you matter to God. You are important to God, and you are enough for God. Because see the other little peace that you've got going on here that'll take us another hour to explore. Is ever, whatever your thoughts are about your father, you have those same thoughts about the Father. So all of your breakdown with you're saying to yourself God, why am I enough for you? Why am I not important enough for you to give me what I want need? The same things you have going on with your father, you have going on with the father because there's no separation. There's only one, and the consciousness the universe doesn't READI is the father, your father, my father of father. Universe only reads father.

Wow, that was powerful. I'm just taking a moment to put.

That sit in. I want you to send me your therapist check this week. Okay, I will.

I will thank you so much.

Let me just say, remember, be it, do what's required to sustain it so that you can have it. Not do have B. Let me do the right thing so I can have what I want and then I'll be happy. Not do have b B. Do have be in relationship with God, be in relationship with yourself. Do what's required to say, say, sustain, grow, expand that so that you can have the relationship that you want. Tell me something you know now that you did know when you called. And I want to make sure something is landed in that.

I need to be all the things that.

Say it like this, because I know that your little mind likes doing what I What I know now is what I know now is start there. What I know now is what I know.

Now is that I am enough, I do matter, I am important, and I need to live in that, live in that mindset and live in that mentality good.

What else?

What I know now is what I know now is I've been navigating all of my relationships in a very transactional way, and I need to be more present and focused on what's happening right now in the present moment, instead of projecting all of these all of the stuff I have with my mother and my father and God's the Father and all of my other relationships. Stop projecting and be present now.

Is there anything else?

And I need to quit therapy and give you another qu.

No, don't you need that objective voice, that objective eye. You're going to be fine, you know. And remember you were born with, you were born from, and you were born into a shattered heart. So in essence, you have a heart condition. Work on your heart condition and everything else will line up. And the good news is, my love, you are exactly where you need to be at twenty eight to twenty nine years old. Clean this eype so that when you get into thirty you don't have all of this unfinished business.

Okay, okay, thank you so much.

Yes, have a blessed, blessed day.

You too, have a blessed day.

Okay, bye bye. For women, the do have be model is outdated. It is simply not going to work. You can't do enough in order to have what you want. In order to be what it is you desire to be, you have to be it first. You have to be the peace. You have to be the joy. You have to be the happiness. You have to be the contentment, you have to be the commitment. You have to be it first for yourself, within yourself, so that you will do the things that are required to sustain and maintain your happiness, your joy, your peace, your contentment, and then you will have what it is you desire. That's where we have to go. That means there's some work we have to do to be the thing first. Not just young women, old women, or women be it so that you can have it. I hope this has been helpful to someone, and if you have a question about this or any other relationship issue, you can call me live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven six eight. Now be sure to follow me on social media for all of the calling times, and until then, stay in peace and not pieces. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your face Ritchells

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