Barbara Ellington, Senior Gleaner Writer
Iyanla Vanzant has said that she chose her path after, "God told me to do four things: tell my story, teach His law, write books and make people laugh." - CONTRIBUTED
COME JULY 21 to 24, Jamaican women will get the opportunity to participate in Wonder Woman Weekend facilitated by attorney/talk-show host/author, Iyanla Vanzant, at the Jamaica Grande Hotel in Ocho Rios, St. Ann. She will also participate in a book signing at Kingston Bookshop in Liguanea Post Mall at noon on July 21 and a public lecture at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel that same evening at 6:00 p.m.
The week's events form part of the fifth anniversary celebrations attorneys-at-law Nicholson Phillips who invited Ms.Vanzant because she is regarded as someone who has achieved limitless potential while remaining true to her religious faith. These are ideals synonymous with the law firm.
The name Iyanla is a cultural name from the south western region of Nigeria's Yoruba people; it means great mother. Ms. Vanzant's mother was from Dahome.
Flair spoke with Ms. Vanzant about her visit to the island, her local links through marriage and her goals for the Wonder Woman Weekend
Ms. Vanzant has said that she chose her path after, "God told me to do four things: tell my story, teach His law, write books and make people laugh." But as she revealed in the interview, this charge did not come in a vision or dream. She said people who have a relationship with God know how to hear from Him.
INSPIRATION
"For me it was an inspiration; something that came from within at a time when I was questioning what I was supposed to. I was writing Acts of Faith and I was focused and developing in my relationship with God."
Is she fulfilling all His charges? Except for writing books, Ms. Vanzant says she is. But she is only now working on her first book in four years - although she would not reveal the title she said it's about the next stage of growth and development for people; why we resist standing in our truth and our power and what we need to do about that.
The daily devotional book, Acts of Faith has become extremely popular with men and women worldwide; some people keep it by their beds as a companion read to the Bible while others keep it in their handbags daily. On the question of whether Ms.Vanzant ever envisioned the book would have such a far-reaching, positive effect, she said, "When you get a directive from God, you don't think about what it's going to do, you think about what you're going to do. I never considered what would happen, I was just being obedient to my purpose and my creator."
Now taping episodes for the NBC television hit reality series, Starting Over, she will continue for another year as the programme's host. In response to our question about the percentage of the content of such shows that is real, Ms. Vanzant who is also a regular contributor to the Oprah show, says all of the show is real. "The only structured part of the show is the day of activities for the women; it is about women, their healing and growth, so it is all real."
The status of women in the 21st century gives the author much hope and she thinks women are just starting to wake up to the fact that they are powerful and have the right to live in peace, wealth and joy.
INNER CALLING
"There is an inner calling on women's hearts to be stronger and move out of some of the dishonouring roles and experiences that they have been placed in - these include: violence against women and health problems that constantly plagued us. Women have to start saying - no more; the challenge is that most women learnt how to be women from men, not from women. Our mothers taught us what women do but not what women be; we learnt how to be women by pleasing men."
"I think we are realising that how men want us to be will not work for us, it does not serve us or honour us. Women are seeing what's happened to their daughters and sons and saying - no more - we don't know how to be women."
The Wonder Women Weekend will be about supporting women in healing and giving them tools to help them be, think, feel, play and work better and thereby, honour themselves in a different way. It will answer questions and help them, she told Flair.
This is what Ms. Vanzant does on the television show Starting Over and on her travels in the United States and elsewhere.
On the question of fulfilling her true self, her worth, her calling and whether there is anything else that she would like to achieve? She had a resounding "Yes". But achievement for her means being out in the world and there is nothing else she wants to achieve in the world. Within herself, Ms. Vanzant wants a deeper relationship with God and to spend more time in His presence so she can do better work in the world.
"I am learning to be kinder, faithful and compassionate but there is nothing in the world that I want to achieve, she said."
In light of the recent acts of violence against children both in Jamaica and the United States, Flair asked Ms. Vanzant to say what else we should be protecting them. She said there is no more we can do except raise our sons better. Men who rape and murder children are raised by women.
"If we raise better sons, they will have more compassion; things happen that we don't understand but if the deaths of children do nothing more than make us more watchful of our children and get us talking to each other more, we will find the good in it and try to create more good."
She also said we cannot stop insanity in people's minds but if sons see their fathers beating their mothers, they are going to grow up beating women. "If he sees mother being dishonoured and disrespected, he will do the same to women; if you are not tender, loving and compassionate to him, he won't be that way to women. I am not blaming women, but so many young girls are having children in dysfunctional relationships with men and the sons they produce are watching grow up to do the same. What we have to do to protect our girls, is to be better women."
Healed Hearts
At the end of the Wonder Woman Workshop, Ms. Vanzant hopes participants will come away with healed hearts that have been broken by experience, beliefs and disappointments. They will also unload baggage they walk around with and hold on to, having not been taught how to unload it. Secondly, she hopes they will walk away with tools that teach them how to honour themselves and make sure everyone else is honouring them. There are cultural mores, beliefs and practices embraced but which don't work for us and women need to be able shed them.
This is not Ms.Vanzant's first visit to Jamaica, in fact, her book, The Value in the Valley was written in Montego Bay and she was also married to a Jamaican in 1996 and honeymooned here. They are now separated but she has three children, her eldest daughter is deceased and she has six grandchildren.
